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Chapter Text

June 14th, 1976

"It's simple, really," Lily's trying to convince him, telephone cord caught loosely around her feet. "The girls worked it out with me last week—I'm not imposing on anyone, I swear—" but it's already late night Monday as she's breaking the news, so she knows he doesn't believe her.

There's a sigh at the other end of the line. "Could you at least have let us know before boarding the train that we needn't pick you up? God—that owl you sent came in the middle of one of your mother's brunches. Dropped your letter right in Mr. Snape's salad—"

Lily sucks in a quick breath. "You had Sev's father to the house? Are you barmy?"

She's sitting on a rickety stool in the McKinnons' modest kitchen, marveling that their bought-this-morning telephone works in the house and wondering exactly when their daughter became attached at the hip to one Sirius Black—thoughts obviously far from the conversation. To be fair, Marlene's offer of room and board over the summer was generous, and she's the best person in Gryffindor to turn to for a social overhaul. However, while Lily's not in a position to be choosy, her first choice of constant summer companions wouldn't be the Gryffindor sixth year boys—a fact that Marlene seems to have disregarded.

Lily will be honest: she was really, really surprised when Marlene chased her down in the Gryffindor common room after their last O.W.L. and invited Lily to stay with her at her family's place. They've never been close, just like Lily has never been close with any of her fellow Gryffindors: she always spent too much time defending Severus to them to really form any meaningful relationships there. She knows Marlene probably just pities her, what with ending her friendship with Severus and finding that she doesn't really have anyone to replace it with, but she still kind of appreciates the way Marlene started nodding hello to her whenever they made eye contact in the common room and plopping down next to her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall during mealtimes, prattling away about the latest fifth year gossip that until recently always seemed to evade Lily. only hope that entrenching herself in Marlene and the Gryffindors' world won't be something she lives to regret.

"Your mother wanted to ask exactly how big this fight was between the two of you—you know how she gets." Dad's voice is tinny over the phone, but she can almost hear him shaking his head.

"It's big," Lily says shortly, uncrossing her legs (the cord still stubbornly around her ankle). "I'm not five anymore; you can't just set up a play-date and decide whom I'll be friends with."

"Have you met your mother, Lil?"

She tilts her head back in exasperation. "That's not the point. The Snapes actually came to the house? Has Eileen forgotten we're Muggles?"

Dad divulges, "Put on a fairly good show of it—you'd almost think she weren't a witch herself. Likely being polite, now that they know they won't be coming around anymore. But Lily, honey, if you've known for weeks, you've had ample time to call."

"The phones don't work at Hogwarts, Dad," Lily reminds him. "Electricity and magic aren't compatible in high quantities, remember?"

"You still could have written," he maintains, then, changing tack, adds, "Pet would have appreciated the advance notice that you're not coming to the wedding."

She groans a little, quietly: she had been hoping to avoid this particular discussion. "Dad, Tuney didn't invite me to the wedding."

Dismissively, Dad retorts, "Just because you're not in the wedding doesn't mean she doesn't want you at the wedding—"

"I see no reason why I should come to watch her lord her intolerance over me. If she'd rather have that absolute hag, Linda Baker, as her maid of honor…" she breaks off disgustedly.

"Linda's not a hag, Lily, she's a perfectly nice girl," replies Dad placidly. (Lily rolls her eyes.) "Anyway, I see no reason why you should run off to Scotland for the summer over a petty fight and a bit of offense."

She drums her fingers halfheartedly on the countertop, imagining his face—stoic but soft, with a genial smile. "My fight with Sev wasn't petty, Dad; it was a long time coming."

She hasn't told her parents what exactly she and Severus fought about, and she doesn't know if she will. It would probably help them understand better, maybe even make them feel offended by Severus's beliefs—get them to stop trying so hard to get her to make up with him—but talking about it would contradict Lily's policy of trying not to think about him, to give him any space in her life or mind, ever again. (She's failing miserably on that count, but she's convinced that if she keeps trying, he'll somehow lose his place as the most important person in Lily's world, and she'll be free to start over. Maybe if she wants it badly enough, it will happen. Maybe.)

After a pause, she continues, "Tell Mum I'll think about it, okay? It's on July—sixteenth, was it?"

"Eighteenth," he corrects, self-satisfied. "You'll be back in England by then, I hope?"

"I'll…" She tallies weeks quickly. "I don't think so, but it shouldn't matter. We have Floo powder, things like that—I'm sure I'll pop in and out of England all the time; almost everyone at Hogwarts lives there, anyway."

"All right," Dad accepts. "I still don't see why you're spending half your summer hiding at the other end of the U.K., but—"

There's a sudden crack of thunder that nearly rattles the house, and Lily hastens to hang up. "I'm in the Wizarding world, Dad, everything's globalized for us. Look, I've got to go; we're having a lightning storm. Love you."

"Bye, honey."

Lily sets the phone in its cradle and reaches down to disentangle the cord from her ankles. What Dad doesn't realize, for all his good intentions, is that she's not denying but rebuilding. People aren't supposed to alienate you just for choosing a Slytherin, and that Slytherin isn't supposed to call you a Mudblood and cut ties with you. It almost makes her regret rejecting the other Gryffindors all these years—not quite, but just enough to take Marlene up on her surprising offer to house Lily for the holidays, if only for a chance to get away from Spinner's End and maybe make up for all that lost time.

Another thunderbolt jolts her from her reverie, and she starts towards the bedroom that she's to share with Marlene for the next month and a half. Marlene is sprawled across one of the cots, reading, when Lily pushes the door open a couple centimeters and peers inside. "Hi," she says to announce her presence, sidling awkwardly into the room.

Marlene glances up. "Hey," she says lazily, turning the page. "So did your sister take the news well?"

"Honestly, I don't think she was fazed by it; it's more my mother I have to look out for," Lily admits, glancing around the bedroom. It's small but not especially cozy; the walls are covered in Quidditch posters, and she's a little nervous about sleeping in a room with so many pairs of watchful eyes. "They're not making me go home, but I might have to go to the wedding—probably not the reception, though, since Tuney won't want me around all her friends."

Marlene laughs a little under her breath. "If it's that bad, just go to spite her, Lily. I could ask Black to go with you, make a big scene. He's probably dying to get out there and spend as much time with all of us as possible now that he's run away from his parents' house—they never used to let him see us over the summers."

"I think I'll pass, but thanks for the offer," Lily declines, smiling. "I don't hate my sister that much.

Mostly, Lily just—doesn't want to be alone with Black, even if she's just "alone" with him in a room full of her family and Tuney's friends. Out of the four Gryffindor boys in her year, Pettigrew is the one she doesn't really know, Potter is the one she dislikes the most, and Lupin is the one she tolerates the best—but Black? Lily doesn't know what to make of Sirius Black.

Their relationship—or their pattern, she should say; she doesn't know if what she has with Black counts as a relationship—has been complicated ever since first year, when he caught her crying in the girls' loo and stayed with her in there until she calmed down. She's pretty sure he knows she was doing it because she was lonely, but she's never admitted this to him, and he's never asked. Almost all of her interactions with Black have involved her yelling at him when he bullied Severus or, on occasion, Lily herself—like when word leaked out to the whole school in third year that Potter fancied her, and he and Black reacted by making Lily the butt of endless jokes about being a piece of arse with a shit personality. She wasn't about to give him ammunition to use against her, and she decided quickly that she'd made the right call.

But—he's from a family of the worst kinds of purebloods there are, and every now and again, Black and Lily got shoved together into painfully sincere conversations about what it's like to love pureblood supremacists. Even though she'll never admit it to him, Black was the first person to plant doubt in Lily's mind that Severus was who she thought he was when he told Lily that Severus was calling other Muggle-borns "Mudblood" when she wasn't around. It's ironic, really—because on the rare occasions they talked about Black's family, it was Lily telling Black not to give up on his brother, that there was still hope for him, probably because at the time Lily thought there was hope for Severus, too.

According to Potter's letter to Marlene the other day, Black finally bit the bullet and ran away from home at the beginning of the summer. Marlene wouldn't tell Lily why, even though Lily's sure Potter told her, but she figures that's fair enough, after all the times she's thrown in Black's and Potter's faces that she's never going to be friends with either of them. Still, she feels a pang of something for Black—enough to make her want to avoid him even more than she already did.

Why did she agree to Marlene's offer again? Oh, right: because Black suggested that she should. God, she's going to regret this.

"So what do we have planned for tomorrow?" she asks now, unlocking her trunk and rummaging inside for pajamas.

"Staying here, I think," says Marlene. "We were going to go to Pete's, but he had to cancel last minute—he'll still be coming over with the others, but his parents had something come up and didn't want us there unsupervised."

Lily shrugs, grabbing a clean pair of pajamas and her dressing gown. "No, no, it's fine, don't worry about it," she insists distractedly, tugging open her robe. "What time will everyone be coming over?"

"Er… well, I said quarter after eleven in case you want a few hours to get ready, but knowing Jay and Black in particular, it could be anywhere from nine to noon," replies Marlene, flipping another page. "How late do you sleep in on holiday?"

"Not too late; I probably won't be up by nine, though." There's silence for a few minutes as Lily changes and Marlene makes progress on the novel, until Lily flops down on her own cot and turns on the lamp on her bedside table. "How's the book?"

"Decent," Marlene muses. "Just a romance my mum recommended—you wouldn't believe how inappropriate her tastes can get, honestly." (Lily suppresses a thought about exactly how much of those tastes Marlene inherited.)

"Sounds like my mother," Lily mutters, "but she usually passes her library stock on to Tuney. You read much?"

Marlene shrugs. "A bit. Nothing heavy." She slides in a bookmark and tosses the book onto the nightstand between them. "Think we should turn in? It's going on eleven."

"Yeah, all right," Lily consents, peeling back the covers. A moment passes; then Marlene blows out the dim candle and all is quiet.

Lily's startled when Marlene speaks, thinking she'd long ago fallen asleep. Her voice is far too soft, too—penetrating, in a way. "I know why you're here."

She pauses, waiting, but Lily is cautiously motionless, making sure to keep her breaths even. "I know Snape finally hit a nerve—why it took so long for you to ditch him is beyond me—but you need people more than people need you, and that's all right, since it's not like people hate you because of him. But look, Lily, just because you haven't gotten close to anyone for five years doesn't give you an excuse to feel above us—and I know what kind of reputation the Gryffindors have. Arrogant snobs, right?"

Lily doesn't reply, half to not discuss it and half because it's true.

"But we're not just—we've got secrets, all right? Big ones. You think you know us girls because we share a dormitory, but—I'm sure you were at least a little surprised to see this house, right? And that's just the tip of the iceberg." Marlene draws a breath, lets it out shakily. "I don't want to lecture you, so—don't be so quick to judge, yeah?"

The question is still hanging when Lily falls asleep.

xx

It looks to be early when she wakes up—only a faint gleam of sunlight trickles in through the uncovered window, and there's a soft, constant snoring coming from something in the room. It takes a minute for her to realize that it's Marlene, as she's momentarily forgotten where she is; Lily's never spent the holidays away from home before. Shaking herself out of her reflections, she slides out of the cot and reaches into her trunk for her dressing-robe and slippers. Donning these, she leaves the room, quietly shuts the door behind her, and promptly starts singing on her way to the kitchen—it's a longtime summer-morning habit that she's never bothered to break.

The tune in her head is a recent single by the name of "Moontrimmer," popular at Hogwarts in the last month more for its beat than for its lyrics—and its wide range makes her voice crack repeatedly as she rummages through the McKinnons' pantries, looking for cereal and utensils. "I get lost in the astronomical space between you and me," she bellows as she gives up upon finding a stack of Chocolate Frogs and starting to unwrap one. "Like the shining sea, but we'll Banish the Kelpies if you'll only come Moontrimming for—POTTER!"

She's glanced over her shoulder and spotted a fairly unwelcome face. "Don't you just love The Peverells?" he asks, unbidden, from where he's leaning in the doorway.

Lily realizes that the Frog has jumped out of her hands and now is leaping, unfettered, across the counter. Recognizing her company, she scrambles to tie her dressing-robe tighter.

"God, Red, I'm not going to molest you," laughs James Potter.

"Potter," she acknowledges, blushing a little. "Wait—Red?"

"I'm trying out new nicknames. It suits you—the red hair and all, I mean," he says cheerfully.

He's dressed as an obvious pureblood, though he's taken off the school hat and exchanged black robes for midnight blue—a kind of cross between standard and dress robes, as they lack the cuffs necessary for formal occasions. He looks scattered, his hair extra messy and glasses askew, like he's stumbled out of bed too early in the morning.

She rolls her eyes. "I wasn't expecting you yet. What time is it?"

"Ten to eight," replies Potter promptly, stepping into the kitchen. "Aren't you going to get that?"

"Get wha—oh," she realizes, then turns around and grabs hold of the Chocolate Frog hopping dangerously close to the edge. "Marlene said you wouldn't be here until after eleven."

He smiles and shuts the door behind him. "Did she mention that I like to be early?" Without waiting for an answer, he adds, "The breakfast food's on the far left, if you're looking for it."

"Thanks," Lily mutters begrudgingly, reaching in for a box of "Common Welsh Greens—Your Daily Crunchy Vegetable Staple, Now With Thirty Percent More Spice!" and a bowl. "You come here often, then?"

Potter shrugs. "Every week or two since fourth year—in the summer, that is. Your first visit, I'm guessing?"

She nods, looking for milk. "Cold drinks go in the—"

"Icebox," Potter finishes for her, grinning. "Not that there's any ice in it; Cooling Charms work so much better."

"Of course," she says, more to herself than to him. "I'm so used to the refrigerator…"

"You don't get out very much, do you?" Potter interrupts as Lily finds the jug of milk. She turns around and stares; he blinks. "Just, you know, since all Wizarding houses use iceboxes instead of refrigerators. No electricity and all…"

She grabs a napkin and agrees, "Guess not."

He lets her chew in silence for a minute. "Marlene still in bed?" he asks finally, when she's already half-done.

"Yeah. How long have you been here?"

"Not too long, er…" Potter pauses to think. "Maybe ten minutes before you came in here? Wasn't too boring until then; I brought a book."

She raises her eyebrows. "Since when do you read for fun—since when you do read at all?"

His laughter fills up the tiny room. "It's Quidditch Through the Ages, not the Apocalypse." Lily tilts her head in consideration, then drains the remaining milk and crumbs and brings the bowl to the sink. When she turns to leave the kitchen, Potter's looking at her intently, his brow furrowed. "I thought you hated me, Red."

"It's Evans," she corrects softly. She lowers her eyes and gently pushes past him to the door. "I never hated you, Potter," Lily mumbles before stepping gratefully out into the hall.

And she doesn't—hate him, that is. Oh, she can't stand him—his cockiness, his popularity, the remorse he's never had for the way he's bullied Severus and sometimes Lily herself for so many years—but she doesn't hate him. To hate him, she'd have to have given a lot of thought to him, and she really never has—at least, not until this year, when he suddenly changed his mind about her aforementioned shit personality and started incessantly asking her out. Potter's propositions were always more of a nuisance and a source of confusion than anything—at least, until Severus called Lily a Mudblood and her entire world turned upside down overnight.

Now that Severus is gone and she's found herself thrust into the midst of her fellow Gryffindors, she almost wants to see where the tension between herself and Potter goes, if only because she knows Severus would have loathed to see her and Potter having anything close to a civil conversation. She wonders whether that says the most about Potter, about Severus, or about herself.

"So are we friends, then?" Potter calls after her, right on her tail.

She bursts into the living room and throws herself in an armchair, where he can't scoot in next to her. "What makes you think you know me well enough to be my friend?" she retorts, starting to get annoyed.

"I know you have Common Welsh Greens every morning because you hate vegetables but want the nutrition in them," Potter blurts out, sitting on the loveseat across from me. "I know you're probably the only student at Hogwarts who enjoys History of Magic. I know you've been friends with Snape since you were eight—"

"Don't talk to me about Snape," she spits.

Potter visibly pulls back, away from her. "I know you're here because of him," he adds softly.

Lily exhales shakily, taking a second to compose herself. "None of which you heard from me," she insists.

"Then let me get to know you."

She fidgets uncomfortably and eventually meets his eyes. "I should go get dressed."

The intensity dies down; Potter grins again. "But you're so much more attractive wearing outgrown pajamas and hair looking like—that." Lily touches her (undoubtedly frizzy) hair self-consciously; he smirks in response.

She suggests, less than threatens, that he not do anything stupid, and she all but sprints out of the living room. Retreating down the hall to Marlene's room, Lily hears Potter pick up the song in a disjointed alto: "So won't you say with me, Reducio! To the astronomical space between you and me…"

She takes as long as she reasonably can to get ready for the day. Wizarding though Potter's clothes may be, Lily opt for her more comfortable attire—jeans and an Appleby Arrows T-shirt—before painstakingly setting to work on brushing her hair. It's a lengthy task even without her purposeful lack of speed, given that it's so thick and tangled. About ten minutes into the task, Marlene stirs in her cot and promptly buries her head under the pillow.

"G'morning," Lily says, though it's less a cheery greeting than a snarl as she yanks fruitlessly at an especially stubborn knot.

Marlene rolls on her stomach. "Five more minutes, Mum," she mutters—quietly, with her mouth now pressed up against the mattress.

"That's Lily to you," Lily corrects her casually, "and you'll want to go say hello to your guests; Potter has been here already for at least half an hour."

"Half an hour?" moans Marlene half-irritably, half-incredulously. "It's got to be…"

Lily reaches around her cot for the nightstand and grabs her watch. "Half-past eight. Nearly an hour, then, and Black might have shown up in the ten minutes I've been in here, too."

"So you're hiding from Jay?" Marlene asks dully, now having resigned herself to awakening and dragging herself off the cot. "I apologize on his behalf if he said anything grossly inappropriate. Christ, I said after eleven…"

"In your defense as a hostess, you did warn me they'd probably get here early," Lily says with finality. "Hopefully you have an extra brush; I might be occupied with this one for a while."

She nods, glancing at Lily fully. "Arrows suck," she comments offhand of Lily's apparel. "Everyone knows the Magpies are the most successful team in the league."

"Not everyone takes a regional interest in supporting Scottish teams, Marlene," Lily retorts. "I thought you Scots wanted devolution, anyway, not centralization by taking over the country."

"What?"

Lily shakes her head and yanks hard on the brush. "Muggle politics. I forgot for a minute that no one in the Wizarding world keeps up with it. Do you even know who the Prime Minister is?"

"Don't know, don't care," shrugs Marlene, throwing open her dresser drawer (she'd unpacked last night when Lily was on the phone with Dad). After a pause, she closes it. "On second thought, everyone coming sees me more often in PJs than not. Try to be quick, yeah? I won't abandon you with Jay again, I swear."

"Yeah, all right," Lily agrees over her shoulder as Marlene leaves the room with a little wave.

After another fifteen minutes of battle with the brush, Lily gives it up, not wanting to keep Marlene waiting (however much she may want to avoid Potter), and takes it with her back into the living room. Black is here by now, though she can hardly see him from the other side of the Daily Prophet he has open, and another one of those inexplicable pangs of something goes through her. Lily skims the headline with dread: "MINISTRY REPORTS DEATHS OF ANOTHER THREE MUGGLE-BORNS."

"Voldemort again?" she asks, curling up in the same armchair, patterned-pink and overstuffed, as before. She would dread the answer if it weren't so inevitable.

Black nods, not looking up. "Morning, Evans," he greets gruffly, flipping the page.

"Red," acknowledges Potter simultaneously.

"Evans," she tells him in vain. From her seat next to Black on the couch, Marlene dismally fails to pass off her laugh as a cough.

Surprisingly, it's nice, just sitting. Students don't leave their dormitories at Hogwarts without dressing for school first, so the casualness of the day sets a more comfortable, less avoid-Gryffindor-housemates-at-all-costs atmosphere—even if she is in the room with Potter and Black. Potter keeps watching her out the corner of his eye, though, so Lily eventually breaks the silence to ask Marlene, "Anyone else coming?"

"You're morphing into quite the social butterfly there, Red," comments Potter unnecessarily.

Warningly, Lily spits out her surname again. Black promptly sneezes all over the Prophet.

This time not bothering to keep her laughter to herself, Marlene replies, "Lupe and Pett, plus Mary if she can find a way to come out."

She's referring to Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Mary Macdonald, all Gryffindors. "Why wouldn't she be able to?" Lily asks distantly.

"Doesn't live near enough to anyone hooked up to the Floo Network," says Marlene, passing Black a box of tissues to clear his mucus off the paper.

Lily nods, pursing her lips. "It'll probably be another couple hours before Lupin and Pettigrew arrive, then."

"Mmh," mumbles Marlene, glancing over Black's shoulder at the paper that he's now resumed reading.

"So it's just us for now?" Lily presses, borderline desperate.

"Mmh," she repeats.

Potter looks entirely too thrilled about this; Black (and Marlene, for that matter) remains unresponsive, engrossed in the Prophet. Sighing, Lily draws her knees together and braces herself for a longer morning than she had hoped for.

Gradually, the others trickle in. Pettigrew Flooes in around ten, a little before Marlene's family starts to come out of the woodwork. By the time Lupin appears in the hearth, the little house is bursting at its seams: besides him and the five of them, Marlene's—count them—parents and four siblings are crammed together in the kitchen across the hall.

"Bit loud in here," is Lupin's first comment as he stumbles out of the fire. "I was going to suggest turning on the WWN, but that might not be the best idea…"

He is welcomed by a chorus of greetings and mixed reactions to the idea, culminating in Marlene darting into the kitchen and turning on the Wizarding Wireless Network full-volume. Black and Potter cheer, while the rest of them grumble to themselves.

"Fancy seeing you here, Lily," Lupin says to Lily after the chaos has somewhat dissipated. "Did Marlene drag you in here without telling you about James first?"

She blushes faintly. "Staying here for most of the summer, actually."

"We'll all be seeing a lot more of you, then?" continues Lupin, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly upward—probably at the notion of keeping Lily Evans in close proximity to him and his mates for a month and a half.

Marlene answers before Lily has the chance. "I'll see to it that you will," she cuts in with a self-satisfied smirk. "Budge up, Black, don't leave Lupe just standing there…"

"But it's so much healthier for him to be on his feet," Potter comments, looking a little squashed himself with Pettigrew on the loveseat. Lupin rolls his eyes and perches gingerly on the edge of the couch.

It's a bit slow going, since Lily doesn't really fit into their long-established group dynamic. She catches Pettigrew's occasional empathetic look—she doesn't mind it, as he looks to be just as out-of-place as she is. When Black decides a while later that it's time for lunch and everyone parades into the already overcrowded kitchen, she sees Pettigrew fighting his way towards her, but Lupin beats him to the punch.

"You look a little lost," he provides, falling into step beside her.

She smiles weakly. "Your lot is a handful," she agrees, understating. "And I don't even really know Marlene much."

"Need a diversion to get some fresh air?" Lily blinks uncomprehendingly back at him; he chuckles. "With a prank, I mean. God, and to think that they didn't make you prefect, not even recognizing a scheme when you're invited to help with one…"

"Think I'll pass on the diversion—I don't want to be rude to Marlene—but thanks for the offer," she declines awkwardly.

Lupin shakes his head. "I'm still getting you out on the patio for lunch. I'm getting a little claustrophobic myself, and that takes a lot for me."

"Whatever you say…"

"So passive. Come on, let's go outdoors," mutters Lupin, mostly to himself, but he turns to Lily and grins nonetheless.

He opens the sliding door leading out to the deck, and she follows him outside, two of Mrs. McKinnon's sandwiches in tow. The house may be small, but the neighborhood is cozy, the yard richly floral. There's no more than a couple meters between any of the trees, and the patch of garden on the side of the house is spilling out of its picket fence. "Nice out here," she remarks.

"Mum's big on nature," interjects Marlene unexpectedly; Lily glances back toward the house and realizes that Marlene's come out with them—she seems to have spilled out of the overflowing kitchen. Marlene adds over her shoulder to Potter, who's trying to follow her out, "Stay inside, Jay, you look far too conspicuous to be out here." To Lily and the others: "Muggle neighborhood. Keep it in mind while you're outdoors."

"Let me guess: Potter's recent nickname fascination was inspired by you," Lily suggests to her.

Lupin's forehead creases in confusion. "What—"

"Red," she intones darkly, glaring in the direction of the house.

Marlene laughs. "He's been calling her Red all day," she informs Lupin. "For all our sakes, I'm going to hope it's just a phase."

Lily continues to seethe, tearing through her sandwich. "Reckon you passed all your O.W.L.s?" asks Lupin, lowering his voice.

"Hopefully," says Marlene nervously, through a mouthful of cheese and lettuce. "I know I bombed History of Magic and Arithmancy—why I ever let Alice talk me into Arithmancy is beyond me—but as long as I survived Herbology, I'll be all right."

"I love Arithmancy," Lily pipes up, unbidden. Marlene rolls her eyes. "You want to be an Auror, right?"

"Mmh," confirms Marlene. "I need five N.E.W.T.s—I'm doing the core classes. You?"

"I want to get in the Department of International Magical Cooperation—but just in case, I want to have a solid background in more than the requirements."

Marlene shrugs noncommittally—she's never been too interested in Lily's History of Magic line of study. "And Lupe?"

They both turn expectantly to Lupin, who blanches. "I'm—not sure yet," he admits; the girls let him leave it at that.

Lily's mind is stuck on Marlene's choice in occupation—and the implications thereof. "So Lupin—"

"You can call me Remus, Lily; Lupin is far too stuffy."

"Or Lupe," puts in Marlene thickly (she's chewing again).

"Or Rem," Lupin concludes triumphantly.

Lily smiles, even though it's hard to think of him as anything but Lupin. "Remus, then—did you read about the latest killings?"

Lupin darkens. "You'd have to live in a hole not to; it's all anyone talks about these days," he says grimly. "The Muggles are baffled; wizards don't officially exist in their world, you know. Even Muggle-borns—wiped right out of the government records once they're enrolled in Hogwarts."

"You have any Muggle ancestry?"

"My mother," he affirms. "Dad's worried sick about her, and it gets scarier every day…"

He breaks off, touches a hand to his forehead, and finishes off his sandwich. Marlene, too, has gone quiet, tracing along the rim of her plate. For only a moment, Lily reflects on what they're starting to call war—but it reminds her too much that she should have stayed home, so she quickly tosses her napkin on her plate and heads back inside.

The song from earlier—"Moontrimmer"—is playing on the WWN again when she enters the kitchen. Potter catches her eye, and to her surprise, she doesn't feel the urge to call him out on his immaturity when he yanks Black out of his chair and starts to dance, sneaking glances at Lily all the while.

Chapter Text

June 19th, 1976

Though they only arrived at the Burrow eleven minutes ago, Lily's beginning to regret that she agreed to the day's itinerary.

"You realize that I haven't so much as sat on a broomstick in five years, yeah?" she tells Marlene warily, careful to keep her voice down, given her company. "How am I supposed to survive against half the Quidditch team members at Hogwarts, including their Captains?"

"Relax," says Marlene airily, waving hello as Meghan McCormack, Gryffindor Seeker, Side-Along-Apparates onto the premises with her brother, Hufflepuff Chaser Kirley. "It's not like you're going to be seriously injured. Jay insists on having you on his team; you know how protective he's going to be of you."

Lily shudders—she doesn't like to think about James Potter protecting her—but looking at the McCormacks, she realizes that she'll probably need all the help she can get. She stutters at Marlene for a second, then gestures, open-mouthed, to the siblings. "Marlene, the McCormacks just got here. You know, children of Catriona McCormack from Pride of Portree? How exactly am I supposed to compete with them?"

Marlene just shakes her head at her, smiling. Every summer, the Gryffindor team apparently hosts a series of Quidditch matches with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, the first of which they're attending today. Though not a team member herself, Marlene uses her connections with Potter and Black to get into the first few (less serious) games. Lily agreed thoughtlessly to come along, not having realized what a poor match she was for the other invitees—but then, Marlene hadn't been very articulate about their competitors when she told Lily about the game at five o'clock this morning.

Hence the nervous clench of her stomach as Lily trains her eyes to the ground, grasping her borrowed Shooting Star tightly. Gideon Prewett, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, is hosting today's match, to her growing anxiety: she's never much liked him or his twin brother, Fabian, troublemakers that they are. She asks Marlene, "Who else is coming, anyway?"

"Er… the Prewetts, obviously, and Jay, and the McCormacks. Black, Eddie Bones, Liz Clearwater; Benjy Fenwick is Seeking with Meg, I think. A few others…" She trails off pensively. "We'll probably both be Beaters; it's mostly Chasers coming. You should be grateful; you won't have to compete, per se, you just whack Bludgers at people from the sidelines."

"So I can bludgeon myself to death. Perfect," she mutters, rubbing her temples. "I suppose Potter's planning on rescuing me?"

"He'll be grateful for the recognition there, Evans," says someone behind her. She turns to find Black, his arms crossed and face alight with a smirk. "Never thought you'd turn to him as your knight in shining armor."

She groans inwardly. Sure, she'd known Black was going to be here today when she agreed to go—knew, if she took Marlene up on her offer, that Black was going to be hanging around all summer—but that doesn't make it any easier or less confusing every time she sees him.

"I don't plan to, Black," Lily snaps. "If you'll excuse me."

She leaves him with Marlene, stepping out of the living room and heading outside. The wind whips at her robes, and she wishes idly that she'd dressed for colder weather. Her, Lily Evans, playing Beater… they can't be serious. If only Severus knew—no, she's not going to think about him, not now, not again.

"Red?"

She doesn't bother to correct Potter this time. She's seen him a bit every day since getting out of school—while out to lunch, at someone's house, on mornings when he sees fit to drop in—and though she can't say that she's fond of the nickname, she's been learning to live with it. God knows that grudging acceptance is easier than complaining about it every few minutes for hours. "Hey," she greets him with a sigh, instead of protesting. "Marlene says you're claiming me?"

"Yeah," he confirms, closing the storm door behind him and following Lily outside. "Can't have you endangering yourself for lack of proper training; the other two Chasers will do fine without me for, say, a few seconds every couple minutes, anyway. Care for a walk?"

She shrugs, falling into step beside him as he circles around to the backyard. "You're sure you want to play with me? I'll probably end up knocking you out with the bat or something."

Potter, surprisingly, doesn't laugh; he just smiles sympathetically and slows his pace. "I consider it an honor to have you on my team, even if it's just Quidditch, regardless of your experience or lack thereof." Lily leaves it at that, nodding thoughtfully and pulling her robes tighter. "Cold?"

"A bit," she confesses. It's curiously chilly and feels more like November than June, and the wind whips mockingly at their raw, reddening cheeks. "It's really not that—oh, Potter, you don't have to…" Before she can refuse, he's taking off his cloak and draping it around her shoulders. She's always been tall for a girl, but it still drags a few extra inches on the ground.

"It's nothing," insists Potter. "We'll both warm up once the game starts, anyway. Flying does that to you, even if you're not doing sixty kilometers per hour. But then, with your Shooting Star…" He eyes the borrowed broom suspiciously.

Lily groans—an awkward, strangled sound that matches her dread. "Is it too late to back out?"

"'Fraid so. You're here, aren't you?" Potter says bracingly. He pauses next, watching her with a solemn look in his eyes, and she's almost afraid of what he'll say to break the tense silence. "Have you reconsidered my offer at all?"

Lily bites her lip. "Offer?"

"To be friends, I mean." He stops and shuffles from foot to foot.

Oh—that. "It was less an offer than a plea, don't you think?" Lily snipes, facing him head-on. He reaches up to rumple his hair, half-blushing (though it might just be the cold), and she softens slightly. "Sorry. I shouldn't be so rude."

He dismisses, "It's fine," the color subsiding from his cheeks. They stand there for a moment, him hoping, her considering. Though Lily can't claim to like him in the slightest, her hostility is less provoked than usual. She's learned from what happened between her and Severus not to give second chances too freely, and yet—she never really gave James Potter a chance in the first place. If it weren't for Potter and Black's pranks, would they ever have been at odds?

"Acquaintances," she decides abruptly. "You'll just have to work your way up from there."

His mouth twitches into the ghost of a smile. "I won't disappoint," he promises, his expression teetering on the edge of something like determination, but it dissipates as they round the corner, and he just tightens his cloak around her shoulders and bites his lip. "We should head inside," he suggests quietly when she doesn't speak. "Gid's forming teams before everyone comes out."

"Yeah," Lily says passively, "yeah, of course."

Unsurprisingly, Potter holds the door open for her with a wink and a flourish. She shoves his cloak back at him in return.

"All right," Gideon Prewett is shouting over the crowded din, "we're still missing a few people, but we've got enough to start teaming off. Elisabeth and I are going to be Captains and Chasers."

"We should split up the house teams to get a chance to play with each other," breaks in Elisabeth authoritatively, scanning the room. Her personality matches her role: a sixth year Hufflepuff prefect, Elisabeth has quiet purpose and a commanding presence. "Fabian, James, Sirius, you're with me; Gideon, you can have Edgar and Meghan."

Meghan pipes up, "I'm Keeping, not Seeking—blasted Prewetts won't let me switch positions for the house team. Can't ever find anyone else short enough to do it, apparently. You'd think, since I'm already a fifth year…" She's clearly shorter for her age than she likes and can hardly be 150 centimeters, if that, and her squeaky voice only emphasizes her height.

Gideon grins indulgently. "All right, then. Meghan's our Keeper—we've got Benjy and Dirk coming, anyway, so that won't be a problem. Fabian, you're Keeping, too?" Fabian nods, a sharp jerk of the head. "You'd better be with me, too, Kirley; don't want Meghan going soft on you."

"Right," consents Kirley from the back corner. He's tall and gangly on the ground, not at all like a star Chaser, freckled with a bright auburn mop of hair. No one mentions the irony: Fabian is Keeper to Gideon's Chaser, yet there is virtually no concern for brotherly favoritism. "So we've got all our Chasers? Me, Gid, Ed; Liz, James…"

"Still missing one," says Elisabeth, "but we'll figure it out later; I'm more concerned that Sirius is the only Beater on either team. Gideon, you have one of the Ravenclaws coming, right? Solveig, probably?"

Nodding, Gideon asks, "Yeah, Bernhardt—do you want her, or…?"

"Red is with us," Potter interrupts. It's the first thing he's said since they reentered the house, and there's a formidable edge to his voice that neither Gideon nor Elisabeth counters as he (subconsciously?) shuffles a little closer to Lily from behind. "You can have Bernhardt and McKinnon."

"That settles it, then," Gideon decides, "and just leaves the Seekers and Liz's last Chaser. Elisabeth wants to split up houses—Benjy's Hufflepuff and Dirk's Ravenclaw, so for Seeking—"

"We get Cresswell and you get Fenwick," finishes Black. "Whenever they get here, at least. So who's the last Chaser?"

Gideon hesitates. "I…" There's a long, uncomfortable pause as Gideon looks expectantly to Fabian, who pales and moves, ever so slightly, closer to the living room wall. There's a fast flash of something unforgiving in Gideon's ordinarily mischievous eyes. "Tell me you didn't."

Lily looks between the twins, furrowing her brow. "What—?"

"Careful, Red," Potter warns, murmuring in her ear. He's standing almost directly behind her now, leaning in over her shoulder. She shivers at the close contact but doesn't protest; there's enough intensity in the room already.

"She's decent, if you'd just get to know her," says Fabian. There's a pleading tone to his defense. "Just because it goes against your orthodoxy—"

"You had to invite your girlfriend," scathes Gideon. "I tell you to get in touch with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and you go and ask Dorcas Meadowes to come."

Lily catches on in a rush. Dorcas Meadowes, seventh year, is Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team and among the most hated of her house—and her relationship with the less noble of the two Prewetts is the biggest romantic scandal at Hogwarts that Lily can remember (disregarding the rumors that surround her own house and year).

"She's a brilliant Chaser, and you'd do best to respect that today," Fabian sighs. "I told her seven-thirty; she should be here any minute."

Gideon rolls his eyes but doesn't retort, muttering instead about how late everyone is running. Gradually, a low hum of conversation eases its way back into the tiny room. Potter, taking advantage of the moment, tries to wrap his arms around Lily, and she swats him away, but not unkindly. "Still need an explanation?" he asks; she shakes her head.

"Is she really that bad?" she inquires. "I mean, I've only seen her in passing, but she seems all right. Conceited, maybe, but so is… half of Gryffindor, really."

"You mean my half, right?" Potter snickers, then answers, "Well, Gryffindors aren't tied up in all that pureblood propaganda. Whether Meadowes is a Death Eater in training or not, people are always going to associate her with Voldemort's war for being in Slytherin. Like it or not…"

They split the room in two, their team versus Gideon's. Black in particular is furious with Fabian, but Elisabeth is quick to quell the impending dispute. "You'll have to learn to work cooperatively with her today, Black. Fabian's right; Meadowes isn't bad when you get to know her. We've done prefect work together before, and she's never made a crack at me for being Muggle-born."

Black bristles, but Potter reaches out to restrain him. "Let it go, Sirius," he advises. "So…strategy, anyone? We'll need to be inventive, since all we have are fruits…"

"Speaking of which, I'd better go and charm them now, after what happened when we waited until the game started last summer," says Fabian, disappearing into the kitchen. "What do you think? A watermelon for the Quaffle, apples for Bludgers, and an apricot Snitch sound good?"

The last four players trickle in over the next quarter hour, and Gideon is quick to start the game, perhaps to avoid any pleasantries with Meadowes. She's surprisingly inoffensive when Lily meets her: grungy and pale, with a poor complexion, she's almost polite to her largely Gryffindor company, if not a little downtrodden and shy. Even so, she can't help but serve as the face of Slytherin House, prefect that she is.

The fruits only crudely resemble their counterparts, but it's enough to satisfy most of the players. Black keeps close throughout the game, guiding Lily's arm and advising her about her aim. "Don't swing so steeply: you're going to knock yourself off your broom at that angle," he says constantly. "Aim further out, so it won't just fly back down to you."

Persistent as he is, Potter flies over to check on her every few minutes. "All right, Red?" he asks, his smile only widening when she snaps at him to get back in the game before he loses it for them.

While an older Shooting Star is a shoddy broom at best, this one is fairly new and thus competitively fast, though not quite enough that Lily is winded. Oddly enough, her few successful blows are all delivered to opponents, and she's able to loosely follow the score when not otherwise occupied. Their team maintains a narrow lead for the majority of the game; even to one who knows little about Quidditch, it's easy to see why Elisabeth is the Hufflepuff Captain. Despite the competition—two of three Chasers are seventh years, she only a sixth year, and a Chaser and the Keeper both have McCormack blood—her strategy, combined with Potter's input, gives Lily's team a necessary edge. Meadowes, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Though a team Captain herself, no one, not even Elisabeth, seems to appreciate her considerate critiques.

In the end, though, Gideon's team is victorious when Benjy Fenwick (product of Hufflepuff training) steals the makeshift Snitch. Gideon and Edgar are particularly vocal about the win; Elisabeth remains diplomatic, promptly shaking Gideon's hand and congratulating Benjy on the catch. "I'll be in touch," she promises the Prewetts, leaving Meadowes noticeably out of the discussion. "We'll definitely do this again sometime. Are you free anytime next week?"

Some of the players—Meadowes, Dirk Cresswell, and the McCormacks—leave soon after, but the rest of them (save the twins, who've promised to babysit their sister Molly's squalling babies, Bill and Charlie) are treated to ice creams at Florean Fortescue's afterward by Elisabeth. It's shocking how empty Diagon Alley is, compared to last summer; only a few conversational witches and wizards linger in the street, the rest hurrying to and from their destinations. Florean shakes his head at his loss of business, when asked by Marlene. "It's nothing like it used to be," he acknowledges, handing out modest vanilla cones (compliments of Elisabeth's budget). "Your lot is the first party of any real size I've had in weeks."

They eat outside, since there's no chance of a hot summer sun to melt their desserts. To Lily's chagrin, Potter gives her his cloak again the minute they sit down, claiming not to need it and making a public show of its presentation. There are seven others who come, apart from Lily: Marlene, Potter, Elisabeth, Black, Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick, and Solveig Bernhardt from Ravenclaw. "Shame Meg couldn't stay. You all make me feel young," remarks Edgar, his mouth dripping white within minutes. He is dark, short, and stocky, with a perpetual playful gleam in his eyes and spring in his step.

"There's that and that widely publicized torch you're carrying for her," Benjy teases, his uncut mousy-brown hair windswept in his eyes. Most of the group laughs, Edgar included. "Dirk's a fifth year, too, you know, but I don't see you asking for him."

"I hope we make prefect together," says Edgar wistfully, slurping at his cone. "Me and Meg, I mean. We could do rounds together, maybe."

Elisabeth speaks up to Lily from across the table—unfortunately, Lily's seated next to Potter instead of her. "It's too bad you didn't make prefect last year, Lily," she mentions. "I was so sure you were going to get it."

"Over Alice Abbott? You know she's first in the class, right?" says Marlene.

From beneath her bright blush, Lily struggles not to shoot Marlene a dirty look. "Thanks, Elisabeth," she says instead, and promptly bites into her cone. Her academic rivalry with Alice is advertised enough without Marlene's input, and while Alice is by far the kindest of Lily's Gryffindor roommates, she's something of a sore spot for her to discuss.

Sensing tension, Solveig hastens to change the subject. Her hazel eyes are alight and flicker frenetically between her peers. "Who do you think is going to make Heads this year?" she prompts.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt for Head Boy," Potter replies immediately. "He's got practically no competition for it. Head Girl'll be trickier, though; none of the girls stand out quite like Kingsley does with the blokes…"

"You could get it, Solveig," suggests Edgar. "You've got the grades, and you're already prefect for Ravenclaw."

Solveig shrugs. "My guess would be Hestia Jones, personally; I don't think McGonagall likes me very much, and I'm fairly sure the Deputy Headmistress's opinion carries a lot of weight for it."

"Hestia Jones?" says Black. "I don't know if she has the charisma for it. They look for leadership when choosing Heads, you know. Jones is nice, but I don't know whether people would look up to her, necessarily."

"By which you mean you wouldn't look up to her," sniggers Benjy.

Everyone laughs as Marlene agrees, "Not the best criteria for Headship, seeing as you boys don't exactly look up to anyone, except maybe the Prewetts."

"And James idolizes Evans, can't forget that," smirks Black. At this obvious cue, Potter dramatically clutches at his heart and swoons. In return, Lily merely rolls her eyes and bites back into her cone; in all likelihood, any self-defense would probably backfire in this group.

At Solveig's prompting, they leave shortly thereafter: even barring the (albeit unlikely) threat of a Death Eater attack, the atmosphere itself in the alley is unsettling. Transportation is something of a problem: they Side-Along-Apparated with Solveig, the only one of them who's of age, to the Leaky Cauldron, but their destinations are now split. Since she knows where they live, Solveig takes Elisabeth and Benjy home by Side-Along, while the Gryffindors take turns Flooing home with smaller and smaller amounts of Tom's dwindling supply of powder.

Though the day was unexpectedly painless, it's still a relief to be back at Marlene's. "Home at last," Lily tells herself contentedly after she's dusted herself off, stretching.

Shockingly enough, she's not startled when someone answers her from the hearth. "Nice, isn't it?"

Lily visibly deflates but doesn't bother turning. "Do you make it a hobby, trying to catch people off guard?"

Potter circles around, looking all too pleased with himself. "Only for you, Red," he swears, clutching at his heart like before. "Looks like you're learning to expect it."

"Yeah, well, compared to Severus, you get to be fairly predictable after a while," she counters. He only looks hurt for a moment, but hot chagrin boils in her stomach for long after.

"And you're smiling, too," persists Potter. "Does this mean I'm growing on you?"

Lily bites her lip to suppress the grin and throws herself onto Marlene's couch. "How soon will Marlene be back? Were there many people waiting behind you?"

"Oh, no, just her and Sirius—but I may have convinced them to go out for a few hours and enjoy the nice weather." He takes a seat beside her and scoots in toward her; Lily pushes him off with an index finger but chooses not to comment on his boldness.

"Since I'm sure they agree it's a bright and sunny day," she says dryly.

Potter raises his eyebrows. "What, you haven't caught on that their little on-again-off-again fling is resurfacing? They'll take any excuse to get away together, bless them."

She rests her elbows against the armrest—it's news to her. "Since when do Black and Marlene have a fling?"

"January of our fourth year," Potter divulges. (Lily gets the distinct impression he's been dying to share this with someone out of the loop for some time now.) "It was inconspicuous enough, at first; it happened right around the time his cousin, er—" He stops for a moment, clearly not wanting to betray Black's trust. "Well, anyway, it was right after a family thing, so whenever he'd sneak off—and believe me, he had the worst excuses for it—we just figured he wanted to be alone. Lord knows he was always sulking back then, and with good reason, too. He actually pulled it off for a few weeks, since we weren't checking for him on the…" He breaks off and clears his throat loudly.

"Careful, Potter," Lily laughs.

Potter cracks an easy smile. "We weren't checking his stories, wanted to give him privacy—we didn't have a clue until two months later, when Remus and Abbott, er, caught them coming out of a broom closet. Honestly, though, no one ever told you about this? They keep quiet about it, but I figured someone must have mentioned it in your dorm."

She shakes her head, shrugging. "I've always tried to be in the dorm as little as possible until—recently. Besides, Alice and Emmeline aren't the type to spread that around, and Mary—well, I guess it's uncharacteristic of Mary to keep anybody's secrets, but it seems like in this case she kept it to herself."

"Looks like she must have, or else word definitely would have circled back to you one way or another," remarks Potter. "Would that explain why you didn't suspect anything when Marlene started disappearing out of the dorm?"

"Pretty much. I mostly stay in the library until curfew, and then the common room until ten or eleven." Potter shakes his head at her, as if to ask how she lives with herself on a daily basis. "Marlene… er…"

Potter groans suddenly. "She didn't give you one of her lectures, did she?"

"Lectures?"

"Oh, you know—where she gets all dark and honest with you and tries to guilt you into doing something. She's famous for those with us, you know," he appends earnestly.

"She might have," Lily replies, self-consciously tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Anyway, she was just talking about how you all have secrets I haven't got a clue about. Her thing with Black must be one of them."

Potter blinks at me. "You all? I resemble Marlene McKinnon now?"

Uneasily, Lily generalizes, "I just mean the rest of our year in Gryffindor. You can be fairly intimidating taken together, you know." When he doesn't catch on, she continues to ramble, "You're all so… close-knit, I guess. Rarely seen fewer than four at a time. And your personalities—Mary is shallow and a bit snide, Marlene is haughty and popular, Alice seems sweet but has a competitive side like you wouldn't believe, Emmeline is quirky and unapproachable. And then you boys have this collective reputation, you and Black in particular—top of the class without even trying, Quidditch stars, legendary pranksters, hexing Slytherins and first years alike right and left—"

"Lily," says Potter intently, and she stops for breath, gasping it in.

"Sorry to go off on you like that; don't know what's gotten into me lately. This whole thing with Severus has me on edge…" Lily twiddles her thumbs and doesn't dare meet his eyes.

To her relief, he doesn't try to tilt up her chin or anything. "First of all, I'm not top of the class; that's the Ravenclaws' job, and maybe Abbott's. Last year, Gryffindor lost the Quidditch and House Cups, in part thanks to both my Chasing and those pranks you think put me on a pedestal, because no matter how invincible I seem to the student body, I'm not to the teachers, especially McGonagall. And I don't hex first years—Slytherins, yeah, but not underclassmen. That's Sirius and Peter." He heaves a sigh and slouches in his seat. "You really think we're intimidating?"

"A bit, yeah," Lily admits sheepishly, still refusing to look at him. "That's what happens when you hang around with a Slytherin all the time and then have to room with you lot. I've never been in a position to see you all at your… friendliest."

Potter sighs again. "And here I've been wondering what your problem is all year—whether you hate me irrationally or really are that pretentious."

"Pretentious?"

"You'd think you'd leave the nagging to the prefects, wouldn't you? Not that Remus does a very convincing job of it—but Abbott, at least," Potter chides lightheartedly.

Lily's blush returns, just when she thought it was starting to subside. "That's what you get for screwing with my then-best friend for five years," she mumbles. "And I still think you're unnecessarily arrogant and—and irresponsible and closed-minded and rude and immature and—"

"And here I thought we were beginning to get along," says Potter under his breath. She breaks off again, wondering whether the color in her cheeks has reached maroon yet. "If you think I'm so awful, why are you telling me all this?"

Lily finally looks up. He's kind but serious in the face, hanging onto her every word. "I don't know—I don't have anyone else to tell it to, I guess. I'm not the greatest at making new friends."

He chuckles. "You do fine at making friends, Red, but your pacing is a little off. You barely said two words to anyone all day, me included, until I show up here and you start sharing all your insecurities…"

"I don't like large groups of people," she shrugs.

"I can see that."

They lapse into silence for a while, just sitting. In the kitchen, one of the McKinnons has turned on the WWN. Lily half listens to the garbled rock, half wonders what exactly she and Potter are doing.

"You honestly think that of me, Red?" Potter finally bursts, his voice cracking at the nickname.

Lily holds his gaze for a long second. "Always," she says, and his face falls before she goes on, "but it doesn't matter so much at times like this."

The brightness returns a little to his eyes. "What matters now?"

Her breath comes out in a shudder. "It's nice having someone to talk to who—who listens, and who doesn't judge, even if he is a pigheaded toerag with nothing in common with me."

It's a backhanded compliment, but he still glows. "So from now on—"

"Don't expect us to get like this again," she warns, crossing her arms.

"It was worth a shot." Potter grins. "Don't listen to McKinnon, though. Sirius rubs off on her too much. Everyone is willing to give you a chance if you'll let go and just let us, yeah? Start with me—I'm right here, Red, I've always been right here."

Lily smiles weakly. "Thanks, Potter."

He waves it off, looking down. "I can get going before Marlene comes back. Preserve your dignity and all that."

She tilts her head, considering. "You know, Potter, I don't think I'll mind if you stay," Lily confides to him, and though she hates to admit it, his answering smile is contagious.

Chapter Text

June 22nd, 1976

“I still don’t understand how I never knew you have a sister,” Mary’s saying.

They’re out to coffee with Marlene at a café just outside Mary’s neighborhood. Ordinarily, Mary would have preferred Madame Puddifoot’s in Hogsmeade, but she’s been delving more into the Muggle side of life to avoid the negative atmosphere of the magical world that’s been sparked by the threat of Voldemort. This Mary tells Lily, all very fast and with the expectation of an equally chatty reply; Lily may have known her for five years, but not well enough to realize her tendency to over-share with friends. Since Marlene is Mary’s best friend, Lily wonders, does this make Mary her friend by extension, or is she just trying to accept Lily now that Severus is out of the picture?

Lily explains, sighing, “I don’t talk about Tuney that often. We’re not exactly, er, on the best of terms…”

“By which she means Petunia hates her for being a witch,” interjects Marlene loudly, eager to shoot down a girl she didn’t know existed until Lily started staying with her. Lily rolls her eyes, as she’s also beginning to catch on about Marlene; she’s both impassioned and impulsive.

A few people sitting nearby turn their heads at mentions of witchcraft. Mary blushes and looks around at the Muggles, her face bright red, and she hisses out the corner of her mouth, “Not so loud! Jeez, Mauve, haven’t you heard of the International Statute of Secrecy before?”

Marlene mumbles an apology, then adds, blinking, “Since when is Mauve one of my nicknames? I mean, Lena or Leigh you’ve used…”

“Oh, I just think it goes, now that Lily’s Red and all,” Mary prattles, her voice back to normal. Lily rolls her eyes again and takes a long swig of her cappuccino. “James was calling her that at Peter’s house the other day.”

Marlene glances, startled, at Lily, then back to Mary. “Pete invited you to his place?” she asks quickly. Mary nods and opens her mouth, about to spit out a litany of details, but Marlene quickly cuts her off: “I just mean, you know, since I hang around with all the Marauders in the summer… plus Black was probably there…”

“Does she know about you and Sirius?” Mary mutters, glancing conspiratorially at Lily.

“Well, now she will,” snaps Marlene, put-out in response to Mary’s bluntness.

Lily smiles faintly and traces the rim of her coffee mug. “It’s all right; I—erm—caught on a couple months back,” she fudges, not wanting to give away Potter’s admission.

Marlene raises her eyebrows; the left one arches past her carefully side-swept bangs. “Did you? I thought we weren’t being obvious…?”

Lily bites her lip. “No, no, you’re not,” she improvises clumsily, “you just, er, notice things like that when you live in the dorms. Someone might have said something once or twice, I don’t know, and I just—pieced it together…”

“Probably Mary here,” bites Marlene, sipping her latte. Mary starts indignantly, but Marlene cuts her off before she can defend herself. “Doesn’t matter, I guess, you know anyway. He was there, wasn’t he? Black?” she directs back to Mary, who nods. “He say anything about me?”

“Well, he asked Pete once or twice why you weren’t there—it wasn’t suspicious or anything, he was more, like, casual.”

Marlene raises her coffee to her lips. “Huh,” she says quietly, taking a sip. They sit in silence for a minute, until she continues, “Who else was there, Mare?”

“Oh, um… James and Lupin, of course. And Em,” she lists.

“Em was there?” Marlene seems about as incredulous as Lily is at the news; while she likes Emmeline Vance (another of their roommates) well enough, her borderline-antisocial tendencies don’t make her the most likely person to spend any time with the Gryffindor boys, of all people. “Isn’t she a bit too…”

“No, I know what you mean,” Mary says, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. “She didn’t say, like, anything the entire time…just read some Muggle fantasy novel—I always find those hysterical, don’t you? How far off they are.” At this point, she’s particularly careful to lower her voice, despite her tendency to seem dumb at times. “Anyway, it wasn’t really awkward or anything, she just sat with Lupe the entire time. He kept her company, I guess. Unlike poor Red here, who’s hardly said more today than Em did yesterday,” she finishes, looking expectantly to Lily. Lily hides behind the mug again, draining the cappuccino all too fast.

When Marlene doesn’t say anything convenient to draw attention away from her, Lily sighs and shrugs her shoulders. “Just thinking,” she offers by way of explanation.

“About?” Mary demands, for once keeping brief and to the point. Lily mumbles indistinctly and tips the nearly-empty mug back to catch the foamy dregs on her tongue. “What was that? Potter, did you say?”

Marlene latches tight onto the opportunity to grill Lily on the subject. “What’s been going on with you and him lately, anyway?” she demands.

“Nothing!” Lily insists. She figures her pretending-to-drink-coffee jig is up, so she unnecessarily wipes her mouth on a napkin instead.

“I don’t call it nothing, your relationship with the bloke. You’ve been up and down with him since day one—you row with him whenever Snape’s around or comes into the conversation, but the second it’s just Gryffindors, you’re practically flirting with the guy,” accuses Marlene.

At the other end of the table, Mary is grinning coyly. Lily works to keep her temper under control.

“I do not flirt with him, Marlene! He flirts with me, I just don’t bother telling him off for it when Severus isn’t there—oh, don’t look at me like that, you know I don’t hate him as much as you want to think I do. I don’t like him, necessarily, but mostly I just don’t know him, and we’re too different for him to rub me right until I do—”

“So you want to get to know him, then,” suggests Mary, beaming, and continues before Lily can interrupt, “Don’t deny it, Red, Sirius told me yesterday you and James have been attached at the hip at every social event this summer. Everyone knows about, like, how you lashed out at him during O.W.L.s, and it’s never been as bad as that before—and now you’re hanging around him?”

“Just the other day he was at home with you, with nobody else there… you don’t have any weird relationship with Jay we don’t know about, do you?” presses Marlene, watching Lily intently. Mary looks positively delighted by the idea.

“No,” Lily asserts, “I just—oh, come on, you all know ruddy well how stressed I get during exams, especially for a subject like Defense. And he’d just asked me out—asked me out, out of the blue, like nothing was wrong—and then Severus called me a Mudblood, for god’s sake! My best friend! I had a right to snap!”

Marlene sighs. “Oh, come off it—Snape isn’t even your friend anymore.”

“Exactly,” Lily emphasizes, “so that takes away my only reason to hate Potter, now, doesn’t it?”

“So you were just exaggerating when you went off on him like that and told him he makes you sick, were you?” says Mary skeptically.

Lily retorts, “I didn’t say I like him, Mary, just that he’s more tolerable now than he used to be. Let it go, yeah?” 

They let the subject drop, but Lily can tell from the looks on their faces that they aren’t going to forget it anytime soon. Hastily, she thinks of something to divert their attention. “What did you want to know about Tuney earlier, Mary?” she asks.

“Oh—I just, like, thought it was odd, you know? I know you for five years, and then the first I hear about you even having a sister is that you’re not invited to her wedding.”

“Well, technically, I’m invited—though only because my parents want me there,” Lily says, understating how badly Mum wants her to attend. “But I’m not going to be in it—not as maid of honor, not as a bridesmaid, nothing. I didn’t even get a formal invitation.”

“I told her to go, and to bring Black to get back at her, but she’s not having it,” Marlene tells Mary in an aside.

Lily exhales slowly. “I don’t know… I’ll probably just go. I think Mum might take offense if I don’t, particularly after not telling her in advance that I didn’t intend to come home for the summer,” she decides reluctantly. “But I’m still not bringing Black as my date; he’ll just make it worse for me. Lupin, maybe—he seems all right.”

“Huh,” says Marlene slowly, losing interest in Lily and instead dabbing at her mouth. “You know, we should probably get going—I’m done here. Either of you bring any lipstick that’ll work for me? I forgot mine at home,” she adds, frowning at the red stains on her napkin.

“I don’t wear makeup,” Lily reminds her patiently as Mary rummages through her bag.

Marlene grins. “Right. You really should; some mascara would really make those eyes pop…”

“I think I have one or two that could work here, Mauve,” interjects Mary, holding out a selection as Lily shakes her head and smiles, “but don’t count on it; the pinks I like are far too light for your skin tone.” (Lily stifle a laugh at the irony: Marlene’s complexion may be dark, but after a week of exposure to Muggle tanning beds, Mary’s, though tinted orange from her cosmetics, is almost as much so.)

They pay—Mary and Lily split the bill, after Marlene realizes she’s forgotten to bring any Muggle bills—and take off to walk back to Mary’s house. Marlene, Lily notices, checks her reflection constantly in shop windows, critically playing with the hem of her skirt as she goes—not in vanity, Lily surmises, but because she’s uncomfortable without her robes. Growing up in a family of brazen wizards, she figures, can make you doubt your ability to not look out of place in the Muggle world.

It’s a nice area, not upscale but cozy, the close buildings no higher than two stories. The cold spell from earlier in the week is beginning to thaw, but a slight breeze remains to tease the leaves of the densely packed trees. It’s cloudy but not entirely overcast out, and shy sunlight warms their arms, which are bashful and exposed without robe sleeves to hide them.

Lily watches her roommates silently (especially in Mary’s case, she can’t quite call them friends yet) as they walk. They pay no mind, carrying between them light conversation about a “scandalous” breakup in their year: apparently, the reasonably sensible Pol Patil had left fellow Ravenclaw Carol Davies for Greta Catchlove, a domestically inclined Hufflepuff. “He’s an idiot for leaving Davies, since honestly, he was better off with her; at least she was an intellectual match for him. Catchlove doesn’t stand a chance,” Mary’s saying when Lily tunes in briefly. “I give it, like, two months at best—he’s going to want to debate politics or something, and she’s going to want his opinion on his favorite flavor of cheese. Mark my words, it’s not going to last long.”

She’s better than she looks, Mary. On her surface behavior alone, mostly negative words come to mind: superficial, materialistic, dumb. And it doesn’t help her case that she certainly looks the part: half-Irish and half-Scottish, her skin would be ghostly and her hair jet-black if not for the tanning and the beach-blonde dye, her Muggle tee and jean skirt reveal far more than is necessary, and she throws a fit whenever she breaks a manicured nail. In particular, no one at Hogwarts knows quite what to make of her speech habits: her “likes” aren’t fitting of her personality. (Not yet, at least: Marlene has always joked that Mary’s the predecessor of a new stereotype.) Time, though, lures one into a sort of fondness for Mary, or at least an understanding. She gossips but never backstabs, can’t keep a secret but doesn’t pretend to, flirts around but never crosses lines, and they’ve all seen her fierce loyalty to her housemates in between the shallow smiles. She isn’t Lily’s first choice for a companion, certainly, and nothing like her former best friend, but she’s not one to underestimate, either. 

By the time they reach Mary’s house, the subject has shifted again, this time back to the other Gryffindors. “Have you been in touch with the other girls?” Marlene asks Mary, swiping dark brown hair out of her face. “Alice and Em?”

“I told you already, I just saw Em yesterday at Pete’s,” Mary answers, “though not other than that—you know how she is. I wrote Alice a couple days ago, just about, like, how her summer’s going and things like that, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. And I asked whether she wants to hang out sometime this week—I thought we could get the girls together, catch up on what we’ve been doing.”

“We’ve only been out of school for a week. We’ve hardly been up to much, and I doubt they have, either,” Marlene points out, smirking. “Especially Alice.”

Mary tilts her head. “As far as vacations go, maybe not—but there’ve been developments, we all know that.” They both look pointedly to Lily, who sighs. Apparently, there’s no escaping the gossip.

“Just because Potter and I aren’t at each other’s throats every second of every day—”

“Does not mean there haven’t been developments between you two,” finishes Mary smugly (though Lily hadn’t intended to end the sentence quite like that).

“All right, fine,” she gives in for now, recognizing defeat. “How would you describe these—developments?”

Marlene launches immediately into a litany. “Well, to start, there’s the fact that you’ve gone from hot-and-cold—well, lukewarm-and-cold, anyway—to just lukewarm, not even the occasional insult. He hangs around and you don’t even mind, you’re initiating conversations with him, and he’s calling you Red.”

Lily blinks. “What does him calling me Red have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything,” Marlene continues. “It’s practically a term of endearment, and you hardly even mind.”

“Believe me, it’s not a term of endearment,” Lily scoffs, all too uncomfortable with the girls’ presumptions.

Mary adds, “Maybe not to you, but he’s probably using it like one. You can’t not realize how long he’s been carrying around a torch for you.”

There’s a pause as the full statement sinks in—it’s common knowledge around the school, but people rarely talk about it so bluntly. Finally, she again diverts their attention: “As if the two of you had nothing to share. Black, Marlene? Cattermole, Mary?”

They flush; she smirks. For the next few hours, at least, she suspects that she’ll be free.

xx

“Coming out of the woodwork, I see, Lily,” says Emmeline when Lily stumbles out of the fire. As it turned out, Alice got back to Mary fairly quickly after all, inviting all of the girls to her house for Friday afternoon brunch. Though her extended family is famously large—half the Abbotts that Alice meets are so distantly related that she doesn’t recognize them—Alice herself is an only child, and her rather nice house, which is at least double the size of Marlene’s, seems frigid and empty, having only three inhabitants. It’s like none of them ever figured out what to do with the place once they’d bought it.

Bashfully, Lily clambers to her feet and shakes soot out of her hair. “Hello to you, too, Emmeline,” she mutters. Though she likes Emmeline perhaps the best out of the Gryffindor girls—she and Alice are the more authentic of the four, so she’s the default preference given Lily’s academic differences with Alice—Emmeline carries the fewest airs, which can be as unnerving as it is refreshing, and can be cryptic at times.

Not ten seconds later, Alice rushes forward from the kitchen, where Lily’s sure she’s been fixing lunch. “Marlene! And hello to you too, Lily,” she greets, with a touch of strained enthusiasm when she says Lily’s name. Though she’s clearly struggling to welcome Lily, the former outsider, she’s quick to engulf the both of them in hasty hugs. Lily catches a mild whiff of something earthy from her straggly blonde hair before Alice lets go and beckons them out of the living room. “Come, come, in the kitchen—Mare and Em were just helping me with some sandwiches and tea—oh, how have you been? I haven’t heard from either of you all summer…”

It occurs to Lily that she’s never before seen Alice outside of school—but then, she realizes a split second later, neither has she seen any of the Gryffindors outside of school before this summer. Her holidays have always been spent with Severus, all other communication usually limited to Alice’s occasional polite letter and, this past Easter, Potter’s Howlers professing his love (Howlers because he knew Lily wouldn’t read an ordinary letter).

She shakes off the memories and follows Alice into the kitchen, which is just as sterile silver as her living room is blank white. Mary grins at them from her stool, where she’s finishing up a fruit platter at a narrow island. “Could one of you prepare tea?” asks Alice, addressing Lily and Marlene—Emmeline situates herself a suitable distance from Mary at the island and flips open a novel, pointedly exempt from responsibility.

“I can do it,” says Marlene, taking fast initiative. “Lily’s still learning how Wizarding kitchens work.”

“Lucky,” Mary mumbles, accidentally knocking over the top of her arrangement.

Lily chuckles and eases herself onto a stool next to Emmeline, peering over her shoulder. “Good book?” she asks mildly, careful not to get too close—Emmeline can be a bit touchy about personal space. She merely nods and flips the page, not delving into any details as usual. If she’s expecting Lily to ask further questions, she doesn’t comment when Lily doesn’t.

“So, Alice,” says Marlene, putting on a kettle, “what’s this I hear about you and Dirk Cresswell?”

Alice turns bright red and stammers something about “mutual friends” and “a very nice bloke.” Apparently, the nagging Lily’s endured about Potter is not an exclusive treatment. All Alice substantially provides, though, is that “I quite like him, really, and I don’t want to ruin the possibility of a date because my mates have me thinking about him constantly, so I’d appreciate it if you’d all let it alone!”

Mary tuts; Marlene rolls her eyes. “Hope you get the date,” Lily says encouragingly, and Alice shoots her a grateful look.

“Thanks, Lily—sandwiches, anyone?”

Lily promptly digs in, mostly for an excuse to keep a full mouth and a low profile, even though she’s not known for her appetite. Conversation bursts the room’s seams, which is surprising for its size but explicable by the occasion: it’s the first time this summer that they’ve all been together under one roof. Mary is quick to ask Alice’s opinion on the Davies-Patil split (“Not that it’s any of my business, but personally, I think it’s a shame it didn’t work out… I’ve always rather liked Pol, actually, and I don’t think he’ll ever be as happy with Greta as he was with Carol, or as he looked to have been, anyway”), and in turn dishes on her budding friendship with Reginald Cattermole (“He’s a change from the sort of bloke I usually date, but you can only put up with the likes of—Gilderoy Lockhart, or—or Davy Gudgeon—for so long before you want something more, and Reg is sweet and, and, honest… and, like, it’s only one date, it’s not the end of the world if we don’t hit it off”). Emmeline, of course, is as complacent with her novel as always, and Marlene remains noticeably quiet, probably to divert attention from her own semi-secretive love life.

Only once is the Potter issue raised. Oddly enough, Alice is the one to address it—“So Mary was telling me earlier that you and Potter are starting to hit it off, Lily?”—but Lily’s determination to not discuss him increases when Emmeline sneaks a sideways glance at her from behind her book.

“Consequence of seeing him daily since we got out of school,” Lily explains away. “He’s probably lamenting my absence right now—told me yesterday he’d write me tonight so as not to break the habit of knowing how my day is going. Once school starts back up, it’ll probably blow over.”

“Last time you talked to him at school, he asked you out,” Alice reminds her unnecessarily.

Lily retorts, “Last time I talked to you at school, Dirk Cresswell interrupted before I could say anything significant.” 

Alice quickly drains her tea and drops the matter without another word.

“I’m thinking of buying a Kneazle,” announces Emmeline without lifting her eyes from the page. Mary raises her eyebrows, but the rest of them take the comment in stride—Emmeline is prone to abrupt comments.

“Well, you’ll need a license for that.” Alice is the first to respond, ever the realist.

Lily sets down her sandwich (or what little remains of it). “On that note, I’m thinking of buying a cat—could be a good idea to get them at the same time, Em; they’ll be able to keep each other company while we’re in class. Do any of you have cat allergies?” A flurry of negations and shaken heads ensues. “All right, then—we can do our school shopping together, head down to the Menagerie.”

“We should all do our shopping together,” suggests Marlene. “Lily’s staying with me anyway, and we barely ever get together like this often…”

Alice nods her approval. “Should we go right after O.W.L. results come out? Since I don’t know how long Lily will be staying with you…?” The subtle implication is that Lily wouldn’t be invited otherwise—that she’s the pesky tagalong to a tradition—but at least no one objects outright to her presence, though that may be mostly due to politeness.

“When do results come out—anyone know?” Mary asks.

“Er… sometime in July; the exact week varies from year to year,” figures Marlene. “I’ll owl you all about it when we get them, yeah? How d’you reckon you lot did?”

Alice moans and slouches in her stool, resting her head in her hands. “They were awful. Positively awful,” she bemoans. “Oh, I’m sure I failed Arithmancy, and don’t even get me started on Defense Against the Dark Arts…”

“Please. I failed Arithmancy; you aced them all,” accuses Marlene. “You’re going to be an Auror, too, right? So we’ll need Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, at least…”

“I hope I got through Care of Magical Creatures all right. I’m sure I passed, but I want at least an E in it,” Mary worries. “I mean, since I’m going into wizarding naturalism… Herbology was a piece of cake, though.”

Marlene moans, “Oh, god, Herbology,” and emulates Alice, burying her face in her arms.

Mary looks curiously to Emmeline and Lily, but neither of them bothers to voice their woes; Emmeline is again engrossed in the book, and Lily would rather not discuss her academics in front of Alice.

A resulting beat ensues, then Alice muses, “It’s strange, going to Diagon Alley, isn’t it? The place is practically empty nowadays… it used to be so crowded back in our first year.”

Emmeline says quietly, “The Dark Lord takes his toll.”

There’s a brief pause as they chew on her words, followed by an immediate bout of nervous laughter and forced conversation to shake them off. There’s a small scuffle between Alice and Marlene when the latter insists that everyone help her clean up, but for the remainder of the day, the mood only somewhat lightens.

As expected, when Lily and Marlene Floo back to the McKinnons’, waiting for them is a haughty-looking long-eared owl that Lily instantly recognizes. “Potter,” Lily says under her breath, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she accepts the letter in its outstretched talons.

Red—

Hope you’ve enjoyed your day. Sirius bought a motorbike and is trying to charm it to fly, so you can imagine how that’s going. Peter says he’ll do my eulogy if I have to test-drive the thing.

I long for you desperately and think you’re divine. Sirius says hullo.

—James

Lily scribbles her reply and sends it on its way: Potter—my day was fine; Mary Macdonald probably wants to know what you think of Patil and Catchlove, and Emmeline Vance is apparently getting a Kneazle. Thanks for not sending a Howler. Don’t off yourself on the bike, not that I’d care if you did, and don’t hold your breath, I’ll see you tomorrow at Lupin’s—Evans.

She meets Marlene in her room, where she’s reading again; she looks to be close to the end of the romance from earlier. “Interesting ending?” Lily asks, plopping down next to her, cross-legged.

Marlene sticks in a bookmark and pulls off her reading glasses. “I guess. How’s Jay?”

“He and Black are trying to make a motorcycle fly,” Lily says darkly (Marlene shakes her head and sighs). Lily conveniently neglects to mention Potter’s parting words. “Anything interesting planned in the next week or so?”

“My birthday’s on the 29th,” says Marlene casually.

Lily’s taken aback. “Why didn’t you tell me? Now I haven’t gotten you anything…”

She smiles, but it’s halfhearted. “It’s all right; just get a card or something next time I’m not looking. Anyway, we’re spending the day at my dad’s, if that’s all right.”

Once again, Lily is floored. “But—your parents aren’t divorced.”

“It’s kind of a long story…” Lily maintains her gaze, and Marlene slouches in defeat. “Fine. Well—obviously, Neil’s not my father. He and Mum were together at Hogwarts and got engaged right out of school—but Mum thought they were rushing it and got cold feet, and the engagement fell apart for a few months. They got back together, of course—Neil made some corny gesture that Mum completely fell for—and they got married soon after when they found out Mum was pregnant. Neil figured they just hadn’t been careful enough before they broke up… he didn’t realize Mum had had a fling during the separation until I was born two months later than would have been possible, were he the father.”

Lily doesn’t answer, at first. Marlene’s no longer looking at her, eyes trained fixedly a spot a few centimeters to Lily’s left, but otherwise doesn’t look affected by the confession. “I—er—I mean, I’m not sorry, but—”

“It’s awkward, I know.” She laughs, but it comes off as more of a bark than anything. “It’s not very classy, being the illegitimate child—and it’s a huge disgrace in wizarding culture. Mum hasn’t told anyone but Neil and my siblings, and they’re all sworn to secrecy on it—the only others who know are you and Mare. And Doc, of course.”

“Doc?”

“My dad. Caradoc Dearborn—Doc for short.” Marlene looks at Lily, finally, but it feels more like she’s looking through her. “Muggle-born. Auror. Nobody knows I’m a half-blood, either, since I was raised pureblood.”

Lily’s starting to realize what Marlene meant when she said the other Gryffindors have secrets. “What’s he like?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” admits Marlene, laughing again (but this time, it sounds authentic). “My problem is with Mum, not with Doc. Doc’s a good guy. Mum didn’t want him to be able to see me, but Neil convinced her that I deserve to know my father, so I always spend my birthday with him and stay at his flat for Christmas. Sometimes I don’t see him much, if there’s an emergency, but he’s great when he’s around. He’ll like you, I’m sure.”

A rapping on the window interrupts her. “Potter’s owl again,” Lily mutters, crossing the room and letting it in. His letter is simple: Red—Sirius says that Catchlove’s a brilliant kisser, so I reckon Patil’s got the right idea about her. See you tomorrow—James. “This’ll just take a minute,” she promises Marlene, and she flips his parchment over and scrambles for a quill.

Potter—can I ask a favor of you?

Chapter Text

June 28th, 1976

The doorbell rings, spurring a flurry of activity. Marlene squeals and adds a final dab of gloss to Lily’s lips with a grandiose flourish and unhidden enthusiasm. Lily smiles timidly and rushes to the door, pushed faster down the hall by her companion all the while. Straightening her blouse, Lily reaches for the handle and finds herself face-to-face with one James Potter, who’s leaning in the doorway and twiddling a lily in his fingers.

“A lily for the flower,” he says in lieu of a greeting, stretching out his hand. She accepts it, blushing and mumbling a polite word of thanks. “Now, do I have to stay and say hullo to the family, too, or d’you want to get out of here?”

“Oh, go on ahead, you two,” insists Marlene, positively beaming at him. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Lily?”

She nods, carefully training her eyes to Potter’s. “Bye, then,” she say breathily, taking his free hand as he helps her onto the porch. They both give Marlene a wave as she closes the door—and promptly drop the act.

“You had to give me a lily.” She rounds on him, brandishing the flower and prodding him in the chest with the stem. “A lily. Could you be any more cliché?”

He grins, as though Lily’s just thanked him profusely for it, and tugs the thing out of her fingers, breaking off the bulk of the stem and tucking the remainder in her hair. “I thought it appropriate. Should I make note of an alternative floral preference for our second date?”

Lily corrects him, glaring (and hoping he hasn’t been taking her invitation the wrong way), “You mean, for our first real date—if you ever get one, that is, which I doubt after this. Do you not think I can hop a step on my own, either? What kind of a 1950s chauvinist are you?”

“Oh, Red, you applied makeup for me,” continues Potter obliviously, wiping away an imaginary tear. “I’m touched.”

“I’d charm it off if we could use magic outside of school,” Lily says bitterly. “How’d you get here without Flooing, anyway?”

He finally meets her in the real world, dropping his own dreamy smile. “Don’t remind me. I had to walk four blocks from the nearest Wizarding fireplace so I could show up at the doorstep; I thought it would be more believable if I came off as a hopeless romantic.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to display me as one,” she maintains, pulling her hair out of whatever updo Marlene fashioned for it and letting it hang in a simple ponytail (lily intact). “And then I can’t tell you off when I’m pretending to like you.”

“Ah, well, I think she bought it—you’ll want to pick up the pace, you have to go all four blocks now, too,” Potter adds, and Lily accelerates from a stroll to a brisk walk. “Why’d you need me as your fake date, anyway?” he inquires after a minute.

“What, didn’t I tell you? Marlene’s birthday is tomorrow, and she didn’t tell me until three days ago—I need an excuse to get her something. It’d look suspicious otherwise, since I’m staying with her and we’re supposed to go everywhere together,” she fills him in, shrugging.

Potter chuckles. “And you chose me as your date? I’d think Remus is more your type.”

“Yes, well, she and Mary are convinced we’re in love; no need to persuade them that Lupin wants to compete for my affections,” Lily teases. “You’re the more believable choice.”

“Huh. So a goodbye kiss is out of the question, then?” She smacks him across the chest. “Relax, Red, I was only joking… So do you want Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley?”

Lily contemplates for a moment. “Hogsmeade, I think—for Scrivenshaft’s. Flourish and Blott’s wouldn’t have cards, would they?”

He shakes his head. “Hogsmeade it is, then—we can Floo into Honeydukes.”

Disgruntled, she asks (rhetorically), “You’re sure it was four blocks away?”

Potter doesn’t reply, merely sweeps her into his arms. Lily swats at him, indignant but laughing all the while.

The war doesn’t appear to have affected business at Honeydukes. The shop is as crowded as ever when she and Potter stumble out of its fireplace, shaking their clothes free of soot. “Looks like your makeup is ruined,” he sniggers, and Lily brushes her cheek with two fingers and pull them away to see just as much rouge as black. She meets his eyes, and he wordlessly passes her a handkerchief.

“Thank god,” she laughs. “I’ll just be a minute; I should go clean up in the loo…”

Five minutes and one raw-scrubbed face later, she emerges from the restroom to find her “date” perusing a shelf of sugar quills. “And I thought you were supposed to be a troublemaker,” she greets him, grinning; he doesn’t bother turning around. “These are the oldest trick in the book.”

“Can’t be innovative if you don’t know the basics,” Potter retorts, grabbing a handful. “Reckon McKinnon will want anything here?”

“Maybe,” Lily fathoms—to be perfectly honest, she doesn’t know Marlene well enough to buy her anything too personal. “Does she have any nut allergies that you know of?” He shakes his head. “She like caramel or plain chocolate?”

It takes only ten minutes to buy Marlene a sampling of chocolate flavors—but Potter takes nearly an hour after that to browse the new merchandise. “You’re like a six-year-old,” Lily chides playfully as they leave—though he’s bought nothing but the quills. “The epitome of a kid in a candy store, except you’re almost of age.”

“What can I say?” He grins and drapes an arm around her. “I just like to bring out my inner youth.”

They head up the street to Scrivenshaft’s, Potter’s arm still around her (much to her chagrin). Its business starkly contrasts Honeydukes’s; when they enter, they’re the only customers in the shop. The manager ambles over to greet them from behind the desk, where he leaves behind a tattered book upside-down to mark his place. “Anything I can get for you fellows?” he drawls.

“Do you carry cards here?” she begins to ask, but Potter interrupts.

“Where do you keep your stationery?” The manager pays heed to him, not Lily (perhaps because Potter sounds so much more assertive) and points his thumb behind him and to the left. “Thanks,” Potter adds, winking, and steers Lily in the indicated direction.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m writing a birthday card, not a letter, Potter.”

“Ah, but she’ll like it better if it’s personal—and those sayings in most cards are a cop-out,” chides Potter.

“You’re rather reluctant to let me make my own decisions today, aren’t you?” Lily snaps, scanning the shelves for something tasteful.

Potter shrugs. “Occupational hazard of playing your boyfriend.”

She sighs. “You’re not my boyfriend.”

“You say that now…”

Though she’s tempted to stalk off and get a card herself, she eventually settles on a simple cream parchment with a baby-blue border. “So inconvenient that they’re packaged by tens,” Lily grumbles. “Would’ve saved a few Sickles just to get a card—”

Potter is quick to present a handful of Sickles to her. She pulls back and puts up her hands, insisting, “Oh, Potter, that’s really not necessary…”

“I made you buy stationery; it’s only fair that I pay the difference. My allowance is too big for me, anyway: I’ll barely notice after this, I swear.”

With an exasperated sigh, she takes five Sickles out of the mound in his palm and thanks him quickly, neglecting to mention that he’s saved her the embarrassment of having to pick out something less expensive. When she exchanged her pounds for Galleons last summer, she hadn’t realized that her budget would have to cover half this summer, too.

She pays up front and borrows Potter’s quill to write something to Marlene, soon finding herself at an utter loss for words. “What am I supposed to write when I’ve only been hanging around her for two weeks?” Lily groans, mostly to herself.

“Wish her happy birthday, thank her for opening her home to you, tell her you’ve enjoyed getting to know her…” rattles Potter. She calls him a smart aleck under her breath, but still, she’s grateful for the ideas. “Just make sure you say it in your words, not mine,” he mentions as she struggles to control her (usually atrocious) handwriting.

“Right, like I’d ever want to sound like you,” she mutters, but she makes sure he notices her forgiving smile.

Letter done, Lily suggests that they Floo back from Honeydukes again, but Potter stops her, a bright look in his eyes. “Why not head to The Three Broomsticks for a quick butterbeer?” he invites. “On me. We’ve got to stay long enough to look like we’re on a date, you know, and it can’t have been more than an hour yet.”

Checking her watch, Lily notices that they’ve been here for an hour and a half already—but they’ve got to stay probably at least another hour to make it appear believable, so with nothing to lose, she takes him up on the offer. The pub is as convivial as ever, and Potter flatters Madam Rosmerta just as Lily expected. “Butterbeers for myself and the flower,” he requests with a debonair grin, and Rosmerta winks at him before sauntering off to get them.

“I’m not a flower,” Lily gripes. 

He brushes a few stray hairs behind her ear and secures the lily in place in her loose ponytail. “Of course not, Red, you’re a color,” he agrees, like it’s the most natural conclusion in the world. He takes her cheek in his hand but lets go quickly at the look on her face. “Oh, before I forget to ask, have you and Marlene made any plans as far ahead as a week from Wednesday? July 7th.”

“I don’t think so,” Lily says, shaking her head. “Anything you had planned?”

“I have concert tickets—The Peverells.” Her eyebrows crease in a frown: he’s not trying to take her on a proper date, is he? Potter misunderstands, though, and unnecessarily reminds me, “‘Moontrimmer?’ Honestly, Red, how could you forget our song?”

“We don’t have a song,” she reminds him blandly. “How many tickets?”

A slight blush rises in his cheeks. “My dad knows their manager.”

Lily gapes at him, realizing. “Are you joking? Unlimited free tickets?”

“They’re not free, Red, they’re just… heavily discounted,” says Potter hastily, his blush darkening. She beams. “I was only going to bring the blokes, but I thought you and Marlene might like to come…”

“We’d love to come,” she accepts immediately.

He smiles bashfully and ruffles his hair. “It’s not until ten o’clock, and it’ll be at least a couple hours, so I was thinking we could all make a night of it at my place. I don’t think—have you ever been to my house before?” Lily shakes her head. “All right—well, Marlene will know how to get there. Bring a change of clothes, and meet me there at eight, all right?”

Rosmerta comes back with their drinks as Lily nods her agreement. The next hour henceforth passes uneventfully, full of their usual banter, before they prepare to leave. She tucks Marlene’s gift and an envelope from Potter—two concert tickets and a “many happy returns of the day” note included—into the handbag that Marlene forced Lily to bring for the occasion.

To prevent the four-block walk, they Floo straight back to Marlene’s this time, and Lily puts on the dreamiest face she can muster. “Bye, love,” says Potter affectionately in parting, and Lily can tell that only the warning in her eyes is stopping him from adding a peck on the cheek.

Quickly, before the McKinnons realize they’re back, she tells him, “Thanks for doing this for me today, Potter.” He smiles and tips his head to me, and then he’s back in the hearth and out of sight.

When she finds Marlene again, Marlene beats her to the punch. “Did you make any further plans?” she asks impatiently, and Lily shakes her head, trying to look appropriately disappointed but hopeful. “Make sure you do,” she advises, “and let your guard down more next time. You know, Lily, usually, I never see you more alive than when you’re with him.”

She doesn’t answer, wondering why Marlene’s claim doesn’t sound that far off from the truth.

xx

Lily’s not quite prepared to face the entire McKinnon family when she stumbles, bleary-eyed and frizzy-haired, upon all seven of them at nine o’clock in the morning. Though she’s staying in their house, she’s had precious little interaction with anyone but Marlene for the past two weeks. Her parents have told Lily that they respect Marlene’s friends’ privacy, and her siblings, from the looks of it, get out of the house as much as Marlene does and otherwise keep to themselves.

Uncomfortably, she tugs down her too-small nightshirt and cracks an unconvincing smile. “I can come back,” she offers rather awkwardly. On second thought, it probably would have been wise to get her cereal fix after getting dressed, in case something like this happened.

The McKinnons seem to have other ideas, however. “Oh, no, don’t be ridiculous, Lily. You’re a guest in our house and perfectly within your rights to eat breakfast whenever you choose,” hastens Mrs. McKinnon, pulling up a chair as she speaks. “We were just giving Marlene her gifts—you’re welcome to join us.”

“Gifts?” Lily smiles—wider than usual in this house, even tired as she is—looking straight at Marlene. “In that case, I do think I’ll be right back…”

She dashes into their shared bedroom and rummages through her trunk for the bag from yesterday. Finding it, she unceremoniously dumps out the gift-wrapped assortment of chocolates and cards (well, letters, really) from herself and Potter. Before she braves the kitchen again, though, she dons her (modest) robe and runs a brush, albeit in vain, through her hair. It’s worth the extra few seconds.

She gathers the gifts in her arms and hurries back into the kitchen, cutting Marlene off before she can protest. “Happy birthday—and don’t tell me I shouldn’t have.”

She blushes, unwrapping the chocolate first. “Thanks, Lily—when were you in Honeydukes, of all places?”

“Come on, Marlene, did you honestly believe I was on a date with Potter yesterday?” Lily reaches out to stop her when Marlene mistakenly grabs Potter’s letter instead of Lily’s. “The other one first.”

“So I shouldn’t have owled Mary about you coming to your senses?” Lily shakes her head, grinning, and Marlene’s voice falls as she starts to read. “Bollocks… with her mouth, the whole school’s going to think you two are an item by September…” Lily’s distantly concerned about just how many people will have the wrong idea about her and Potter come September first, but she pushes it out of her mind for the time being.

Two of Marlene’s siblings, Margaret and Michael, begin to snigger uncontrollably. Lily rolls her eyes pointedly in their direction, sparking giggles from the two youngest, Matthew and Meredith. “Behave yourselves,” warns Mr. McKinnon, but his wife is smiling at Lily.

“Don’t mind them—you know how children get,” Mrs. McKinnon says patiently. “Matthew’s going to be a first year in September; from what I gather, Professor McGonagall is dreading his arrival.”

Lily smiles back politely as Marlene refolds her letter. “Thanks, Lily—I’m glad you’re staying with me, too.” They share a rare moment before she adds, “What’s the second letter for?”

“From Potter—he gave it to me when I saw him yesterday.”

“Black enclose anything?” she asks, quieter now. Lily shakes her head, but Marlene’s disappointed look only lasts a moment before she tears open the envelope. As the concert tickets fall into her lap, she drowns out her siblings’ conversations with excited screams. He’s the closer friend, giving her the more extravagant present, but Lily still feels a pang of something like hurt at Marlene’s decidedly more enthusiastic reaction to Potter’s gift.

They leave soon after, once they’ve had a chance to eat and change. Lily takes a while to clean up in the bathroom first; she had no clue how to properly remove all the makeup last night, so she enlists Marlene’s help in washing off the remnants today. “Remember what I said with Mary about how mascara could do you good?” Lily nods, at which Marlene scolds her for almost getting makeup remover in her eyes. “I retract that.”

“Glad to hear it,” Lily says, laughing, though this time she’s careful not to move her head.

They Floo to Doc’s flat; Lily’s getting so used to Floo powder that she barely notices the dizziness anymore, she realizes as she’s straightening up. The place is your typical bachelor pad—mismatched and minimal furniture, with sparse clutter and excess junk. The couch and a patch of the coffee table are tidy, though, suggesting that he’s at least tried to clean the place up for them; it’s hard to judge just how much effort he put into it, though, since Lily can’t be sure how dirty he usually is.

“Marbles!” Marlene’s father speaks in a smooth, low voice, and Marlene is clearly ecstatic to see him. “Happy birthday, honey. And you must be Lily?”

“Lily Evans,” she confirms, giving them a moment to embrace. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dearborn.”

Doc sighs—rather histrionically, she might add. “Nonsense. Call me Doc; everyone does. Or at least Caradoc, if you’re fond of formalities.”

“If you insist, Mr. Dearborn.”

He laughs (a great belly laugh that rumbles across the room and brings a smile to Marlene’s eyes) and waves them away from the hearth. “Come on in, you two; don’t be shy. Make yourselves at home.”

Doc doesn’t seem to be one for small talk. He skips the formalities and sneaks his conversations in between his actions; he’s less concerned with how his daughter’s year has been than how her birthday will be, and as such, he doesn’t ask how they’ve been but how they are. His novel honesty is becoming, and Lily’s decidedly a fan of it just a few minutes into the occasion.

Since Lily and Marlene can’t use their wands during the holidays, he insists upon doing everything without magic, too, sometimes going out of his way to find the blatantly Muggle way. Instead of salad or sandwiches for lunch, Doc chooses reheated soup with homemade smoothies for dessert; as such, after they eat, cleanup involves wiping broth off of the stovetop and fruity vanilla ice cream off of the cabinets. “I tell you, these things weren’t available when I was growing up,” he defends (though neither Lily nor Marlene is accusing him), scrutinizing his blender. “I told my sister she shouldn’t have gotten it for me, that something like this would happen, but she insisted that the technology was too fascinating to let it slip by…”

“You must’ve had a stove growing up, though, Doc,” doubts Marlene, grinning at Lily as she wrings out her rag in the sink and sets it to the counter for a fresh attack. “I mean, the blender is one thing…”

He shrugs helplessly. Lily asks, mopping a pink glob off of the refrigerator, “How in touch with the Muggle world do you stay? A fair bit, of course, since your flat is Muggle, and then you still talk to family…”

“You’re Muggle-born, Lils?” She nods—Doc was quick to adopt a pet name for her. “I keep up with Muggle culture, since I run into them where I live pretty often and I’ve got to look natural. But as far as close Muggle ties go—only my parents and sisters know about magic, because of the Statute of Secrecy, so I don’t have Muggle friends apart from them. It’s one thing to say hello to the woman in the flat next to yours, quite another to invite her into your flat for afternoon tea when you haven’t the faintest idea how to use a kettle without the help of charms. I don’t know some witches and wizards do it, marrying Muggles—since by law, you can’t reveal yourself for what you are until after the wedding. Not only do you have to cover most aspects of your life up while dating, but you have to win back the trust of your spouse after… it’s a huge breach of trust, hiding something like that from your loved one.”

“Huh,” Lily muses. “You said you only keep in touch with immediate family?”

Doc purses his lips sympathetically. “Big extended family? That’s always a toughie—I write to my cousins to stay in touch and call occasionally, but you’ve got to be careful about how much they know about you. Most Muggles wouldn’t believe you if you told them you were a witch, but you don’t want your family thinking you’re crazy if they realize there’s something up. I tell them about my friends and coworkers, but they probably think I’m a bit shady; none of them know exactly where I work, or where I live, for that matter.”

“Do you see your cousins at all?” Lily follows up, carefully training her eyes to her work. Her stomach is suddenly churning (and not from the soup, however old): neither Doc nor Marlene needs to know that Lily has sixteen cousins, or that it already kills her not to tell them about Hogwarts.

“Sometimes—always at their places,” admits Doc. “But never for too long, since you’re watching your tongue all the time. I’m sure you know all about this already, from family gatherings these last five years?” She nods again. “Again, you don’t have to completely cut yourself off from them, but you have to be careful not to get so close that they realize anything’s amiss. Aren’t you glad you were raised in wizarding families, Marbles? Saves you the heartache of so much secrecy,” he adds offhand to Marlene, who looks to be following the exchange avidly. Lily is surprised at how callously he talks about their family situation—in Marlene’s place, Lily would be fairly uncomfortable keeping that wound open.

“Bit disorienting, knowing I have this whole other family that doesn’t know about me,” she says gruffly. “I mean, what would I talk to them about if I met them? I could never pass as a Muggle. All I ever talk about are O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, Quidditch, getting my Apparition license, the war…”

“Surely I haven’t raised that one-dimensional a daughter,” Doc cries, flicking water from his towel at her.

Marlene squeals and ducks, nearly toppling into Lily. “You forget, Doc, that Mum and Neil raised me—I only live with you, what, two percent of the time?”

“They must be doing a wretched job of it for the other ninety-eight,” he replies, shaking his head and setting back to work. “Are the other four complete brats without my influence? Merlin, I haven’t seen Maggie since long before she got into Hogwarts—I’ve never seen Matt or Mer out of diapers!”

Marlene’s laugh rings out purer than it ever has in the dorms. “Mike’s shaping up to be a little bit of a troublemaker—McGonagall’s afraid of Matt coming to Hogwarts because of him, and Mike’s only going into his third year, you know. Mer’s a little angel, of course, but don’t even get me started on Maggie, she and Mike make quite the pair…”

They go on for a while, until the kitchen’s cleaned up and they’ve retreated to the living room. Doc’s trying to light a fire with a Muggle lighter—and failing, to a large extent, especially since he initially sets fire to a bit of leftover Floo powder—and Lily’s just starting to feel comfortable when he freezes, dropping the lighter into the hearth. “Bollocks,” he curses, straightening up and whipping out his wand. “I’m sorry, Marbles, but I have to take this—it’s Dumbledore, he sent out the highest alarm—I’ll be back as soon as I can, all right? I’m so sorry—”

His Disapparating crack resonates through the room and is shortly followed by Marlene’s breathy sigh. “Of course. Dumbledore.” Lily raises an eyebrow, and Marlene explains moodily, “It’s not Auror work, I don’t know much about it—some kind of renegade program fighting the Dark Arts. The Ministry’s too corrupt and politically correct to do it properly, and my father just had to be one of the ones to take matters into their own hands…”

“Hey.” Marlene looks up at Lily, the faintest red rimming her irises, and Lily says, “He can’t help it if there’s an emergency. Why not invite a few friends over? Wait it out with them. Or just go back to your mum’s, if you prefer—”

“Mum doesn’t know about the program,” she says sharply. “Knowing Doc, he’ll stay after whatever crisis there is and help the Healers… it could be two, three in the morning by the time he’s back. If he’s back.”

Lily realizes from her tone of voice that this “program” is more serious than she had expected—and that sleeping it off is out of the question. “I—I’ll owl Potter,” she offers, looking for parchment. “See if he knows where Black is—”

“No!” barks Marlene abruptly, stock-still. Lily sits back down, and Marlene loosens a little. “No,” she repeats, much softer this time. “Just you.”

Lily offers a weak half-smile. “You know,” she confides after a pause, “whenever the Prophet reports on an attack, I wonder how long it’ll be before I see Severus’ name in print.”

Marlene shoots her a look that’s almost sympathetic. “Whenever there’s an attack, I wonder whether Black’s family were involved before I wonder whether Doc’s all right—how sick is that?”

“It’s not sick,” Lily says. “You care about both of them, but you see Black much more than—”

“So it’s perfectly normal that I worry more about the bloke I’m shagging than the bloke who raised me,” she proposes bluntly.

Lily doesn’t point out that Marlene herself said hours ago that Doc hadn’t raised her. “I should hope that you care about the bloke you’re sleeping with,” she mutters—to her chagrin, she receives no response. “Why are you sleeping with him?”

“Convenience? Desire?” She laughs shrilly and wrings her hands together. “I don’t even remember why it started—I know why it did for him, at least. A few days earlier, he’d found out that his cousin Bellatrix had become a Death Eater—that’s what they’re calling his followers, you know, Death Eaters—and I found him in a right state in the library—the library, of all places, Lily, come on. And I asked what was wrong and he just—he grabbed me and…”

Lily gives her a moment, absorbing the news (and hoping that she’ll still be able to study with a clear head in the Hogwarts library from now on). “Why’d you kiss him back?”

Marlene cracks a bitter grin. “It was right after Christmas break. I love my brothers and sisters, Neil’s wonderful, but Mum and I have our ups and downs—we were on a down that holiday. And no matter how hard they try to make me fit in at home… and to come back to school after a week of that and suddenly have this warm body there that wants you is…” She gives a ragged sigh and slouches. “I break it off when times are good, but he always comes back. I think—we both need him to come back.”

Lily wants to advise her to fix it or end it, but they’re not yet in a place where Marlene would heed her advice. So she pays back her confidence: “Have I ever told you that I think it’s Severus’s fault my sister hates me?”

They talk like this well into the night, well past midnight, well past any last chance of not getting to know each other, since Marlene insists on waiting up for Doc. By the time Lily drifts off to sleep, Marlene is still slumped on the couch, eyes wide open and looking numbly ahead.

Chapter Text

June 30th, 1976

Lily follows Marlene's example when she doesn't bring up her birthday again. That's not to say that the subject isn't broached with others; indeed, Marlene seems insistent to act as though everything had been normal, as though Doc hadn't rushed off to fight barely an hour after lunch and left the two girls alone. When they return to the McKinnon household the next day (Lily don't see Doc at all; Marlene tells her when she wakes her that he'd left for work already), Marlene's family doesn't seem surprised that she doesn't discuss the day in great detail, and her reply owls to birthday wishes from the other Gryffindors read lightly from Lily's vantage point over her shoulder. Only perceptive Margaret comes close to suspecting anything out of the ordinary, but she's careful to only mention it when neither her parents nor her siblings are around.

"So you had fun?" she prompts, hanging on Marlene's arm and almost whining.

"Yeah, sure. You've met Doc; he's great," says Marlene, waving a hand vaguely and trying, unsuccessfully, to tug her arm out of her sister's grip.

Margaret persists, "But there was that Death Eater attack—it was all over the papers this morning, made the cover of yesterday's Evening Prophet. He's an Auror, isn't he? Didn't he have to go in and help?"

"Moody gave him the day off," replies Marlene a little too sharply. "Don't you have some kind of prank to plan with Matt?"

"Didn't we tell you it's on you?" huffs Margaret, but she lets go and runs off to find her brother without further comment.

At Lily's enablement, Marlene continues to act almost too normal, and she has Lily convinced by the end of the week that most of her birthdays are, at least in part, spent alone. Even the next time she sees the Gryffindor boys—at another Quidditch game hosted by the Prewetts—Marlene doesn't flinch, even when Black sweeps her into his arms with a whispered "happy birthday, Leigh" but leaves her empty-handed. Potter, too, notices nothing, making mere small talk instead: "You got my gift all right, Marlene?"

"Of course—you should have expected that, with Lily delivering," Marlene scolds him playfully (Lily is happy to find that her blush isn't nearly as bright as it would have been a few weeks ago). "Thanks so much for the tickets! The letter was lovely, too—it was sweet of you."

Potter grins and tackles her in a hug as well, once Black lets go. "Have a good birthday? I was sorry I couldn't see you, but I know you always spend the day with your uncle…" An uncle—so that's how she passes Doc off at school.

"Oh, no, don't be. It was wonderful," she assures him. With his face buried in her shoulder, he doesn't notice the unusual brightness in her eyes. Still, Lily finds it appalling that the only person to catch on to something funny is a fourteen-year-old without a real understanding of the war.

Potter pulls back and surveys her (though, obviously to Lily, not closely enough). "I'm glad," he says, and he sounds sincere. "I'll see you on Wednesday, then? Eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock," Marlene repeats, smiling, before she darts off to join her team with Black.

It feels like eight o'clock on Wednesday can't come soon enough. Though being around the other Gryffindors still makes Lily a touch uncomfortable, it's hard not to get excited when she's never been to a concert before, let alone a wizarding one. Besides, Potter's been bearable all summer thus far, and she's more than a little curious to meet his parents—and she's put off inviting Lupin to Tuney's wedding far too long.

She puts off packing until the day of, so that she won't get too far ahead of herself. "Should we bring sleeping bags?" she asks Marlene as she throws together a knapsack for the night: pajamas and Muggle clothes for the morning, a hairbrush and clip, toothbrush and toothpaste…

"Believe me, we won't need them," scoffs Marlene as Lily searches frantically through her trunk for dental floss. "We'll be in the guestrooms."

Guestrooms? "How big is this house, exactly?" she asks Marlene, finding the floss and tossing it in with her things.

Marlene just smiles, zipping up her own duffel bag (why it's necessary for one night's worth of personal items, Lily's not entirely sure). "Big enough to accommodate a lot more than five guests," she says simply as she watches Lily make a final scan of her sack before slamming it (and her trunk) shut. "Ready to go?"

"But it's only seven-thirty," Lily protests mildly, checking her watch.

Marlene laughs. "As if that would ever stop them from showing up early." Lily remembers, suddenly, back to that first day of summer, when Potter caught her early in the morning in Marlene's kitchen, still in her pajamas. It feels like so long ago already…

"Fair enough," she accepts, tossing the knapsack over her shoulder and straightening her robes. "You're sure you're supposed to wear wizard robes to this? It seems a little suspicious, a congregation of wizards in bizarre attire—"

"Trust me," says Marlene loudly over Lily's mumblings about the Statute of Secrecy. "You'll look sorely out of place wearing anything else, except maybe a Peverells T-shirt, and you don't have one of those, do you? Let's go," Marlene decides as Lily's shaking her head and sighing.

She joins Marlene at the much-frequented hearth and helps her lug her duffel bag into the fire with her after she's tossed in her Floo powder. "Helene's Manor!" she bellows into the flames, and Lily soon follows suit.

After the journey, she stumbles out of a rather spacious fireplace into a room with cream walls and hardwood floors that squeak under her flats. "Marlene?" she calls—she doesn't answer.

Hitching up her rucksack, she steps through one of the room's two doors into what looks to be an ornately decorated ballroom. Uninhibited by the classmates she's not quite ready to get to know, she gasps audibly and walks to the center of the room, pushing to the back of her mind the better sense to go back through the other door and look for Potter or Marlene. After a brief glimpse at the wide, mullioned windows—while Lily appreciates beauty, she's never been much interested in architecture—she lays down her sack and starts to revolve on the spot, dancing with an imaginary partner.

She trips and falls mid-leap when there's a knock on the door, and she spots Remus Lupin looking embarrassed in the doorway. Feeling rather foolish, she rubs her bum and winces as she gets up. "Er—hello," Lily greets him self-consciously. "I came out of the fireplace there, and I didn't want to get lost, and—"

He smiles, shaking his head, and comes into the ballroom. "Don't worry about it. There's about twelve fireplaces in this place hooked up to the Floo Network; it was bad planning on James's part not to pick you and Marlene up. We only went looking for you because Marlene found us in the living room—she's been here before, so she knows her way around. We didn't realize you'd come so early, else we'd have found you by now." Lily bites her lip, still feeling uncomfortable. "You're all right?"

"Yeah. I dance a fair amount at home; my bum can take it from experience," she jokes, cracking a timid smile. Lupin grins back and extends a hand, to which she simply stares, wide-eyed.

"Honestly, Lily," he teases, grabbing her dangling hand himself, "you didn't think I'd catch you dancing like that and get away without sharing your expertise, did you?"

Lily blushes and takes his hand, joining him in a basic box step. "If Potter catches us like this—"

"James would have done the same thing," says Lupin earnestly. All things considered, he's probably right.

"You know, Lupin—Remus," Lily correct herself at his glare, "speaking of dancing, I've been meaning to ask you—would you like to be my date to my sister's wedding?" He raises an eyebrows. "Well, not my date, exactly—she didn't even send me an invitation, we're not on the best of terms, but according to my mum, the invitation would have been made out to 'Lily Evans and guest,' and Severus and I—"

"Breathe," advises Lupin, and Lily breaks off, tripping over his feet. "What's the date of the wedding? Because if it's this weekend, I've already made plans—"

Relief washes over her: is that a yes? "No, it's on the eighteenth, but we'd be staying at my house that whole weekend."

He doesn't hesitate for long. "I'd love to come," he assures her, spinning her in place.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Thanks," Lily says gratefully, squeezing his hand. "Think we should be getting back?"

Lupin nods and leads her out of the ballroom. "I can't believe you Flooed into the ballroom antechamber," he says to himself as they pass through the room Lily came through—she jogs to catch up to him, having gone back into the ballroom for her knapsack. "Almost everyone comes in at one of the living or dining rooms…"

"One of them?" she says curiously, trailing him down a narrow hall and continuing down a winding staircase.

"Yes, well, it's a huge manor," Lupin admits, breathing a little harder than normal as they spiral down. "It was bought into James's family about a century and a half ago; it used to be Helena Ravenclaw's, and you can imagine what kind of wealth she inherited from her mother to build this place."

"Helene's Manor," Lily repeats under her breath, and Lupin nods, reaching the landing. "But wouldn't it be in the family of Ravenclaw's heir?"

Lupin turns around and shoots her a surprised look. "Ravenclaw doesn't have an heir," he informs her. "From the number of times I've seen you carrying around Hogwarts, A History, I'd think you would know that. Anyway, James's mum was a Ravenclaw."

Lupin leads her out of a wider hallway into a large living room, where Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Marlene are seated. "Lily Evans, lady and gentlemen," presents Lupin, grinning at her. The ensuing cacophony of greetings makes Lily blush again as she drops her sack on an end table and herself in the armchair next to it.

Pettigrew waves to her from one of the loveseats, and Black comments, "Good of you to join us, Evans. T-minus two hours…"

She gives them both a small smile, then directs her attention to Potter. "Thanks again for the tickets and for letting us stay and everything," she tells him, even as he ruffles his hair with chagrin. "You really didn't have to go out of your way like that."

"'S no problem," he assures her, grinning, as Marlene thanks him again for the "amazing" birthday gift. Lily notices that she and Black are on opposite ends of the room, even though everyone here knows about them. Getting up, Potter adds, "Now that we've located you, care to choose a room to sleep in tonight?"

Lily shrugs and gives the others a parting wave, grabbing the bag and following him out into the hall. "All the bedrooms are on the fourth and fifth floor," Potter's saying, and Lily sighs as she heads back up yet another staircase with him. At her expression, he chuckles and decides, "In that case, we'll put you on the fourth. There's ten bedrooms, though if you want a private bathroom, you'll have to go up to the fifth… no, I didn't think so. And of those ten, three are already taken by me, Remus, and Peter—Sirius, Marlene, and my parents are on the fifth—so you'll have seven to choose from… that enough of a selection for you?"

"This house is brilliant—would you mind much if I moved in with you?" Lily says breathlessly as they mount a second staircase.

Potter laughs loudly and grabs her hand, kissing it (she pulls back in mock disgust). "Moving fast, are we, Red? And I thought you'd at least allow me the liberty of kissing you first."

"Not since you've already allowed yourself that liberty," she chides him, making a show of wiping her hand on her robes. "Besides, haven't you heard? Lupin and I are madly in love."

Potter stops abruptly; Lily promptly smashes into his back and expect to fall the very long way back down to the ground floor, but he grabs her hand again just in time, this time with an iron grip. "You and Remus?" he says, his voice strangled.

Lily raises her eyebrows. "I was kidding. You don't honestly think anyone I refer to by surname has a shot with me, do you?" Potter laughs nervously, then breaks out into the start of a real smile—which quickly fades to a sort of open-mouthed confusion. (Presumably, he'd thought he might have a shot—then realized that she still calls him Potter.) "And it's not a date, exactly, but I'm bringing him to my sister's wedding."

"I thought I was your default fake date," mumbles Potter, not budging. "I thought—"

"Check back with me on that after we've become mates," Lily suggests. "Do you mind…?"

He looks around wildly and runs his fingers through his hair, harrowed. "Right," he says to himself, "right…" and without another word, he whirls around and practically marches back up the staircase.

Lily tears after him, her backpack whipping behind her as they curl upwards. "What, now you're cross with me because I invited Lupin to a family function? Honestly, Potter, it's not like we're betrothed or anything; what right do you have to—"

"I don't know about you, Red, but I consider us mates," he retorts—but he sounds wearier than he does angry. "And I thought that if you could stand to pretend to date me for a full day to McKinnon, then you'd be more than happy to invite me as a friend. How many times have you ever even talked to Remus? Four? Five?"

"I'm supposed to bring a guest, not necessarily a mate. A month ago, I would have invited Severus, but since that's not exactly an option and you lot have never treated me right when it would have been, I've got to start from scratch with picking my mates, haven't I, and I'd rather start with someone I don't already have a history of animosity with!" Lily bursts in a rush.

They've stopped again, having reached the landing of the manor's third story, and Potter is just staring at her—staring like he's never really seen her before. "I've never wanted anything but friendship from you, Red," he says intently. (Lily snorts derisively.) "I mean, of course I think you're attractive—I've thought that since first year—and I'll be the first to admit now that I know you better that I've approached you the wrong way before, but I've only ever tried to be open with you, and for months you've shot me down, and I take it because you're worth the effort and the trials and the mood swings for the rare moment when we're in a good place, you know? Because we always hit a good place, every now and then, for a couple days or maybe a week or two at most, but then something like this happens where you shut me out without any good reason, and I—"

"God, will you quit trying to play the guilt card and taking everything so personally? Or are you just dragging out your monologue because you love to hear yourself talk?" she half shouts at him. "I don't see how my inviting Lupin to Tuney's wedding has anything to do with me supposedly shutting you out, and I really don't see how you've ever thought that we've been in a good place before with you tormenting Severus all the time, but there's one thing you're right about—having approached me the wrong way before. I shouldn't even have come here today, I should have known you'd get around to antagonizing me sooner or later…"

"Antagonizing you?" For the first time today, Potter's tone shifts to resentment. "Like I'd really try and antagonize the girl I've been chasing after for all this time? Like I wouldn't rather be snogging you senseless than having you pick fights with me when I get the rare chance to see you?"

"If you're really that fond of me, you aren't doing a very good job of making me believe you," she spits, crossing her arms.

In the time of about half a second, he goes from glaring at her to grabbing her—cradling her head in one hand, looping the free arm around her waist, and breathing her in. It's softer than the grope Lily would have expected from him, but she doesn't give herself long enough to identify appropriate adjectives before she shoves him away, fuming. "What in the bloody hell was that, Potter? Did I give the impression that it's all right to touch me?" she nearly shrieks, practically shaking.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Red—did I misunderstand you when you told me to prove that I'm fond of you?" he says. "Because my words and subtler actions haven't seemed to cut it all year."

She clings, shaking, to her rucksack. "Yeah, because it's so easy to believe you fancy me after you told the whole bloody school in third year that I'm a stuck-up tight-arse and you can't stand being around me. Just take me up to the fourth floor."

"Stop acting like I hate you," he shoots right back. She rolls her eyes but doesn't complain, so he turns on his heels and jogs up the final flight of steps. "The doors at the ends of the hall are bathrooms," he says, his voice clipped and bitter. "I'm guessing you'll want a room away from mine?"

A flicker of something like hurt flashing through his eyes at Lily's nod, but he leads her to the right of the stairs and throws open the second to last door on the left. "You think this'll work?" She nods again, barely looking into the room as she tosses her sack on the bed and proceeds to follow him down all four flights of stairs without a single word from either of them.

The tension only eases at the end of the concert—during the last song, in fact—when Potter asks Lily to dance to (what else?) "Moontrimmer" with him. Though still inwardly fuming about the fight, she can recognize an apology when she sees one, even if it takes a rather unconventional form—but then, that's to be expected from Potter. So with a somewhat fabricated huff on Lily's part, she accepts the invitation, then bursts into laughter when he unceremoniously pulls her into a fast-paced jitterbug in the middle of a rock song. "Where'd you learn to dance, Potter?" she asks, giggling, as they attract a considerable number of stares.

"My mum forced me to take lessons," he says easily, looking surprised that she's keeping up. "What's your excuse?"

"Childhood hobby—I forced my mum to let me take lessons," Lily says right back, grinning.

He shifts quickly to the tango just when Lily's getting into it, claiming that the jitterbug "really isn't my comfort zone"—but she doesn't complain, just tries to keep time to the music and hopes that Marlene isn't paying them any attention. Potter sings softly throughout the song, and she catches pieces of the lyrics when he pulls her close.

I know I'm in too deep, but soon you will see…

Most of The Peverells' songs are short—under three minutes, even—but they don't get out of the concert (which started at ten, mind you) until nearly midnight. Though Potter has backstage passes for them, Lupin persuades him to head straight home; indeed, the pallor of his skin and bags under his eyes convince Lily that he must be ill, but when she asks, he just shrugs and says he's not used to staying up late.

So they head for the nearest fireplace and squeeze their ways through, each accepting a pinch of Floo powder from a bored-looking usher. "You'd better go in with me, Red, don't want you getting lost again," Potter instructs Lily, and she nods and steps alongside him into the green flames.

They come out in another anteroom, but not the same as before—there's a loveseat pushed about a meter away from an adjacent wall, and the walls are painted rosy-red. "I don't know what it is about you and these fireplaces, Red," he says, dumbfounded. "Everyone comes out at the living room…"

"Where does this room lead?" Lily inquires, her shoes clicking against the wood floor.

"Study," says Potter shortly. "D'you want to take a look around? We've got a huge collection of Muggle books, you know."

She perks up at the Muggle mention. "Fiction or nonfiction?" she asks, following him inside.

The study is pitch-black, but after a bit of rummaging on a mahogany desk close to the doorway, he's able to light a gas lamp. A smile involuntarily crosses her lips; clearly, Potter was understating. The "study" is roughly the size of the Hogwarts library's Restricted Section, judging from the times she's been there for coursework, and is furnished up to its (very high) ceiling with bookshelves crammed full of ancient-looking books. "All right, it's official, I'm definitely camping out here sometime," she says frankly; Potter snorts with laughter and hangs in the doorway as she browses through the rows of shelves.

"It's mostly nonfiction, but there's a shelf of fantasy fiction somewhere in the back," he tells her. "Mum's always been fascinated by Muggle fantasy—thinks that what they dream up about magic is riveting."

Lily laughs softly, running her forefinger over a dusty line of books. "I went through a fantasy stage myself before Hogwarts," she murmurs. "Right after Severus told me I was a witch. Tuney and I must have checked out every fantasy novel in the public library…"

"Snape?" intones Potter. She turns to face him; he's gone stiff, his knuckles white from his grip on the desk.

Lily quirks an eyebrow at him. "I thought you knew about me and Severus—you were quick to throw that in my face on the first day of the holidays."

"No—I did. I do," he asserts, looking down. "You just caught me off guard, that's all… Red, how far did—how close did you and Snape get, by the end?"

She's startled by his tone of voice—James Potter, of all people, is not known for self-consciousness. "Well," she begins, reluctant to continue; Severus is a wound she hasn't had time to heal. "He—he was my best friend, you know that. We got off on the wrong foot, actually—Tuney was there, and she didn't take to him… but he kept seeking me out, and we would just—we'd talk, all day, for three years. He never… I just can't wrap my head around it, you know? The blood prejudice. It wasn't ever an issue with him until Hogwarts, and he'd always tell me not to listen to what people said about my parentage, that it didn't matter… he was just Sev, when he was with me. A little awkward, maybe, but mostly just shy. He was always so sweet…"

Lily doesn't realize until Potter steps forward with his handkerchief outstretched that her eyes are welling up. She offers him a choked laugh and dabs at them hastily, grateful not quite to be crying. "Thanks," she says, embarrassed.

He just nods and shoves his hands in his pockets with the handkerchief that she hands back to him. "None of us could ever understand what you saw in him, you know," Potter admits clumsily, after a while—she hasn't the slightest idea how long.

"I know," she confirms, turning her head. "You wouldn't know—he was almost a different person, whenever he was around me. He could be a great man, if not for his friends; they're such awful influences on him…"

After what feels like forever, Potter suggests, "You reckon we should get to bed now? They're probably all wondering where we've got off to."

"Right, yeah," Lily agrees, waiting as he turns out the light. The study is thrown into darkness again; she keeps close to his heels and tries to remember the path from here to the staircase leading to the fourth floor. "Promise you'll take me back here tomorrow?"

Potter chuckles, but he's learned his lesson about stopping her in stairwells and doesn't slow down. "You're awfully flighty, aren't you, Red? Hate me, then love me…"

She shoots him her discomfited smile—the one with the bitten lip that's half the size of her usual grin—and she doesn't apologize for the fight, because apologies no longer feel necessary.

In her borrowed bedroom—it's much larger and better furnished than she could have expected, now that she has the patience to look around—Marlene is waiting for her when Potter drops her off. Lily can tell that he's hovering out in the hall as she orders, "Details, now," and she catches his light chuckle before she pointedly closes the door to him.

"There's not much to tell, really," Lily fibs, rummaging through her knapsack for pajamas and underpants.

She can tell, though, that Marlene's not convinced. "Oh, and you think none of us heard you two rowing in the stairwell earlier? You quarrel, you barely look at each other for two hours—then you're dancing at the concert and disappear for an hour after? I doubt that you got Jay lost in his own house, Lily."

"It's been an hour?" Lily asks casually, checking her watch and starting to untie her robes. "Must have lost track of time… felt like ten minutes, really." By the look on her face, Marlene is unimpressed. "All right, all right… we fought and made up, you know that, and then we came out in the antechamber to a study full of Muggle fantasy and nonfiction. I got a bit caught up in browsing the shelves, and then Potter made me go to bed. That's all—it is!"

Marlene sighs, disgruntled—apparently, Lily spends enough time in the Hogwarts library to pull off the lie. "You two have a bizarre relationship. Honestly, you couldn't get any rockier with the bloke…"

"You know, technically, I could," Lily points out, tugging on her outgrown nightshirt. "We could be like you and Black."

Marlene throws one of Lily's pillows at her, who deflects it by bouncing it off of her dressing gown, which she stretches out like a net. "You were all over Potter and Lupin tonight, but you didn't dance once with Black, even though everyone in this house knows why you chose a room on the same floor as his," Lily observes, wrapping the dressing gown around her shoulders and plopping down next to Marlene on the unnecessarily king-sized bed.

Flushing, Marlene retorts, "At least I have the decency not to flash my love life all over the place. You can't say the same for yourself, I'm afraid."

Lily throws the fallen pillow back at her; Marlene squeaks in panic, then lapses into giggles. "Potter has nothing to do with my love life! I don't even have a love life."

"Really? So Snape never once tried to lay one on you all those years—?" She wiggles her eyebrows (rather comically, Lily must admit).

"Marlene!"

She sighs contentedly, rolling onto her stomach. "I never thought we'd get here, you know?" Marlene says. She continues in response to Lily's confused expression, "To the part where we can gossip freely about things like boys. Not only would I never have expected your hormones to develop that far—"

Lily bombards her with another onslaught of pillows. She's prepared this time, though, and barely even flinches. "I figured that if you ever connected with any of the girls, it would be Alice."

"Alice?" Lily repeats, startled. "Really? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with Alice, but she's just so…"

Marlene fills in the blanks for her. "Perky, brainy, insufferably perfect. God, Lily, the two of you are practically twins."

Lily blushes a little—she wouldn't have phrased it exactly like that. "I was going to say 'placid.' It's unnerving, really. It's like she doesn't have any weaknesses—"

"You know, you act the same way most of the time," Marlene informs her, glowing. "I always thought that out of all of us, you'd probably latch onto Alice and drive everyone else mad for the rest of time, but you've actually turned out to have a personality, you know that? I wouldn't have pegged you to have one before now, honestly."

Rolling her eyes, Lily shoots back, "Yeah, thanks. You're not as shallow as I thought, either."

Indignantly, Marlene scoffs, "Since when do people think I'm shallow?"

"Well, you don't exactly go around admitting that you have actual depth to people—it makes you look flaky," Lily confesses.

This time, when Marlene hits her with the pillows, it's full-out war.

Chapter Text

July 8th, 1976

Before she remembers where she is, Lily is a bit confused the next morning when she wakes to the combined scents of freshly baked pancakes and unwashed feet. She takes a few seconds to adjust before having the good sense to bolt out of bed and away from the offending feet—Marlene's. "Way to put a damper on my sense of smell," she mutters, rubbing her arms in the cold shock of having ridden herself of blankets.

"And here I thought I was doing you a favor," comes a voice from behind her. Lily whirls around—it's Black, holding out a breakfast tray and looking all too at ease. "Then again, James does tell me I tend to reek of wet dog in the mornings."

"Oh, I didn't mean you," she assures him, grabbing her dressing robe off the floor and wrapping herself in it (she'd noticed that he wasn't looking where her eyes were). "I meant Marlene's feet—does she always sleep with her head at the foot of the bed?"

Black shrugs and thrusts the tray out at Lily. "I wouldn't know—you're the one who sleeps in her dorm. You going to eat this or what?"

"I assumed it was for her," she replies honestly, jerking her head at Marlene (who lets out a fairly unattractive snore).

"Right, like Marlene can hold anything down within an hour of waking up—why else d'you think she wakes up at five every day? Anyway, this is the room you picked—hers is upstairs, even though she obviously didn't use it last night," he retorts, dropping it in Lily's lap. A bit of orange juice splashes on her dressing gown, but she doesn't complain—a simple spell will take the stain out back at Hogwarts.

Instead, she suppresses a blush at knowing so little about her Hogwarts roommate—by the day, it becomes more and more obvious how isolated she's been from the rest of her house all this time. "I still think it's a bit fishy that you made me breakfast," Lily persists, fiddling with the provided utensils: for some reason, he'd given her a spoon instead of a knife.

"You'd be right to, if I'd made it for you," Black agrees, sitting on the bed and scooting at least a meter away from Lily. Old habits die hard. "James's mum had the good sense to cook everyone breakfast at eight in the morning, so she put James and me on breakfast-in-bed duty. Eat up."

"Potter let you take my room?" she says skeptically, sawing through the pancakes with the fork's edge (Black looks thoroughly amused by this).

"No, his mum made me take your room," Black corrects, yawning. "Doesn't trust him alone with you in here—she wasn't banking on Marlene's… aromatic company."

Lily snorts through a mouthful of orange juice and dabs delicately at her face, hoping he won't notice the trickle of juice dripping from her nose (he does, of course, and laughs loudly enough to elicit a snore from Marlene). "You know, I think Potter was right about you; you do smell a bit like wet dog," she goads him, ripping off another chunk of pancake. "Don't mention to him that I agreed with him on something, though; he might have a coronary from the shock of it."

Black grins. "All right, but don't be surprised if I leak it to Remus or Peter, completely by accident, of course."

"Fair enough," Lily acquiesces, tilting her head. Black is silent as she chews through her pancakes, idly wishing that Mrs. Potter had had the foresight to add a touch more syrup.

Out of all the Gryffindor sixth year boys, Black might be the one Lily's talked to the least all summer, which has surprised her. Sure, she always got on better with Lupin, but given her history with Black, she'd have expected that they'd fall into some kind of intense heart-to-heart at some point or another. Honestly, though, she feels sort of relieved that Black hasn't gone there. Where they left things at the end of the school year…

He'd said Lily could have friends in Gryffindor, if she wanted them, and implied that he'd be willing to be one of them before she shut him down—and he'd offered to stop instigating fights with Severus. He hadn't thrown her falling-out with Severus in her face like she'd sort of been expecting him to, but—she's a little afraid to let her guard down in front of him, in case he changes his mind. After all, when he and Potter started abusing her in third year after rumors started to circulate about Potter fancying her, it happened just days after Black had started making a confusing larger effort to be nice to her and spend time with her in public spaces. If he'd been willing to turn on her then…

She wonders how it's going, Black living with the Potter family these last few weeks. She wonders whether she'll ever be on good enough terms with him to be able to ask him.

When Lily is nearly done, Marlene gives a great snort and bolts upright: this wake-up, too, Lily doesn't recognize (but then, she sleeps much later than Marlene does). "Morning, sunshine," greets Black, his voice softening. Marlene stretches and smiles up at him; he bounces into the center of the bed and crawls over to put an arm around her.

Awkwardly, Lily decides, "I'll just go give this back to Mrs. Potter, then."

Marlene is too groggy to care, grinning lazily at her, but Black is quick to protest: "Oh, no, Evans, that's all right, I can—"

"Oh, no, it's fine, really," she insists, downing the last of her orange juice and getting up. "I'll see you two in a bit, then?" Black looks like he's about to complain, but Marlene shushes him with a ferocious-looking kiss on the lips, and Lily steps out, making faces at him until she closes the door.

Once out in the hall, she retraces her steps from last night to find her way down to the living room, then wanders about and looks aimlessly for the kitchen (she remembers Potter having mentioned that it was somewhere on the first floor). She's a bit surprised at Marlene's forwardness with Black—right in front of Lily, no less, when they usually barely look at each other with others in the room—but she figures that Marlene's too groggy of thought this early in the morning.

"Evans?" It's Pettigrew, looking a bit startled to see Lily—and given her current wardrobe and the condition of her hair, she can't say she blames the boy. "Where's Sirius? Mrs. Potter will be angry—she thought it was sweet that he was staying with you, but he's, er, not with you."

Lily smiles—unlike with all the other Gryffindors, she doesn't feel intimidated in the slightest by Pettigrew, who's the least impressive but possibly the sweetest of the bunch. "He did stay with me, actually, but Marlene slept in my room last night after we were up late talking, and I thought it would be a good time to bow out."

"Good idea. Marlene tends to give him, erm, thoroughly nonverbal greetings in the morning. Anyway, do you want me to take you to the kitchen? Not that you look lost, but—"

"That would be great, Pettigrew," she accepts, nodding. "Thanks."

He flushes pink and leads her down a few sharp turns, then opens a heavy wooden door and bows theatrically. Grinning at him, she steps into the kitchen, where Potter and Lupin are laughing loudly with a middle-aged woman who must be Potter's mother. "Mrs. Potter?" she introduces herself, stepping forward with the tray and place settings (now that she looks at them, the pattern looks to be fairly expensive). "I don't believe we've met yet; I'm Lily Evans…"

She knows just what to make of Lily, waving off further salutations as she takes the tray and washes it with a jet of water from her wand. "Lily, Lily, of course. Dorea Potter, a pleasure to meet you… Charlus had to get to work, but he will be so sad he missed you, you're such a lovely young woman."

Potter talks over his mother, adding, "You're looking especially lovely this morning, if I do say so myself, Red." Lily's face turns an array of colors, and she watches her feet and plays with a curl of her hair.

"Don't embarrass your friend, James," snaps Mrs. Potter, pointing her wand accusatively at her son and spraying him with the gushing water.

"Mum, the hair!" cries Potter, wriggling out of his shirt and using it to dry his hair, which is almost flat to his head with all the water. Lily pointedly looks away from his chest.

Pettigrew adds, proving a needed distraction from Potter as he steps in with Lily, "You know, Dorea, James wasn't necessarily insinuating that Lily doesn't look lovely; you could argue it only comes off like that since you pointed out the possibility that she might not…"

Potter nods fervently in Pettigrew's (and, thus, his own) defense, but Mrs. Potter raises the wand warningly in both of their directions, though she's stopped the jet of water. The words die on Pettigrew's lips and fade into an incoherent mumble, although Potter looks all too relaxed.

"Come have a seat, Lily, Peter," offers Lupin, pulling out two chairs. Pettigrew shakes his head, dithering something about having been about to brush his teeth when he'd found her, so Lily takes the seat nearest Lupin and smiles in thanks. He's not looking much better than he was yesterday, she notices: though the dark rings under his eyes have gone down, she's sure his skin wasn't that pale a week ago, and there's something weary about the way he carries himself.

Relatively confident in his hair's disorder, Potter pulls his shirt back on, to Lily's relief, and speaks up. "Red, where's Sirius? Why didn't he come in with you?"

"Marlene woke up right when I was finishing breakfast—thanks for cooking, Mrs. Potter," she adds before she forgets. Mrs. Potter just scowls modestly at Lily and busies herself putting away dishes. "I thought I'd give them some privacy."

"More like you'd get nightmares from them if you didn't," mutters Potter, looking green. "She crashed in your room last night?"

"We were up late… I don't even remember falling asleep."

"Gossiping?" suggests Potter, his eyes twinkling.

"Keep it to yourself, dear, he's not worth telling," Mrs. Potter advises her (Potter grumbles something about "bias against me" and "bloody feminist movement").

Lily chuckles quietly and tells him aside, "You'll want to be careful, Potter—I hear that real feminists can be rather militant. Mrs. Potter," she continues, raising her voice, "would you mind much if I stayed here today? Potter was showing me your Muggle study when we Flooed into its antechamber last night, and I was hoping to get the chance to take a look at some of your books…"

"Of course, Lily," she agrees immediately, chuckling a little when Lily called her son by surname. "Only you'll have to stay through dinner, too; Charlus would positively love to get the chance to meet you…"

She starts to say something about staying with Marlene, but Potter interrupts, pouting. "C'mon, Red, we're having tenderloin tonight, it'll blow your mind." Lily raises an eyebrow but consents nevertheless: Mr. and Mrs. McKinnon are both vegetarians.

So she stays for the day. It's the first time she's been away from Marlene for more than a few hours all summer, and to her surprise, she rather misses her. It's painfully obvious, after living with her for so long, that she needs a real mate as much as Lily needs a mate at all, and from their codependence has come a mutual understanding—even the budding of a friendship. Potter is lively (albeit pesky) company, every so often bursting into the study to read over her shoulder and provide a running commentary on the wizarding misinterpretation of this or that, but she's gotten used to hearing Marlene's blunt revelations and unashamed gossip, and he can't quite compete with that level of honesty.

What he lacks in candor, though, he certainly compensates for in intensity. He comes in with a tray for lunch—beef stew, tossed salad, and mineral water—around two o'clock and asks offhand, "Have you even gone out to use the loo yet?"

"What's it to you the size of my bladder?" Lily asks right back, still poring over Patricia McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld.

Potter shrugs and sidles on top of the desk, snatching up her book and losing her place. "Gotten into Mum's British Fantasy Society collection, have you?"

Lily blinks. "Your mum's a member of the British Fantasy Society?"

He snorts and extends the tray toward her. "Of course not; are you kidding? The Ministry'd never let her risk it, with the Statute of Secrecy and all."

Nodding, she accepts the tray. "She doesn't have to cater to me all day, you know. First breakfast-in-bed, now this…"

"Ah, she loves it," Potter assures me, taking a swig from the water bottle. "She's a respected Healer in her own right, but she gets really into all the domestic stuff. Just take the food without question."

Lily raises her eyebrows as she snatches back her water. "Mineral water? Is this a joke?"

He shakes his head and grins. "Believe it," he counters, then pauses as she starts on the soup. "You really shouldn't be holed up in here all day, Red, it's no good for the soul."

"For the soul. Really."

"I watch you sometimes," Potter tells her in earnest, taking another sip of water (drinking liberally, now that Lily's established she doesn't want it). "And it's not just about your looks. Once there's more than, oh, three people in the room, you just close up, and—you don't talk or smile or laugh at all—"

"So I don't feel comfortable in big groups of people," Lily says, shrugging, through a mouthful of lettuce and tomato. "Is there a problem?"

He claps suddenly and points at her, like she's just paved the way for some huge revelation. "But that's just the thing; you're not yourself around them—I don't think I've seen you talk with your mouth full once until just now, you know that? I'll bet you barely even know the other girls, just me and Snape."

"And what makes you think you know me?" There's that question again, the one he can't seem to properly answer, whether his fault or hers.

"You let go when it's just us," he responds, voice lower now, as if he's speaking over a track of melancholy music, acting in one of the soaps Lily's mum likes. "It's not what I know, it's how I bring it out."

She holds his gaze steadily for a while, then slurps indifferently at her stew. Gradually, a grin breaks over his face, and he says with borderline delight, "You don't care."

"Nope," she says needlessly, stabbing bits of salad with her fork. He needn't know that Lily is at least a little intrigued by his line of attack.

"Oh, but this changes everything, Red," he says, his smile hardly fading. "You don't even mind."

Potter goes quiet—awfully quiet—for a while as she finishes lunch and makes progress on the novel; he just sips at her water and keeps reading over her shoulder, then offers to take the tray back for her once she's done. "Be sure to tell your mum thanks for me," Lily insists, and though he nods and assures her he will, she strongly doubts his sincerity.

For the rest of the day, Potter returns to his usual peskiness and banter—the rest of the weekend, in fact, after Mrs. Potter insists Lily stay a few extra days. They're falling into a routine of sorts by the time Lily finally catches the other boys around the next day. She's come out of the study to look for a bathroom when she stumbles upon Potter with Lupin and Pettigrew in a corridor, arguing heatedly in low voices. "I just can't believe you invited her here for the weekend, Prongs. Of all days…" Lupin's saying when Lily crosses them. She recognizes herself as the subject of the conversation immediately and doesn't take another step closer, hovering in the arch.

"I didn't invite her, my mum did," Potter insists, folding his arms. "What am I supposed to do, kick her out? 'Hey, Red, you've got to sneak out a day early because I have to be somewhere Saturday night that you can't know about.' That's subtle."

"You don't have to come," Pettigrew says meekly, glancing warily down the hall (Lily ducks behind the doorway out of eyeshot). "I can make do without you or Padfoot—"

He says shortly, "We're coming—we're not missing this. I'll figure something out about Red; even if she finds out we're up to something, she'll keep her mouth shut. I know that about her."

"God, Prongs," sighs Lupin, clearly hung up on whatever issue they're discussing. "Don't you realize that you're dragging Lily Evans into this? Who knows how much Snape told her the last time? She could still be wrapped around his finger, for all you know."

Bewildered, Lily strains to listen as Pettigrew further lowers his voice. "We already know he's out to join the Death Eaters; he could have gotten her involved in that. And with her permission to spill the beans, they'd jump all over this."

Potter comes fast to Lily's defense. "She's not. She's not even friends with him anymore. Have a little faith, why don't you?"

"Yeah, well, just because you think she can do no wrong—" persists Pettigrew.

"No one knows exactly what went on between them," Lupin says darkly. "Or whether they'll make up. You've heard the rumors about it—whether it was just friendship or a relationship, even that they'd practice Dark Magic on each other…"

"Lily would never sink to that," says Potter, and his voice is shaking. "And just for that comment, I'm not going to hide this from her."

He practically flies down the corridor away from them, and Lily hastens back a few steps and make like she's just now walking toward the doorway. Before they collide, she hears Lupin call at Potter's retreating figure, "It's not yours to tell, Prongs, don't say anything you'll regret…"

"Red!" exclaims Potter, slamming into her—she can tell he's raising his voice for Lupin and Pettigrew's sakes. "I—what are you doing down here?"

"Got lost looking for the loo," she says, a half-truth. "Could you…?"

He helps her up and nods repeatedly. "Er—yeah, sure, 'course. I don't know how you didn't find it already; it's right by the study… though in the opposite direction from the one you went."

"That would explain it," she says, faking a smile.

She's caught between curiosity, shock, and disgust at the conversation she overheard, and her mind is still reeling when Potter brings it up, true to his word, while dropping her off at the bathroom. "Er, Red, before you—go…" Lily just nods for him to continue, leaning against the wall. "Sirius and I are going out with the blokes tomorrow night—we're leaving at maybe eight, since we're flying, and we'll probably be back a bit later… well, a lot later than we let on to my mum. Not that I thought you'd wait up or anything," he titters, "but I just thought you ought to know, since you're staying at my place and all. Just keep it to yourself, yeah?"

"Where are you going?" Lily asks, trying to sound casual.

Potter doesn't miss a beat. "Remus's."

Lily presses further. "For what?" Potter doesn't answer, but something clicks: they'd said that Severus knows too much… "All right, does this have anything to do with Severus's theory about Lupin being a werewolf?"

His knees give out; she smiles weakly as he joins her against the wall. "I reckoned he would tell you," Potter says to himself, though he still looks shell-shocked. "So did he figure it out before or after the time when Sirius tricked him into going in the Shrieking Shack after Remus transformed on the full moon?"

"Before," Lily admits shortly. "So that's what was down there when you pulled him to safety? A werewolf?" At least this clears up part of the earlier conversation: Death Eaters would surely be interested in knowing the identity of a Dark creature—as well as that of the person who used a werewolf to threaten someone's life. The boys' involvement, though, is still a mystery. "This thing you're doing for Lupin…" she starts, catching Potter's eye, "how dangerous is it?"

"I'll be fine," he says hastily.

"How dangerous, James?"

After a lengthy pause, he turns away. "Don't wait up tomorrow night, Evans."

She calls after him when he makes to leave. "Potter—"

"Just use the bloody loo, Evans," Potter barks, spitting out her surname like an insult and turning out of sight.

She locks herself in the bathroom for far longer than it takes to use it. Only a few things are for certain: her reputation is apparently in shambles, her soon-to-be-uninvited date to Tuney's wedding is a werewolf, and she will most certainly be waiting up for Potter and Black on Saturday night.

If she doesn't go to Lupin's herself first.

xx

For the next day and a half, Lily can hardly contain her building worry and rage. Though Mr. Potter (a pleasant, balding man who shakes her hand and tells her to keep his son under control) tells her she's fabricating drama, Mrs. Potter is increasingly suspicious of the both of them: she tells Lily specifically at lunch on Saturday that she should come out of the study and socialize a little, and she even scolds Potter for "neglecting" his guest. "You ought to come find Lily more often, James," she tuts. "Don't you claim to be in love with her?"

"I am in love with her, Mum," sighs Potter (Lily turns furiously scarlet). "Lily knows that. But it doesn't mean I have to be her keeper—you'd rather just read without me interrupting all the time, wouldn't you, Lily?"

Lily nods; Mr. Potter notices her coloring and promptly changes the subject.

Potter has the courtesy to at least tell her when he and Black are leaving. "We're off to Remus's, Red; we just let Mum know," he says, poking his head in the doorway and turning to leave. "Sirius is waiting for me."

"Wait."

He lingers, looking cross. "Hurry up, Evans, they're counting on me."

"They're not even expecting you; you think I wasn't eavesdropping before you found me looking for the bathroom yesterday?" Potter groans but doesn't make any accusations, for which she's grateful. "What could you possibly do for Lupin that would help him and not temp him to kill you?"

Potter chews over his words before he answers, softly, "Human Transfiguration. The company calms him down, makes him less violent—werewolves are only a danger to humans."

Lily pauses—she wasn't expecting that answer. "You could get expelled for doing that kind of magic outside of school, Potter. You're all idiots, of course—brilliant but stupid—but up at the castle it's one thing—"

"The Ministry doesn't know who performs the magic, just where," says Potter. "Bit unfair to Muggle-borns, if you ask me, since you won't get in trouble if your parents are wizards—we're not going to get caught, all right, so don't worry about us and just go to bed—"

"You're mental for dreaming that up," she insists. "Human Transfiguration…"

He shrugs. "I didn't dream it up. Sirius's idea."

"I'm coming with you," Lily demands, changing tack.

Instantly, he turns white. "Lily, you cannot come, you hear me? He's not used to your presence, he'll recognize you as human, it'll just make him worse. Look, we've been going with him for months; trust me, all right?"

She huffs but takes his point; Lily doesn't want Potter to get himself killed, but she doesn't want to endanger herself for no reason, either, when he could be just fine. "I'm waiting up," she compromises.

"No, you're—"

"I'm waiting up, Potter," Lily says stiffly.

He recognizes something in her tone of voice. "You heard what they said about you, didn't they?" asks Potter gently, stepping into the study.

She sets down the book and stands. "Severus is not a Death Eater," she contends as he comes closer. "And I am not some kind of—"

"I know," he promises. He's reached her but remains a decimeter away, wary about touching her after last time. "They don't believe that, either; it's just that we can't take any chances for Remus. He didn't even want us knowing; we figured it out on our own."

"Still. I'm waiting up for you."

He doesn't protest, just guarantees, "I'll fly straight into my room when I'm back. Meet me there."

So she takes a handful of books up to Potter's bedroom and changes into a pair of his long pajamas (Mrs. Potter hasn't done the laundry since last night). They smell the same as Potter, as Lily's noticed when he gets too close—like fauna and grass stains and ink—and she buries her nose in the fabric and hopes that Lupin won't do any severe damage to the three of them.

It's not so much that she cares about Potter as that she would care about anyone's wellbeing, his included. If not for desperate measures, desperate times call at least for unexpected bursts of emotion. Lily had always partly believed Severus when he called Lupin a werewolf, but she'd never expected his mates to get involved—it seemed natural, before now, that they would have some kind of sense of preservation.

She starts to ponder what other secrets she doesn't know about in their year—the books, though interesting, aren't urgent enough to warrant her attention. And she doesn't mean how long Patil was seeing Catchlove before he left Davies; she means real, honest-to-god life-or-death things that can't get out. She'd never heard a word of doubt in her character before Friday, when Pettigrew and Lupin insinuated that she and Severus both practice Dark magic; though she's shocked and offended by that shallow a view of her, she can't help but wonder what other social repercussions have resulted from their friendship. Hasn't anyone noticed that Lily detests his Slytherin mates, that she tones down his hatred of Gryffindors, that she's done nothing but broach house lines in an effort not to discriminate?

By the time she catches her eyelids drooping, it's nearly four in the morning. A quick glance out the window tells her that the moon is still out, and knowing Potter and Black, they won't leave until Lupin transforms again. Add that to the flight from Wales to Cornwall, and it'll be eight o'clock in the morning by the time they're back.

She's kicking herself at this point—how could she not have noticed the boys' involvement? The last few months, they missed class on the same mornings of Lupin's monthly absences, but Severus explained that as them visiting Lupin in the Hospital Wing all day. Lily expects that they do spend the day with him, to stop the teachers from getting suspicious—but they likely spend more time sleeping at his bedside than keeping him company, having been up all night with him themselves. It's a huge commitment to Lupin, she realizes as she stares emptily out the window; that they would risk so much for him: they may be idiots, but they're certainly loyal idiots.

But it occurs to her soon after that they're not loyal enough to protect him—at least, Black isn't. Using Lupin to endanger Severus's life… a burning fury with Black, coupled with sharp sympathy for Lupin, fills her, and Lily moans and flings herself back on Potter's pillows. Why did they have to get involved?

Her thoughts are interrupted by a disturbance at the window—Potter, several hours early and barely upright on his broom. Panicked, she hurries to open the window and help him inside; he collapses in a heap on his bed, and even without a light on Lily notices the gashes.

"God, Potter, what did Lupin do to you?" she whispers, fishing in the pocket of his torn robe for his wand—she's left hers behind in the study, and his wounds haven't been given any attention for hours now.

"Not Remus," Potter corrects me, surprisingly lucid as he struggles to sit up. "Sirius. There was a fight…"

She tugs out his wand and starts easing him out of his robes, ignoring the heat in her face and focusing on the cuts running along his arms and torso. "You're lucky your face didn't get hit; you don't want your mum noticing this," she says softly, then adds, "A fight over what, pray tell?"

"He was angry that I told you so much," admits Potter, lying back down. Lily uses his robes to sponge off the blood before clumsily checking the biggest wound—a long gash across his abdomen—for internal bleeding with a simple spell. Thankfully, she finds none. "Peter or Remus would've tried to stop him, but Remus's human mind is basically unconscious when he transforms, and Peter was too small to defend me—he Transfigures into a rat. We, er, keep the same forms every time so we're familiar to Remus," he adds, sucking in breath as Lily closes the wound and tests his skin with her hands.

"But Black is all right, even if you fought?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. You can check on him after this if you want—he flew straight to his own room—but I came out of it worse than he did."

"Look, Potter," she says, "I'm not worth fighting for."

"You are, though," Potter counters. "You're brilliant at this, you know. It would get rough a lot these last few months with Remus, and we didn't do nearly as good of a job patching each other up after. It drained all our energy just to do the bigger scrapes, and so we'd leave most of them… and we'd close the skin unevenly, or leave scars… and we never had time to do it thoroughly, that late in the morning." His eyes are starting to brighten, which Lily takes as a good sign.

Glancing over his chest, she indeed notices a pattern of thick scars, many of which look uneven. "I wouldn't call some of these scrapes, Potter… do you still have pain in these? Discomfort?" The largest wounds are all closed, so she moves on to a cursory fix of the minor injuries.

Potter shrugs, then winces from the gesture. "Discomfort, usually, and occasional twinges…"

"I can fix those when I'm done, if you'd like, but I'll have to reopen them. It'll be painless, but after tonight, I don't know if your body can take the trauma…" she considers.

"There's always tomorrow," he reminds her. "You don't have to finish today; the Ministry will get suspicious about why my mum might be Healing someone at five in the morning…"

"Next time this happens," she says darkly—because they both know that there will be a next time—as she closes the last open wound, "you come to me. All three of you. I'll spend full moons in the common room when school starts up."

He shakes his head, but already he's started to doze off. "Oh, Red, don't waste your energy on us," he argues groggily, but his head is drooping to the side, his glasses sliding down his nose. He turns his head suddenly to look at her, though, just before he nods off, and comments, "Are those my pajamas?"

Lily shakes her head, laughing, then sets his glasses on his bedside table and tucks him under the covers. Stashing his robes in a corner of his half-unpacked trunk, she takes one last look at Potter before leaving him to his slumber.

Chapter Text

July 11th, 1976

Lily wakes up extra-early on Sunday morning to find Potter before his mother finds the bloody robes in his trunk. She intends just to cast a quick Scourgify and go back to her room—she'd checked on Black after talking to Potter last night, but Black had been passed out soundly and much less bloodied up than Potter was, as Potter had promised—but something in the way Potter snores gives her pause. "Potter," she says gently, nudging his shoulder. He rolls over and stretches blearily, fumbling for his glasses. "How are you feeling?"

"Decent," he replies. She gives him a long, searching look, then goes to his trunk and start to unroll his robes.

"No pain? No soreness?" she presses, holding the robes up for him to see. "Because judging by the looks of these stains, it's worse than you're letting on."

Potter bites his lip, conflicted. "Maybe a little pain," he admits, wincing as he sits up—by which he means that, yes, it aches.

Lily tuts softly—she'd hoped to finish mending him now, but to no avail. "I don't know if you've recovered enough for me to perform any more magic on you," she says of the poorly healed cuts she'd meant to fix. "I'd do it when I see you this weekend, but it's a Muggle area, it's not safe…"

"This weekend?" He looks bewildered, even for this hour.

"Well, you didn't think I was going to go to Tuney's wedding alone, did you?"

It takes Potter a minute to process this (during which Lily cleans the robes and tucks them neatly back into the trunk). "But aren't you going with Remus?"

"I… not anymore. After what I overheard? I don't want to be anywhere near him. I haven't told him yet, but I will."

She hasn't really thought through how she's going to let Lupin down without bringing up his conversation with Potter and Pettigrew, which is unfortunate because the last thing she wants to talk to Lupin about is his conversation with Potter and Pettigrew. "I know it's a little weird, you coming with me when it was supposed to be one of your best mates instead. I'd understand if you don't want to go."

"No, I—of course I'll go," says Potter. "I just wasn't expecting that, at all, is all." He sits up properly, the covers falling around him, and glances down. "You changed my clothes? You undressed me?"

"I wasn't just going to let you sleep in soiled robes, was I? What if your mother found you before I did?" she argues, pushing him back down. "Go back to bed, Potter, you'll need to get your rest now so you can say goodbye properly in a few hours."

"Why'd you wake me up now, then?" mutters Potter, but he reluctantly complies, following her with his eyes. "Wait—don't go yet."

Sighing, she sits on the bed with him, slumping her shoulders. "You're quite the handful, Potter."

"Same to you, Red," he says, ruffling his hair. It doesn't quite have the intended effect, as he smarts with the effort to raise his arm. "So tell me about this wedding—you said it's for your sister, Petunia?"

Lily glares at him but softens when something in his eyes tells her he needs this. "Tuney, yeah. And her whale of a fiancé, Vernon Dursley… you'll love him, I imagine, he can't stand magic…"

In the next six hours, she takes a short nap, cleans out her guestroom, says goodbye to the Potters (Mrs. Potter kisses her cheek and makes her promise to write), and returns to the McKinnons' house to find Marlene fiery at her arrival. "You decided to stay the weekend with the bloke and didn't even tell me first?" she demands, hands on her hips, the moment Lily steps out of the fireplace.

"I Flooed in to tell you! Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to only send your head over?" she says, marching down the hall to their shared room. Marlene tails her, wagging a finger.

"Yeah, after you'd agreed," Marlene points out. "Some mate you are, staying the weekend with your love interest and not telling me…"

Lily throws her knapsack at her. Marlene dodges it, shrieking. "Potter's not my love interest."

"Like hell he isn't," she says but doesn't further pursue this line of questioning. Instead, she asks, "So how was it? Did you bond?"

Lily shakes her head, not wanting to mention the drama. "I read; he popped in occasionally. I didn't see much of Black. Pettigrew and Lupin both came around on Friday. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" she adds.

"O.W.L. results. I'll get yours…" says Marlene offhand, meandering into the kitchen (Lily takes the opportunity to retrieve her knapsack and start unpacking what little she'd brought to Potter's). Following a series of sifting noises, Marlene emerges—Lily's stomach promptly clenches up. "It says they'll send out booklists in August for the classes we qualify for, and then we can buy books for whichever ones we want to continue in. Here—" and she hands Lily an envelope bearing an unbroken Hogwarts crest.

She tosses aside the empty knapsack and opens the envelope, her hands trembling. "Did Herbology go all right for you?" she asks to divert Marlene's attention, unfolding the letter.

"Yes!" Marlene says, delighted. "An A. I got an E in Astronomy and an A in Care of Magical Creatures, but I don't need to continue with those—Ps in Arithmancy and History of Magic, but that's to be expected—"

Relief washes over her as Lily skims through the results. "I got an E in McGonagall's; I can take N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration!"

"Me, too—that's marvelous, Lily!" says Marlene, knowing of Lily's difficulties with the subject. "Os in Potions and Charms, right?"

"And in History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts," she confirms. She's surprised herself with this one—she hadn't thought herself much of a dueler before the exam. "Any for you?"

Marlene nods. "Defense also, and Muggle Studies—but I'm dropping that, too; I've learned enough to get by with Muggles when I need to. What are you taking? I'm doing Defense, Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, and Herbology—just the five I'll need for Auror training."

"Seven. I'm dropping Divination, Astronomy, and Herbology—sorry," she adds, knowing how much Marlene hates the latter of the three. "So I'm taking Potions, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic—the Os—"

"I can't believe you got an O in History… how can you learn in that class with Binns teaching?" she cuts in.

"I want to go into law, remember? I've got to stay on top of my wizarding knowledge, especially internationally," Lily reminds her. "And then Tranfiguration, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes—all Es."

Marlene rolls her eyes melodramatically. "Did you even flunk one exam? Get a single A? Figures…" she concludes following Lily's pause.

"Hey—I took Divination, remember? I got an A in that," she says defensively. "It's not like you should be proud that you failed two subjects…"

"Oh, shut it," says Marlene. "I sent out owls to the girls—Mare bombed literally half hers, and Em's only O was in Divination, which goes without saying, really."

Lily raises her eyebrows. "Mary did poorly? What's she taking next year?"

"Arithmancy, Defense, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures," replies Marlene promptly. "The last two were obvious—she's going to be a wizarding naturalist, she said—but I'll never understand why she's keeping on with Arithmancy."

"So all of us are taking Defense Against the Dark Arts, then," she presumes, and Marlene nods. It's a difficult subject—Mary in particular is wretched at it—but in these times, it's scarier not to learn to defend oneself than to risk failing a N.E.W.T. "When will we get our books, then? I know we were all going to go shopping together…"

Marlene shrugs. "Like I said, booklists don't come out until August, so we have a while to wait still. I was thinking of getting us all together at my place this weekend, though—"

"Can't; that's the wedding," Lily declines. "Potter and I will both be gone—we're leaving for my house on Thursday."

"Jay? I thought…" Marlene trails off, batting her overlong bangs out of her eyes.

Lily recalls, suddenly, that everyone thinks she's going with Lupin. "Remus couldn't make it in the end—I think the mental image of Vernon might have scared him off—Potter was the obvious second choice," she says hastily.

There's something funny about the way Marlene's smiling at her, but Lily lets it go for now. "He'll be staying at your place the whole weekend?"

"Yeah. The wedding's on Sunday, but we have to help prepare first—obligatory family responsibilities, you know, even though I'm not formally invited… well, Mum says I am, but Tuney wouldn't send out an invitation, anyway." She lobs the O.W.L. results onto a nightstand and collapses on her cot, stretching. "I should call Dad to let him know I'm bringing a guest; he and Mum are convinced I'm going to make up with Severus and invite him, I reckon…"

"You do that," agrees Marlene fervently. "Phone's in the kitchen."

"I know—your mum bought it for me, remember?"

She rolls her eyes as Lily stretches and gets up. "Smart aleck. Honestly, four Outstanding O.W.L.s…"

xx

Thursday is coming sooner than Lily would like, not because she's dreading seeing Potter again but because she knows she won't be coming back to the McKinnons' after Tuney's wedding. Neither she nor Marlene brings it up to the other, but Marlene doesn't raise questions when she finds Lily packing her trunk, and Lily refrains from commenting that the Gryffindor gathering Marlene puts together on Wednesday feels an awful lot like a going-away party. Lily appreciates the (unvoiced) sentiment, but it's still fairly awkward, especially between her and the boys: Pettigrew tries—unsuccessfully—to get Potter to avoid her, Black glares when he thinks she's not looking, and Lupin…

She manages to get him alone in the kitchen after they eat. "Look, I, um—I heard what you and Pettigrew said about me to Potter the other day. About me and Severus messing around with black magic."

What little color he has in his cheeks drains away. "Lily, I didn't mean… I was just mad at James for, uh, for wanting to tell you about—about me. I don't think that you—"

"I don't want to talk about it," says Lily quickly. "I just—I don't think it's the best idea for you to come over tomorrow and spend all that time together this weekend."

"Lily—"

"Not now, okay? Let's just get through this. Please?"

She keeps close by Potter and Marlene, for the most part. It's funny how they've come to be Lily's closest friends this past month, not that "closest" says much these days; she wouldn't have pegged them as her type. Indeed, she's gotten to know them more because of proximity than anything, not that a lack thereof would have stopped Potter. Spending so much time with Marlene, though, makes Lily realize how far from the other Gryffindors she drifted by befriending Severus—she didn't know Marlene lives in Scotland, she didn't notice Marlene's relationship with Black that seems so obvious now, she didn't even know that Marlene has a stepfather…

The morning of her departure, she Flooes to Potter's after her fix of Common Welsh Greens cereal and a quick, painless goodbye from the McKinnons and Marlene, who makes her promise to write weekly and come see her after the wedding. Helene's Manor is no less impressive than the last time Lily stayed there, but to her surprise and good fortune, she comes out at the living room fireplace this time, where Mrs. Potter is waiting to Side-Along-Apparate Lily to her house (which, of course, is not connected to the Floo Network). "I'm so glad you're taking James with you," Mrs. Potter tells her, pulling her into an embrace despite not knowing her well. "He's been so looking forward to this all week—talks about it nonstop—"

To Lily's great surprise, Potter blushes. "Can we go, Mum?" he asks impatiently, heaving his trunk across the room towards them. "I don't want to keep the Evanses waiting long."

"Yes, of course, dear," says his mother unhurriedly. "If you'll both just grab my arm and keep a tight hold on your trunks…"

After a painful sensation of compression, they appear in Lily's kitchen: Apparating outside would have been too suspicious, given her Muggle neighbors. It's a small house—just one story high, with three bedrooms and only one full bathroom—but Potter doesn't seem to mind, remarking in her ear, "Cozy place you have, Red." She rolls her eyes but thanks him nonetheless: he tends to seem insufferable, but he means well, Lily knows that now.

Only a few seconds after the incoming crack, Mum rushes in to greet them; her white-blonde hair is even lighter with fresh highlights for the occasion, Lily notices immediately. "Dorea! How lovely to see you again—it was such a joy meeting you the other day." Just as she's turning to ask Potter about this, he explains under his breath: his mum flew to Lily's house a few days ago so that she'd be familiar enough with the premises to Apparate here. "And you must be James? A pleasure to meet you as well—I've heard such wonderful things about you."

"It's good to meet you, too, Mrs. Evans," Potter says, stifling a laugh—they both know that Mum certainly has not heard wonderful things about him, at least not from Lily. "You must be proud of Lily—she's a brilliant witch."

"Lily?" Mum turns a critical eye on her, surveying with evident displeasure her oily face, tangled hair, and slouched shoulders. "Yes, absolutely—a witch in the family, think of it—though it doesn't do for her to let herself go like this…"

There's a brief, uncomfortable pause as Lily stares Mum down, as though daring her to find fault in her disregard for posture or cosmetics. Finally, Potter broaches the silence, his face reddening again, presumably this time with anger: "Not that it's any of my business, but if you tilt your head a little to the left and squint—" ("James," Mrs. Potter reprimands him sharply) "—if you ask me, I think she's beautiful."

Lily flushes scarlet but stiffly maintains her glare. Mum's delight at meeting Potter dissolves somewhat, and she rounds on him next, saying, "Yes, well, good though your intentions may be, you lack the feminine view necessary to understand this. It's no matter to you that my daughter hasn't been able to find a proper suitor with her complexion—"

"Right, because you had such good judgment pushing Snivellus on her all these years," says Potter hotly.

Sensing the escalating tensions, Mrs. Potter interrupts, "Well, I'd best be off, dears, can't have the hospital waiting on me. I'll come pick you up on Monday morning, all right, James?" Mum deflates while Mrs. Potter kisses her son's cheek and hugs Lily in parting; by the time it's just the three of them, the impending row looks to have been averted.

"Well, don't just stand there gawking at each other, you two," says Mum, flustered (though it's just Lily gawking at Potter, who's intent on evil-eyeing Mum). "Petunia! Pet, honey, come in here and greet your sister and her guest!"

Lily cringes as Tuney reluctantly sidles into the kitchen. For a blushing bride-to-be, she looks miserable—her horse-like face is contorted into a grimace, and she spares no words for Lily, offering Potter only a simple, "Nice to meet you." Mum knows not to push it—the last thing she appears to need is for Potter to start attacking Tuney, too, for criticizing magic.

"All right, all right, enough of that," decides Mum, much to Lily's relief. "Petunia and I have to get to a bridesmaids dress fitting, so I suppose the two of you should pick out formalwear for the big day… your dad can take you when he's ready, Lily, he's in the shower at the moment. Be home by five for dinner, you hear?" Before Lily has a chance to speak for either of them, Mum's left the kitchen with Tuney right on her tail, clipping her hair up and off her neck and whispering something in Tuney's ear.

Lily just nods and pulls Potter out into the hall. "My room's this way," she says, inclining her head.

"Is she always like that?" he asks hoarsely, following her down a narrow hall. She nudges open the first door on the left with her toes; it swings open to reveal her bedroom, wallpapered Gryffindor maroon and gold. "Love the color scheme, by the way."

"Who, Tuney? No, she's usually a lot crabbier, actually," Lily says lightly, pulling out her desk chair for him. "And thanks—my parents decorated it for me after I was Sorted, as a coming-home surprise at Christmas," she adds of his latter remark.

Potter shakes his head, scratching his head and sitting down. "Your mum. She's so… so…" He grasps silently for words, then gives up and gapes at Lily, open-mouthed.

"Oh, Mum? Usually she's like that, yes," she confirms, launching herself onto her bed. "Tuney gets her tastes from her—not that she's quite so, er, high-strung about anything. She's more of a sulker, you know."

"Please tell me you take after your father," says Potter stubbornly, crossing his arms. "You deserve at least one decent relative."

She laughs nervously. "I guess you could say I take after Dad. My family's all right, though—my cousins are brilliant, you'll see why in a few days."

"On your dad's side?" he assumes.

"On both sides," Lily laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear.

There's a bit of a pause as Potter looks around, taking in the plush carpet and the crack in the window, and looks like he's on the verge of saying something dangerous. Eventually, he says in a rush, "Wouldn't Snape have a problem with this place?"

Lily replies quickly, "He's never been in my bedroom, actually—we used to hang out in my backyard, or sometimes the kitchen. I didn't go to his house much; his parents fight." He seems to accept this, and there's another long silence. "Thanks for what you said back there," she stammers, as Potter looks like he's run out of words.

He doesn't answer—just looks at her pensively for a long moment, inches his chair forward, and rests his hand on her cheek. She shivers involuntarily but doesn't recoil; Potter smiles and closes his eyes. "You're welcome," he says finally, pulling back his hand—but he stays with his chair legs touching her bed, resting his arms on the duvet so that he's level with her. After a moment, he brushes her hair behind her ear and asks softly, "How are you?"

"I'm all right," Lily says, unsure of where this is headed. "And you?"

"I—"

A sharp knock at the door cuts Potter off, and they both straighten up, as if afraid to be caught so close together. "Come in," Lily invites, drawing her knees up to her chest.

The door creaks as Dad pushes it open. He's tall and balding, but there's a youthful spark that hasn't quite left his blue-grey eyes. "C'mon, Lil, your mother's going to go into conniptions if she comes home to find that you haven't left to pick out a dress yet. So you're James, then?"

"James Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Evans," says Potter promptly, rising and extending a hand. Dad shakes it, looking satisfied. "I would have brought a tux, but wizards wear dress robes, not suits…"

"Don't worry about it," says Dad airily. "Even if you brought one, Rosie probably wouldn't have approved of it… she's a certain sort, Rose, she really is." He grins and beckons them out of the room. "Ready to go?"

Potter waits, glancing between himself and Lily. "I look passable?"

Dad doesn't know what to say to this, but Lily glances over his appropriately Muggle clothing—a basic red T-shirt and jeans. "You're perfect," she assures him, and she catches the beam that spreads over his face before they leave.

Potter and Dad get along surprisingly well, not that she appreciates their combined teasing as she tries on dress after dress. Dad is content just to laugh and tell her she looks ridiculous, but Potter is unafraid to hide his affections in front of Lily's father, constantly commenting on her "radiant beauty" and even deigning to stoop and kiss her hand once (at which point she flinches and calls him an arrogant toerag—she'd forgotten how much she enjoys using that particular insult on him).

Eventually, she settles on a simple emerald dress and black heels—plain but comfortable, just as she like it. Dad warns her that Mum won't be happy with her choice when she sees her on Sunday, but Potter disagrees, murmuring in her ear before she can slip back into the fitting rooms, "You look lovely, Red." She blushes and thanks him, just catching her breath for a moment when she retreats behind the changing room door—pesky though he may be, she's still not used to all the compliments.

Somehow, it takes even longer for Potter to pick out a tuxedo. Lily hadn't expected him to be so selective—with every suit, it seems, he takes offense at the exact shade of the collar or length of the cuffs. When he's finally settled on a solid black number, he vanishes into the tie racks with Dad, still debating whether pinstripes should be legal (Potter claims not, while Dad intends to wear them to the wedding); she shakes her head at their retreating figures and gets in line at the checkout.

After what feels like forever, they pay—Dad reluctantly allows Potter to pay for both their outfits, much to Lily's chagrin. The drive back is equally painful for her as Potter bonds with her father, and by the time she gets out of the car, Dad's muttering in her ear, "Why haven't you ever brought him home before?"

"It's complicated," she says with finality, heaving her purchases into her arms and kicking the door shut behind her. And indeed it is—hadn't she on-and-off hated him just over a month ago?

The rest of the day isn't nearly as strained as Lily had feared. Though Potter and Mum are at underlying odds and Tuney wants nothing to do with either of the wizards, Dad's able to smooth over the tensions, peacemaker that he is. It only gets uncomfortable when nighttime comes: there isn't a spare bedroom, and Potter hadn't brought a sleeping bag.

"Lily, give James your room," instructs Mum, and there's a purse to her lips that shows she won't take no for an answer.

Potter gives Lily a quick glance and then tells Mum, "That's really not necessary, Mrs. Evans, I'll just sleep on the couch—"

"You're a guest in our home, James, and I won't have you sleeping in the living room like a schoolgirl friend of Petunia's," says Mum firmly. "Lily, get your pajamas so James can go to bed, and for God's sake, take a bath, you look like you haven't showered in days."

"Right, because she'd rather look unnaturally polished and proper—" Potter starts sullenly.

"And what right do you have to tell me how to raise my daughter?" Mum rounds on him. At the late hour, she's more disheveled than normal: her mussed hair has half fallen out of the clip, and worry lines are visible beneath her smudged powder. "All day, I have done nothing but accommodate you—"

Dad rests a hand on Mum's shoulder. "Calm down, Rosie, he doesn't mean any harm," he murmurs, but neither Mum nor Potter is having any of it.

"Actually, you've done nothing but make backhanded remarks about how much you disapprove of your daughter," he says with conviction, "and you take advantage of her tolerance of it to abuse her even further. Just because she's not a carbon-copy of Petunia—"

"You leave Pet out of this!" Mum demands, her hands on her hips. "I am Lily's mother, and it would certainly do her some good to take my advice every once in a while. Walking around looking positively uncivilized, her nose always in a book, never bringing anyone around but Severus—it wouldn't kill her to be ladylike every once in a while."

Tuney turns up her nose and tugs lightly on Mum's elbow. "Don't bother, Mum. She's a freak, not a lady—"

"You say that now," snaps Potter, "but she has more class than either of you could ever dream of. You talk about Lily like she's wasting her potential, probably because I doubt she's ever been able to confide in you about how hard her life is—you try being alienated by all your roommates because they don't like your best friend, or being the brightest witch in your year and still not making prefect because you're not goody-two-shoes enough, or having to walk through the hallways and being sworn at for your parentage every time you turn a corner—"

Her face fast reddening, Lily interrupts, "That's enough for one night." Potter takes a deep breath and doesn't stop fuming, but he heeds her warning and says nothing more. Mum looks dangerously indignant and stalks off with Tuney; Dad just blinks at the both of them, then sighs and runs off to find Mum and mollify her. Sighing heavily, Lily guides Potter into her bedroom by the arm, murmuring, "In here."

He looks ready to burst. "How do you live like this?" he says outright, slouching against the closed door. "How do you take the criticism every day…?"

She's tempted to ask why he cares, but she knows better than to question her only friend in the house (Dad, considering that he married Mum, is neutral territory). "It's all right. I usually stay at Hogwarts for the holidays, so it's just in the summer when I see them, and I have—had—Severus then."

"It's like you don't even realize how bad you have it," sulks Potter, slumping to the floor in a worn, defeated manner. Lily joins him, their shoulders brushing. "I almost can't blame you for having liked him so much; the alternative isn't much better, if you'd just take a listen around the rumor mill every so often…"

"I gathered," she says darkly, referring to Lupin and Pettigrew's stunt back at the Manor. "Look, Potter—I don't want to be a martyr."

He faces her, squinting in the light of the waning moon. "When did I ever martyr you?"

Lily props her arms up on her knees. "Well—not a martyr, exactly. You just put me on this pedestal like I'm… well, you asked how I take it: it's by not fixating on it. And I appreciate the support around here, I really do—" Potter perks up and grins at her for this "—but I don't need pity, and I don't want you fighting any battles for me."

"If you won't, someone ought to," he protests meekly, but he lets it go as she shakes her head and smiles.

Lily gets up, crossing to her trunk. "If you'll excuse me, I have a shower to take," she says cheerfully, grabbing a pair of pajamas and a towel, "unless you want something else to fight my mum on." He laughs heartily and stands to let her pass through the doorway, but before she opens it to leave, she adds, "Potter—thank you."

"Any time, Red," Potter vows, smiling. There's a fresh spring in her step as she walks down the hall to the bathroom, and not even passing a bitter-looking Tuney on the way down dampens it.

The next few days pass without much event. Tuney's fiancé, Vernon, pops in and out—never staying for longer than an hour, much to Lily's relief; there's enough animosity in the house between Potter, Mum, and Tuney without adding Vernon's hatred of magic into the mix. Though Potter is regularly on the verge of an outburst with Mum, he keeps his defiance in check—only because Lily's made it clear that she doesn't want any fighting on her behalf, she's sure. Dad alone is as easygoing as always, cracking jokes and keeping the mood light: without his peacemaking, Mum and Potter would indisputably come to a head sooner or later.

Somehow, though, they don't, and they're somehow still on speaking terms by Saturday evening. "We'd best be off to the dress rehearsal," says Mum, stretching, after lunch. "We're going out with the bridesmaids' families after, Lily, so we'll be a few hours… Pet, you're leaving for your bachelorette party right after?"

Tuney nods, folding her hands in her lap. "Linda says that everything's settled—we're all going to drive in her car."

"All right," says Mum placidly. "Behave yourself, Lily." Potter bristles but says nothing.

"That goes for you, too, James," says Dad cheerfully.

Lily blushes, but Potter just grins. "Of course, Mr. Evans. Good luck," he pleasantly wishes Tuney, and she nods, mumbling thanks—it may be the most polite interaction Lily's seen between the pair in the past three days.

They leave within the next few minutes—Mum rounds up Dad and Tuney on the way out much like a teacher gathers her preschoolers before crossing a busy street—leaving Lily fully alone with Potter for the first time since the full moon. It takes them a minute to get used to the freedom of it—then Potter is quick to break the ice. "All Outstanding marks on your O.W.L.s, then, Red?"

She gives an ironic little laugh. "Only four out of ten, sorry to say."

Potter raises an eyebrow. "And they call you a nerd…"

She sinks into her seat, sighing. "How do you do that?" she says with exasperation, shutting her eyes tight.

"Do what?" he replies, smiling innocently at her when Lily glances at him again.

She waves a hand vaguely in his direction. "Poke fun at me for living out of the library and stressing about Acceptable marks, but still make me feel like I'm normal when I'm around you."

He chooses not to comment on her sudden depth, instead responding, "I'm glad I make you feel normal." Lily laughs again, feeling suddenly amiable, and gets up. "Where are you going?"

"You think I'm going to trip all over your feet dancing at the reception tomorrow because I'm not used to wearing high heels?" She ignores Potter's surprised expression and pulls him to his feet. "Come on, get up, get changed—where did you leave the dress shoes you brought with you?…"

Ten minutes later, she emerges from the bathroom, dress and all, to meet him—he's clicking his heels and ruffling his hair, seemingly with impatience or anxiety, and it hits her right then that maybe his preoccupation with his hair doesn't stem from arrogance. "Took you long enough," he mumbles, looking Lily over—she realizes self-consciously that the dress is a bit form-fitting, compared to her robes or usual Muggle apparel. "You're pretty."

"Thanks… er…" She glances at his crisp new tuxedo and improperly knotted tie, then meets his eyes. "You look nice yourself," she tells him, and for once, she means this.

"No," Potter says, surprising me, "you don't look pretty—well, you do look pretty, but—I meant that you are pretty. Every day. Whether or not your mum thinks you've let yourself go." He wears a genuine smile and extends a hand. "Care to dance?"

Lily doesn't know what to say to this—any of this—so she just nods and takes his hand, letting him pull her down the hall and into the living room. He's pushed all the furniture against the walls, she realizes, leaving a sizable space in the center of the floor; the lights are off and the shades pulled, shrouding the room in evening light, even though it's barely two o'clock.

It's nothing like their fast dances at the concert. They practice at first—Lily tripping in her shoes and nearly knocking them both over at first before they finally find a rhythm—but then they slip out of formality, her arms both around his neck, his voice low in her ear. "I knew you could dance, Red, but you scared me for a while back there—I didn't think you could pull it off in heels."

"People surprise you every day," she says, revolving on the spot. "For instance, I didn't think you had it in you to be a decent human being until recently."

"Proved you wrong on that one, didn't I?" chuckles Potter. He squeezes her middle for a moment in something like a hug, then loosens his grip. "I'm glad I've proven my humanity to you, in any case."

She can't say she's surprised when he leans in and kisses her cheek, but she still chides lightly, "Don't push your luck, Potter."

His laughter follows her into the kitchen as the telephone starts to ring. Idly wondering whether Marlene will ever be willing to use hers, Lily answers it with a cheerful, "Hello?"

Something shifts in her mind when she hears the words that follow, and she stands there alone long after the conversation is over. A piece of her notices Potter step in, set the phone she dropped back in its cradle, and gently ask what's happened.

"Car crash," she says, her throat dry. "Tuney was with the bridesmaids, thank God… They said it was painless, for both of them."

Potter freezes midway through rumpling his hair—it would have looked comical just a few minutes ago. "Lily, I'm—"

Saving him the trouble of articulating an apology, Lily buries her face in his just-bought suit jacket and sobs.

xx

END OF PART ONE

Chapter Text

September 1st, 1976: Mary Macdonald

Mary steps onto the platform with two trunks in hand and a mission in mind—at least, she has a mission in mind until her thoughts are diverted when one of her trunks drops on her foot. One of her very heavy trunks, might she add.

Yelping, she yanks herself out from under the trunk and hobbles around for a minute with her knee drawn up to her chest, howling like a loon and attracting appropriate stares from passersby (only the nearby McKinnon family gives her friendly looks, though she notices that Marlene isn't with them). Great, what a perfect way to start off the new school year—once again, she's managed to stand out as the class idiot before even stepping foot on the train.

Let her say now that, whatever else you hear, Mary is not a bumbling, shallow busybody. All right, she supposes that's a bit unfair: she's something of a busybody, yes, but she's only a touch shallow—oh, who is she kidding? Just because she finds gossip interesting doesn't mean that's all she amounts to! Whatever happened to freedom of expression, anyway? She thought it was possible to not be judged by your lesser qualities in this day and age!

Then again, her conscience tells her, you judge people by their lesser qualities all the time.

She curses her conscience and tries to put the whole thing out of her mind. God, she's touchy today. And all because she dropped her trunk on her foot…

Which reminds her: two trunks and a mission. Right. Mary goes back to thinking about her goal for the day—finding out more about the Lily Evans scandal—as she somehow lugs her trunks across the platform, praying to quickly find a compartment where she can stuff these and be rid of them for the next few hours. She only feels a little guilty for her curiosity; in her defense, Lily never even hung around anyone but that horrid Snape boy until last June, and anyway, as her newly appointed friend, Mary cares about Lily enough to want to know the full story—she just doesn't know her well enough to get it from her. Honestly, is that so bad?

Oh, and Mary also wants an update on the Pol Patil drama, but that'll be easy enough; she's mates with Veronica Smethley, and Ver and Greta are basically attached at the hip, so if Mary somehow don't end up in Pol's compartment, she'll at least get the story from them. And if today turns out to be a good day, Mary will talk to Reg again—or at least find out from one of his mates whether he thinks it's too soon to kiss on the fourth date, which with any luck will happen the next time they go to Hogsmeade.

That settles it, Mary decides, heaving her trunks onto the train: she's definitely sitting with the Hufflepuffs today, or at least in Ver's compartment.

To her great fortune, the first fellow sixth year Mary runs into is Amos Diggory. "Amos!" she exclaims, dragging her trunks and herself forward to embrace him in a hasty half-hug. "I haven't heard from you in, like, ages! How was your summer?"

"Fine, fine," says Amos, looking nervous—she doesn't think the poor boy ever fully recovered from his breakup with Mary last November. Amos seems to forget that it was he who dumped her, not the other way around—and besides, it's not like it was serious or anything. For crying out loud, she only dated the bloke for three weeks. "I spent most of it on holiday along the Mediterranean," he tells her next, and Mary realizes that he does look rather tan, compared to when she last saw him in June; his hair is streaked with blonde, too, likely from the sun.

Thinking of which, Mary really should have gotten her roots done before leaving for Hogwarts. It's so much cheaper to do it the Muggle way, and she's running low on Sleekeazy's…

"Good, good," Mary says quickly, hoping he doesn't think she's being rude. "Do you know whether Ver's here yet? I wanted to catch up with her…"

Amos brightens at Mary's mention of her; she reckons he feels awkward, it being just the two of them. Should've thought about that before her broke up with her, shouldn't he have, Diggory? "You know, Mary, I was just taking my things to her compartment—we're sitting with Greta, Pol, and Reg. Would you care to join us?"

Her exasperation with him fades. God must be looking upon her favorably today. "I would love to join you, Amos," Mary says genuinely, sweeping her hair out of her eyes. "Which compartment are you all in?"

Thankfully for her throbbing foot, Mary's target compartment is just a few down from their current one. Mary passes through Lene's on the walk down; she's sitting with the Gryffindor boys (sans Remus, who must be with the prefects already) and invites her to sit with them, but Mary declines, mouthing CATTERMOLE at her and tilting her head in Amos's direction. Cottoning on, Lene nods and mouths back her approval; James and Sirius don't even notice, but Mary spots Peter blinking in confusion before she walks out and shuts the compartment door behind her. Laughing it off, she almost doesn't realize that Lily hadn't been with them—and as Alice is always keen on reminding the lot of them, Lily's not a prefect, so she has no reason not to be sitting with Marlene.

This could be interesting.

A chorus of "hellos" greets Mary in Amos's compartment, and she gives a general wave to them all before straining to put away her trunks. "Hey, everyone," she says, grunting with the effort. "How have you all been?"

As expected, everyone starts chattering away at once—Amos about Italy, Greta and Pol about each other, Ver about her widely publicized infatuation with Gilderoy Lockhart. It's so much to follow (she's trying to focus on Greta and Pol without giving the impression of snubbing Amos or Ver, but probably not succeeding) that she doesn't notice Reg's silence until he comes up behind her and murmurs, "Let me help you with those."

Mary laughs and thanks him, watching his biceps with mild interest as he lifts up the trunks. She's always kind of just laughed along whenever Marlene or Ver gushed over the shirtless men in the pages of Witch Weekly, not feeling whatever it is that they apparently did. Now, she fixates on the bare bits of Reg's arms and tries to make herself understand the appeal, to see them as something other than a curiosity.

But Mary has plenty of other, better reasons to want to pursue a relationship with Reg, she reminds herself. He's sweet and quiet and a little awkward in that charming way, and that's got to make him a good fit for Mary, hasn't it? It'll give her someone to listen to her and balance her out. Right?

"Really, Mary, was it necessary to bring two trunks to Hogwarts?" Reg asks wearily. "Doesn't just the one suffice?"

"Where else was I supposed to store my cosmetics?" she simpers, her eyes wide and pleading. Reg shakes his head, failing to conceal a blush, and Mary grins—it's good to know she has noticeable effects on him.

Like she said, though, she's on a mission that she intends to fulfill in good time. Mary cuts to the chase, once the pandemonium dies down. "So, like, what have you guys heard about the whole Lily Evans business?"

"Merlin, Mary, you don't mess around, do you?" teases Greta; her laughter, as always, reminds Mary of tinkling china. "And wouldn't you know more than us about her? You've actually seen her all summer."

"Only before her parents died!" Mary says defensively. "She disappeared off the face of the wizarding world after—"

Pol rolls his eyes. "Careful how you phrase it, Mary, you don't want to sound callous."

Mary crosses her arms and glares. "Frankly, Pol, I don't give a damn whether you think I'm callous. What about, like, freedom of expression?"

"It's not exactly constitutionally guaranteed, you know," says Greta, her voice wavering—she and Mary are friends, but Greta still wants to defend her new boyfriend. Mary can relate to that, not that she wants her newfound appreciation of freedom of expression threatened or anything.

"Greta, honey, the Constitution is unwritten. Were you to take it up in the courts, the jury wouldn't have the judicial review to decide it, either."

She smacks him playfully. "Do you have to be such a Ravenclaw all the time, Pol?" (Mary rolls her eyes—this shit is typical Pol, and it's a little annoying to watch Greta be so charmed by it. She likes Greta and all, but honest to Merlin, she liked both of them a hell of a lot better when Pol was with Davies, who wouldn't be having any of this.)

"C'mon, focus, Lily Evans," Mary redirects them, tapping her foot. "Any ideas?"

"Wasn't it the day of her sister's wedding?" inquires Amos, sparking the rumor exchange. "I heard there was a Death Eater attack during the reception."

Pol rolls his eyes again, this time at Amos. "Don't be daft, Diggory, it would've made the papers if there had been an attack—I heard it was a car crash on the drive back after."

"Sucks to be her sister," sniggers Ver. "Can you imagine? Finding out about your parents' death while your new husband is deflowering you?"

Mary chortles appreciatively but corrects them: "The car crash was on the way home after the rehearsal, not, like, the wedding itself. But what about after? Where was she staying, for one thing?"

"James Potter's, of course," says Greta. "His parents took her in."

"No, that's Sirius Black," says Pol dismissively.

Greta gapes. "Believe me, Pol, Evans was not staying with Black—have you heard of his parents? Complete pureblood nutters."

Next to Mary, Reg—whose mum is one of the said pureblood nutters and has been rowing with him all summer for dating Mary—stiffens. Glancing at him with concern, Mary slides a hand into his lap, and he takes it, smiling gratefully. He's such a sweetheart, Reg is—though he's far too polite for Mary's liking, what with his refusal to dish on the gossip he knows and all.

Oh, the trials of being a bumbling, shallow busybody—not that this means she's admitting to it, mind you.

"I meant that Black's staying with Potter, love," Pol amends. "Didn't you know? He ran away from home—there was a fight about You-Know-Who, but I don't know the details."

Mary's surprised by this—she hadn't known about Sirius running away—but that's a discussion for another day. "She did stay with James, but that was earlier—some of the Gryffindors went to a concert and, like, stayed the night at his place after. Leigh told me she spent a few extra days there—exploring his library, or something."

"Figures," mutters Ver scathingly. "Perfect little Evans, spending the night with a bloke to get access to his books…"

"Don't talk about Evans like that, Veronica," says Reg feebly. Mary gives his hand a squeeze—she knows how uncomfortable this sort of thing makes him (not that that's going to deter her).

Ver says nothing further, drumming her manicured nails on the seat beside her. Greta asks, "Didn't they go on a date last June, though? Potter and Evans. I heard—"

Mary shakes her head. "Cover story—she needed an excuse to get away from Lene and get her a birthday gift. She was at the McKinnons' before the accident."

Amos comments, "She can't be enjoying her first day back. After hiding wherever she was all summer and now having to face all the rumors…"

"Yeah, well, you don't seem to keen on stopping them," says Pol.

"We're not perpetuating them, we're dispelling the false ones," Amos says, glaring at Pol—Mary's getting a distinct impression that Greta's mates aren't very happy about her latest boyfriend, and Mary makes a mental note to ask Ver about this later. "She could have been staying with her sister—"

Mary shakes her head. "Couldn't've been. Petunia, like, despises Lily."

"Like, no kidding," says Pol. His voice drips with sarcasm, and Mary fights back a strong impulse to stick her tongue out at him.

"I heard something, maybe a week back," says Ver suddenly, "about her staying with some Auror… somebody's uncle here at Hogwarts?"

Greta gives some polarizing opinion or other in response, but Mary tenses with recognition. The whole month of August, Leigh only ever came to Mary's house, not the other way around, and she wasn't with her siblings when Mary saw them on the platform earlier…

The compartment door slides open, breaking her train of thought. They're all rendered speechless as none other than Lily Evans herself steps in, tailed by a tabby cat and starting to ask, "I'm sorry, but have any of you seen… oh." She stops herself and looks down, clumsily tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Oh. It's like that, then," she finishes, much quieter.

They all watch with bated breath, mortified—or, at least, Mary's mortified. Pol is inappropriately smug (she's starting to agree with Amos about him), and from the looks of it, Ver might be trying to Petrify Lily with looks alone. The cat hisses. "Lily, wait," Mary says anxiously, but Lily just looks at her with bitterness in her eyes, then turns and walks out without so much as a slammed door in her wake.

When Mary said she shouldn't be judged for her lesser qualities—she takes that back.

Her shame overpowers her better instincts, so when she jumps to her feet and leaves the compartment, she's in hot pursuit not of Lily but of Leigh. When Mary finds her compartment again, she doesn't even bother greeting the boys and rounds on Leigh immediately. That familiar feeling of warmth that always surges when Marlene is around creeps up from her chest to her throat, but it's as unwelcome as acid this time because she hurt her. She hid things from Mary, and that hurts. "McKinnon, you'd better have a good reason why I had to find out about Lily spending August with you and your uncle from Veronica Smethley."

Lene pales, while her three companions survey Mary with visible interest (though she detects from Sirius and Peter the slightest twinges of disgust). "I never told Smethley about it," Lene says sheepishly, all color drained from her cheeks and not likely to soon return.

"Nor did you tell me," Mary says, jabbing a finger into her chest. "Like, this is what I get—your best mate—"

"Well, you haven't exactly been good at keeping secrets in the past!" snaps Lene, crossing her own arms and staring Mary down. And it's true—but only for the things that don't matter, is what Marlene doesn't realize.

"Right, because, like, I've definitely blabbed all about your family history," Mary seethes. At the other end of the compartment, Sirius and James exchange a look. "And whomever you told deemed it appropriate to spread the news to the Hufflepuffs, which doesn't say much about your judgment, now, does it?"

Leigh fidgets. "Take your concerns up with Lily herself, then, because I didn't tell anyone she was with me."

"Where is Lily, anyway?" Mary pries, looking around (needlessly).

"She and Emmeline are saving a compartment for Alice and some of the other prefects," says Sirius from the boys' corner. "James here invited them to sit with us, but Evans has been avoiding him all month, the poor bloke."

James's face falls as Sirius brings it up, so Peter distracts them hastily: "Plus, they brought cats this year—" (Mary interrupts to tell him that Em's is actually a Kneazle) "—and I'm allergic. Why didn't you tell us your uncle's an Auror, Marlene?"

Leigh is growing more uncomfortable by the second. Considering her touchy background, Mary would usually do something more to cover for her, but she's too annoyed to care right now—how could Ver have found out before she did? Lene turns to Peter and says with a pleading note in her voice, "I—"

She doesn't have to explain, though, because Remus barges into the compartment to interrupt. "Dorcas Meadowes," he says breathlessly, sitting on the other side of Peter. "The new Head Girl is Dorcas Meadowes."

Mary's so bothered by Leigh's recent secrecy that she doesn't even care about the scandal, when she stops to think about it, but it takes her by surprise enough that she immediately says, "The Slytherin? Fabian's girlfriend?"

"The one and only," verifies Remus, yawning. He looks exhausted and rests his head against the seat, not even bothering to fish a book out of his trunk. "It was like a lion's den in there. Everyone thought it was between Hestia Jones and Angela Macmillan—Angela took it personally, mind you, I don't think I've ever seen anyone so affronted in my life. Gideon was the worst, of course—he loathes Meadowes like you can't believe—but even the Slytherins were mad; she's none too popular with them for dating a Gryffindor, either. Kingsley and Elisabeth tried to calm things down, but to no avail… Kingsley's Head Boy, of course, everyone saw that coming."

"Meadowes, huh," scoffs Sirius. James gives him a look—he's civil with Meadowes, Mary knows—but Sirius continues, "I used to see her at my parents' parties when we were younger—Death Eater forerunners, you know. Never thought she'd be Head Girl one day—she hero-worshipped Rabastan Lestrange, and look how he turned out."

Mary knows better than to ask. Giving Lene one final look, she gets up and announces, "I'm going to head back to my compartment—this isn't over, Marlene."

How could Lene not bloody tell her that she and Lily moved in with Doc? Mary can understand respecting Lily's privacy and wanting to keep her real father's identity under wraps, but Lena should know Mary well enough by now to trust her with that knowledge—especially since hiding it from her must have been hard when they saw each other nearly every day for the latter half of last summer.

Suddenly, Mary doesn't much care to catch up with the rest of the student body. She usually loves the first day of school and the fresh stories that come with it, but other people's business doesn't seem to matter when your best mate can't trust you with hers.

Feeling fairly riled (and inexplicably annoyed with Pol and Ver in particular), Mary doesn't go back to her compartment and instead scours the train for a kinder familiar face. She finds it in Maggie McKinnon—whose smile droops at the sight of Mary, but then, maybe that's the kind of person Mary should start hanging around.

If she had an ounce of sense, she probably wouldn't like herself much, either.

"D'you mind if I sit here, Maggie?" she requests, poking her head into her compartment.

She knows Maggie doesn't like her, but by association with Leigh, she lets Mary in. Mary doesn't recognize the others in her compartment, but judging by the fact that Maggie's ignoring them and reading quietly by the window seat, Mary shouldn't necessarily recognize them as her friends.

They don't talk much for the duration of the train ride—but then, between Maggie and her, that's only to be expected. To be honest, Maggie doesn't like much of anyone, other than her siblings—not that this ever seems to bother her. Mary joins her and a couple fifth years (is it really her sixth year already? Fifth year went by so fast with so little to show for it) in the carriages as well and only parts from Maggie upon entering the Great Hall, when Maggie leaves for the Ravenclaw table.

Mary yawns her way through the Sorting—honestly, who really cares about the Hat's song-and-dance, or how many first years are Sorted into Gryffindor? She nearly misses Matt McKinnon's Sorting, not that there's much to see: the Hat deliberates for just a few seconds before declaring him a Hufflepuff. The feast itself is equally tedious, for the food doesn't make up for the tension between the Gryffindor sixth years. Leigh is now avoiding the boys and Mary and is talking with Lily and Em, leaving Mary with Alice for the duration of the meal—and sorry to say, Mary's never exactly been Alice's biggest fan. She chatters on about O.W.L. scores for a good part of dinner, and Mary is entirely unsurprised to learn that Alice's marks are stellar: five Os and five Es. (At this news, Lily, whom Marlene tells Mary earned four Os and an A along with all her Es, does an incredibly poor job of covering up her disappointment and struggles to look like she's listening to Lene.)

It occurs to Mary that this is the first time they've all been together since Lily's going-away party and that it's not exactly a happy reunion. There's an obvious fight on the horizon between Lily and James, judging from the looks they're giving each other (hers warning, his pining)—but there's something not right about the way she's treating the other boys, either, since their usual disinterest has morphed into deliberate avoidance. The boys, in turn, are staring down Lene, whose conversation with Em and Lily is all too intent, and she and Lily clearly want nothing to do with Mary.

For once, Mary only cares about the last of these observations, not that she clues Alice in.

It only gets interesting with Dumbledore's post-feast speech, which is considerably livened up by a couple of his announcements. It isn't until after mentions of the Forbidden Forest, Hogsmeade visits, and Quidditch tryouts that he catches Mary's attention, though, saying, "Next, it is our pleasure to introduce to you the newest member of the Hogwarts staff, who will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this school year—Professor Tonks."

Lukewarm applause fills the hall, but something rings a bell: the name sounds familiar. She strains for a glimpse of the new professor, who is chocolate-and-white, with brown eyes and hair against the palest skin Mary's seen in a while, and Mary can't help thinking that some highlights and a tan would do her good. But then she realizes Tonks's eyes are fixed somewhere close to Mary's—and Sirius's fists are clenched on the table when Mary turns to follow the professor's gaze.

Doesn't Sirius have a cousin who married a man named Tonks?

Before she can ask Sirius whether he knows her, though, Dumbledore's resumed speaking. "And finally, I'd like to announce a new program that Hogwarts is proud to host for the first time," he's saying, smiling. "After lengthy collaboration to make this opportunity possible, we and the Ministry of Magic will be sponsoring work-study programs available to sixth and seventh year students to help counteract the recent economic downturn." There's a brief pause—everyone knows that the said "downturn" was caused by the war with You-Know-Who—but a buzz of speculation soon arises amongst the older students.

The Hall quiets again, though, as Dumbledore lifts his hands for silence. "All seventh years will be guaranteed their desired positions, and sixth years can compete for the remaining available internships after seventh years receive their assignments. Programs are available in six departments of the Ministry and include, among others, setup for the 1978 Quidditch World Cup, junior ambassadorships in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and accelerated Auror training. Further details will be available from the Heads of Houses tomorrow for seventh years and Friday for sixth years."

Chatter from the students drowns out the Headmaster's closing words. It's certainly an exciting prospect—how many students, Mary wonders, would want an internship in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? She turns to her classmates for their reactions; Leigh has broken her silence with Mary's end of the table to talk to Alice about the Auror program, and Lily is yakking to a disinterested Em about the mentioned ambassadorship. The boys, though, don't seem nearly as interested: Remus in particular waves off James's concerned-looking questions, his face pale.

Peter catches Mary's attention as students start rising to find their dormitories, asking, "You're all right, Mary? You haven't said much all evening."

She glances at him, startled, and smiles benignly. "I'm fine, Peter, thanks," she says, even though she's not. "Guess I'm just, like, tired from the train ride."

Something like that, anyway.

They all break apart then—Alice and Remus leave with the prefects, and the rest of them head up to our respective dormitories… well, most of them do, anyway. "Where's Lena?" Mary wonders aloud in the girls' dorm, shutting the hangings on her four-poster and starting to get changed. She hears scuffles at the other end of the dorm, probably the cats. Mary doesn't doubt that Em and Lily bought them together: Lily would never name a cat Aquarius of her own accord.

"She went off with Black somewhere," answers Lily quietly. The news makes Mary uneasy—Merlin knows those two can't be trusted together—but she's still too annoyed with Lene not for telling her about Lily to seek her out, so she just shrugs halfheartedly as she wriggles into her pajama shorts.

Em, she recalls, is reading in the common room, and Alice is discussing prefect duties with Remus, leaving Mary alone with Lily for the first time since she walked in on Mary's Hogwarts Express compartment. A pang of guilt runs down her spine, and she hastily yanks on a nightgown and opens the curtains to talk to her. Lily's sitting on the edge of her own four-poster, fiddling with the lining of her baggy new nightshirt (does that witch own anything that fits her properly?) and looking pointedly down.

Hesitantly, Mary approaches her, and Lily doesn't react when Mary sits down next to her—but then, she doesn't pull back, either. That's a good sign, right? "Look, Lily… I'm sorry about the train earlier." She scoffs, still not looking up at Mary, who sighs—she could probably have sounded more sincere than that when she apologized. "I didn't know whether you were ready to talk about it, so I just, like—"

"Look, Mary, it's fine, I don't care," Lily insists, but Mary doesn't believe her. Who would?

"But I care," Mary retorts, twiddling her thumbs nervously. "I know we've never really gotten on well—" she can tell Lily's holding in an insult here "—but, like, I want to make sure you're all right."

Lily shrugs, looking shiftily at her. "I'm fine," she mutters, scooting backwards on the bed and slipping under the bedspread. "Just, please, go to bed, Mary." Moonshine—Em's Kneazle—curls up atop the covers with her, almost defensively.

Mary wants to say that no one who loses her parents at sixteen can be fine, but she doesn't want to push it after everything else that's happened today. Instead, she sneezes defiantly on Moonshine and then climbs into my own bed—but not before applying liberal amounts of "Sleekeazy's Hair Potion—For Blondes" to her roots.

Chapter Text

September 2nd, 1976: Alice Abbott

Alice guesses you could call her something of a peacemaker, and that'd probably be true. She hates conflict, but even more than that, she hates confrontation: if you don't have anything nice to say, for god's sake, help keep the peace for the people who aren't bitter and miserable, is that so much to ask? However, today isn't about avoidance; it's about making sure that classes are relatively civil, and judging by the awkwardness from yesterday—Marlene and Lily are both cross with Mary, for some reason, and Lily tells Alice she's wanted nothing to do with any of the boys since her parents died, for whatever reasons she has—that could prove to be a bit of a challenge.

Besides, after finding Marlene and Sirius at it again after Alice neglected them for barely ten minutes last night to talk to Remus, it'll take a lot of effort today to make sure Alice doesn't let that happen again. Can you imagine the field day Mary would have if the rest of the school started finding out about them? What kind of a negligent prefect would Alice look like if this got out when she's known about it for so long?

But she digresses. Her WWN alarm radio wakes her up at half past five, since she knows that Marlene is such an early riser, and even exhausted as she is (she hadn't gotten much sleep worrying about her mates last night), Alice hastens to shut it off before anyone else wakes up. Thankfully, no one is a light enough sleeper but Alice to be disturbed by it—that, and setting the volume on its lowest setting and placing the radio in her bed with her might have had something to do with it.

Blearily, she stumbles out of bed (and, unfortunately, on top of Aquarius) and checks inside Marlene's hangings to make sure she hasn't already snuck off to the boys' dormitory; luckily, she's still here and snoring away, which Alice would have been able to hear from her own bed if she weren't so tired. Shaking her head at herself (and nearly falling over in the process), she decides to wait down in the common room, where at least she can turn a light on and busy herself without risking waking up the other girls, particularly Lily—that poor girl more than anyone could use some extra sleep at this point in her life, especially after braving so many rumors yesterday.

To Alice's great surprise, though, the common room isn't deserted; James Potter is already awake and reading, sprawled across a sofa with his glasses askew. "G'morning, Potter," she greets him with a smile, sitting precariously next to him on the sofa once he's had a chance to straighten himself out.

He inclines his head, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Hullo, Abbott," he says in turn, tossing aside his book—a very worn copy of Quidditch Through the Ages, she notices—and blinking. "What're you doing up so early?"

"Waiting for Marlene," she says, sighing and glancing worriedly up at the girls' staircase, as if Marlene's going to sneak down any moment. "And you?"

James hesitates, then says, "Waiting for Sirius." After an awkward pause, they both laugh nervously and exchange a look. "You know about last night, then?"

Alice nods anxiously. "Everyone knows about last night—all of us girls do, anyway. She told Lily after dinner that she was meeting him, apparently; Lily let us know when I came up to the dormitory." She pauses, then adds, "I hope I'm not interfering too much by trying to intercept her. I know it's her business and her bad decision to make, if she wants to make it, but it's hard to just stand by and watch her get hurt."

"I know what you mean," says James. "They're only hurting themselves. Sometimes I feel like an arsehole for not chasing them down and trying to stop them when I know they're alone together, but I guess Sirius has to live his own life. It's harder now that we're in the castle and it's easier for them to get away—he was staying with me all last month, so anywhere he went, I went."

"What was Sirius staying with you for?" asks Alice. She'd heard that Sirius had moved in with the Potters, but Mary hadn't given Alice a clear answer as to why.

"His mum burned him off the family tree… something happened at home, but he won't tell me exactly what."

She nods. "I want to blame him for hurting my friend, but I guess I don't know what's going on in his head or his life, either, to make him choose to be involved with her in their on-and-off way. But it's hard—I know it's not good for her to be around him alone like that so often. It's unhealthy, since they're not in a real relationship. She barely looks at him in public…"

"And yet the whole house seems to know about them, somehow," says James darkly.

Alice tuts, shaking her head. "Anyway, if I can't stop them seeing each other, I figure the least I can do is try to catch Marlene when she's alone before they can track each other down."

"Yeah," says James, "same here, pretty much. Thank god you're already awake, else I might have fallen asleep again the second I came down here," she jokes, rubbing her eyes.

James takes a good look at her and laughs. "You look like you might have."

"Oh, thanks," she says dryly, now tying her hair out of her face. "I'm sorry that I look like such a mess, Potter, but I didn't think anyone else would be awake yet…"

He rolls his eyes, sighing. "Why do all girls apologize for looking awful all the time? For one thing, you look fine, I'm not much better myself—" Alice looks him over; he's gotten dressed, at least, but his robes badly need to be ironed, and his hair is just as sloppy as hers (not that that's out of the ordinary, really) "—and for another, girls don't suddenly turn ugly because they haven't done their hair yet or whatever else. Either you're ugly to begin with, or you're not; whether or not you're wearing makeup doesn't change that."

Alice laughs bitterly, running her fingers through her hair like a comb. "Unfortunately for us girls, most blokes won't agree with you on that count, James, but it would be great if you could spread the word to Marlene and Mary one of these days. God knows they waste far too much money on their looks."

"It's not a waste, Alice, it's an investment," comes Marlene's voice from the stairwell; they turn to see her glaring halfheartedly at the both of them. "Just because you lot are used to seeing me like this…"

"Morning, Marlene," says James, smirking.

She raises an eyebrow at him. "What are the two of you doing up so early, anyway? I would have expected this from you, Jay, but Alice—"

James and Alice swap a look. "Couldn't sleep, so I came down here to wait for someone to wake up a few minutes ago, and James was here already," she says—a half-lie, but Marlene buys it. "What do we have first?"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," James replies, stretching—because McGonagall's morning today will be devoted to figuring internships for the Gryffindor seventh years, scheduling was done last night after dinner. "Should be interesting, yeah?"

"Professor Tonks… it rings a bell," Alice murmurs.

Marlene nods, plopping down on Alice's other side. "Sirius's cousin. She's estranged from the family, too—her husband's Muggle-born. You reckon she wants to keep an eye on him because of last August?"

"It's possible, but we'll have to wait and see in today's lesson," says James.

To both James and Alice's relief, Marlene doesn't try to see Sirius for the rest of the morning; they stay downstairs talking like that for a few hours, until students start trickling in and Marlene and Alice head back up to the dormitory to change. They tell James first that they'll find him again at breakfast, but he's in no mood to talk by the time Alice finds the other sixth year Gryffindors in the Great Hall: Lily is noticeably avoiding him, and he looks too upset by this to make decent conversation. Mary doesn't look especially reconciliatory toward Marlene, either, so Alice guides Marlene carefully over to Lily, shrugging helplessly in Mary's direction (she looks at Alice pleadingly, but Alice just tilts her head toward Em and shrugs again).

It doesn't help matters that the first period of the day is the one class that all nine of them are enrolled in. Scheduling worked out this year so that Gryffindors in Alice's year won't be divided up for any classes—and as such, the first (and only) class of the day is Gryffindor-only, throwing all of them, tensions and all, into one classroom with a relative of one of their number. From the looks of it, Peacemaker Alice will have to work overtime to keep everyone's cool today.

She's the last one to get to class—Marlene forgot her textbook up in the dormitory, and Alice lends her hers and goes back for the book herself, since she can use her prefect title as cover in case she's late. She's not—late, that is, though she barely makes it there with two minutes left—so she doesn't make any excuses as Professor Tonks lazily closes the classroom door with her wand. "You're Alice Abbott, then?" She nods, putting on her most innocent face. "All right—that makes all of you. I'd like to start today with something of a diagnostic assessment of your abilities. I'll have a written test prepared for your next lesson, but for today, I want you to duel one another—only using spells you've practiced in class before, I don't this to end badly, all right?"

Oh, lord. So much for keeping the peace… The boys immediately pair up together: James with Sirius, Peter with Remus. Tonks, though, stops them quickly—and considering that she's related to a Marauder, Alice can't blame her. "Did I tell you to start pairing off yet? There's an odd number of you, so—Sirius, you're with me. As for the rest of you—who are the prefects here? Remus and…?"

Alice raises her hand and steps forth, glancing at Sirius; he's enraged, shooting Tonks the dirtiest of looks he can muster. "I am, Professor."

"Alice, right?" asks Tonks; Alice nods in confirmation. "All right, Alice, I want you with James today. Remus and Peter, I want you separated, too."

Remus in particular blushes at this comment as he approaches Marlene; they don't talk much, but if Alice were him, she'd want to work with someone who earned an Outstanding O.W.L. in the subject, too (and Lily hasn't been too keen on him lately). Lily won't even look at Mary or Peter and pairs up with Em instead, leaving the former two together.

All right, maybe they can survive the next hour and a half without anyone getting hurt… on second thought, Sirius looks like he's about to kill someone, particularly Tonks.

Forcibly pushing Sirius out of her mind (given Tonks's assignments, it's not like she can stop him from doing anything rash), Alice walks up to James and smiles. "You're everywhere today," she remarks as they both bow and raise their wands.

"I could say the same of you," he mutters, grinning, as Tonks calls for silence.

"On three, all right? One—two—three—"

"INCARCEROUS!" bellows James.

Before she knows it, Alice is bound in ropes, unable to move. "Relashio!" she casts—her spellwork is much quieter than his—and in a great burst of smoke, the ropes fall to the floor. "Impedimenta!"

"You're good. I didn't think you were going to get out of it," he comments, sounding a little muffled, since the curse restricted movement in his jaw. "Your wand wasn't even pointed at the ropes…"

"Eh, well, it hit the ropes by my ankles and spread up from there," Alice explains modestly, Vanishing the fragmented ropes while she has a chance before resuming guard. Any second now, the curse should wear off… "Tarantellegra!"

He deflects it instantly, though she'd been expecting that. "LEVICORPUS!"

Even hanging in the air from her ankle, she maintains a steady grip on her wand. "Silencio. Furnunculus!"

Rendered speechless, he's unable to react to the boils sprouting across his skin. She's taken by great surprise, thus, when a Stinging Hex hits her in the chest, followed by the Conjunctivitis Curse—with her nerves temporarily on fire, she's unable to lift her arm and cast the counter-curse to the spell that blurs her vision and makes her unable to see (and attack) James. The one upside: the Stinging Hex knocked her to the ground.

Wandless magic, she realizes. They haven't studied it yet, but then, James is always ahead in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. Assuming (correctly, it turns out) that he's had time to cure the boils, she brainstorms spells as she waits for the hex to wear off, then casts the counter-curse and thinks, Incendio!

He's not the only one who's practiced wandless magic. Alice only feels a twinge of regret in knowing that his skin will blister, first from the boils and now from the flames—he knows the counter-curses, and Madam Pomfrey will have an antidote on hand. Barely before he's back on his feet: Petrificus Totalus.

Without having heard the incantation, he can't cast a Shield Charm or deflect it before he freezes and falls to the ground like stone. James is unable to direct his wand and stop the curse—Alice has won the duel.

With over an hour left in class, she frees him and helps him to his feet, suggesting another round. Tonks is too occupied with Sirius to notice that they've finished; Alice assumes that she'll look each partnership over in a Pensieve or something to that effect after class to assess them all. Alice notices vaguely that nothing comes to a head during class, to her relief—Sirius, though, is showing no respect for his professor, and Alice suspects that Tonks would be in the Hospital Wing within the first quarter-hour of class if she weren't such an experienced duelist. Indeed, when she calls time a few minutes before the bell, she tacks on after (wiping caked blood off her forehead), "And twenty points from Gryffindor for use of illegal spells, Sirius. A word after class?"

To no one's surprise, Sirius doesn't look happy. James is staring at him even more than he is at Lily, an obvious cue for intervention. "You fought brilliantly back there, Potter," Alice compliments him.

He glances at her, as if just noticing that she's in the room, and then flashes her a grin. "Same to you, Abbott," he says in turn, running a hand through his hair. "If anyone asks, though, I won more rounds than you did."

"Just keep telling yourself that," she laughs, hopping onto a desk. "I didn't realize you knew how to perform wandless magic."

"Yeah, well, I didn't know you did," James responds. Since his first nonverbal spell, the rest of their dueling had all been cast in utter silence. "If I hadn't, that would have been really creative on your part—that Silencio you cast, I mean."

She shrugs. "Not creative enough, apparently."

The bell rings, interrupting. Alice groans, glancing at the other girls—Mary is shooting dangerous looks Marlene's way. "If you'll excuse me," Alice says, nodding in Mary's direction; James laughs and lets her go, hanging back to wait for Sirius.

To Alice's great relief, the girls come to an unspoken truce during the free period (which she spends practicing her dueling more with Em) and are talking normally during lunch, as if nothing happened in the first place. James interprets this as a little too good of a sign and tries to approach Lily, and he almost looks to have pulled it off—Lily, at least, seems to have run out of the energy it takes to evade him—but Marlene is especially defensive of her and sees to it that James keeps clear away for the duration of the meal. It's like this for the rest of the day, girls against boys for Lily's sake, and while Alice isn't sure how long this will hold up long-term, she goes to bed that night with a clear conscience, knowing that she's done her part to keep heads from rolling.

There's no such luck the next morning, though. The day starts on a tense note when they fill out applications for what limited internships are still available with McGonagall in the Great Hall; judging by what she says, there are hardly any spots still left, and they leave breakfast low on both food and confidence alike. They aren't all enrolled in Potions, the first class of the day—there are six Gryffindors and four Slytherins, as they find out after walking together to the dungeons. Lily tenses up when she meets Snape's eyes, and judging by the look on James's face, the class won't end well.

Slughorn is delightedly oblivious—and that includes of Lily and Snape's split. "Partner up!" he says merrily, and he looks utterly shocked when Lily shuns Snape and turns immediately to Marlene. Alice partners Remus; though she's seen a lot of James lately, she knows Remus better from prefect duties, and James is bound to work with Sirius anyway (which he does, almost as fast as Lily seeks out Marlene).

Just as soon as he's given the instructions—they're brewing the Draught of Living Death today—Slughorn is quick to make his rounds across the classroom, asking after students' summers and giving out Slug Club invitations to a preliminary "supper" at the end of September. It's the same faces as always, often creating tension between partners: Alice but not Remus, Lily but not Marlene. James and Sirius are both invited, though, as are Snape and Belby (Carrow and Fletcher shoot them jealous looks from their cauldron, Alice notices through the blue steam filling the room).

Remus, at least, has the patience with Slughorn to immerse himself in the potion while Slughorn is talking to Alice; the conversation is a lot more explosive at Lily and Marlene's table. "I hope you had a good summer, then, Lily?" asks Slughorn, his eyes twinkling.

Marlene answers for her; Lily's face starts heating up, and she lets her hair fall over her eyes to hide this as she stirs her draught. "Her parents were killed in a car accident, Professor," Marlene says brusquely.

Slughorn gasps, visibly taken aback. "I'm so sorry to hear—I had no idea—"

Rolling her eyes, Marlene bites, "Yes, yes, she appreciates your condolences and would be happy to come to your party to ease her pain. If you don't mind, we're trying to brew a potion here."

Alice has never been close to Marlene—their personalities are too different, she's always thought—but she's starting to see why Lily's become so loyal to her in the past few months. High marks and prefect badges can't defend you, after all… even if having supportive mates sometimes means losing house points when said mates talk back to professors on your behalf. Lily, though, doesn't look especially grateful when Marlene throws in a bit too much sopophorous juice and blows up their cauldron all over Slughorn's robes.

"Perhaps it isn't the best idea to pair the two of you up," says Slughorn nervously after casting a quick cleaning charm on the surroundings. "I wouldn't want my most talented pupil failing on account of a poorly chosen partnership! No, I think it's best that you work with a student of your caliber… Severus, perhaps?"

They tell him no simultaneously—Lily sounds panicked, Marlene furious. "I'll work with her, Professor," volunteers James after an awkward pause, ignoring Sirius's glares and Lily's groans. "I wouldn't mind changing partners—"

"Well…" Slughorn looks torn, glancing between Lily and Snape.

"I'm sure you know that I earned an Outstanding O.W.L. in Potions, Professor," says James. He glances at Lily, who's looking anywhere but at him (but still seems miffed by this statement). "And Snape is doing just fine without her." Slughorn agrees hesitantly, and James and Marlene trade places—Alice wonders what Marlene and Sirius think about working together, since they usually avoid each other in public.

Class passes quickly from then on—though that may have more to do with Remus and Alice's immersion in their potion than today's social outlook. As soon as they're out in the corridor after the bell rings, James confronts Snape, shooting a Trip Jinx his way to detach him from his Slytherin classmates. "Have anything to say to Lily, Snivellus?" he demands.

"Potter, don't," says Lily softly, her eyes wide, but Snape doesn't spare her a sympathetic glance.

The rest of them lag behind—Remus pulls on Sirius's robes to stop him from joining in. "What, do I owe the Mudblood an apology now?" Snape sneers, whipping out his wand.

"So that's how it's going to be, then?" James says, dangerously calm. "You're not even going to give your former best mate the dignity of calling her a Muggle-born? Since Wednesday, I've been expecting you to try and win her back—not that you deserve her—"

Snape mutters something that spatters blood across James's face, but he hardly even notices, ignoring Lily's increasingly angry pleas to leave Snape alone. "Can't your ego even take one little snub from her before you run crying back to your little Death Eater friends? To you, she's just a—a—"

He can't bring himself to say it; as he stammers, Alice comes to her senses and interrupts before Snape can curse James again. She steps forward, brandishing her own wand. "Ten points from Slytherin for using magic in the corridors, let alone of this nature, Snape. Back to the common room, guys, there's nothing to see here…"

Lily smiles weakly at her as Alice brushes past Snape, dragging a stricken-looking James along with her. After a brief detour to the loo (where Remus heals James's face), they walk up to Gryffindor Tower in silence together and don't bring the fight up to the others, even when Mary raises her eyebrows in the way that suggests she's going to find out about it one way or another.

Alice figures it's be better that Mary find out from them than from the Slytherins, so after several torturous hours of waiting to catch her alone, she pulls her aside during the last class of the day. Neither of them has class—the Gryffindors are divided this period between History of Magic and Divination, neither of which Mary or Alice takes—so with most of the Tower empty, she figure it's the ideal time to mention it. "About earlier," she starts hesitantly after they bid the others goodbye.

Mary glances at Alice, her eyes alight. "What was that? I haven't seen James look that upset in, like, ages."

"He and Snape had a row," Alice explains, lowering her voice so that the seventh years at the other end of the common room don't hear. "He thought it was fishy that Snape wasn't trying to make up with Lily during class… it was fishy, considering how he was begging for her back after O.W.L.s, and he hardly even looked at her today. James confronted him about it, Snape cursed him and called Lily a—well, you know." She fidgets uncomfortably. "Lily looked distraught about the whole thing; I was surprised she didn't start yelling at them both, she's usually not this quiet. At least, not when she's around James… he pushes her buttons, you know?"

Mary nods, pressing her lips together. "There's something funny going on between Lily and the blokes. I'm not sure what, exactly… it's been a long time coming, though, don't you think? She was acting weird around Lupe and Pett when we got together before her sister's wedding, and now, like, with James and Sirius, too…"

"She wasn't even avoiding James later on," Alice confides. "It was like she had given up on getting rid of him… It's different with the others; you can tell she's upset with them, but it's different with James. She's different with James."

There's a pause, then Mary says, "I still think it's because she fancies him."

Alice closes her eyes and laughs. "Even if she does, I don't think it's about that… He was with her when she found out about her parents, wasn't he? He could have done something to upset her."

"Maybe," shrugs Mary, and the subject feels closed—oddly, Mary doesn't seem keen on discussing it.

"What happened between you and the other girls, anyway?" Alice asks while it's still on her mind, leaning forward slightly.

Mary laughs bitterly, relaxing into her armchair. "It was stupid, really—with Marlene, anyway. Apparently, Lily was staying with her uncle after her parents died because her sister wouldn't take her in, and I think Marlene moved out of her parents' house, too… anyway, she didn't tell me this, like, I found it out from some of the Hufflepuffs I was sitting with on the train. She didn't even tell me she'd moved out."

"And Lily?" Alice presses.

Mary blushes. Alice is taken aback; Mary never blushes, since she rarely has any shame. "She, like, might have caught us talking about her a few minutes after that…"

Alice sighs heavily and rests her head in her hands. Mary laughs in response, but it's nervous laughter, not the callous sort that Alice would have expected from her. "Don't stress about it, Mare. She looks to have forgiven you, at any rate."

"Yeah, well," Mary says quietly. "Maybe she shouldn't have done."

xx

A couple hours later, Marlene and Sirius both don't show up to the Great Hall for dinner. Thinking about it, Lily and James would have just been in History of Magic, and Emmeline, Remus, and Peter would have had Divination, which means that Marlene and Sirius were the only ones other than Alice and Mary who had a free period just before. "You think they went off together?" Mary whispers as she's looking wildly up and down the table, just in case she missed them.

"Oh, they definitely went off together," says Alice, drumming her fingers. "I just hope Marlene isn't too messed up by it today."

She has prefect patrols with Remus tonight, and she's not surprised that they eventually find Marlene and Sirius holed up in a broom closet a little ways away from the prefects' bathroom. Alice opens the door, then closes it again after they've broken apart to give them both a minute to situate themselves. She's caught them early enough that the sight of them isn't mentally scarring, thank god, unlike last time, but they're both still flustered enough that Alice gives them a chance to catch their breath.

She feels like a dumbarse. She only left Sirius and Marlene together for a couple of hours, but she knows that it doesn't even take that. Even just one moment is enough for them to go after each other when they're together, if you can call what they have a relationship; it always takes just a moment of the two of them locked up somewhere together before they're bound to find Marlene shut up in a broom closet with a bottle of Firewhiskey and her robes still half undone. She doesn't want to interfere past her bounds, but Alice still has Marlene's best interests in mind, and what's best for Marlene is certainly not Sirius Black.

After a painfully long minute, they come out together, both glaring and furious. "Ten points from Gryffindor from indecent exposure," Alice says, and even though neither was indecently exposed in there (let alone publicly so), they don't object. "Sirius, go with Remus up to the common room, will you?"

They depart, Sirius looking awfully disgruntled, and Alice turns to Marlene with a heavy sigh. "Again, Marlene? It hasn't even been two days."

"I know." She sounds meek and embarrassed, a far cry from her usual, vibrant personality. "It's just—"

"Easy?" She doesn't answer. Alice's harsh expression falls from her face; she's never been good at lectures. "You're worth more than a shag in a broom closet, Marlene," she says honestly, smoothing down Marlene's revealingly tousled hair and smiling back (with relief) when the corners of Marlene's mouth turn up. "Come on, let's get you downstairs to the library—we have a Potions essay on the history of Amortentia to write, remember? And Mary has a new deck of Exploding Snap to test out after we've checked out the books," Alice adds in response to the look on Marlene's face—she may be the studious one, but something tells her that coursework won't do Marlene any favors today.

Alice is usually a peacemaker, but she doesn't back down from a necessary fight… and she tries to pull through as a mate when she's needed, too.

Chapter Text

September 4th, 1976: Lily Evans

By Friday afternoon, Lily was starting to accept that her resolve to keep her head down and James away might not be enough, but that was before she took her friends into account. She came so close to cracking in History of Magic yesterday, cooped up in there with him for an hour and a half straight—but just when she was tired enough to just face him already, Amelia Bones came to her rescue. "Give her space, Potter," she said, pausing in her diligent note-taking to shoot him a warning look, and when she glanced in Lily's direction and saw that her parchment was covered in doodles, she added, "I'll lend you my notes after class, Evans; we can walk down to dinner together."

Amelia Bones, of all people—Lily can already see her sitting on Wizengamot, and she's only sixteen. The Ravenclaw prefect not known for her kindness or leniency went out of her way to support and break rules for a girl she doesn't particularly know or like, and she stayed true to her word, walking Lily all the way to the Great Hall and duplicating three pages of notes with a flick of her wand.

Lily was grateful, but she didn't stay too long to thank her, in case Amelia did any of it out of pity. Whatever her motives, though, it made Lily realize that she doesn't have to do this on her own—and she's willing to bet that Marlene wouldn't mind a mutual favor right about now.

So Lily braves the weekend with a lot more confidence than she had just a few days ago. Breakfast is tricky, since the Gryffindor sixth years usually sit together, but Dirk Cresswell, bless him, asks Alice to eat with him and doesn't mind that she brings two tagalongs to the Ravenclaw table. Mary promises to talk to James with Emmeline, and she doesn't disappoint: by the end of the meal, Lily's not only gone a full hour without discussing any of the boys or the incident, but James does nothing more than look at her when she stops by the Gryffindors to ask Mary and Emmeline whether they're done eating. (They're not but promise to meet Lily up in the girls' dormitory.)

It's a safe haven, the dorm, because even after five years of living in the castle, none of the boys have been able to figure out how to get up their staircase. Lily's still a little embarrassed by what happened between herself and Mary on the train, and she want to know as much as Mary does how word got out that she was staying with Marlene last summer, but it doesn't matter here; it's just the five girls, a cat, and a Kneazle, and that's enough to make them forget the drama.

It hasn't been just the five of them since that day at Alice's, Lily realizes, looking around. There's a sense of déjà vu, almost—Mary's prattling on about how much she's starting to hate Pol Patil, to Alice's meek protests ("But Mare, if you'd just give him a chance and look past his wit…") and Marlene's bitter agreement ("He's such an arse that even Catchlove deserves better"). Emmeline and Lily aren't saying much; Emmeline's nose is buried in a Divination textbook, and Lily's preoccupied with the pets, Moonshine in her lap as she scratches behind Aquarius's ears.

The difference, though, is that Lily doesn't feel entirely out-of-place anymore: she's quiet with disinterest, not discomfort. If only everyone would stop looking at her every few seconds like she's about to break down…

She starts paying attention, if only so that Alice will stop looking so concerned. "Like, you should have heard him on the train. 'Careful not to sound callous, Mary,' this, and, 'Don't be daft, Diggory,' that," Mary's saying. "And he kept putting Greta down like she was inferior, and, like, acting like we're all horrid for wanting a bit of good gossip when he was doing it, too—no offense, Lily," she adds quickly, double a double-take as she looks at Lily, then again after she realizes Lily is actually looking back.

"None taken," Lily says. "Water under the bridge, right?"

"Right," agrees Mary, looking relieved. It bothers Lily more that Mary reminded her of the incident than that she was talking about her—which doesn't mean much to begin with, since Mary talks constantly about everyone, including her closest friends.

Alice hastily brings the conversation back to Pol. "All right, he can be a bit—a bit arrogant at times, but he's an interesting bloke to talk to if he'll give you a chance."

"I still think he's scum," Marlene says dryly. "What did Catchlove think of it?"

"She was… I don't know. You know how she likes to keep everything polite," shrugs Mary. "Ver's pretty nasty herself, too, but she's just, like, vulgar in general—Pol is only a berk if he thinks you're below him. I can't stand him."

Emmeline mutters, "He must have condescended you an awful lot." Mary fidgets, glaring at her.

Lily cuts in to calm things down. "You won't have to put up with him much, Mary. We only have Ancient Runes and Arithmancy with the Ravenclaws this year, and you don't even take Runes."

"Yeah, but, like, he's still in Arithmancy with me," says Mary, crossing her arms. "Who else is taking it? Us, Alice, Lupe…"

"I'll probably work with Amelia Bones; she told me yesterday that she's taking it, too, after History of Magic. Sorry, Mary," Lily apologizes, looking down.

Mary insists that Lily not feel guilty for having a partner before Marlene mentions, "Don't get too concerned, Mary. I heard Davies is enrolling again this year—you can work with her and cuss him out all period. Put in a bad word from me, yeah?"

Brightening, Mary nods. "It's not even until, like, Monday afternoon—there's the whole weekend before that. You all have any plans for today?"

They shake their heads. "You're lucky you don't have to take Potions. Slughorn already assigned an essay due next week," complains Marlene, beating her head against her trunk. They're sitting on the floor, for some reason—well, except Alice, who's lounging on her four-poster in an uncharacteristically casual stance. Marlene continues, "I started it with Sirius last night—oh, don't look at me like that, Lily, it was when you were in History," she says as Lily makes a mock-offended face at her.

"How was History of Magic?" asks Mary, lighting up. "It's just you, James, and Amelia Bones in there, right?"

"Surprisingly all right," Lily admits, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Amelia was brilliant; I didn't have to say a word to Potter, not that I can say the same for him."

Alice dangles her arms over the footboard of her bed. "Lily, why are you avoiding him? Why are you avoiding any of the blokes, for that matter?"

She closes her eyes and scratches Aquarius a little too hard, provoking an indignant meow. "I heard Lupin and Pettigrew, er, saying some stuff about me last July," Lily mutters.

"Two months ago," remarks Emmeline, flipping a page.

"It was bad, what they said," Lily says, sighing. "Not just your run-of-the-mill insults… and Black got in a fight with Potter for standing up for me after Potter told me. A physical fight—because he agreed with the other two, probably."

There's a pause as they all take this in—to the school's knowledge, James and Black have only fought once, during the aftermath of what Lily knows to have been Black's attempted attack on Severus, and that shocked everyone at the time. "And James?" prompts Mary eventually.

"He… was there," Lily says vaguely, waving her hand, half honest. "When I found out—you know." She keeps talking, faster now because she can tell that the girls all want to interrupt, even Emmeline. "He saw me like… and I don't want to talk about it, not with him, not with you—so let it go."

"Let her be," says Marlene sharply, and Lily smiles gratefully at her—she hasn't forgotten what it was like last summer. "Reckon we should get down to the Great Hall? It's almost lunch."

They traipse downstairs together—Lupin tries to wave them over to where the sixth year boys are seated near the hearth, but Marlene pushes the girls along swiftly toward the portrait hole, muttering deterrents under her breath. The other three aren't quite so supportive anymore that Lily's staying away from the boys, judging by their expressions, but no one objects.

After lunch, they part ways: Marlene, Alice, and Lily head to the library to work on the Potions essay, while Mary goes off in search for Reginald Cattermole and Emmeline resumes her Divination studies. The better part of the day has gone by before Marlene finishes, having had a head start yesterday afternoon; Lily shoos her away, insisting, "Go enjoy yourself; I don't need a nanny."

It's nearing curfew by the time Lily's done, a couple of hours after Alice wrapped up and left the library. She's not as satisfied with her research as she should be, but then, since the incident, she hasn't been able to concentrate on much of anything, so that's only to be expected. She's got to pull herself together: she can't afford to let her marks drop, she can't keep copying Amelia Bones's notes forever…

Angry with herself for letting her thoughts stray, Lily packs up and leaves in a hurry. She happens to glance out a window as she flies down the corridors—the moon is well into its first quarter.

That slows her down considerably.

She braces herself to look for James when she reaches the common room, making sure to drag out the walk up to Gryffindor Tower as long as she can. Cowardly though it may be, Lily's not ready to do this—she doesn't want to do this—and she's filled to the brim with anxiety by the time she gives the Fat Lady the password and looks around.

She spots him after only a moment—all eight other Gryffindors are together in a corner of the room. In the instant before she approaches them, Lily is stricken; it's like fifth year all over again, when she was the freak outcast with the Slytherin best mate and they were impenetrably close-knit. Looking at them from the outside, she sees them as the rest of the school does: the hard lines in Macdonald's face as she gossips, Abbott's smugness as she glances down at her prefect's badge every so often, the haughtiness with which McKinnon occasionally surveys the room's other occupants, Vance's disapproval of everyone around her as she makes the occasional disillusioning remark.

As for the boys… Pettigrew's smile is cruel as he laughs at whatever crude joke Black is telling, while Lupin's exasperation is softened by his visible closeness to them both, closeness unattainable by anyone not already in their circle. And James—

He's looking straight back at Lily, his mouth dangling open in surprise. He doesn't feel like the top student, the beloved Chaser, the bloke who tormented her best mate for five years, nor does he seem to want any of it. He's not arrogant; he's just James.

James.

Lily collects herself and briskly approaches him. They no longer intimidate her, even though they're together—it isn't fifth year anymore, and Lily knows now that they're better when you get to know them.

"Potter." They haven't broken eye contact since Lily met his eyes just outside the portrait hole, but none of the others realize she's there until she says his name. "Can I have a quick word?"

"Er—I mean, yeah, Lily, sure." He shrugs, bewildered, at Black and follows Lily's lead, not asking questions when she takes him up to the boys' dorm. The first thing she notices when she opens the door is the stench—then she reminds herself that she doesn't belong here and locks the door behind him to keep herself from looking around. "What's up?"

"The full moon—how soon?"

James freezes, gaping at her, and says after a beat, "Tuesday night. I thought—I thought you wouldn't want to, anymore."

"Are you daft? Do you honestly think I'm going to let you endanger your life just because…" she trails off, not wanting to mention it.

He leans casually against the door. "We've been over this. I'm not in danger, I'm an Ani—"

"An animal, yes. Human Transfiguration, I remember," she says impatiently. "And yet you still came to me covered in blood last July."

James says sheepishly, "That was an, er, isolated incident," and runs a hand through his hair. "Just because what?" It's Lily's turn to hesitate; she presses her lips together and feels her eyes widen. "You have to say it, Lily—just because what?"

She looks down, then darts to the door. "Potter, I can't," she says quickly. "I just—I'll see you on Tuesday night. I'll sleep in the common room; wake me up when you come back with Pettigrew and Black."

"Lily—"

xx

It's the last Lily sees of him for the weekend. She stays in the dorm all day Sunday—she can tell from the look on Mary's face that the rumors are going to fly, but she can't bring herself to care. Let them talk, so long as she doesn't have to see James Potter.

But Lily can't hide forever, and she finds herself staring at him all through Charms on Monday morning. Pettigrew and Mary dropped the class this year, so there's still an odd number of students—but unlike last year, Lily's not the odd one out anymore. Lupin squeezes himself at the same table as Black and James, and Lily partners Alice, since they're both at the top of this class. "I still don't see why you're avoiding him," Alice tells Lily as she flicks her wand. "It can't have been that bad, could it?"

"I told you, I don't want to talk to him yet," Lily says. "Confundo." The spell has no effect on the mouse on her desk—it runs straight through the mini-maze to the cheese, just as it's been doing for the past quarter-hour.

"Judging by the way he's been trying to get your attention all week, he's not embarrassed by it, and you shouldn't be, either," says Alice gently. She casts the charm; her mouse meanders off in the opposite direction of the cheese.

Lily sighs, shooting another look toward James's table—he's conversing with Lupin and Black in low whispers, but he glances at her, and she flushes. "Maybe he doesn't think it's something to get embarrassed about, but I don't need the reminder, all right? I just—need more time."

"Lily, it's been a month and a half; how much more time do you need? Here—try flicking a bit more sharply, that should help." The charm works when Lily takes her advice; why is it that she's failing to perform in one of her best subjects?

Cursing under her breath, she turns to face Alice again. "It's not like I'm putting my life on hold because of it; I just don't want to talk to one person," Lily sighs, exasperated.

"You were perfectly willing to talk to him on Saturday night—" Alice breaks off to reverse and repeat the charm "—after which you locked yourself in the dormitory for a full day and went back to ignoring him."

"I just wanted to ask him about this one thing," she generalizes, copying Alice's motions; to her relief, this time it works.

"What one thing?"

"I—er—" Lily hasn't yet thought this far ahead. "I asked him to start partnering me in Transfiguration this year so that I can maintain an E average."

Alice raises her eyebrows, leaning back in her seat. "You want to pair up with the bloke you're avoiding."

"It's not a big deal," Lily mumbles. "It's just for school—he stopped trying to make conversation in Potions and in History of Magic when he got the hint." She's kicking herself at this point: this means another conversation with James tonight, since Transfiguration is first thing tomorrow morning, to make sure he knows the story, and she doesn't even want to work with him to begin with.

Alice seems skeptical but doesn't ask any further questions, and Lily changes the subject to Alice's friendship with Dirk Cresswell and firmly keeps it there for the rest of class. She finds James again during the free period before lunch, bracing herself with the knowledge that he's not enrolled in her afternoon class, Arithmancy—it's easier today, because he's only with Black when she approaches him. "Potter," she says—lowering her voice because they're in the common room. "I'm partnering you in Transfiguration."

"What? But—Sirius and I always work together in Transfiguration." James looks utterly bemused; Black, surprisingly, is uncomfortably avoiding eye contact.

"Yeah, well, I told Alice that's why I wanted to talk to you yesterday, so unless you want everyone knowing about Lupin's—what do you call it? 'Furry little problem?'" This wins him over, and he nods slowly, staring openly at her.

Lily turns to leave, but Black stops her, reaching out to grab her forearm. "You meant it about helping us when we get back?"

"Just tell me the date every month, and I'll meet you in the common room," she confirms, tensing up—Lily still doesn't trust him after his fight with James.

He looks surprised by this but doesn't voice it, instead saying, "Then thank you. I know from James that you don't approve, and… thanks for everything." He pauses for so long that Lily starts to walk away again, only to hear, "And Evans—for what it's worth, I don't believe you'd ever reduce yourself to Dark Magic, even for your best friend."

This surprises her: what else could he and James have been fighting about? "Then why did you—?"

"Miscommunication with James. I thought he told you—something else. I trust you with this." It's James's turn to look awkward, so Lily doesn't push it—whatever it is, she doesn't want to know. "We'll see you?"

"Yeah—see you," she says, a little rattled, and she nods goodbye to James after a second's thought before departing.

The rest of the day passes unfortunately fast, including Arithmancy—Lily's only academic refuge from Potter. She made the mistake while he was staying at her house this summer—before the incident, that is—of sharing with him what classes she wanted to go on with in sixth year, so that he could take them alongside her (a move she's now regretting). Arithmancy was the only course she was continuing to take that he hadn't taken at the O.W.L. level and so couldn't share with her.

When she reflects on her performance in Arithmancy just before falling asleep, she can't decide whether she concentrated well because she'd come to something of a truce with James or because he hadn't been there.

Tuesday's daybreak gives Lily a rather hollow feeling in her stomach as soon as she remembers what she has to do: partner James in Transfiguration and heal both him and his friends after the full moon. The thought subdues her all through breakfast, and she hears the subsequent rumors on her way to class—Didn't she have a breakdown and shag James Potter in his dorm last Saturday? (She's beyond caring what her classmates think of her by now, but she still has the urge to make a snide remark when she hears this one from Veronica Smethley in the corridors.)

Needless to say, she's in a foul mood when she reaches McGonagall's classroom. Lily throws her books on a table in the middle of the room (a feeble attempt at compromise—she likes the front, James likes the back) and sulks at nothing in particular as the other girls trickle in, occasionally raising her hand in a wave when greeted. The boys come in last, and Lily notices that Lupin is looking paler than ever today before James sets his bag on the desktop next to hers and fumbles through it for his textbook. "Good morning, Lily."

She's not used to the awkward formality from him—where is the James who calls her Red, who flirts and teases inappropriately, who takes her on fake dates to Hogsmeade and tells her he wants to snog her while they're rowing on the stairs? She doesn't voice this, though, just answers with a quick "morning" and moodily drums her fingers on the desk.

If Lily thought that James was starting to get the hint not to talk to her, she was wrong. "Sleep well?" he asks, pulling his chair a little closer to hers.

She edges away. "Fine," she says—he doesn't need to know that she's afraid to go off the Dreamless Sleep Potion that she filled her summer buying from the Apothecary at Diagon Alley, or that Madam Pomfrey refuses to replenish her supply when she runs out a fortnight from now. "Ready for tonight?" she adds, quieter.

"Are you?" he says instead of answering. The conversation (if you can call it that) cuts off there as McGonagall arrives, closing the door with a snap and sweeping up to the front of the room.

"Open your textbooks to the chapter on Geminio, the Duplicating Spell…"

Lily takes diligent notes, determined to succeed with flying colors; the last thing she needs is to struggle to catch up in Transfiguration when she already needs extra practice in Charms and a long study session for History of Magic. After a half-hour of lecture, they try to replicate small objects—to Lily's short-lived delight, it only takes her ten minutes to get it right—then small animals, which poses more of a problem. James creates a perfect clone of his tortoise within minutes, while Lily's copies all seem to be missing shells. She doesn't have to ask him for help; he gives it unprompted. "Show me again," he says after another failed attempt, leaning in.

She swishes her wand gently upward before jabbing it sharply to the left, then down at the tortoise. "Geminio," she enunciates, only to produce another tortoise with no shell.

He pauses for thought as she Vanishes the clone, wringing her hands. "Your pronunciation is perfect," he compliments first, flashing her a small smile. "But try drawing out your swish a little longer, and aim for a smaller angle between your last two jabs—curve the flick to the left and down a bit in the middle."

She takes his advice—the shell dwarfs the tortoise itself. "Not that big of a curve," James laughs. He walks behind Lily and leans over her shoulder, grabbing her wand hand and tracing the motion through. "Geminio—like that."

After a moment of letting him linger over her, Lily pulls her hand out of his grasp and inches forward, enough that she can't feel his hot breath on her neck. "Thanks," she says, and when she casts it again, the resulting tortoise's shell fits just right.

"Practice that a few more times, just like that," advises James. "You're a fast learner, Lily."

"You're a good teacher," she mumbles, tripping over her words, and she's not entirely sure that he hears her.

The rest of the hour she spends conjuring and Vanishing tortoises and ignoring all of James's awkward stabs at conversation. Just when she think he's given it up—there's been a pause for at least five minutes—he says softly, "Just talk to me, Lily—about anything."

But the bell rings; she packs up and rejoins the girls without so much as a goodbye in his direction.

She spends the rest of the day fretting over the boys' health and trying not to show it. Emmeline is the only one to sense that something's wrong—and Marlene looks to have recognized Lily's subdued mood, but after living with her all summer, she knows not to acknowledge it. Either way, it's Emmeline who approaches Lily about it while she's studying in the common room after curfew; most of the students have gone up to bed, and it's just them and a few second years left.

She says calmly, thumbing through The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six, "I had a funny chat with Margaret the other month."

Lily stops in the act of dipping her quill in ink. "Maggie?" Emmeline merely nods, saying nothing more. "Don't you dare repeat—"

"Oh, I won't," she assures Lily, laughing to herself. "But Margaret already did. Not all the details, of course, just that it was a car crash and that Marlene's uncle is now your legal guardian until you're of age, but I know you were—"

"Don't," Lily says firmly and resumes outlining the section on the Duplicating Spell in her Guide to Advanced Transfiguration with sloppier handwriting than before, if that's possible. Emmeline gives her a pensive look, then packs up her things, bids Lily goodnight, and heads up to the dorm; Lily shoots the spying second years a withering look and then reclines in her armchair, wearily closing her eyes.

At least she's learned who's responsible for the loss of privacy. Maggie McKinnon… she should have known…

Lily doesn't realize she's falling asleep until she's being prodded awake. Blearily, she sits up in the armchair and sees Pettigrew's face materialize in front of her, then sighs with relief—on his face and hands, at least, there isn't any blood. "She's awake," he says, a little more high-pitched than is normal for him, over his shoulder. "It's not that bad today; Sirius got a little banged up…"

"All right, let me see," Lily says groggily, reaching for her wand. A hand on her wrist stops her, though—it's James, smiling the first real smile he's directed toward her in a while.

"We should go up to the dorm first," he murmurs, tossing her something fluid feeling and silver. "Here—my Invisibility Cloak. Wear it up and down the stairs, just in case."

She fingers the silky fabric, then throws it over her head—nothing looks different, but then, she's the one under the Cloak. She follows them up the staircase and into their dormitory, shaking off the Cloak and crossing to the beds as James lights a few of the lamps. "Show me," Lily instructs Black again, sitting next to him on what she can only assume is his bed and blushing a bit as he strips down to his boxers.

Aside from the scars—she's reminded of her promise to James to reopen and properly heal them for all three boys—and a few minor cuts that a simple Episkey can fix, there are just two long gashes, one that zigzags across his stomach and another running along his inner thigh. "Open your knees," Lily tells him frankly, pulling out her wand (and whacking him lightly across the head with it because of the look on his face).

It only takes a few minutes: check for internal bleeding, stitch up the skin, press against the wound to ensure that it's healed properly, then repeat for his abdomen. Lily works in silence—James and Pettigrew retreat to what she can only assume are their respective beds—until Black hisses when she opens up a lengthy scar on his back. "I thought you were healing me, Evans, not cutting me open."

"Shut it, Black, I know that didn't hurt—I thought Potter told you, I'm opening back up all the wounds you three closed yourselves and healing you properly. Judging by the looks of your scars, they're at least a little uncomfortable," she tells him. "At least you had the sense to let the small ones heal on their own, from the looks of it. Episkey."

"Don't!" She glances up at him, startled. "I mean—leave the rest."

She hesitates for a minute, then asks with genuine confusion, "Why?"

Black blushes—Lily thought she'd never see the day—and Pettigrew answers for him with a snigger, "He thinks they make him look rugged."

"Rugged," she repeats, staring at Black with her mouth hanging open. "Rugged."

"I never—I didn't—it's my bloody body, Evans, stop violating me!" he cries, swatting Lily away as she points her wand at another scar.

She can't help but laugh by now as even his neck reddens, and she crosses to Pettigrew's bed (shielding her eyes as Black shamelessly drops his boxers and starts changing into pajamas). "Pettigrew, please tell me you're not fool enough to want to look rugged," Lily says dryly, and he just shakes his head, grinning, and takes off his own robes. She starts opening his cuts up and fails to suppress another blush—Lily can only take so many bare male torsos at a time.

It takes longer than she had expected to rid him of scars, and Lily realizes more with every Healing Charm she casts just how much they're all willing to do for their mate. She's still carrying a grudge against Lupin by the time she heads to James's bed, but even so, he's starting to look like a pretty good bloke if he's worth so many wounds.

James has already taken off his robes when Lily gets to his bed (she's not sure how much longer she can take this before her face physically starts to burn). She's done this with him before, so it's with some fluid familiarity that Lily runs her hands across his chest, back, and thighs, where most of the scarring resides. "You have nice hands," he tells her drowsily as she presses her hands against a newly smooth stretch of skin. "Don't know why you ever got interested in politics."

"I'm hoping that was a platonic compliment," she says severely, "but thank you. Episkey—I think that's it."

James sits back up and stretches, and Lily stands to go—only to be pulled into his lap and tightly embraced. She tries to wriggle away, but he murmurs in her ear, "Lily—we need to talk. Muffliato."

Even though the conversation is now private, she keeps trying to make it out of his arms. "Now?"

He reaches out to draw the hangings around them, and with the lamplight falling low in the room, they're almost—almost—thrown into darkness. "Yes. Ever since your parents—"

It's just thrown on her—the incident, all over again in spirit, right when she was starting to almost forget (because she hasn't been able to fully forget, not really)—and all of a sudden, she can't take it anymore. "You were fighting with Mum!" she breathes, even as she gives up and relaxes against him. "You were picking rows with someone you didn't even know and ought to have respected—"

"I don't respect people who put others down, especially you, Lily," James says earnestly, his own breathing shallow.

It's a little ironic, since he's always so eager to put Severus down—but then, now that she's not bound to him, she's a little less sympathetic to her ex-best. "Will you stop saying that?" she spits.

He blinks. "Saying what?"

"Will you stop saying my bloody name!?"

James is taken aback, but he recovers quickly. "Red, I didn't kill your mum, if that's what you've been thinking."

At least he's calling her Red again. "Because of you, she was on bad terms with me," she says weakly, burying her face in his bare chest so she won't have to face him. (She tries not to remember that she's in his bed after hours and he's half-naked.) "And I can't ever fix that. The last time I saw her, she was cross with me, and—"

He squeezes Lily's middle, pulling her closer. "The last time we saw her, she was cross with me, Red, not you," he implores. "I know you're going through hell right now—"

"Look, Potter, I don't want to talk about it, and I don't need your sympathy," she says, her voice muffled.

Something in her wants to take it back now that she's actually said it, but it's too late for that now, anyway. "It's not sympathy, it's—I thought we were getting to be mates, and then—"

"If you were my mate, I wouldn't have cut you off for a month and a half," Lily snaps. The effect is lost a little since she's wrapped up in his arms.

"Lily, you were crying in my arms for hours," he says slowly, and Lily struggles not to fight him on this—it has to come out sooner or later, she supposes. "You wouldn't even let me Floo to the Ministry to figure out your custody; I had to call Marlene to ask her to. It's lucky her uncle said he'd take you in, because a family that didn't know you would have had a coronary after you—"

Lily interrupts, because she doesn't think she can stand to hear it just yet. "I know, Potter," she mumbles, "I know."

They just sit for a while, James rocking her back and forth and running his fingers through her hair. "You can sleep here tonight, if you'd like," he proposes. She tilts her face up to look at him, and he smiles, brushing away a few red strands stuck to her face. "Remus's bed is empty, anyway; you can take it. Or I can, if you don't want to get up—"

"No, I—I have to get back to the dorm," Lily says quickly, not meeting his eyes. He tilts her chin up so she looks at him again, and she sighs and mumbles, "I, er, have to take my Dreamless Sleep Potion before I go to bed."

He gapes at her for a moment. "You're on Dreamless Sleep Potion? Did Madam Pomfrey approve that?" He can tell from her lack of a response what the answer is. "But Lily, you don't even need it—you were sleeping without it in the common room, weren't you?"

"But I wasn't really sleeping, I was more dozing," she protests meekly, resting her head on his chest again.

James isn't having any of it. "I know how hard this is for you, but it's been almost two months—you have to come off of it sometime, preferably sooner than later. So which bed do you want, his or mine?"

"Yours," Lily says against her better judgment, because unlike with Lupin, she knows James well enough that it doesn't feel wrong. He just nods and scoots out from under her, pulling out the covers and wrapping them around her. "I'm not five, Potter, you don't have to tuck me in at night," Lily scolds him gently, mostly to distract herself.

James smiles and hovers over her for a long moment. His breath tickles her nose and cheeks, reminding her of Transfiguration earlier today. "Mates?"

"Mates." She flushes scarlet but nods, ever so slowly, and all Lily can think about is how his pillows smell like every time he's ever rumpled up his hair and why doesn't it bother her anymore?

His smile widening, he leans in to press his warm forehead against hers, glasses nearly falling off his nose, close enough to—

And then he's gone, casting the countercharm to his earlier Muffliato and hopping into Lupin's four-poster.

Chapter Text

September 8th, 1976: Sirius Black

Sirius wakes up to sunlight filtering in through the windows and soft whimpers coming from Prongs's bed. He frowns for a second—Prongs isn't pansy enough to whimper, he's a snorer—but then Sirius realizes he can hear Prongs's snores, too. He glances over to the four-poster next to his; Wormtail's fast asleep, drooling a bit on the pillow, and Sirius is startled upright. They didn't.

He bolts out of bed and rips open the curtains over Prongs's bed, only to find Evans fast asleep and crying out softly, no Prongs in sight. Taking a page out of Prongs's book from last night—does he think they can't realize when they're being hexed? Sirius and Wormtail aren't that thick—he casts Muffliato so she won't wake anyone else up and draws the hangings again, climbing onto the bed and shaking her shoulder. "Wake up, Evans, it's just a dream," he tells her gruffly—he's never been good with crying girls.

Her eyes shoot open; the whimpers cease. "Black?" she mumbles, sinking lower beneath her covers. "What are you—where—"

"You spent the night in James's bed, apparently," he says, shrugging and moving to the foot of the bed. "You must not have gone back to your dorm at all; you're still in your robes from last night."

"Why do you boys always catch me at my most unattractive moments?" Evans sighs, pulling the blankets fully over her head. "What time is it?"

Sirius grabs Prongs's watch off his nightstand and fiddles with it. "A little after seven. Bloody hell, Evans, you don't take long to go into R.E.M. sleep, do you? We came up here after six, and then you patched us all up and talked to James after, too…" He only implies that he heard her nightmare, too uncomfortable to state it outright.

Evans ignores the hint. "It's after seven already?" she says, shooting upright and swiping her matted hair out of her face. "The girls are going to know I'm missing… I was going to sneak back down to the common room, but Marlene, at least, will already be up and know I'm not there."

He thinks quickly, tossing the watch aside again. "It's Herbology today—you're not enrolled, right?" She shakes her head. "All right, then… may I break your nose?"

"Excuse me?" Evans gapes openly at him, shaking off the covers.

"Or your arm or ankle—it doesn't matter, really," Sirius shrugs. Since she still looks baffled, he continues, "It'll give you an excuse to go to the Hospital Wing—you can say you spent the night there. I'm headed there to see Remus already; you can come with."

She yawns and pulls herself to her feet, stretching. "As much as I appreciate your creativity, Black, I'd rather not injure myself for an excuse—besides, Madam Pomfrey can heal broken bones in minutes, she wouldn't keep me overnight for observation. Emmeline already knows I was up late in the common room; I'll say I couldn't sleep longer than a few hours and snuck down to the library to do research for Arithmancy."

"Suit yourself," Sirius says, "but you might want to sneak out with the Cloak in case you run into anyone on the way down from the Tower. D'you still want to meet me in the Hospital Wing during class? I'll be in there all day—Peter's going to join me during Ancient Runes, too."

"I shouldn't; the girls will wonder where I am," she declines, shaking her head. "Tell him… just tell him to get well from me," Evans adds after a pause, tensing.

It takes him a minute to catch on. "He doesn't think—he and Peter don't think you're into Dark Magic, Evans," he says softly. "They just—with you talking to Snape and all, they didn't want—"

"I don't talk to Severus," she says sharply, "not anymore. If you'll excuse me, I should go take a bath before breakfast." She brushes past him, opening the hangings and draping the Invisibility Cloak over herself; Sirius sees the door creak open and closed a second later.

"Girls," he scowls to no one in particular. He casts the countercharm for Muffliato and find Prongs and Wormtail still asleep; they both look dead tired—all of them are dead tired—but Sirius knows it'll look suspicious if they miss Herbology. With gruff resignation, he goes first to Wormtail's bed and then to Prongs in Moony's, tempting them with breakfast to get them out of bed.

They sit with the girls as usual when they enter the Great Hall half an hour later. "Good morning," says Evans quietly, looking at them each in turn—Alice and Mary in particular look startled by this, but the boys just nod and greet her in a casual rush.

"Lupe in the Hospital Wing again?" presumes Marlene, passing a box of Common Welsh Greens cereal down to Evans. Sirius lets Prongs confirm this, heaping pancakes onto his plate and drowning them in syrup—he'll need the energy, after what little sleep he got last night.

"Poor Remus," muses Alice (though not until she's carefully swallowed her dainty bite of omelet). "He must have an awful immune system, or a horribly debilitating disease… I wouldn't know which; he's always so reluctant to talk about it."

Wormtail says smoothly, "He'll be okay. He's not terminally ill or anything; he's got more good days than bad ones."

"I hope so," Alice continues, shaking her head. "Maybe it's some kind of an immunodeficiency?" She stops to take another bite of her omelet, and Prongs capitalizes on the opportunity to change the subject.

"Herbology first today; anyone have a free period?" Sirius gathers from the replies that Emmeline and (of course) Evans also dropped the class this year. Nothing follows from the conversation, though: Sirius and Evans both know they shouldn't publicly agree to spend time together today, and Emmeline doesn't much like Sirius to begin with, not anymore.

Sirius walks Prongs and Wormtail down to the greenhouses, then turns straight around and bolts to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey tuts at him for mucking up her floors and disturbing the peace, but she doesn't object when Sirius steps inside the only drawn hangings in the room and perches on the edge of Moony's bed. He's awake but drowsy, without a scar in sight—his recoveries have been much easier now that the Marauders have started spending the full moon with him. "Hullo, Padfoot," he says mildly. "How do you feel?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Sirius says, smiling. He reclines onto the cot next to Moony, propping his elbow up on the pillow and resting his head in his hand. "Aren't you tired?"

"Madam Pomfrey woke me up to check my wounds fifteen minutes ago; I haven't been able to fall back asleep since then." Moony rolls onto his back to look up at Sirius properly. "What time did you go up to the dorm?"

"Around six," Sirius says, lowering his voice, "but we were awake for a while after that. Evans took care of the scrapes we got and redid some of the earlier cuts we healed ourselves—for Wormtail and Prongs, at least, she did. She says hullo."

Moony rolls his eyes and trails a finger along a scar on Sirius's forearm. "I'll have to thank her for that later, if she's willing to talk to me, anyway. You wouldn't let her fix yours?"

Sirius intertwines the fingers of his free hand in Moony's to stop the motion—it tickles. "Remember what Marlene said about how they make me look—"

"Rugged, yes, I remember," Moony says, half laughing and squeezing Sirius's hand. He sobers up, though, and adds in earnest, "You've got to stop sleeping with her, Padfoot."

"But Moony—"

"No buts," he says over him, even though his voice is soft and cracking with fatigue. "It's not fair to her, and you deserve more than just a physical relationship—"

Sirius sighs. "I don't want to court her, or anyone else, for that matter, Moony. I save my feelings and shit for the Marauders—"

"Language, Padfoot."

Sirius disobeys with an even more vulgar swear word (Moony shakes his head like he's never seen anything like Sirius before). "I put my trust in my mates, not in some girl who gets all giggly and lightheaded when she's around me."

Moony counters, "Marlene McKinnon is neither giggly nor lightheaded, you know that." Sirius doesn't refute it, but he doesn't cave in, either. "One of us has got to get a proper girlfriend one of these days, Padfoot; I think Slughorn's starting to seriously believe we're gay."

"He wouldn't—do you know how many points I've lost in that class for flirting with Mary? Or for trying to flirt with Alice?"

He shrugs. "It might just look like friendly teasing to him. It's bad enough that you and Prongs bring me and Wormtail as your dates to every Slub Club party—"

"However much I'd love to see the look on Mary's face if I invited her—" Moony glares at Sirius and mumbles something about Marlene again "—I'm not going to let him just bring two of us and leave the other two behind. Alice will probably be going with Cresswell, so unless you can somehow convince Evans to take you—no, I didn't think so. While we're on the subject, would you care to be my date at the next party? It's next weekend—the Saturday, I want to say."

Reluctantly, Moony nods, smiling shyly—no matter how close they all are, he's always a little surprised (maybe even embarrassed) when any of the Marauders do something nice for him, the werewolf. "You should go back to the dorm and get some sleep. I'll be fine here, I swear."

"I'll get some sleep if you insist, but I'm not leaving you," Sirius says stubbornly. "Budge up."

"There you go again, making me look gay," mutters Moony, scooting to the very edge of the cot—Sirius realizes he's still holding his hand and lets it go as he lies down atop the sheets, flat on his back. "And you wonder why it's been so long since my last kiss."

"But Moony, you haven't even had your first kiss yet," Sirius reminds him, laughing.

He gives a huge yawn but still manages to snap, "Shut it."

Sirius shoves his shoulder playfully and falls asleep for the second time this morning within seconds.

Madam Pomfrey wakes them up what feels like a second later, looking scandalized. "I want to check on how your wounds are healing up again, Lupin," she says, then adds, looking disgruntled, "And you have a few more visitors who want to see you. Get out of my patient's bed, Black, save it for the privacy of your own dormitory."

Told you, Moony mouths at him as Sirius clambers into a sitting position and frees up some room for Moony to lie flat. Sirius glances behind Madam Pomfrey to see Wormtail and Prongs squeezing their way under the curtains—and, surprisingly, Evans, already in a chair and looking rather embarrassed to be here. "Shut it, Remus—I thought you didn't want to come up here, Evans."

"I should get going soon," she says hesitantly, "the girls are going to wonder where I got off to now that Herbology's out… it was just me and Emmeline, though, and she's not much for company. Didn't even ask where I was going when I left. Lupin—I mean, Remus—I—"

"And yet I'm still 'Potter' to you," remarks Prongs, looking mock put out. (Wormtail laughs, as if on cue, and Prongs rounds on him with a glare.)

"Look, Lily," sighs Moony, pulling down the sheets for Madam Pomfrey, "thank you for accepting—my condition—and everything." He glances every-so-slightly at Prongs, Wormtail, and Sirius in turn, since he can't specify "everything" in Madam Pomfrey's presence (or Evans's, even). "And about what I said earlier—"

Evans tucks her hair behind her ear, shaking her head a few times. "Don't worry about it, Lupin, all right? You, too, Pettigrew," she says quickly; she and Wormtail share a look, her blushing, him grinning.

"Now that we've filled the sap quota for the day," Sirius says briskly, breaking off the cozy looks. "Anyone up for a round of Exploding Snap?"

Madam Pomfrey scolds on her way out from under the hangings, "This is a Hospital Wing, Black—no explosives allowed. I'll be back with your lunch at noon, Lupin."

"So tell me what's new," says Moony after Madam Pomfrey's retreated to her office. "Quidditch tryouts are this weekend, right?"

"Gid says he's having them Friday night," says Prongs, nodding. "Should be an exciting day—we're finding out about the internships after lunch then, too."

Moony's face falls as Prongs realizes his mistake. Wormtail says quickly, "Don't worry about it, Remus, I'm sure we'll all get one—"

Moony shakes his head, his face falling. "I doubt it. Employers never want to hire werewolves…"

"That's ridiculous," Evans says firmly, her knuckles whitening. "It's just a daytime thing—your lycanthropy won't even be an issue on the job."

"Shouldn't, but will," mutters Moony, closing his eyes.

There's a beat, briefly. "You should get back to sleep," Evans decides, leaning down to rummage through her back. "Potter, I have your Invisibility Cloak still; we should wear it on the way out."

"It's not a crime to be seen in the Hospital Wing," Prongs points out, but he catches the Cloak all the same when Evans tosses it to him.

"I'm staying. We're not leaving Remus alone here," Sirius insists as Prongs tucks the Cloak in his robe pocket and turns to go.

Moony starts to claim that it's not necessary, but Wormtail talks over him: "You've already been here all morning, Sirius. I'll stay."

"No, you won't," says, unexpectedly, Evans. "All four of you could use a bit of rest before lunch—sooner or later, it's going to start looking suspicious when you're all exhausted every morning after Lu—Remus—ends up in the Hospital Wing, and besides, when are you ever separated? I will stay here; if anyone asks, I'll just say I've been helping out Madam Pomfrey. Tell that to the other girls for me, will you?"

"She has a point," says Moony fairly, blushing pink again.

Reluctantly, Sirius gets up, trying not to watch as Prongs stares at Evans with something tantamount to awe. "Thanks, Evans," Sirius says in a jumble before stepping outside the canopy with Wormtail—Prongs hangs back for a moment, and Sirius catches an indistinct murmur of banter—flirting from him, teasing rejection from her.

Neither Sirius nor Wormtail mentions this, though, when Prongs emerges, pulling the Invisibility Cloak from his pocket. "Pomfrey's not looking? All right, get under, quickly…"

After a much-needed nap and lunch, Sirius and Wormtail trade places with Evans, who's sporting a cautious sort of smile when Prongs accompanies her out. Moony's mostly asleep for the rest of the day, but they don't leave his bedside until dinner, and then only at Prongs's urging.

As expected, the girls are more curious than is safe for Moony. "Where've you been all day?" pries Mary through a mouthful of stew. "You two were acting odd in Herbology… and, like…"

Wormtail and Prongs exchange a look. "Long night," says Prongs as offhandedly as he can. "McGonagall's essay, you know. Lily asked for our help with it."

This, apparently, is the wrong thing to say, judging by the look on Marlene's face. "Any of you trying out for Quidditch tomorrow?" Sirius says smoothly, piling mashed potatoes onto my plate. "We'd be honored to have one of you lovely ladies on the team with us."

Evans chokes into her pumpkin juice, attracting Marlene's attention. "You know, Lily, you should go for Beater," she says, smiling. "You were brilliant for a beginner at that game last June."

"I don't think so," Lily says unsurely, coughing into a napkin. "Quidditch isn't really my thing."

"To each her own," replies Alice, though Marlene isn't quite so content with Evans's decision. "I'm sure you'll both make the team again, Potter, Black—you play brilliantly."

Wormtail nods his excited agreement, Sirius thanks her melodramatically—and Prongs blushes and mumbles something incoherent. If you ask Sirius, Prongs needs to hang around Evans less.

They all leave the Great Hall together—Madam Pomfrey's kicked them out of the Hospital Wing for the day, claiming that Moony needs his rest more than he needs his mates, and they can't do much about her verdict. Mary's saying something about Veronica Smethley's hopeless adoration of Gilderoy Lockhart when he crosses their path, flanked by three other Slytherins, and stops dead. "Sirius—"

"Save it," Sirius says bitterly, shoving past him. "Don't you have your little Death Eater friends to suck up to now?"

"But I don't want—"

Marlene starts to say something that Sirius point-blank ignores. "Should have thought about that before you started talking with them about joining up, shouldn't you have?"

Sirius whirls around and stares him down—the other Slytherins are cracking their knuckles, but he puts a hand out to stop them, his jaw working wordlessly. Finally, he manages, "She burned you off the tapestry, you know. Just like Professor Tonks—"

"Can't even call her Andy anymore? Your own cousin?" Sirius snarls. "You continue to disgust me. Let's go." The other Gryffindors don't speak, don't even move. "I said let's go! Bugger off!" he bellows at the gathering bystanders.

The walk back is as tense as after Prongs confronted Snivellus last Thursday, except instead of subdued silence, the girls impose forced conversation. "Don't even think about him, Sirius," Mary advises him as they reach the Fat Lady. "Take it out on Slytherin in general—like in Quidditch, maybe. You're trying for the house team again, right? We could use the win, since, like, Slytherin came in second in last year's—"

"Christ, Macdonald, do you every shut up? Or are you too thick to take a hint?" Sirius spits, shoving past Wormtail on his way through the portrait hole.

Mary recoils but doesn't respond; Alice starts to defend her (by taking off house points, no doubt), but it's Marlene who really rounds on him. "Leave Mare out of it! Just because you ran away from home—"

"Like you didn't do the same thing," Sirius mutters, fuming.

"Too afraid to say it to my face?" yells Marlene, stepping closer. "Speak up, why don't you? Own up to your—"

"I SAID LIKE YOU DIDN'T DO THE SAME THING!" Sirius explodes, his voice raspy.

"Break it up!" demands Alice—she's angry, angrier than Sirius would have thought possible from her—but neither of them pays her any mind.

Marlene lifts herself to her full height—she hadn't been expecting this reaction, from the looks of it, but it doesn't deter her. "All right, you want the whole house to hear about it, fine! I ran away from home last July because bloody Mum doesn't think I'm important enough for her to take custody of my orphaned mate, and Maggie went and told everyone because I'm not enough of a sister to her! And it sucks, but you don't see me taking it out on everyone, do you?"

"Right, because this conversation doesn't have anything to do with you."

"What it has to do with is that you can't treat my mates like shit just because you think it's all right to shag and drop—"

"ENOUGH!" roars Alice. They're startled into silence—Alice Abbott never gets angry. "Black, lay off her! Marlene, calm down."

Marlene says viciously, raising her voice, "Does it look like we're talking to you?" Sirius glances around and realizes belatedly that the entire common room is staring at them—so much for privacy.

Evans, looking shaken, ushers Marlene up to the girls' dormitory; Prongs and Wormtail, in turn, steer Sirius up to theirs. "What was that all about, Padfoot?"

"I loathe all of them," he seethes, crossing his arms moodily. "Why did he have to join them? Why did Andy have to come here, anyway? I don't need a babysitter—"

"If that's how it's going to be every time you run into Regulus, you might," says Wormtail quietly. "Maybe you should talk to him—"

"That makes perfect sense, since we're estranged now and all," Sirius mutters, picking at his bedspread.

They exchange a look; then Prongs says, "Just use the mirror when you're ready." Sirius doesn't say goodbye when they leave.

He's sure it's one of them again when the door opens next, so he's shocked to see Marlene swiftly locking the door and approaching his four-poster. She settles into his arms, somehow still rigid. "I miss you," she mumbles, abashed—apologetic.

"I miss Remus," he says, avoiding the subject, avoiding the look in her eyes. "Why does he have to be so bloody ill all the time?"

She stiffens even more. "You're an arse."

"I know it."

And then Sirius is shoving her beneath him and kissing her and hoping she can hear his steady tattoo of apologies against her mouth: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—

xx

After last class, Andy's contempt during Thursday's class is tangible. While taking roll, she won't say Sirius's name; when she asks him where Moony is, it's with venom in her voice and a distinct frown. As he starts scrawling out answers, the last thing he feels is her glare before she dives headfirst into a borrowed Pensieve to assess last week's duels.

Right then and there, Sirius can tell the week's not going to end well. Potions the next morning doesn't go much better: Slughorn gleefully informs them that last week's partners will be permanent for the rest of the year, landing Sirius with Marlene bloody McKinnon to deal with instead of Prongs. The way she keeps looking over at him when she should be watching the cauldron almost makes him want to break it off, just to be rid of her mood swings—almost.

His mood improves a little when Moony comes out of the Hospital Wing during the free period, but Moony's usual optimism is dampened when he doesn't get an internship—and neither does Sirius. "My bloody dad, I'll bet anything," Sirius hisses as he reads through his rejection letter. "The Ministry's right in the Blacks' pockets…"

The other Gryffindors' moods are equally lukewarm as they read through their results. "Tough luck, Sirius, Remus," says Prongs bracingly, skimming a rather thick information packet. "Why the hell did they put me in Accidents and Catastrophes? I signed up for Games and Sports!"

"The Department of Magical Games and Sports had the most applicants, after the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," says Alice, flipping through the pages of her own packet. "I'm so excited—I made the Auror program!"

"That's wonderful, Alice—did you get in, Marlene?" asks Evans, glancing between the two girls. Marlene nods yes and leans in to ask Alice about the program rigor.

Emmeline tosses her rejection letter into her pumpkin juice and slips Wormtail's letter out of his hands—he's too afraid to open it. Neatly slitting open the envelope, she reads the first lines of his packet silently and hands it back to him, saying, "Congratulations—Department of Magical Games and Sports. You'll be helping to set up the 1978 Quidditch World Cup."

Prongs stabs moodily at his pork chops. "I'm supposed to report to some junior minister, Cornelius Fudge—what kind of a name is Fudge, anyway? He heads the bloody Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee, for god's sake!" Mary tries and fails to comfort him, as she's more preoccupied with her acceptance not into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures but the Department of Magical Transportation.

"What's yours in, Lily?" asks Moony politely. He's handling the news awfully well; though he's obviously disappointed, he hasn't complained since initially finding out.

"Oh—I got into International Magical Cooperation," she replies, smiling. "I'm shadowing a junior ambassador to France."

"If you run into any of my distant cousins, tell them I say hullo," Sirius says moodily. Evans winces.

The girls are still mad at him for Wednesday, he assumes from the dirty looks they occasionally give him throughout the day. He doesn't much care—he still has the Marauders, and Marlene forces the girls not to be hostile—but he's still startled by Alice's outburst. Whatever happened to the peacemaking prefect who keeps everyone in line—never crosses the line herself?

"She's mad on McKinnon's behalf, mate," says Prongs wisely when Sirius brings it up on the way to the Quidditch pitch for tryouts. "Girls are like that—they all stand up for each other. Screaming your brains out at her in front of half of Gryffindor House is going to rile her a little."

"I know, but this is Abbott we're talking about," Sirius says, gesturing wildly. "Whenever she catches us shagging, she just docks points and separates us, and that's the end of it…"

"You weren't shagging, you were rowing—nastily, too. I think she's right, Padfoot; you don't really—I mean, you and McKinnon shouldn't treat each other like—" Words fail him, so he just clutches his Nimbus 1001 and sighs emphatically. (Sirius glares at his inferior Cleansweep Four—that's all you get when you're a Black Sorted into Gryffindor.)

He snaps, "Don't tell me how to treat my girlfriend, Prongs."

"Technically, what you do with her doesn't make her your girlfriend," Prongs points out as they reach the pitch. Sirius scowls but don't say anything—they're late, and Gideon's already setting up the tryouts.

"Good, you made it," he says, jabbing his thumb behind him. "Find the group for your position—you want Chaser and Beater again?" They nod. "James, you're with Edgar's group; Sirius, to Edgar's left."

Sirius joins a gaggle of underclassmen—a few of the girls are ogling him, and he indulges them idly, flicking his hair back over his shoulder. Fabian meets his eyes from the group of hopeful Keepers and smirks.

"All right, I want you all to play against each other. Split yourselves up by age—the six youngest Chasers, the four youngest Beaters, and the two youngest Keepers and Seekers, and so forth—and then each age group will further divide into two teams and play a quick game. Youngest players first," announces Gideon, raising his voice.

There are seven Beaters—three second years, one fourth year, two fifth years, and Sirius. The fourth year agrees to play twice, less from a desire to get two chances than from age-based obligation. "I was nervous enough just having to try out once," she complains, but Sirius can barely believe that she's anything less than completely confident from the way she carries herself.

"Don't worry," advises one of the fifth years. "Nerves never get you on the team."

"And yet I've never seen you play in a house match before," says the fourth year. Sirius holds back a grin as the fifth year bristles indignantly.

The first game isn't very well played, though a few players do stand out. Sirius can't help feeling glad when the fourth year is a particularly apt Beater, and one of the Chaser hopefuls is good, too—not that he stands a chance against the current team players, Gideon, Edgar Bones, and Prongs. Since they're short on Chasers, Gideon employs him to play another round, along with the fourth year Beater; she ends up on Sirius's team against the fifth years, but the Chaser isn't so lucky, playing only with Edgar of the three.

The more pretentious fifth year Beater isn't too good, but his quieter friend, to Sirius's dismay, is. He's a little anxious—for the fourth year's sake, anyway—but from the smile Gideon shoots Sirius at the end of our match, he himself has little to worry about.

Gideon gathers together the old team members at the end of tryouts and tells them quietly that they've all made it back on. "Too many second and third years who can barely stay upright on their broomsticks," he says, shaking his head. "We need a new Beater, though, since the last one graduated—it'll have to be one of the ones from your game, Sirius. Which ones did you think were good?"

Sirius is a little taken aback—Gideon isn't the sort of bloke who asks for anyone's advice. "The fourth year who played twice and the fifth year girl," Sirius says promptly. "The fifth year bloke wasn't any good. I like the fourth year, personally, but—"

"She nearly knocked me off my broom," remarks Edgar, grinning ruefully. "Doesn't happen often. I can't think of her name—"

"Anna Moon," provides Meghan McCormack. "The fifth year was Ophelia Jones."

"Hestia's cousin?" asks Fabian, perking up. Meghan nods. "I'm tempted to give it to her. Unwritten rules and all—"

Sirius cuts in swiftly, "Unwritten rules be damned, Moon hit more Bludgers and you know it. We can always keep Jones on as a reserve."

"And that Chaser—Ryan Robins, was it? Train young blood for next year and that… Both reserves, then?" Gideon proposes, and they nod (though Fabian's a bit put out). "Right. I'll let them know… Sirius, a quick word first?"

Baffled, he nods and signals to Prongs that he'll catch up with him later. Fabian doesn't stay for this, though Sirius catches him shooting Gideon a dirty look before departing. "Sirius," he says, his voice taking on the grave nobility that accompanies all his lectures (Sirius starts tapping his foot impatiently), "My fool of a brother found out from his girlfriend a few days ago who she chose as the new Slytherin Seeker." Sirius waits for it dully. "It's Regulus."

His foot stops tapping. "Meadowes picked that—"

"I thought you should know," says Gideon wearily, "so that you can prepare yourself for it. By all means, vent your aggression on your Bludgers, but if there's any foul play in our first game because of your family resentment—"

"I'll watch myself," Sirius says dully, turning to go. "Thanks—for telling me."

He's not looking forward to playing on the team this year nearly as much anymore.

Chapter Text

September 11th, 1976: Marlene McKinnon

She leaves to meet him in the kitchens for a six o'clock breakfast, only after the first quarter-hour of waiting she knows he's probably forgotten, and she's halfway through helping herself by the time he gets around to showing up.

It doesn't take much to push down the building disappointment and act upon the sudden swell of happy surprise. Even though she knows Alice is right about him, she can't help thinking he's the best she'll ever do, or that his less-than-best is barely, just barely, good enough.

Sirius Black is anything but ordinary, she decides (again) as he casually clasps her hand under the table and flashes a trademark Gryffindor smile, overriding her attempts at conversation. She can only imagine the kind of man he might have been—she likes to think that he's done the best he can, because then at least he has some sort of moral compass, even if she doesn't apply.

He won't talk about it when she asks between forkfuls of eggs, but Maggie's told her enough that most of her questions have already been answered. Still, she'd prefer to hear from him about the night his parents found his motorbike and his brother talked with some Death Eaters, because then at least she'd know that he wanted her to hear it.

So she grits her teeth and reminds herself that this is what she's always wanted, that Black isn't simple, and she sucks it up and tries not to remember that he only agreed to this for the quick broom closet shag she allows him after.

There's so much more she gives than she'll ever get with him.

As usual, he straightens his robes and leaves without a word, and she pushes back the urge to nick a Firewhiskey from his stash because god, McKinnon, it's only seven in the bloody morning and she has an internship to get to in two hours, pull yourself together, woman, he's only a boy.

(Only he's every time she's ever felt alive, and he's everything wrong when she looks in the mirror…)

(Later that day at Auror training, she makes it through combat testing with flying colors but is thrown out of the program after her character assessment. She's not surprised.)

xx

The next half-week passes fairly uneventfully. Jay is back to following Lily around like a lost puppy, though with more determination, humor, and occasional sexual innuendo than a dog could ever convey, and she's actually letting him—almost like she did last summer, but there's always that same sad color in her eyes now. And then there are the rumors—do people ever tire of them? Thanks to Marlene's common room row with Black, the entire castle knows about more than she would like: Maggie starting the rumors, both of them leaving home, the shagging. At least word hasn't gotten out that they've been doing it since fourth year; in the wizarding world, that would be the kind of scandal that Marlene doesn't have the patience to put up with (it's bad enough that they're only sixteen—younger than the legal age).

Then, of course, there's the fact that she didn't pass Auror testing, always a fun thing to hear discussed throughout the corridors.

Alice has been trying to act normal since her outburst, refusing to explain herself whenever Marlene brings it up, and Mary, surprisingly, is hanging around the Gryffindors a lot more than the Hufflepuffs—Marlene reckons Veronica Smethley's finally gone too far. In exchange for Mary's company, though, Em's started spending most of her time with Maggie. Marlene doesn't blame her for what Maggie did, but Lily, apparently, does. It must have been something she said—there's always something Em said.

The boys are just as close-knit as ever—so much so, in fact, that they won't give Black one moment to get away. Marlene reckons she's supposed to be grateful for that, but she's not.

Wednesday, though, breaks the routine they've fallen into. Herbology is a pain, of course—but instead of Catchlove and Smethley, Mary wants them to work with Alice and Cattermole, a nice change. Marlene can't say she's fond of Cattermole—he's a little, well, wimpy—but he's still much better than the likes of Smethley. And Alice, though something of an annoying goody-goody at times, is still a Gryffindor—almost like family, not that Marlene can say much for her real one.

Though they're at times distracted by the looks Jay and Pete intermittently give them from across the room (their partner, Benjy Fenwick, is clearly not amused), Alice keeps the four of them on task—and thank bloody god for that, since Marlene probably couldn't survive class without her. However, it's the end of class that catches her interest, a lot more than Cattermole's meek ramblings or staring at Mary—as they pack up to leave after the bell rings, Sprout holds Marlene back, specifically sending Mary and Alice on without her. "McKinnon," she says unceremoniously (is that a hint of pity in her voice?), "the Headmaster asked me to send you to his office after class. Password's 'Cauldron Cake.'"

Marlene is startled for a moment—he couldn't possibly have heard…? "But what—"

"Well, go on, then, don't keep Professor Dumbledore waiting," instructs Sprout, waving Marlene out of the greenhouse. "Go on!"

She shoves the curious Veronica Smethley out of her way as she catches up to Alice and Mary (Pete and Jay have gone on ahead to find the other two boys). "Dumbledore wants to see me," Marlene says in a low voice, fully aware that the Hufflepuff girls are trying to eavesdrop.

"Dumbledore?" repeats Mary, stricken. "But not about…"

"Maybe. I dunno," Marlene snaps, suddenly touchy. "I'd better go on my own; it must be personal, if Sprout didn't want anyone to know I'm going to see him. Don't wait for me, yeah? Could be a while."

Quickening her pace, Marlene leaves them behind as they reach the castle and directs a hasty "shove off" to Smethley—she doesn't have the patience to deal with her just now. She hardly feels herself rising the stairs to the second floor and approaching the stone gargoyle that guards Dumbledore's office: her attention is more concerned with the looks she attracts as she pushes her way through the corridors. Damned Black.

Thankfully, the hall outside the Headmaster's office is a safe haven—students, for obvious reasons, tend to avoid it. "Cauldron Cake," Marlene snarls, panting—the gargoyle lets her in, but not without grazing her shoulder as she brushes past it.

She hesitates before knocking—she can hear voices from outside the door. "—don't see why you think this is any different," says Dumbledore's guest—male, from the sounds of it. "Not even Slytherin respects her authority—how can you expect the rest of the school to?"

"Perhaps, Mr. Prewett, the problem lies not with Miss Meadowes's views but with the rest of the school's," answers, unmistakably, Dumbledore. "Your brother, I have heard, has gotten along quite well with her—I suggest you learn to do the same."

Gideon Prewett, then, apparently complaining about Dorcas Meadowes. No surprises there. "But Professor—"

Marlene chooses this moment to knock, loudly enough that they'll have to notice. There's a brief stretch of silence, then the sound of footsteps—Gideon flings the door open and leaves in a huff, leaving her alone with the Headmaster. "Good morning, Miss McKinnon," he greets her, indicating a squashy armchair opposite his desk that Gideon must have been sitting in. "Please, take a seat."

She remembers her anxiety and takes slow steps across the office. "Good morning, sir," Marlene replies, cringing inside at the hard note in her voice. "You wanted to see me?"

"Ah, yes," says Dumbledore with a small sigh. "I don't mean to pry, Miss McKinnon, but please, tell me—what reasons did your Healer cite for rejecting you from the Auror training program after your character assessment?"

Deflating a little—Marlene should have known it wouldn't be about Black—she says sullenly, "She said I'm too rash to make effective decisions, and my distrust of my peers and condescension of my presumed inferiors hinders my ability to cooperate for a common goal."

He just smiles again, and she adds in a muttered rush, "And I lack the confidence and self-esteem necessary to be a proper leader."

Dumbledore's smile, at least, falters at this. "Though many a rumor has reached the staff room about your personal affairs," he admits (to her surprise), "I will not ask you to change yourself or your doings for the good of the Ministry. What was it about the Auror program that allured you?"

"The war," Marlene says immediately—she doesn't need to think this one out. "I want to fight. My best friend's a Muggle-born—"

"Miss Macdonald, I presume?" She nods but don't trust herself to speak. He heaves another sigh and leans in from across the desk. "Miss McKinnon, I have not brought this to your attention until today because I believe that students here at Hogwarts should not be exposed to the battlefronts of war, but given what would have been expected of you in your internship, I feel that this conversation is not much of a stretch. Aurors are not the only wizards equipped and ready to defend their beliefs, and to that end, I have spent the past few months constructing a small group of friends and colleagues to aid the war effort against Lord Voldemort. Now, you must understand that you would not be allowed to join until after your graduation from Hogwarts—"

There's a flash of recognition at his words. A small group of friends and colleagues to aid the war effort… Doc's organization. "I'll do it," Marlene says simply. "I want to start now."

Dumbledore clasps his hands together and pulls back. "I'd like to give you the next two years to consider my offer and know that your skill can still be put to use. Until you receive your diploma, though, I'm afraid my offer is inactive."

He rises—Marlene's bursting to say more, but he's made it clear that the discussion is over. "If you could not mention this conversation to anyone…"

"Right," she complies, nodding and turning to go. "Right, of course."

True to her word, she doesn't mention it to anyone, not even Alice or Mary—not even Lily, whom she's already told about Doc's… extracurricular activities. But the secret eats at her all day, to the point that Pete—Pete!—pulls her aside after dinner, locking the pair together in an empty classroom outside the Great Hall.

"I don't know what the girls think," he starts anxiously, "but even though Sirius tries to ignore you, and James thinks it's a good idea to let him, and Remus doesn't want to muck around in anyone's love life—something's been off with you all day. I can tell."

Marlene pushes past him and crosses the room, her hand leaping into her pocket to grip her wand. "Thanks for the concern, Pete, but I'm fine—well, no less fine today than any other day this week."

"You've been a bit grouchy but otherwise normal. Today—you're jumpy. Rattled, almost," Pete argues—perceptive little blighter, that boy is.

"I'm not rattled," she says smoothly.

Pete is unconvinced. "Sirius didn't do anything stupid, did he?"

Sighing wearily, Marlene resigns herself to tell him the truth—at least enough of it that he'll let go of his suspicions about Black. "Look, Pete, it's nothing really—just—Dumbledore called me down to his office today to talk about the Ministry thing."

"The Ministry—oh. That," mumbles Pete, eyeing the ground. "That must have been…"

"Yeah. It wasn't a big deal, it just—threw me a little," she says vaguely, moving back toward the door. "Don't worry about me, all right?" He nods his compliance, but something about the way he looks at her gives her a moment longer of pause. "Pete—thanks for noticing."

He shrugs and escorts her out, closing the door behind them with a snap. "Anytime."

By the following morning, she's relaxed enough that Pete doesn't give her any suspicious looks over the breakfast table, and it's not with anxiety but with interest that she joins the other Gryffindors in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Black looks almost nervous at the sight of his cousin as she sweeps into the classroom, but Marlene doesn't bother trying to calm him—he'd just tell her off for it, anyway.

Tonks heads straightaway to her desk, rummaging through papers. "The past two classes have been enlightening for me," she begins, pulling out a thick stack of files and starting to pass out their contents, "and I thank you for your patience and effort during the review. I have here your corrected written examinations and commentary on your ability and technique from last fortnight's duel. For those of you who earned Outstanding O.W.L.s, I ask you only to continue to progress above and beyond and consider my advice guidance, not corrective action. For a few of you who did not—" Marlene notices her looking straight in Alice's eyes as she hands her a file "—based on what I've seen, the proctors may have gotten it wrong."

Marlene flips open her file upon receiving it and looks first to the red marks at the top of the page: Week 1—Outstanding; Week 2—Exceeds Expectations. Ah, well, she's never been one for essays. Before she can more than skim the comments, though, Tonks speaks again. "From what I've seen, there's a huge discrepancy between each of your skills—in a lot of cases, two people who earned the same mark know none of the other's expertise; in others, one student is far more experienced than another. Though structured lessons would be easier to teach, it seems only appropriate that we continue class in an independent fashion, so that everyone will be brought to the same level and caught-up students don't waste time on needless review.

"In the back of your file, you'll find a study schedule for this term, listing the spells, concepts, and theories I'd like you to master in the next few months. Review of past spells will be necessary in some cases, and you'll have to work at a faster pace than you'd like to finish the work in time—but to be fair, more advanced students will also be covering additional topics and forced to work at that same pace. By the end of term, you will all be practiced in the content of your O.W.L.s and have learned a shared core curriculum—some of you, though, will have continued into next term's work if you began more advanced. Textbook pages are referenced under each item to help you along, so be sure to consult your textbooks thoroughly before asking for my help—you will have to work for the answers before I provide them."

They're not all skilled at Defense, and Marlene can see some of her classmates' dismay—Pete certainly looks nervous, Mary incredulous, though Em barely bats an eye. Black is perhaps the most upset of all—though this has more to do with Tonks herself than her lesson plans. Jay seems far too excited about the whole thing, and Lily and Alice—she'll just say that the unsuccessfully hidden competition between them is tangible.

This should be fun.

"Partners are listed by the week in your schedules: since you'll all be learning different spells in different orders, I've paired you off so that at least two people are studying the same concept each week, and the odd one out will either study from the book or work with me for that week," says Tonks authoritatively, clapping her hands. "You'd best get started now—you'll need the time. To that end, please wait until after class to read your comments in full; until then, consult my notes on the magic you'll be studying today."

Marlene flips to the back of her file and consults Week 3: she's been assigned to work with Lily. Her eyes briefly meet Black's, then flick hastily to Lily's—relief sets in, but not before she feels the telltale disappointment.

It feels good to work with Lily: Marlene hasn't had proper one-on-one time with her since they lived together last summer, apart from ten minutes at the start of one Potions class before Slughorn split them up. They're just reading today, so Marlene casts a quick Muffliato and takes her chance to talk to her privately. "How've you been holding up?" she asks, flipping open her textbook.

Lily puts a hand to her temple and closes her eyes, resting her elbow on the desk. "I'm all right," she says finally, starting to read. "Starting school was rough—all those rumors… but it's sunken in, all of it. My parents—" she swallows thickly "—I miss them, but they'd want me to move on with my life."

"You're making a brilliant effort," Marlene encourages her, smiling a little. "People have been all right to you? Apart from Maggie and the Hufflepuffs, the prats…"

Laughing, Lily reads another paragraph or two before answering—always on task, that one. "It's not just the Hufflepuffs—Pol Patil's a Ravenclaw, you know. And some of the Hufflepuffs are decent; Elisabeth Clearwater and Benjy Fenwick are all right, and your own brother—"

"I maintain that they're all prats," Marlene says airily, turning a page but not really reading. "As are the Slytherins, and some of the Ravenclaws—everyone but us, really."

"And you wonder why people don't like you," Lily mutters, grinning at Marlene.

She rolls her eyes but don't complain. "You've been hanging around Jay a lot lately—any particular reason for that?"

Lily shrugs, tucking her hair behind her ears. "He made me talk to him—we were in his dormitory for, er, a Transfiguration essay—and I just figured, what's the use in ignoring him? It won't change what he knows, or what he did."

Marlene knows a secret when she sees one. "What did he do again?" she says carefully, training her eyes to her book.

"He…" Lily trails off, shaking her head, and resumes reading.

"Lily," Marlene say quietly, even though there's no need because of Muffliato, "we're lucky that Maggie didn't tell everything—about which Auror we stayed with, about Doc being my father and not my uncle—if it weren't for what little sense of empathy she has, everyone in this school would know that you went missing for three days before you came to Doc's flat. I saw the way you were looking at him when he showed up at the funeral, and I know he was staying at your parents' place when—it happened, so just… talk to me about it. What happened between you and Jay in the three days before you came over to Doc's?"

It's a full two minutes before Lily answers—Marlene was starting to think that she wouldn't, so it catches her off guard. "Tuney kicked us out," she finally says, her voice eerily steady. "I didn't want to face Doc and the Aurors yet, so Potter took me to his place—his parents and Black would have found out anyway, with the wedding cancelled, so I didn't mind them knowing—and I stayed in his room and wouldn't come out. He brought me meals; he brought over my things from the house and worked out funeral arrangements with Tuney… I wouldn't let him leave the room at night, so we shared a bed. He made me leave after three days of it because I…" Lily trails off for a moment, shaking her head from side to side "well, his mum found out about the bed sharing and got the wrong idea. She thought Potter was going to take advantage of me and that it would be healthier for me to stay with someone like you."

"Was that the wrong idea?" Marlene can't help asking.

Lily colors even further but still scowls. "Don't be ridiculous, Marlene; I had more dignity than that, even then. Oh, no, I didn't mean—" she adds, glancing at Marlene.

Marlene turns a little pink herself but wave it off. "Different situations. Don't worry about it." She gives Lily a second to collect herself before asking, "Does he know about the will?"

"Potter?" She leaves it hanging, and Marlene know how she's going to answer. "No."

Defense Against the Dark Arts entirely forgotten, Marlene rests her elbows on her copy of Confronting the Faceless and buries her face in her hands.

Black brushes past her on his way out the door after class and says in her ear, "Fifteen minutes, ground floor closet." Like a puppet on a string, Marlene nods and meets him there.

Maggie finds Marlene by chance, after, and collects her—the whole ordeal feels more clinical than sisterly. She Vanishes the broken bottles and heaves Marlene onto her shoulder and helps her into the Ravenclaw common room, then into her empty dormitory. "This one's my bed," she directs, not that Marlene needs her to tell her after so many times, and she curls up on the mattress and cries into the pillow and wishes that she were back home with her cot and crowded bedroom, squeezing herself into an eight-person, four-bedroom ranch, not living in a castle with luxury bedding and spending holidays on the couch in her secret father's bachelor pad and sneaking off to Helene's Manor and its silk sheets…

"I said what I said," professes Maggie through Marlene's drunken haze, "because I'm sick of the secrecy. Mum may act like you're second-rate, but you're not, and someone needs to show you why you're not—that's not going to happen if you keep acting like everyone's fine at home. You're not, Doc's not, Lily's not—"

"You should have left Lily out of this," Marlene sniffs—apart from the staggering and tears, she's holding her Firewhiskey well. "If you want to destroy me, that's one thing."

Maggie retorts, flaring up, "I don't want to destroy you. But you needed a wake-up call, both of you did—now just you, I bet." Marlene tries to argue, but Maggie cuts her off: "Be honest, Marlene; how many times have you slept with Black since school started?"

"One… two… three…" she tallies, counting blurrily on her fingers, "four… five… Five. Maybe—maybe six? Five or six."

"That's five or six too many times," Maggie informs her frankly, scooting in a little closer (Marlene doesn't notice until now that Maggie's sitting at the foot of the bed). "Are you trying to get pregnant or something?"

Marlene rolls her eyes—it's exaggerated from the liquor. "There's spells to prevent—"

"Save it. I don't want to know," interrupts Maggie, holding up a hand in a clear message to stop. "My sister is—"

"Half-sister," Marlene reminds her drowsily—the room starts spinning; the alcohol is sinking in.

"My half-sister is better than this, so you'd better start acting like it," she says strictly, leaning in close.

Marlene smiles and limply grabs her hand. "You're bossy," she says lucidly, just before she nods off to sleep.

The next thing she knows, someone's taken her back to Gryffindor Tower, and she has a massive headache and an empty stomach, which is a blessing in that she doesn't have to worry about possible effects of her nausea. She moans and sit up—she's haphazardly strewn beneath one thin sheet, the others stripped down and fallen around the bed.

"Welcome back," comes a serene voice—Em's. "Lie down. Margaret brought you to me," she explains when Marlene start to ask.

Oh, Maggie—she always means well but has funny ways of showing it. "Did I miss lunch?"

"Yes." It's clean and direct, no-nonsense—not much empathy, either, much like Em herself. "Mary is getting something from the kitchens for you."

"I'm not hungry." Marlene's stomach chooses this moment to roar indignantly. "At least, I don't think I can hold anything down."

"You're within your rights to wait before eating," Em informs her. She's perusing Unfogging the Future again—her love of (and talent at) Divination is more than a little unnerving.

Marlene says, as coolly as she can while feeling this ill, "I'll wait, then."

The waiting is longer than she thought—by the time Mary comes up with a plate of lunch, Marlene's more than ready to scarf it down, nausea forgotten. "Thanks, Mare," she says, gulping down water.

"No problem," Mary replies, shrugging. "How do you feel?"

"Bad," Marlene mumbles through a mouthful of salad. "Where is everyone?"

"Oh, erm… Alice is, like, waiting for Cresswell to get out of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Lily's with James," says Mary, handing me a napkin.

Marlene nods, then furrows her brows as she glances around the background: "Where'd Em go?"

She's nowhere to be found—Mary seems just as surprised as Marlene is. "Yeah, well, Em's always a little, like, out there," she dismisses, closing the hangings around Marlene's bed and brushing a bit of hair from her forehead. "It's weird, isn't it? We include Em in things she doesn't even care about, but like, Lily was always the one we didn't like—"

"I always liked Lily," Marlene says stoutly—thanks to something Mary must have slipped into the salad dressing, her headache is fast dissipating. "It's Snape that was the problem, and Lily was never seen without him—"

"We saw her without him," murmurs Mary, shaking her head; her straggly hair whips at her face with the movement. "In classes, in the dorm. I know you, like, think she's your best mate now—"

Marlene spews (potentially spiked) salad back out onto the plate. "We went through shit together last summer, that's all! Even before that, I was mates with her—I invited her to stay the summer with me, didn't I?"

"You told me the night after you asked her that it was, like—it was only out of pity," she reminds me, not meeting my eyes. "That day at the café, at Alice's house—you weren't very interested in her then."

"So you're jealous, then?" Marlene accuses, her voice rising.

"That's not even the half of it, Lene," says Mary—as unnervingly quiet as before. "Yeah, it was a shock when you came back to Hogwarts attached at the hip to a girl you never even liked, but like, you won't even admit that you used to be anything but best mates. That's selective memory for you."

"So what are you saying?" Marlene demands, lunch forgotten.

Mary looks melancholy enough to make her nervous. "I'm saying that if you were as close to Lily as you act, then, like, you'd at least be honest about what you used to think of her. God, Lene, does anyone at all mean enough to you for you to be honest with them? Do I?"

Something hot and shameful starts to bubble up in the pit of Marlene's stomach. "C'mon, Mare, you know it's not like that."

"Sure it's not," says Mary—she's gone starkly emotionless, rising from her perch on my bed. "And you think I'm more than just a shallow gossip to get your news from, and, like, you don't judge me by my mates in Hufflepuff, and you don't care that I dye my hair blonde or talk like I'm thick or…"

Marlene doesn't know what to say to this, so she scrutinizes her for a moment and chews tastelessly on some lettuce. "Your roots are getting a bit long," she says finally, for lack of anything better.

Mary twirls a lock of hair around her finger, her eyes hardening. "Let them get long," she decides, opening the hangings to leave. "Or would you feel better about yourself if I didn't?"

Chapter Text

September 17th, 1976: Lily Evans

It's only two and a half weeks into the school year, but Lily is starting to loathe Fridays. They start with the always-awkward double Potions with the Slytherins—there's only so much James can do to take her mind off of Severus's cold apathy—and though it's followed by a long break, History of Magic afterward isn't much better. It's hard enough to pay attention to Binns's lectures without James's conversational attempts and Amelia's resulting annoyance, both of which Lily got an earful of last class. Perhaps she'd ordinarily at least appreciate the start of the weekend after class, but this week, there's no such luck: with Slughorn's party planned for this Saturday evening, she can only dread another day of avoiding the Slytherins.

So her greeting to Professor Slughorn is less than cheerful as she and Alice escort Marlene to class—in yet another exercise in helping her avoid Black, Alice partners her straightaway, and Lily saves the seat beside hers for James. "You said something about talking to Maggie?" she asks, just to break the silence—though she's anxiously watching the door, resting her chin in her hand and leaning on the desk.

"Oh—yeah," says Marlene, stretching. "She, er, found me after I was with Black yesterday—oh, stop looking at me like that, I'm not going to try and talk to him after what happened!"

"Maybe, but he'll still try to talk to you," points out Alice. She still hasn't gotten over the fight in the common room and is easily set off by any mention of the two of them together.

Marlene shrugs, hunching over her desk. "Well, I'm not going to let him this time," she mutters, but she doesn't sound all that determined to Lily.

As the four Slytherins step through the doorway, Lily gives a small start, then glances down and starts chewing on her pinky nail. "What is it, Lily?" says Alice, but she catches on when Marlene nudges her side and discreetly inclines her head.

Only Damocles Belby acknowledges them with a curt nod and clipped smile; they smile, mumble, and (in Lily's case) break a nail in uncomfortable response. Severus tosses his books lazily next to Belby's and gives Lily only a cursory glance.

She tries to look away but can't help watching him out the corner of her eye.

"What did you say you'll be doing for your internship this weekend, Lily?" prompts Alice, if only to distract her. Lily turns to her, deer-in-the-headlights. "More lessons on France?"

"Probably," says Lily, nodding. As the new intern for Lord Brinn, the senior ambassador from Great Britain to France, Lily's been doing a deep dive into relations between the two countries. It's unclear how soon Lily will be able to go to her first diplomatic conference, but Brinn says he's expecting it to happen by the end of the year.

The Slytherins are stonily silent, but the volume of background chatter is rising—the boys must not be far from the classroom. "At least you still have an internship," says Marlene moodily, stabbing at her desktop with the edge of her (fast blunting) quill.

Alice purses her lips, then says sympathetically, "Don't worry about it, Marlene—at least you were considered for it, right? Half the sixth years didn't even get one, let alone the ones they wanted."

"At least half the sixth years didn't get turned down because of their character assessments," Marlene complains. "They've got to get better proctors in for that; you know they called me insecure?"

"Well—" But Alice never finishes the thought, as the boys choose this moment to burst into the classroom. Black makes as though to ask Marlene why she deviated from last week's seating chart, but Lupin steers him away, shooting an apologetic look over his shoulder.

James, on the other hand, plops his books down next to Lily's and takes his seat, grinning. "Beautiful morning, isn't it, Lily?"

"It's overcast, Potter; it'll probably rain," Lily remarks instead of agreeing, rummaging through her bag and sneaking a glance at Severus. He's absorbed in a conversation with Belby—or, rather, Belby's telling him something in earnest to which Severus doesn't seem to be paying attention. (Was Lily and Severus's friendship like that, a one-sided effort?)

"Rain is beautiful," James argues. She leaves it at that, her eyes still trained to Severus's table. Like always, James notices. "It's not worth it, Lily," he says, quieter now, resting a hand on her shoulder.

Lily straightens up, nodding, and feels grateful that the bell rings and Slughorn closes the door with a snap. "Cauldrons out!" he says merrily, winking at her on his walk to the blackboard. "And partner up!"

"Ready for this?" James asks with a telling hint of mischief in his voice. His hand drops to Lily's from her shoulder; she clasps it in a death grip, then quickly lets go, all the while not meeting his eyes.

Severus still won't look her way.

James fills the class asking after Lily and the other girls, and he doesn't mention Severus again until after, while they're putting away their cauldrons. "You were staring at him again," he says, lowering his voice—Lily doesn't bother playing dumb.

"Why shouldn't I? He was my best mate—"

"Past tense," says James gently, scooping up his books and extending a hand. Lily takes it, training her eyes to his and not entirely suppressing a half-smile. "About time for you to go get a new one, don't you think?"

She watches him dubiously as he holds the door open for her and bows her out of the classroom. "C'mon, let's hear the contenders. I trust that I've made the list?"

"Fat chance, Potter," Lily teases, giving up and letting the grin fully slide onto her face. "Marlene, maybe, after everything."

"I thought she was thick with Macdonald," says James, furrowing his eyebrows.

Lily heaves the slipping strap of her bag back up to the crook of her neck. "She can have two best mates, can't she? Anyway, she and Mary had some kind of a row last night; they won't say what about…"

He shrugs and drops the matter. "Reckon we should catch up with the others, give Abbott some backup with the whole Sirius thing?"

Lily doesn't have to ask what he means. "You're sure you're not just lonely for the boys' company?" she says instead, smiling.

"Believe me, Lily," says James in earnest, stopping her right there in the corridor and taking her hands, "I'm not lonely."

It's hardly eleven o'clock, and the pink is already rising in Lily's cheeks. Fridays…

The other Gryffindors have already congregated in the common room—well, some of them. "Mary's been off promoting inter-house unity all morning," Black informs Lily and James before they have a chance to ask. "Not with the Hufflepuffs, though; she said something about finding Carol Davies."

"Em's been off with Maggie somewhere, and Marlene left to find them just now—they made up yesterday, she told me," adds Alice. "Besides, she doesn't really want Mary to find her if she comes back…"

"Or Sirius," finishes Pettigrew. Black fumes, reddening. "What? Elephant in the room got your tongue?"

James leans in and asks Lily what Pettigrew's on about, only in more vulgar terms. "Muggle idioms," she answers in an undertone, shaking her head—boys.

"If that's all," announces Alice, getting up, "I'd better get going—Herbology essay. I'll be in the library, if you need me for anything."

"Wait," Lily interjects as she gathers her books—Alice glances back at her, eyebrows raised inquisitively. "You're leaving me alone here with these four? Pranksters of legend and all that?"

"I'm sorry, Lily; if you'd rather lend me a hand in a class you dropped…" Lily shakes her head, and Alice shoots her one last sympathetic look before waving goodbye to the lot and departing.

Biting her lip, Lily takes Alice's armchair and leaves James to share the sofa with the others. It's a bit awkward, at least at first—other than at the full moon, she's barely spoken to any of them but James all year. Struck by sudden inspiration, she speaks up: "Oh, Lupin, I've been meaning to ask if you'd like to go to Slughorn's party with me—consider it my apology for the, er, wedding debacle."

Lupin smiles but shakes his head. "Thanks, Lily, but I can't—I'm already going with Sirius. Tradition, you know—James is taking Peter, too."

"Oh. Right," Lily says—though she doesn't recall this, since she never paid much attention to the other Gryffindors at the Slug Club before now. "I shouldn't have put it off until the last minute like this, but I don't know too many blokes…"

"Well, there's Alexander Zeller," says James, ticking off a finger. "Ravenclaw. Bit of a git, but that's only to be expected, he's mates with Pol Patil—"

Pettigrew joins in, eyes twinkling. "Belby and McLaggen are invited, so they've probably already found someone… Cresswell's taking Alice, Mary could get offended if you ask Cattermole… Benjy Fenwick, maybe?"

"No, he's going with Elisabeth Clearwater," she sighs. Why hadn't she done this earlier and spared herself the embarrassment?

"There's always Mary's pool of ex-boyfriends," suggests Black disparagingly. "Diggory, Gudgeon, Lockhart—"

"Oh, lord, anyone but Lockhart," Lily moans.

She almost misses the fleeting glance that Black and James exchange before Black turns to her abruptly. "All right, Evans, you can have Remus," he says gravely. "I can make… other arrangements."

"What arrangements?" Lily says suspiciously, but Black's already hopping off the sofa and darting out of the common room, a none-too-innocent smirk plastered across his face. "Who are you taking, Black?"

"Put it out of your mind, Lily, it's a surprise," says James, grinning. "Just wait until tomorrow evening…"

She tries and fails to fully take his advice, but the conversation is distracting enough. "What ended up happening with the wedding, Evans?" says Pettigrew. "I mean, I know you don't like to bring it up, but—did your sister end up getting married?"

"Yeah, she eloped in Gretna Green a week after the funeral," Lily replies bitterly. "Didn't even tell me she had done—I found out from the would-be maid of honor when she wanted an ear to complain into."

"Bully for her, then," says Lupin half sarcastically.

Lily twists her lips and nods—they're approaching dangerous territory. "You're sure you can't tell me whom Black's taking to the party?"

They keep tight-lipped, all the way through History of Magic and the end of the evening. "Less than a day left, Lily," says James, ruffling her hair as he bids her goodnight. "Try and get some rest, yeah? Internships tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Lily says distractedly—she's halfway through proofreading an Arithmancy essay and could do without any interruptions. "'Night, James."

She doesn't realize her mistake for another thirty seconds, when she realizes that James is hovering over her armchair, his breathing shallow. "What?" she asks anyway, just to downplay its significance.

"You called me—you never—" A satisfied grin slides over his face. "Slip of the tongue?"

"Something like that."

"So that's how you think of me." He's so sure of himself that it doesn't even sound like an assumption, let alone a question. "I was wondering how soon you'd come around."

Lily brushes her hair out of her eyes and takes a proper look at him. "Why the fanfare?"

James takes a seat across from her, propping his feet up on the coffee table between them. "Remember when you stayed over at my place for a few days last summer—"

"—After the concert, because we Flooed to the anteroom of your Muggle study and I wanted to browse," she finishes for him, smiling faintly.

"I was bothering you about how you were—different with me than with everyone else," he goes on reminiscently, "how you weren't yourself when Marlene tried to get you to open up with the others… you were completely disinterested. Remember that?"

It takes a second, but the memory comes back to her. "Why were you so happy about my reaction?" she says—Lily knows him well enough now to feel comfortable asking.

He closes his eyes, and his smile widens. "Same reason as for this," James says, now looking at her straight. "You're not just some petty teenage drama queen playing mind games—this is real."

"This?"

"Us."

She bites back the urge to scoff. "There isn't an 'us,'" she tells him, mostly believing it.

He stands, that smile still playing about his lips, and kisses the top of her head gently. "You say that now."

As Lily tells James off for inappropriate displays of unwanted affection, it occurs to her that this is the first time she's thought fondly of last summer. She lets him off the hook halfway through her tirade—just this once.

Up in the dormitory, she drains the last of her Dreamless Sleep Potion and hopes that it's enough to get her through the night.

xx

Wholly giving up the act, she greets James as "James" at breakfast on Saturday morning, which he returns with a nonchalant "Lily." The girls, even Emmeline, stare; Mary drops the box of Common Welsh Greens she's midway through passing to Lily. Snatching it back up and letting the milk drain from the bottom—it landed right in Lupin's bowl of cereal—Lily gives them significant "I'll-tell-you-later" looks and hope desperately that she won't actually have to tell them later, since she can't entirely explain it to herself.

Today's internship passes in a flurry of lessons and promises that she'll make a trip to the British Embassy by the end of the fall term. At half past seven, Lupin meets her in the common room, dressed in a shabby pair of dress robes and shifting from foot to foot. "Lily," he greets, albeit a little awkwardly. "You look lovely."

"Thanks, Lupin," she says, silently disagreeing: as she doesn't own her own dress robes, she's thrown on a spare pair of Alice's for the occasion, and it's easy to see why Alice didn't choose to wear these ones tonight.

He smiles slightly. "It's Remus, remember? Or Rem, or—"

"Lupe, yes, like Marlene calls you," she finishes for him. The awkwardness is easing, to her relief, and they're both sporting grins. "Are we waiting for the other blokes, then?"

"No, actually—Peter and James are cutting it close to avoid mingling with the Slytherins as best as they can, and Sirius… wants to make an entrance," Lupin trails off. She raises her eyebrows but know that he won't explain. "Were you planning on going in with Alice?"

She considers it. "I suppose we should—I didn't mention it to her, but Dirk can't escort her out; he doesn't have access to our common room."

Accepting this, Lupin retires to an armchair, and Lily follows suit. She wonders if the wedding has been on his mind—it's been on Lily's. "How are prefect duties going?" she asks, if only to pass the time: she hasn't got a clue what else she could say.

"Oh, all right," he says vaguely. "Patrolling with Alice is going fine. We've had our first meeting already, too; just, you know, reporting any points we've added or deducted and detentions we've given, signing up for patrols, planning the first Hogsmeade trip… officially, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but we're debating between the weekends of the second and the sixteenth of October, so keep your schedule clear."

"Not like there's anything to schedule but Hogsmeade," she laughs. "I'd tell Mary the dates—she's planning on going with Cattermole the next time there's a visit—but word would get out if I did, no offense to her, and I don't want you to get in trouble…"

"Reginald Cattermole? From Hufflepuff?" Lupin asks. "Huh…"

Lily grins. "Bit of a shift from what's always been her type, but he could be good for her, I think. He's a nice bloke."

"You'd better not be talking about Dirk and me," comes a voice from the stairwell—Alice. She and Lupin turn in their seats to greet her; she's decked in a much prettier pair of robes and has curled her hair for the occasion. "Thanks for waiting, Lily—you didn't have to."

"Oh, I don't mind," Lily assures her, getting up, and it's true; she and Alice have their differences, but she makes for nice company outside the classroom.

They walk down to Slughorn's office together, detouring to meet Dirk on the way—he greets Alice with a half-hug and is quick to let go, to her visible disappointment. At the party, Slughorn is in his element: though no outside guests have been invited, he seems to have coerced most Slug Club members into attending, and the room is packed with students. "Good evening, Dirk, Alice, Lily—just the wizards I was hoping to see! Happy to have you here, Lupin," he adds, less enthusiastically, and Lily feels for Lupin a pang of something like indignation.

"He's with me, of course, Professor," she says, feeling suddenly bold, and steps closer to Lupin's side. "You've no idea how much convincing it took to get Black to give him up for me! He's quite the catch, Remus is, don't you think?"

Slughorn looks taken aback only for a moment, then breaks into a smile. "You're a cheeky one, aren't you?" he laughs. "Well, go on, then, I'll leave you to it… Abbott, Cresswell, would you care for some crystallized pineapple?"

Lily tugs Lupin through the doors before he's realized what's happened, but when he does ten paces later, he flashes her a grin. "Thanks for that, Lily. I owe you one."

"Don't mention it," she insists, waving over his shoulder—James and Pettigrew have just arrived.

"Hi, Remus, Evans," Pettigrew says; James sidles up behind her and wordlessly engulfs Lily in a hug.

She shrugs out of it, mock-disgusted, and returns Pettigrew's greeting before whirling around to face James. "Will you ever learn?" she sighs, but she's smiling.

"Forgive me for taking last night as encouragement," he says simply, ruffling up his hair. "Remus, do you mind if I steal your date away for a dance?"

"Go right ahead," says Lupin mildly.

Without giving her so much as a second to decide for herself, James whisks her off to the center of the office, where Slughorn's cleared away the furnishings and rugs for a makeshift dance floor. Behind them, she hears Lupin ask, "Care to do the same, Peter?"

It's a slower song, but James doesn't bother with formalities. He interlaces his fingers in Lily's—his palms are sweaty and calloused and oh so familiar—and takes his sweet time drawing their hands upward until her arms are draped around his neck, then wraps his own loosely around her waist and starts revolving with her on the spot. "I've missed this," he admits after a few minutes—the music has sped up, but they haven't.

"Is that why you've tried to be so affectionate lately?" Lily kids, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him.

"I can't help that you'll only ever touch me when there's music," James shoots back, but he's smiling. "You'll come around someday, Lily, you just wait."

Faintly, she smiles back, flushed with embarrassment. "James?" An incoherent murmur in her ear tells her he's listening. "Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?" he mumbles—he sounds more concerned with the fact that he's pressing his cheek up against hers.

"After O.W.L.s last year, when you asked me to go out with you—did you mean it?"

He pulls back and looks at her intently, almost tripping as she keep turnings; he's close, too close, his ragged breath warming her nose. "Yes," says James slowly, "but I'm glad you said no."

Something in her deflates. "Why's that?" she prompts.

There's another pause as he closes his eyes and exhales, and his trademark scent of forest and ink and rumpled hair fills her up. "If you'd said yes then," he tells her, "we would never have ended up here."

She doesn't know what to make of this, so Lily buries her face in his neck and breathes him in. She reemerges briefly to say hello to Alice and Dirk (both looking a bit harried after Slughorn's ambush), then to Lupin and Pettigrew (who've lost five points each for Gryffindor on account of reckless dancing and social impropriety: "I thought you knew that we're openly gay, Professor; we have hot foursomes in the dorms sometimes"), but James doesn't try for conversation again, and Lily takes advantage of the thoughtful silence.

Too soon, she feels James detaching and pulling frantically at her arm. "What?" she asks, oblivious—glancing around, she sees no one unpleasant and nothing out of the ordinary.

"Sirius is coming—you'll want to keep a distance for this," he says elusively.

She goes along with it—knowing the boys, it's best to take their advice at times like this—and she lets James drag her away from the entrance to the office, bumping into a good few students along the way. "I'm sorry—excuse me—sorry—exc—oh, sorry, Sev, I didn't recog—"

Lily realizes her error too late: she's already given Severus an instinctive apology and friendly smile. Sensing something off, James halts in his rather hasty tracks and tenses up when he sees Severus, fist clenching around Lily's clasped hand. "Damn," she mutters anticlimactically, then adds knowingly, "James, don't."

"On a first-name basis now, are you?" sneers Severus. He's not with any other Slytherins this time—Lily assumes he's come alone—and he looks none too happy to see her.

"I thought you didn't care what I do anymore," she says, her voice almost lost in the din. He doesn't reply, just glares contemptuously and starts to brush past her, and something in her just loses it and—"DON'T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME THIS TIME!"

Severus, seemingly startled, freezes and faces her coolly; James reaches out to stop her, but she brushes him off, rounding on her former friend. "For eight years, you were my best mate—I told everything to you—I trusted you—I thought—"

He cuts across my stammering and says crisply, "You should have thought about that before you left without a trace for the whole summer."

"WELL, YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT BEFORE YOU CALLED ME A MUDBLOOD AND GAVE UP TRYING TO APOLOGIZE AFTER SIX HOURS—"

Splat.

In her fury, Lily hadn't noticed the gust of air above her before she feels a barrel's worth of pumpkin juice spill over her head. Seething and mortified, she wipes juice out of her eyes and glances around to find one Sirius Black, standing next to a cackling Peeves and looking thoroughly apologetic. "Evans, I—"

"Sirius, m'boy, twenty points and a detention for bringing a poltergeist as your date and inviting havoc to the party!" Slughorn looks torn between dismay and amusement as he steps forward, clearing away the gathered crowd. "And Lily, my dear girl, let's not make such a commotion in the middle of the festivities! I won't punish you for it this time, but—"

"I'll just be going then, Professor," mutters Severus, not even meeting Lily's eyes as he ducks away—

"LEVICORPUS!"

Severus dangles by his ankle in midair, and Slughorn looks at Lily with an almost bemused expression. "Detention," he says softly, ruefully, and she doesn't meet anyone's eyes as James gently pulls her out of the room.

There goes her clean record.

Muttering to himself, James guides her to the fifth floor and paces outside a door near a statue of Boris the Bewildered. "Dammit… what did Remus say the password was?"

"Peppermint sticks," she says hoarsely—she overheard Alice telling it to Dirk last week—and the door swings open to admit them. James gazes at her for a second, wearing an expression akin to admiration, then takes her juice-sticky hand and leads her inside. She hardly notices the grandeur of the bathroom as he turns on a few taps and helps her out of my robes—she's seen him in various states of undress before.

Clad in her undergarments, Lily eases herself into the pool-sized tub and clings to its edge—she doesn't much feel like treading water. James bunches up his robes and dangles his legs over the edge, addressing her directly for the first time since the party: "I figured you deserved the privacy of the prefects' bathroom, and the relaxation."

"Thanks," she says. She rubs at her arms with the soapy water—the juice is starting to rinse off.

"If you need to, you know…" He looks awkward for the first time all night, really and truly awkward, fidgeting and blushing and messing up his hair, half in the water and half out.

She shakes her head, and he eases, if only slightly. "No, I'm not going to cry about it this time," she says, more to herself than to James, and then looks at him properly. "But there is this one thing…"

Her dreams are plagued by nightmares without the potion, but James rolls out of Black's bed every time he hears her and soothes Lily into a gentler few minutes of sleep. It's like summer, almost, except that James needn't always be there beside her—for the most part, she gets through it on her own, and the other boys know enough about it not to ask questions.

Detention, mercifully, is the next night—she's grateful to get it out of the way before classes resume. Looking regretful all the while, Slughorn assigns lines and leaves in a hurry; they work on the task silently until Black says, "I wouldn't have brought him if I'd known that that would happen, Evans. It was supposed to be a laugh…"

"It's okay, Black, you didn't know," Lily says automatically, scrawling out for the twenty-sixth time, I will not curse my classmates, especially in public vicinities.

Beat. "I wish you wouldn't call me that," he says eventually, resting his quill on the desk.

"Hhm?"

"Black. My family—well, you've met my brother." Lily nods, starting to sense where this is going. "They're all like that, mostly. My cousin Bellatrix… Bellatrix Lestrange? She's been a Death Eater for the past year and a half, and I think—I think Regulus is headed down that road, too."

He says it so callously, so tonelessly, that Lily stops writing and pulls her chair up closer to his. James's voice crosses her mind: What, you haven't caught on that their little on-again-off-again fling is resurfacing? … January of our fourth year. It was inconspicuous enough, at first—happened right around the time his cousin—er… "I heard you ran away last summer," she confesses, sliding over her parchment and resuming her lines. "Was that because…?"

"A lot of things, but mostly Regulus," Black confirms. She peers over his shoulder: I will not invite Peeves to Slug Club events. "He admitted he'd been talking with Bellatrix and her husband, Rodolphus, about joining up. Prejudice is one thing; joining the war is another… I've been living with James ever since."

Lily doesn't know what else to say, so she dives right in with him. "You were sort of right last July… about the Dark Magic." Black looks alarmed, so she continues, talking faster now, "Not that I've ever gotten into it, but Severus—Snape—I always knew he was interested. I thought I could stop him—change him—but…" She gives a little sigh and glances back at her parchment. "People are who they are, I suppose."

He smiles, just a little. "You're not who I thought you were," he says.

"I have to admit, I've been really… what are you and I doing? After how we left things last year, I'd been expecting us to have more intense—stuff—happen over the summer, but even on the nights we both stayed at Helene's Manor, we barely spoke."

Black coughs. "I, uh, just didn't want to encroach on James's territory. I know he doesn't own you—I know it's not like that—but… honestly, I think the other blokes had thought for a long time that I might fancy you, and I wanted to give James some space to get to know you without him having to feel like I was his competition."

"They think you fancy me?"

"Well, they thought it, anyway. I don't think any of them thinks it anymore. I don't, for the record—fancy you, I mean."

"Good," Lily snorts. "I don't fancy you, either. But…" She summons her courage. "I was wrong, all those times I told you we could never be friends. I don't know how it happened, but—I think we could be."

Something in Black's face softens. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Detention, suddenly, doesn't seem like such a curse anymore.

Chapter Text

September 20th, 1976: Alice Abbott

Alice is a little surprised when Marlene asks to work with her on Monday morning—in all fairness and honesty, they’ve never been that close, and Lily’s more talented at Charms than Alice is. She accepts, though, always happy for the opportunity to spend time with her fellow Gryffindors, and Marlene’s real reasons become clear within minutes of the start of class.

“I’m going to tell you something,” she mutters, pulling out her textbook, “and I want you to listen as my mate, not as my house prefect.”

Worriedly, Alice glance to Sirius’s table—he’s partnering both Remus and Em today. “Not about me and Black,” Marlene appends quickly, and Alice heaves a sigh and averts her eyes—if anything, this is a relief. “But promise that you won’t—report it or—take disciplinary action.”

“Is it serious?” Alice murmurs, propping open her book to cover her mouth from Flitwick’s view.

“I don’t think so, but—just promise first.”

Reluctantly, she nods. Marlene settles a little into her seat and says, “I caught Lily coming down from the boys’ dormitory this morning—she’s been sleeping up there for the past two nights.”

Alice is taken aback: Lily sleeping in the boys’ dormitory? The same Lily who befriended Slytherins and who never received a detention in five years (until now)? She glances over at Lily’s table, where she and James are huddled together, shoulders brushing. “I’m sure she had a good explanation,” Alice says confidently. “Lily would never do anything—er—”

“Like I did,” finishes Marlene, looking altogether unaffected by this view of herself.

Immediately, Alice launches into protect-Marlene’s-self-confidence mode. “Oh, Marlene, you know I don’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter if it is or not; I’m not seeing him anymore,” Marlene assures her. Alice tallies mentally: it hasn’t quite been four days since Marlene last slept with him, though she doesn’t think it would be wise to bring this up. “But could you maybe talk to her, figure out what she’s been doing up there? I just want to know that she’s…”

Alice is hesitant to complain, per se, but she voices her reservations: “You’re sure you want me to ask about it? It’s just that you know her so much better…”

Marlene scoffs, “Do I look like I’m in the best position to give relationship advice?”

Her words give Alice pause. “You don’t think they’re in a relationship, do you?” she asks.

“They could be,” she says, softer than before. “There was that date to Hogsmeade last summer—well, not really, but still—she invited him to the wedding, he was there when she found out about her parents… plus they’re on a first-name basis, she never goes anywhere without him anymore, he keeps trying to kiss her, and from what you said happened between them at the Slug Club last Saturday—”

Alice blushes: she hates feeling like she’s ratting out a friend. “I’ll talk to her,” she agrees, “but I want you to promise, Marlene, that you won’t tell anyone else about this. Not Em, not Mary—”

“Why would I tell Em or Mary?” says Marlene. “Em either wouldn’t care or would tell Maggie, and we all know how that would end—and Mary—well, I’m not speaking to Mary, actually.”

Alice is starting to see why Marlene came to her about this. “Did something happen?” Alice says carefully, making a mental note to ask Mary about it later—she’d hate to only hear one side of the story.

Marlene shrugs, flipping a page of her book. “We… don’t exactly see eye to eye about some things. It’ll pass; it always does.”

Alice lets it go for now and casts one more look at Lily—she’s pointing something out in the textbook to James, who keeps trying to scoot his chair closer to hers. “Can you think of something to get James away from her after class? I’ll ask her about it then.”

One hour, four passed notes, two Dungbombs, and two detentions later, Alice gets Lily alone in the corridor; they’re apart from the other girls, as Em wants nothing to do with Marlene’s melodrama and Mary accompanies her out five minutes before Alice and Lily leave. “You know, Lily, about this morning…” Alice begins—to her chagrin, her voice has taken on a concerned, patronizing tone.

“It wasn’t anything, okay?” says Lily quickly, reddening. “Ask any of the boys yourself. I’m not—”

“I’m sure you’ve done nothing wrong,” Alice assures her, “but it’s not healthy, and I don’t want you to regret anything later. I just have your best interests—”

“Right,” Lily scoffs, looking down. They’ve reached the stairs, but she keeps on walking; Alice lags behind, letting her go. “Just like how you want the best for every other girl in this school.”

Alice tries not to believe her as she walks away.

The prefect meeting the next night is illuminating, if anything. The last one had been Kingsley’s to run, but now it’s Dorcas Meadowes’s turn—and not everyone is willing to accept her authority. She enters flanked by Damocles Belby and Dolores Umbridge; the former Alice can understand, the most decent of her year’s Slytherins, but Umbridge surprises Alice. It hits her after the fact: when Meadowes made Head Girl, Umbridge took her vacated prefect post. Of course—with Umbridge, there’s always a self-serving reason.

There are jeers from some of the fifth years, led by Regulus Black, Alice discovers as she glances toward their gaggle. His eyes flicker to Remus’s for a moment, and a chill runs down her spine: she’s never felt comfortable around Sirius’s brother. “All right, er—the roll, then,” says Meadowes, taking up post at the front of the room. “By house and year. Gryffindor, seventh year: Angela Macmillan and Gideon Prewett?”

“Present,” says a cool female voice—Angela, seething in her seat with resentment. Gideon doesn’t even bother replying, just inclines his head with a dare in his eyes.

Meadowes mumbles her acknowledgement, her voice trailing off. “Gryffindor, sixth year: Alice Abbott and Remus Lupin?”

“Here,” Alice says definitively, as Remus contributes something to the same effect. Meadowes smiles slightly to both of them, only to be booed by Benjy Fenwick and Edgar Bones, the latter of whom is called on next.

Already, it looks to be a long night, and they’re not even a full minute in. Roll call passes far too slowly before they move on to the Hogsmeade trip—it’s set for next weekend—and evening patrols. “Kingsley and I have agreed that we’d like to encourage inter-house unity, and to that effect—”

There’s a small uproar at this particular announcement, punctuated by Carla Edgecombe’s stage whisper of, “Oh, lord, I hope I won’t be working with that fat cow…”

For the first time all night, Meadowes flares up, her eyes sparking dangerously. “Settle down,” she says, her voice soft but commanding. “That’s enough.”

She is paid no heed—at least, until Kingsley roars, “She said, that’s enough!”

Startled into submission, the prefects quiet down; the blotchy color slowly starts to drain from Meadowes’s face. “To that end, he and I have assembled a list of partners for you to patrol with—as we don’t know your schedules, we’d like you to talk with your partners and sign up for two nights that work for you each next month. The partnership list is posted by the sign-up patrol sheet, if you’ll all take a look after the meeting…”

As fate would have it, Alice is with Frank Longbottom, whom she’s always gotten on fine with, but Remus is not so lucky, assigned to patrol with Regulus. Shooting Remus a sympathetic look, Alice talks with Frank and chooses their dates, after which he offers to walk her back to her common room. She agrees, waving hello to Dirk as they go—he’s the new male prefect for Ravenclaw this year. Just as she and Frank are leaving the classroom, she hears Meadowes softly thank Kingsley for backing her up, and he replies, “I’ve been saying it for months now; people don’t give you enough credit. Think Gideon will come around after patrolling with you?”

“You don’t think Lily’s upset with me for anything, do you?” Alice asks Frank in earnest as the other prefects go their separate ways. He doesn’t reply, just meets her eyes and nods for her to elaborate. “It’s just… I asked her today about, er, something Marlene saw her do this morning—nothing bad or anything, just, you know, questionable. She’s Lily; she would never… and, well, she lashed out at me a little, said that—that I don’t think of her any differently than anyone else at Hogwarts.”

Frank sighs, “Alice, you can’t blame her for not completely trusting you yet. You’ve only been her mate for, what, a month? After five years of…”

Alice goes on, picking up anxious steam, “I don’t think it’s about that, though—I mean, I would understand if it were, but—do you think that she thought she would be prefect, Frank, before last year?”

“Lily? Prefect?” He thinks on it for a moment, that faraway, pondering look in his eyes. “There was some talk in fourth year that she might get it… you’ve always had higher marks, but she went out of her way to be nice to the Slytherins, Dumbledore always likes that, and she took the way you lot treated her well…”

“We weren’t awful to her,” Alice argues as they round a corner, reaching the stairs. “I don’t defend how we treated her, no, but it wasn’t openly hostile—not with me, anyway. All right, Mary did spread a few rumors—where else do you think the one about the Dark Arts came from?—and Marlene would tease her sometimes, and Potter’s attention probably embarrassed her, even if he didn’t mean for it to… but I tried to be nice to her, even though I didn’t understand her friendship with Snape. I wrote her sometimes over the summer, I worked with her in Ancient Runes and Arithmancy…”

Frank waits a moment before answering, collecting his thoughts. “You may not have done anything wrong, Alice, but collectively—you Gryffindors always made things difficult on Lily, and she might have seen you as—a rival of sorts.”

“Oh, but there’s no rivalry,” Alice says, her brow furrowing in a baffled line. “I’ve always gotten higher marks; it’s not a point of contention…”

“To you, it may not be. To her… oh, Alice, it’s all right.” He wraps his arms around her, and she leans warmly into the hug. “Things will work out with her, I promise.” Alice nods, mostly to convince herself, and pulls back quickly. It feels good to hug Frank—really good—and even though there’s nothing officially happening between her and Dirk, it feels like it would be disloyal to him to be this close to Frank for too long. She’s known Frank most of her life, though, since their parents run in the same circles; shouldn’t she be able to be mates with him if she wants to be? What makes befriending Frank any different from befriending James or Remus—who says it has to mean something like what’s between Alice and Dirk?

She fingers a lock of her hair; Frank’s eyes jump to the movement, and he says, “Curls look nice on you,” he remarks—straightforward but sweet.

Blushing, Alice steps out of Frank’s arms and resumes their climb to the seventh floor. Frank is commenting on her appearance now? That can’t mean he’s fixating on some kind of attraction to her, can it? She says, “Thanks. Marlene’s been helping me with them… usually, Mary would, but she’s having some sort of shift of priorities as of late and, well, won’t.”

“Ah, well, better Marlene than Mary,” says Frank sagely. “You’re already blonde; it looks better without any added highlights.”

“Frank Longbottom,” she scolds gently, giggling, “was that a jibe at one of my best mates?”

“Merely a compliment,” Frank clarifies. “Hey, so I was wondering about that Hogsmeade trip we scheduled today. Carol and Dana and I are getting a little group together to go—did you want to come with us?”

This surprises Alice a little—she never would have pegged Frank or Carol as being friends with their housemate Dana Madley—but she finds herself nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be really nice.”

That Hogsmeade trip turns out to be a much bigger deal than either of them imagined when Alice accepted Frank’s invitation. The flyer in the Gryffindor common room looks innocent enough on its own as Alice tacks it up between a Quidditch practice notice and the new class standings list. Pushing the class standings from her mind for now, she gives the flyer a satisfied once-over: Hogsmeade, October 2^nd.

She’s then shoved out of the way by a few burly fourth year boys as students start to trickle out of their dormitories for breakfast. At least she’s done her job—if she does say so herself, the message is simple but powerful. Or maybe Alice is making an unnecessarily big deal out of it.

It’s Wednesday, which means discussing everyone and their mother’s love lives over vicious potted plants. “Mary’s taking Cattermole, isn’t she?” asks Peter, eyeing his knife warily: we’re trimming Alihosty roots today, and he’s never been handy with a blade.

“Clearly,” says Marlene dryly, tipping her head toward Mary. She’s working with Reginald and Benjy, the latter of whom is singlehandedly battling their Alihosties as Mary and her date engross each other in conversation.

“Poor Benjy, putting up with so much,” says James lightly. His eyes widen, and Alice swallows thickly as he rounds on her and Marlene. “D’you think Lily’d let me take her if I asked?”

Alice is doubtful, but Marlene latches onto the idea. “You know, I think she probably would,” she considers, James’s face lighting up more by the second. “Aren’t you two basically dating now, anyway?”

“Well, not exactly…” hedges Peter. Marlene’s face falls a little: the idea probably doesn’t seem so likely now that their relationship isn’t a sure thing to her. “You’re just friends, right, James? With a couple of benefits.”

“What kinds of benefits?” prompts Marlene, still a bit intrigued.

“Occasional hugging benefits, and not rowing benefits, and giving up my bed benefits,” mutters James, visibly disgruntled. Marlene and Alice exchange a look that the boys are quick enough to catch. “Yeah, yeah, it’s not how it looks—she’s coming off her Dreamless Sleep Potion and needs a place to crash with heavy sleepers who snore. I’m bedding with Sirius while she’s with us.”

This is definitely not the explanation Alice had expected. She’s surprised that Lily trusts James enough to confide this in him, even more shocked that she would keep it from the other girls—to protect them? Suddenly, Alice feels more than a little guilty for confronting her about the dormitory last Monday. After Snape, her parents… “Keep your voice down; remember, Veronica Smethley is less than two meters away from you,” Alice implores—after everything, they at least owe it to Lily to protect what little privacy she has left.

“You should ask Lily anyway,” Marlene says hastily to James. “Even if she’s not interested—and I’m starting to think that she is interested, from the way she talks about you—you can always go as friends, and that’s more time with her, at least. Have anyone in mind to ask, Pete?” she adds.

“Oh, er…” Peter looks flustered by Marlene’s question—like Remus and James, he’s never had a girlfriend before and probably doesn’t plan on getting one. “Well, I was thinking of asking Siobhan Flynn from Ravenclaw, but—”

“You can’t ask her to Hogsmeade, Peter!” erupts James. Veronica Smethley is staring, so he lowers his voice and goes on in a frantic whisper, “Haven’t you learned anything from Sirius? You can’t ask the younger girls now; you’ll exhaust the dating pool, and then who will you go with in seventh year? Upperclassmen now, underclassmen later.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “So says the bloke who’s been holding out for a girl he’ll never get with,” he scoffs.

James turns all sorts of colors and says merely, “I haven't been ‘holding out' for Lily at all. You know how close I got with Dana Madley last year. If I’d been interested…”

“You’re going with Cresswell again, then, Alice?” says Peter over James’s mumbled embarrassment.

“No, I’m actually—Frank Longbottom asked me to go with him and Davies and Madley.”

“What, no date with Cresswell?” asks Marlene with interest.

“Shut it, Marlene,” she replies, blushing. “Dirk and I are just mates—that’s it!”

“Right, like Black and I are just mates, hmm?”

A hush falls over the four of them at the open allusion to their relationship; rattled, James nearly cuts off his finger and swears loudly. “I thought you stopped seeing him,” Alice says slowly, crossing to the boys’ side of the table and mending James’s finger with a flick of her wand.

“I may not be seeing him now, but that doesn’t make everything platonic overnight,” Marlene shrugs. “He can take whomever he’d like to Hogsmeade, but we can’t just call the whole thing off and just be mates; it doesn’t work like that, Alice.”

Alice doesn’t want to believe her, but her words stay with Alice all through class and into the first break. It’s only up in the dormitory when Em takes her mind off it, remarking, “Class standings are posted in the common room.”

Lily tenses immediately; sensing this, Moonshine leaps out of her lap and into Alice’s, yowling. “Professor McGonagall put them up last night, I think,” says Mary, unusually interested. “They go by O.W.L.s—like, the number you got, marks for the classes you’re taking this year—that’s labeled ‘sixth year initial’—and then ‘fifth year final’ is your overall standing that accounts for, like, your marks and the number of classes you took. That’s the important one; that’s the score that factors in to determine valedictorian and salutatorian at graduation.”

Alice is only a little nervous—all right, no, she’s quite nervous. “Did you happen to glimpse our ranks while you were checking yours, Mary?”

“Relax, Alice, you did fine—you’re second.” Alice exhales, her heart rate slowing again. “Lene, you’re sixteenth; Em, twenty-second…  and Lily, you’re eleventh.”

“Eleventh,” Lily repeats.

Alice suddenly remembers that the first qualification to become valedictorian is to have been one of the top ten students every year. She wants to say something to tell Lily it’s all right, but Alice don’t know how to phrase it without sounding condescending, so she quickly changes the subject: “Remember when we were first years and worried about just passing our classes?”

Marlene laughs derisively. “You know, I lied that summer—I did fail Herbology, with a D.”

“Out it comes, four years later,” says Em, absentmindedly scratching behind Aquarius’s ears. Marlene glares at her; the rest of them burst into laughter—even Lily.

“Those were the days,” Alice reminisces. “Remember the train ride? I came with Marlene, since my parents knew hers, and we ended up in a compartment with Dana Madley, Gilderoy Lockhart, and Veronica Smethley—”

“—I still reckon you don’t like Ver just because she accidentally spilled pumpkin juice on your only new pair of robes, and you had to find a second year to use Scourgify because you didn’t know any magic—” continues Mary, grinning.

Marlene rolls her eyes, but she’s unconsciously fingering the hem of her robes. “Hey, I didn’t know who Dorcas Meadowes was when I asked her—it wasn’t my fault that she was a right little bitch when she was prepubescent! She wasn’t halfway decent like she is now!”

“I didn’t know you think Meadowes is decent,” says Mary—the wall between them is apparently starting to crumble.

She shrugs, flicking back her hair. “Well, nowadays she doesn’t go around hexing first years for fun. Lucky that the Prewett twins were in the compartment one down from theirs and knew the countercurse.”

“Remember how Fabian used to hate Meadowes?” says Lily—Alice is glad to see that she’s perking up. “He went off about how all Slytherins are evil scum and would have gone on for a good quarter-hour if Snape and I hadn’t been sharing the compartment with him and Gideon since we left the boys’.”

“Meanwhile, Em was getting into a rather noisy row with some Gryffindor third years for insulting her height, and Mary was preoccupied bonding with all her future boyfriends—not that you knew it at the time, Mare,” chuckles Marlene.

Alice sighs contentedly, stretching out on her four-poster and letting Moonshine scamper back to Em and Aquarius. “We were so different back then, you know? Mary, you were a tomboy, of all things, and Em was so outgoing…”

Em says nothing, but the corners of her lips turn up; Mary fiddles with her split ends and smiles. “The boys were, like, identical, though, don’t you think? Except Sirius and Em were inseparable, and James used not to follow Lily around—”

“Whatever happened between you and Black?” asks Marlene, rolling onto her back and yawning. “You two were always inseparable, and then…”

“He got too interested,” says Em airily. The rest of them stare. “At the worst possible time.”

Mary contemplates, “I’m glad you weren’t mates with us before now, Lily. Not to be rude… it’s just that, like, it’s only a matter of time before you and James get together, and it would feel a bit like incest if you were always on the inside.”

She’s hit full on with Lily’s denial (“James and I are not getting together!”) and Marlene’s indignation (“Black and I are like incest now?”) and ducks for cover behind her hangings, laughing. Em and Alice exchange a look, and Alice tries and fails to stifle her giggles as she shakes her head and almost, almost, smiles.

Greta, Em… Marlene. It gets Alice thinking enough that she flags Peter down after lunch—he’s just as likely as the others to have answers and the one Alice trusts most not to tell Sirius about what’s to follow. “Can you keep a secret?” she asks first, just to be sure, once they’ve locked themselves in the boys’ dormitory; he tells her that the others have taken a trip to the kitchens without him. It’s more than a bit messy, and Alice cringes with disgust as she clears a food-free space on what she assume is Sirius’s bed to sit.

“As long as it’s for a good reason,” he says honestly. He’s a lot more confident outside James and Sirius’s shadow, and he carries a set jaw and a steady gaze.

“Depends on how you look at it,” Alice admit. “Sirius would probably want to know about this, but then, it’s better for everyone else that he not. It’s… it’s about Em, Peter.”

Something tightens in his expression, and Peter nods, his eyes fluttering shut. “What did she say about him?”

“Peter—” she starts, doubtful.

“Her exact words, Alice—please.”

There’s something desperate about the way he’s looking at her, so she complies, however unnecessary it feels. “She said, er, that he got interested in her at a bad time.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Peter as he starts to pace, and he cuts off her questions, gaining momentum, speaking faster now. “He didn’t get interested in her romantically, he just—noticed.”

“What are you talking about?” Alice asks, her interest sparking. “Noticed what?”

“Did you really think it was a coincidence that Em and Sirius drifted apart in fourth year?” Peter suggests, his voice getting higher. “That it was right around the time when Emmeline drifted apart from all of us, that it was right around the time when Sirius and Marlene—”

He breaks off abruptly and meets Alice’s eyes again. “Oh, god.” He doesn’t seem willing to tell her the details, so she doesn’t push it and just waits for him to go on. “Oh, bloody hell, I think it was her.”

“But—”

Peter shakes his head and slowly sits on the edge of his bed. “I won’t tell Sirius—there’s no use talking to Sirius about it—but you really, really ought to talk to Emmeline.”

“What do you know, Pettigrew?” Alice demands. It’s just like it was during Sirius and Marlene’s fight in the common room; she doesn’t lose her cool often, but enough cruelty and lies can set her off. “What aren’t you telling me? Why won’t you—”

“I’m sorry, Alice, I want to, but it’s not my place to jump to conclusions and then spread rumors about it,” Peter sighs. “Ask her what happened, and don’t take ‘nothing’ for an ans—”

He breaks off and Alice jumps as the door flies open; behind it, James is stowing his wand away and muttering, “God, how paranoid is Remus—what are you two doing in here?”

“Brainstorming for the Herbology essay. Alice had a few good ideas,” Peter lies smoothly. “Where are Remus and Sirius?”

“Still in the kitchens, I expect,” says James wearily. “I hung back to ask Lily to Hogsmeade—she said no.”

Alice shakes her head sympathetically. “That’s tough, Potter, I’m sorry.”

He notices her properly for the first time since he’s come in here, taking his eyes off of Peter. “She’s not mad at you, you know—Lily. I heard that you two got into a bit of a disagreement last Monday—”

“Word travels fast here at Hogwarts,” says Peter darkly.

“—But she was just on edge about people knowing she’s been staying up here; she says she didn’t mean it.” James smiles at her weakly, stepping forward—Alice assumes with a jolt that she’s not sitting on Sirius’s bed, but James shakes his head and laughs. “You really think Lily’s that messy when she sleeps up here? I’m sharing this one with Sirius. Budge up.”

Alice gets up, casting one last look at the food crumbs all over James and Sirius’s bedspread. “I’ll just be going, then… good luck with the essay, Peter.”

Hurrying out of the dormitory and down the stairs, Alice finds the other girls gathered around the fire and join them with a pleasant smile. Marlene and Mary seem to have made up, but that’s only to be expected; feuds rarely last long between any of them. “Look who’s in the wrong dormitory now,” says Em; Alice glares playfully at her but says nothing more, not wanting to bring her suspicions up just yet.

“You knew about that?” asks Marlene incredulously, glancing for a fraction of a second at Lily, then back.

Mary sighs and draws her knees up to her chest—she’s sitting in an armchair with her feet propped up on the cushion. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m out of the loop?”

“I believe that Lily can do the explaining,” Alice says, smiling at her; the look she gives Alice back is mortified but reconciliatory. Alice thinks back to something Em told her once—that she’s always the first person to try to smooth everything out—and hopes that she’s better than Em claimed.

It’s been a weird week, and Alice is only halfway through.

Chapter Text

September 29th, 1976: Mary Macdonald

For as long as Mary can remember—well, technically, for the last three years, but no one’s counting—she’s kept a journal. Before you laugh and assume it’s actually a diary, she’ll have to prove you wrong, sadly: she doesn’t think a narrative record of every bit of gossip she’s heard within the Hogwarts walls can count as a diary, exactly, since there’s not a word in it about Mary’s own experiences (at least, not unless they’re intertwined with someone else’s). Nobody but Marlene knows about it, and she only does because she caught Mary writing in it last year and Mary’s no good at lying—she’s a little afraid to think what would happen if anyone else found out about it, since spending too much time with the Hufflepuffs has given her the resources to document a lot more than she ought to know… enough to fill a few hundred pages, anyway.

She hasn’t written in it for the last two weeks. She guesses the world will never know about Greta and Davies’s juicy late-night scuffle on top of the Astronomy Tower.

“God, how long will it take for you to realize that I don’t care?” Mary tells Samantha Spinnet, a Chaser for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team and unfortunately Mary’s fellow sixth year, for the umpteenth time. Ravenclaws have Herbology after the Gryffindors every Wednesday, and she’s run into Mary in the quarter-hour between the two classes to share the latest piece of gossip in which Mary’s not interested (not that anyone ever believes her).

Spinnet shrugs, picking up her pace—Mary’s hurrying up the stairs to the seventh floor in an effort to get away from her. “Don’t blame me; I’m just the messenger,” she says, hoisting her bag up her shoulder. “Dana said you’re the person to tell for word to get back around to Pol—”

“What is she, your ringleader?” Mary taunts in spite of her better instincts. “Why can’t you lot just tell him yourself if it’s that important to you? Why is it that important to you?”

“Well, Carol will kill any Ravenclaw who lets it slip to the other houses, let alone Pol, but he still ought to know that Carol isn’t over him in case he wants to give it another go with her. We all want them to get back together, if only because Greta is so bloody annoying—”

Mary cuts Spinnet off, reaching the seventh floor landing: “You are so bloody annoying. Just-go back to the greenhouse; go, like, find somebody shallow to do your dirty work.”

Spinnet pants, “But Dana said you’re—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make it happen. Now go!” With one last glance at Mary, Spinnet nods dumbly and tears off for the staircase again—she may be clever, but judging by that exchange, she’s not especially bright… oh, who is Mary to judge, when her class rank is twenty-ninth out of thirty-two?

She throws herself past the portrait hole and storms up to the dormitory, shaking her head at Marlene’s invitation to join the rest of the girls in the common room. Lily is missing along with the boys, Mary notices—words will be said about her newfound friendship with James, no doubt, but Mary wants nothing to do with words, not anymore.

Tugging idly at her hair—without its twice-a-week fix of Sleekeazy’s, it’s starting to take on an orange tint—she recalls the Hogsmeade plans she’s collected over the past week. To no one’s surprise, Greta is going with Patil, Elisabeth with Benjy—and to everyone’s surprise, Lily turned James down, but the Marauders have still been divided for the trip by Peter’s date with fifth year Siobhan Flynn. Reg is still taking Mary, which is about the only thing she’s had to look forward to for the past fortnight; unfortunately, spending time with him means spending time with his Hufflepuff mates, and Mary doesn’t exactly have the patience for that just yet.

She sighs: what does it matter, anyway? People die and go missing because of the war every day, and all Mary can think about are Hogsmeade dates and the color of her hair? No wonder Marlene doesn’t trust her properly—this is exactly the kind of thing that gives Mary a bad reputation.

Then again, Mary was under the impression that they’d always be best mates, no matter how low either of them would go.

She turns, startled, as the door creaks open behind her; it’s Em, wordlessly stepping into the dorm. Mary thinks back to a comment Alice dropped last night and vows not to let Em get away without a proper conversation tonight. “Hey,” Mary says, her voice strangled a little as she struggles to hold in her anticipation.

Em raises an eyebrow at Mary’s etiquette and crosses to the foot of her bed, where she kneels and starts to rummage through her trunk. “Hello.”

“Looking for something?” Mary asks eagerly, hopping off her own bed to join Em.

She flushes a bit as Em gives her an incredulous look, though Mary can’t blame her: she’s usually not this social with her. “My diary,” she says, her tone suspicious.

“I have a diary, too,” Mary says immediately—where will she get without trust? “I mean, I haven’t written in it for a while, and, like, it’s not really a diary… it’s more of a record of-of—”

“That’s nice,” says Em, retrieving a thick, leather-bound book and rising to leave.

“No!” Mary erupts, surprising even herself. Em lingers near the bed, the diary drawn up to her chest. “Don’t go yet. I-I was hoping to, like—to get a chance to talk to you.”

Growing exasperated, Em repeats, “Talk to me. Right.”

“I was! I haven’t seen much of you lately, and I thought we should, like, catch up,” Mary insists, albeit a bit feebly.

She doesn’t appear at all convinced, but Mary is relieved nonetheless when Em sits delicately on the edge of her bed and maintains eye contact. From the looks of it, she’s not going to be the first to talk, so Mary thinks fast for something to say: “Er, are you going to Hogsmeade this Saturday?”

“No,” says Em shortly. She’s usually stoic, but now, she’s tapping her foot idly against the bed frame in a clear sign of impatience.

“Oh. I’m—I’m going with Reg,” Mary stammers. When did it get so hard to carry a conversation with the witch?

Unimpressed, Em says, “If that’s all—”

“Of course that’s not all! I just, like, wanted to talk to you as a mate, and you can’t be bothered to say more than two words at a time to me!” Mary says, letting loose.

“People change,” she says curtly. The tapping of her foot is getting steadily louder.

Mary shakes her head, yellow hair fanning out and blurring her vision. “Not this much.”

Em scoffs, “So that’s what this is about. Fine, I’ll play by your rules—if I’m not allowed to be introverted, I guess it was impossible from you to go from a tomboy to—that.” She waves disdainfully in my direction, and Mary glances down at herself: in addition to her train-wreck of a hairstyle, her robes are wrinkled and unwashed, and she remembers that she’s still wearing last Sunday’s eyeliner.

It doesn’t matter, though—none of it matters when something has happened to Em, something is happening to Em, and none of them have bothered to take notice until now. “Don’t make this about me. Like, I’m not as thick as you seem to think—”

“I doubt that,” she interrupts, winding down. She’s easing back into what’s become her usual stately self; she’s putting up the walls she’s been constructing for the past two years. “If you’ll excuse me…”

“I miss you, Em,” Mary says, her last attempt to keep her here. Em doesn’t stop to hear Mary out. “Can you at least tell Maggie to spread the word about Greta and Davies’s trophy room row over Pol?” Mary half shouts at her retreating back.

Em’s already nodded curtly and stalked out of the dorm by the time it dawns on Mary that she’d never planned to hear Mary out in the first place.

Em stays on Mary’s mind all the way until Saturday, when it occurs to her that she hasn’t seen Reg since Herbology on Wednesday to confirm today’s plans. “Do you think he’ll remember where we’re meeting?” Mary asks Marlene anxiously as they’re getting ready that morning. Em’s nowhere to be found, and Lily isn’t bothering to dress especially well, leaving just the Mary, Marlene, and Alice here in the dorm.

Marlene’s busy helping Alice with her curls, but she halts her wand-work for a moment to glance over her shoulder and meet Mary’s eyes. “Sure he will—you’re not going looking like that, are you?”

“If you’re talking about my hair, I’m not touching it up,” Mary says, crossing her arms.

Alice gives Mary a sympathetic look as Marlene leaves her hair half-curled and comes over to Mary’s bed. “Your color needs a bit more than a touch-up, but no, I wasn’t talking about that. When was the last time you even looked in a mirror? Last week?”

“Says the witch who admires herself every time she walks past one—I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it!” squeals Alice, ducking and laughing as Marlene jokingly points her wand at her. “Please don’t ruin my hair; it’ll take me ages to fix it on my own, you know that, Marlene!”

“Oh, shut it, Alice, I’ll finish up with you later. Mare here is a bigger disaster waiting to happen than you,” Marlene says, turning her wand on Mary this time. “You’d better be glad that you haven’t seen Cattermole; it’s bad enough that he saw how you were dressed in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures…”

Mary says defensively, “I like to think that Reg likes me for who I am, not how I look, thanks.”

“Hate to break it to you, but all blokes are the same, and they’re always a fair bit more concerned with how girls look than anyone would like,” retorts Marlene. “You’ll have to change into fresh robes, of course, and that hair… you don’t happen to know where you’ve left your wizard’s hat, do you, because that’ll be a huge help if you can find it…?”

It’s nice to finally see Reg; it hasn’t really sunken in until now how much Mary’s missed him all week. He’s dressed casually for the occasion, making her feel a bit silly in her borrowed dress robes and thick makeup. “Hi, Mary,” he says carefully—Reg does everything carefully, it seems.

“Reg! I haven’t seen you in, like, a week—how have you been?” Mary pounces on him in an awkward half-hug, “half” in that he doesn’t return it. Whoops, she forgot—he’s not the biggest fan of public affection.

“All right, I suppose. They sure keep us busy with homework these days, don’t they?” He shuffles back as Mary lets him go, and they move up a few steps in Filch’s line. “You look nice, but you really didn’t have to dress up for me…”

“Oh, this was nothing—all Marlene’s doing, anyway,” she assures him. “I haven’t even touched my hair.”

Reg shrugs a bit uncomfortably. “Change is always good,” he says neutrally. “So were you thinking of doing anything today? Benjy and Elisabeth are going to The Three Broomsticks around noon, if you’d like to meet them there… they say that we’re welcome to join them for butterbeers.”

“That sounds great, Reg,” Mary says warmly. She scrambles to think what the other Gryffindors are doing—isn’t she supposed to be the one who hoards this kind of information? “Alice is going with a few of the Ravenclaws. Lupe, James, and Sirius will probably be in Zonko’s all day, and, like, Siobhan Flynn is making Pett go to Madam Puddifoot’s for brunch…”

“I’d rather not go to Puddifoot’s,” says Reg uncomfortably, and Mary grins and agrees with the sentiment. “And Lily and Marlene?”

“Oh, they’re going all over,” Mary says vaguely. “Where do you want to go first?”

He shrugs, commenting, “I’d like to stop in at Dervish and Banges, unless you’d rather…”

“No, Dervish and Banges is fine,” she agrees. They’ve reached Filch, and she rolls her eyes in Reg’s direction as Filch starts to search her for illegal items; he chuckles appreciatively and waits his turn.

The morning goes well, though it’s a bit disappointing that, after their stop at Dervish and Banges, the trip seems to revolve around running into other people. After a few hours in Scrivenshaft and Honeydukes, they head up to The Three Broomsticks at half past twelve, purchases in hand. “I asked Benjy to save seats for us in case we see them,” Reg tells Mary, pocketing his moneybag and holding the door for her as they step outside.

“All right,” Mary says, at a loss for words now that they’re alone. What did she ever used to talk to him about? Did she just keep up the steady stream of gossip that she’s tempted to dish out now? God, she’s worse than she thought…

They walk mostly in silence—comfortable silence, but silence nonetheless—and it’s a relief to finally enter The Three Broomsticks and find themselves surrounded by the din of the pub. Benjy sees them first and flags them down, grinning broadly; Elisabeth waves them over as well, though her smile is noticeably softer than his. “Enjoying yourselves?” Benjy asks—he’s the first to talk, too, and Mary gets the impression that he’s the dominant one in their relationship.

“It’s been fun,” Mary says despite her doubt, smiling at Reg. “I was looking forward to going to Gladrags, but, like, the sign says it’s been closed for a month because of the war…”

“Bloody Vol—well—you know who,” says Benjy darkly, wolfing down a swig of butterbeer. “I reckon half the shops will be closed down by the time this thing is over…”

There it is, You-Know-Who—Mary doesn’t read the Prophet, but Alice says its editors have stopped calling him by his name, and it looks like the students are starting to follow suit. What was it that Alice said? Something about fear of a name… “It depends on how long the war goes on for,” says Elisabeth reasonably, passing butterbeers to Reg and Mary. “Half the shops could close within a couple of years, and it’ll be worse if it lasts any longer… we all heard Dumbledore at the entrance feast; it’s already affecting business. That explains why they’re giving out internships to students, at any rate—did you hear about that mass Ministry layoff last week? They don’t have to pay us to do the work of a professional, and they already can’t afford all those salaries.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Elisabeth—how’s your internship going?” asks Reg, accepting his butterbeer with a smile. “I reckon Auror training must be fascinating. And yours, Benjy—you’re in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, right?”

Benjy nods but lets Elisabeth talk—he has better manners than Mary assumed. “I’m surprised that they offered Auror internships at all—we’re a liability for them, if anything, since we don’t have our N.E.W.T.s yet… the training is fairly dangerous for us without strong Defense Against the Dark Arts credentials. It’s been fascinating, of course, but I’m still glad that we have the day off to come to Hogsmeade. There are just four of us in the program: Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alice, Frank, and me. A few other seventh years got in at first but didn’t make the initial cut, and then Marlene…”

She doesn’t embellish this point, and for this Mary’s grateful on Marlene’s behalf. Benjy is quick to change the subject: “Mine’s going great, too, but I don’t think I’ll end up going into sports. It’s cool to work on the World Cup, but it’s just not important, you know? Quidditch is brilliant, but I feel like it should stay a hobby; when I do get a job, I want to contribute to the Wizarding world, not just fly around it.”

As of late, Mary can empathize, at least a little—Witch Weekly just doesn’t report anything that matters. “How has Quidditch practice been for your team?” she says, addressing them both.

“Excellent,” says Benjy, rubbing his hands together excitedly. “I won’t say much—house privacy, you know—but we’re going to cream Ravenclaw in November, I can tell you that. Madley’s team doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Isn’t Regulus Black the new Slytherin Seeker?” Reg says, sipping his butterbeer.

Mary nods, gulping down her own drink. “Don’t mention it in front of, like, anyone else in Gryffindor. Sirius might kill him with a Bludger at the first game, judging by the moods he gets in after practices.”

“Your game will be a hell of a lot more interesting than ours,” says Benjy; the table shakes a little as he slams down his mug. “You’ve got two Blacks on opposing teams, Meadowes is Captaining against Gideon Prewett with Fabian on your team—and Potter’s temper tends to be short where Regulus Black is concerned, too. It’s an explosive combination if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Here’s hoping that, like, they all make it out alive,” Mary says.

Elisabeth smiles and jokes, “Even the Slytherins?”

Mary’s laughter drowns out Reg’s human-rights indignation—at least, until Benjy decides that he approves of his girlfriend’s burgeoning sense of humor and plants a wet one on her right then and there. Partly just to make things difficult for Reg, Mary chooses now to excuse herself to the ladies’ room, where she spends a good deal longer powdering her nose than she should.

They leave shortly after that—the two Hufflepuff prefects finish before them, and Reg says something about wanting to take Mary up to the Shrieking Shack. She complies, if only because it’ll finally give them a bit of privacy, and it’s not long before they’ve paid for their butterbeers and walked the short distance, standing in the wind.

“Do you believe what they say, like, about how this place is haunted?” Mary asks—her cheeks are pink and raw from the weather, and the subdued atmosphere of the Shack is starting to get to her. They’ve been dating for all these weeks, yet they have nothing to say to each other…

“Maybe,” Reg murmurs, and there’s something foreboding about the way he glances at her. “Mary—”

She kisses him, timing be damned; she doesn’t care, suddenly, that she feel like she doesn’t know him or that he thinks the fourth date is too early. He doesn’t react but doesn’t pull away, and his lips are chapped and dry, and it’s nothing like Mary wanted but everything she needed, and—

Reg steps back all too soon, rubbing the back of his neck and turning bright red. “That’s one way to try to put it off,” he says quietly, looking at the ground, the Shack—anywhere but Mary.

“Put what off?” Mary asks, straightening her robes. “Am I making you uncomfortable? Is this, like, too fast?”

“I’ll say,” he sighs, now scratching his head. “Look—Mary—I think we should… spend some time apart for a while.”

She’s baffled for a moment, then starts to catch on. “Reg, you’re not—you can’t be—”

“It isn’t about you,” he says quickly, tripping over his words. “Well, it is, just not—er—clearly you’ve having some sort of crisis, and—”

“I’m not having a crisis!” Mary insists.

“A—a change, then, let’s call it that—and I just think it’s better that you sort everything out before this gets too-too—serious.” He’s blushing darker, almost apologetically.

Mary crosses her arms and gapes, mortified. “So you’re not serious about this—about me.”

“No, it’s not that, I just—Mary, come back, I didn’t mean—Mary!”

But she’s already walking away, back down the hill and onto High Street. Marlene’s name is the first that comes to her, but no, it’s too late for them, not after what she said, not after what they’ve done. Alice is usually a reliable shoulder to lean on, but she wouldn’t understand, and she puts up with enough between Sirius and Marlene already; Em, let’s face it, wouldn’t even care; Lily doesn’t know Mary—does anyone really know Mary? The Hufflepuffs will no doubt take Reg’s side, she’s never been close with any of the Ravenclaws, and the Slytherins are obviously out of the question…

Which leaves (oh Merlin) just the boys. She doesn’t want to interrupt Peter’s date, but the other three—Zonko’s. The joke shop is crowded enough that few heads turn upon Mary’s hysterical arrival, but on the flip side, the boys are out of eyesight. She pushes her way to the back of the room, where she finds them critically eyeing a rack of Dungbombs. Remus and Sirius look fairly disinterested—Remus’s family has never been well off, and Sirius must not have much to spare after being disinherited, Mary realizes distantly—but James is toying halfheartedly with one of the bombs and saying to the other two, “They’ve only just been released… think it’ll be too predictable to use these on the Slytherins this early?”

Sirius starts to reply but cuts himself off when he sees her. “Mary? Why aren’t you with Cattermole?”

“He dumped me,” she says breathily, awkwardly hovering a meter away from them. “I kissed him, and, like… he dumped me.”

They exchange glances, obviously dumbfounded. James is the first to react, setting the Dungbomb back on the shelf and resting a careful arm around her shoulders. “Remus, go find Lily and send her up to our dorm, will you?”

“She likes Sirius better,” says Remus unsurely, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Mary catches on to James’s train of thought, though, and sullenly explains, “Lily’s with Marlene.”

“Both of you go together, then,” decides James, pulling Mary toward the back corner of the store. “Come on, Mary, there’s a passageway back here that’ll take us up to that statue of Gregory the Smarmy…”

He doesn’t say much when they reach his dorm, just sits with her on one of the beds and keeps his arm around her until Lily comes up. She confers briefly with James; “Thanks,” she says when she doesn’t think Mary’s paying attention, and he hugs her close before he goes.

She doesn’t sit down. “I’ve been sleeping up here, you know,” says Lily, running her hand over one of the tidier beds. “James is lending me his bed—this one. I’ve been on Dreamless Sleep Potion since my parents—died—but my supply ran out, and Madam Pomfrey won’t give me more… it helps, having James there, but I think I’m moving back to our dormitory tonight. It’s time.”

“It’ll be good to have you back,” Mary says. She means that—there’s something strange about the dorm at night with one of the beds empty.

“Are you all right?” Lily asks, approaching Mary’s bedside.

She shrugs. “I guess. I just feel, like, numb… I thought Reg would be different from the other blokes, but to him, I’m still, like, this shallow, self-absorbed…”

“You’ll find someone one day,” Lily assures her, though her voice shakes a bit. “I thought it was Severus, you thought it was Cattermole… but things don’t always turn out how you think they will.”

“Yeah,” Mary sighs, “yeah, I guess.”

They don’t quite know what to say to each other—they’ve never been too close, and Lily’s falling out with Snape hasn’t really changed as much as Marlene thinks it has. “It’s not fair,” Mary mutters, more to herself than to Lily, yanking off her wizard’s hat in defeat. “I’m not just, like, this bimbo that everyone thinks I am.”

Something about Lily lights up at Mary’s words, and she crosses the room to sit beside Mary. “If you really want people to believe that, Mary, there are a few things you can do.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one thing, orange has never been a good color on you,” Lily says, laughing. Mary twirls a few strands of her hair between her thumb and forefinger, reluctant to actively do anything about it but still seeing her point. Mary’s been looking as wretched as she’s been feeling lately… “And you might want to drop the ‘like’ from your vocabulary, if you want blokes to take you seriously… I mean, we girls take you seriously, but it doesn’t—give the best impression.”

Mary smiles, albeit a bit reluctantly—the whole thing with Reg has her rather shaken. “I don’t think I can do much about, like, my vocabulary in one day, but for the hair, what do you think? Back to blonde or all natural?”

“I’ll leave it for you to decide. It’s about time both of us start making our own choices, don’t you think?” Lily says, stretching.

Mary hasn’t realized until right here, right now, how long she’s been waiting for someone to say that.

xx

END OF PART TWO

Chapter Text

November 4th, 1976: Remus Lupin

"A word, Lupin?"

He's surprised, to say the least—what have any of the Slytherins ever wanted to do with him?—but nods politely and follows Damocles Belby out of the classroom. "Interesting meeting," reflects Remus, thinking back. Kingsley may be more charismatic, but he's still insisting that Meadowes run the prefects' meetings, a move Remus considers less and less baffling as time goes by. A grudging sort of respect is forming in her favor, despite Angela Macmillan's sincerest attempts toward the contrary, and it's starting to show why Dumbledore saw a leader in her when he chose her for the post of Head Girl.

"Yeah, interesting," Belby says shortly. He stops Remus at the end of the corridor and turns to him purposefully. "Listen, Lupin—I know what you are."

"You… know," repeats Remus with a shadow of a bemused smile. "If you're talking about Mrs. Norris's camel humps—"

Belby cuts him off, shaking his head, "I didn't mean about Mrs. Norris, although I expect you were in on that, too. The timing is rather cliché, actually, being that Halloween was last Sunday and there's all this circulating Mudblood talk—"

"Muggle-born," says Remus, tensing. It's not just about Belby's disrespectfulness, though; it's the Muggle myths and the time of the season and the chill running down his spine and—

"—I'm just surprised I didn't notice sooner," Belby laughs, a cackle in his eyes. "Those haunted spirits in the Shrieking Shack every full moon… And saying you're sick? That's the oldest excuse in the book; surely any prankster in his right mind should come up with something better than that… if it weren't something so taboo it makes all that cleverness just dry up."

Remus watches his feet, the ceiling, the quarter-moon in the window—anything but Belby's face. "What do you want, Belby?"

But Belby isn't listening, not anymore. "I'm sure Macdonald has gathered by now that I'm the top-ranked student in the class."

"Not necessarily," says Remus, starting to flare up. "She's not just a gossip monger, and especially less now than she ever may have been—"

"My best subjects are Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts," Belby continues, "and I've been thinking of a project to combine the two for a while now. Makes it more ironic that I didn't notice your… affliction… until recently, but that's all right; it hasn't hurt the timing at all. I've only just come up with a tentative recipe."

"A recipe for what?" demands Remus. Belby's voice is steady, face impassive, but something about the look in his eyes…

He blinks, and the moment is gone, to Remus's relief. "Just a little potion I've been working on," says Belby quietly, "and if I can get the recipe right, your… ah… furry little problem, Potter is calling it? …will be nothing but a memory."

A drawn-out pause. Remus's breath shallows with every passing second. "What's the catch?" he asks finally, briskly.

"The catch?" repeats Belby snidely.

"Please, Belby. You wouldn't be telling me all this if there weren't something in it for you more than just fame and glory," Remus reasons.

Belby's eyebrows rise, just barely, and he says, "I'll need a test subject, of course, and there could be—undesirable experimental effects. After, when I release my findings to the public, there will be speculation as to how I tested the potion, and given your monthly whereabouts…"

He could have to come out as a werewolf. He thought he'd give anything for an end to the hell he goes through every month, but to give up his opportunities in exchange… but Belby's already slipping something out of his robe pocket and stuffing it into Remus's hand. "Read the recipe. Think on it. Let me know in Potions tomorrow," offers Belby, adding a little quieter, "You're the only one at Hogwarts, but I get the feeling you're one of the most deserving ones out there, Lupin."

Rattled, Remus leaves with a nod and heads back to his dormitory. He doesn't plan to tell the blokes—he can barely wrap his head around it, yet he knows it's something he needs to work out for himself—and to his suiting, a Lily-tirade is in full swing when Remus enters the room. "I can't figure her out," James moans, rolling onto his stomach to bury his face in the bedspread. "She drove me away after her parents died, but no, she can't bear to spend a minute away from me after she and Snape have a row—"

"Does that really disappoint you, mate?" says Sirius skeptically, adding a quick "'lo, Moony" as Remus crosses to his bed. "I would think you'd want to be on her good side."

"I do, that's not it—basically the same thing happens twice, and her reactions are completely different. Push me away, let me in," James laments. "It's like I can't ever tell what will get her to like me and what won't, like one of these days she'll decide to hate me for a month because I have the wrong reaction to something she says…"

"Shouldn't you just capitalize on it now before you eff it up, then?" Sirius suggests (Remus shoots him a reprimanding look as he flips open a textbook for bedtime reading). He's smearing chocolate all over his bed—Lily only moved back to the girls' dorm three days ago, and already Sirius is back to eating at inane hours.

James's eyes flash dangerously. "She's not just an object, Padfoot. I care more about her feelings than to treat her like, oh, the way you treat McKinnon, with that whole shag-and-drop cycle of yours…"

Sirius opens his mouth to protest, but Peter cuts in warningly, "It's over now, anyway, Prongs. She's fighting off Lockhart now, isn't she?"

"It's different than it was last year," James goes on, his temperament gradually subsiding. "She's not just some bird with red hair and a suspicious social life anymore to me. She's… Lily's my mate now, too, and I have to think about that. I'm happy for that. She's so…"

"Will you think it encouraging if I tell you you're much more articulate when she's in the room?" Remus says with a laugh; James scowls but says nothing further.

It all seems so normal, away from Belby, even with the full moon less than two days away; his pulse is easing, the color is flooding back into his cheeks. He's breathing again by the next morning as he heads to breakfast with the Marauders, snickering as they meet a deranged-looking Filch in the stairwell. "It's only a matter of time before they catch us, you know," Remus warns the others as they pass him, his voice satisfyingly unwavering. "Belby looked a bit suspicious of me at the prefects' meeting last night."

"Relax, Moony," says Sirius jovially, throwing open the doors to the Great Hall, "you're getting paranoid again. Sitting with Lily again, Prongs?"

"Where else?" says James, closing his eyes as he hugs her from behind—she's studying her Defense notes from yesterday and bats him away, but only halfheartedly. Remus gives an awkward little wave to the other girls at the table and takes his usual place between Sirius and Emmeline, reaching to heap omelets onto his plate.

Mary is the first to greet the boys, albeit through a mouthful of eggs. She's gotten mellower these last few weeks, ever since Cattermole left her, Remus has noticed—less nosy, though just as outgoing as before. Her hair is red today, though not as striking a shade as Lily's—to Remus's understanding, she's switched to Glamour Charms for now. "Potions for you lot today, right?" she asks. "I'm, like, so glad I dropped it this year… Slughorn is such a waste of time."

"Since Witch Weekly is so much more important than an education," says Emmeline dryly from behind her copy of the Daily Prophet.

Mary rolls her eyes. "Shut it, Em, you dropped it, too," she chides. "Besides, I'm cancelling my subscription, so don't even act like—"

"You're cancelling it? Where am I supposed to read it now?" interrupts Marlene, appalled.

"I can get Greta's or Ver's for you when they finish," says Mary. "They read pretty fast, and, like, they'll only need one copy after, anyway. Since when do you read Witch Weekly, Lene?"

"What, you haven't been wondering where all your old magazines have been disappearing to for the last two years?" says Marlene with a sheepish grin. "God, how daft—"

Remus breaks in hastily, asking, "How are your patrols going, Alice? The success of Meadowes's term as Head Girl practically depends on how this goes…"

"I should be asking you that," says Alice, running her fingers through her hair. "I get to go patrol with Frank; meanwhile, they gave you Regulus."

"Oh, it's not that bad—really, Sirius, it isn't," insists Remus at Sirius's bristling. "He's not the best company, I'll admit, but he's perfectly agreeable, at least for now. Belby…"

Peter says, "What is it with you and Belby today, Remus? First Mrs. Norris, now—"

"You gave her the camel humps?" says Marlene, snickering.

Remus sets down his goblet with a nervous clatter. "We, er, had something of a run-in after the prefects' meeting last night… don't worry, it was nothing," he dismisses, feeling rather harried.

Sirius raises his eyebrows as Peter furrows his, but Remus shakes his head, mouthing later. He glances at James, expecting similar disbelief, only to find the Marauder ringleader engrossed in conversation with one Lily Evans.

"Smitten, isn't he?" Emmeline's comment echoes his thoughts, and Remus nods, shrugging. "It's all right, though, it'll blow over. It's only love."

Remus swivels in his seat to take a good look at her—he hasn't really seen her in a while, he realizes. There's something clairvoyant about the puffy grey rings under her clouded eyes; the way her wispy hair silvers and thins by the week… "Only love?" Remus repeats, lifting his goblet again.

"That was rhetorical, you know," remarks Emmeline, delicately raising a fork to her lips.

It takes him a little too long to think of something suitable, for before he has a chance to wheedle any conversation out of her, Alice pushes away her plate and rises. "Potions starts in a quarter of an hour, and I don't want to be late. Let's go."

To buy time, he prods at his omelet and sighs. At the thought of seeing Belby again—the morning has passed too fast, he thinks—his stomach churns. "You know, Alice, I think I'll ditch today. That Halloween party last Saturday was enough Slughorn for one week. I'll meet you lot in the common room later?"

His decision attracts even Lily and James's attention: he may be a Marauder, but he, Remus, is the one who rarely misses a class, at least not without provocation from the others. "You serious, mate?" says Peter. "You're usually the one dragging them to Potions…"

"Dead serious. I've got some research I wanted to work in the library anyway," Remus confirms, a vague plan forming. "Will you tell Slughorn I'm not feeling well or something?"

"But Remus—" He's halfway across the Great Hall by the time he hears Sirius's protests. It wasn't a lie—he has research to do, though not necessarily of the academic sort. He digs around in his pocket for a certain tattered sheaf of parchment as he half-jogs to the library, barely nodding to Madam Pince as he heads toward that juncture of the reference section where Potions, Herbology, and Defense Against the Dark Arts meet.

It must have been hell for Belby to try to write this. Books tell of defeating werewolves only from the outside, never from within, and Remus can see the crossed-out instructions where Belby blurred this line between destruction and remedy. The parchment bears far more mistakes than it does instructions, it seems, and the final product isn't much more promising. "Devil's Snare clippings? Does he want to murder me?" Remus whispers, tracing a finger over the inky page.

"Not likely." He hits his head on the shelf above him, he's so startled—but it's (only?) Regulus Black, who's crouching to face Remus even as Remus's temple throbs on impact. "If there's one thing you can trust about Belby, it's that he'll put his own glory over your misfortune. Risk going to Azkaban for attempted murder—and lose all those years of his life? Even breaking out one day would seem like a waste of effort to him, and then he'd be a runaway, what could he accomplish then? Even if he weren't caught, then, it would only be because he passed it off as a mistake, and to him that's even worse than admitting to crime—admitting to getting it wrong."

"Some friend you are to him," mutters Remus, hastily stowing away the recipe.

Regulus's smile fades after only a moment. "Slytherins don't make friends, just allies. So what's so wrong with you that you've got Belby, of all people, working on it?" he asks.

"You'll find out if he succeeds, won't you?" Remus retorts. More than anything, he's surprised that Belby didn't spill the beans on his lycanthropy.

"So he wasn't just being a secretive arse when he wouldn't say what he's doing with you," Regulus muses. He chuckles—it sounds sinister to Remus—and rests on his haunches. "No class this period?"

"Skipped it. This is more pressing," says Remus. "Where are your cronies?"

Regulus snorts full on at this, leaning against the bookshelf for support. "We patrol together twice a month, Lupin, you should know by now that I don't do cronies. My brother didn't ditch with you?"

"He doesn't know about this," Remus admits.

"So you haven't told your best mates but don't try to hide it from their foes." Silence. "If you don't mind me asking something, Lupin, why do you talk to me like a-a—"

"Like a human being?" Remus fills in, shutting him up. "Like more than a shell of a wizard training in the Dark Arts? Not like my mate's pesky little brother who, somewhere along the line, went astray?" His voice cracks a bit—he feels weary, here with Regulus, squatting on the library floor. "Don't take it as a compliment, Black, I don't think any better of you than I did two months ago."

Regulus snorts. "What makes you think I was out for your approval? I was just wondering, 's all."

"Is that what you told Sirius when he found out you met with the Death Eaters? That you were just wondering what it was all about?" snaps Remus, casting aside the books in his lap and rising.

He's hit a nerve—he can see a tic throbbing in Regulus's temple—but he doesn't care, not when he's been dealing with these patrols for weeks now as politely as he could, and not said one word in Sirius's defense, not one; and now Belby knows and he has to choose, relief or opportunity, how is he supposed to choose—did he ever really think he could keep going like this without anyone finding out? He has to do it, he realizes: it hardly matters whether it's Belby or himself that's a danger to him, and if he refuses for the privacy, it's not like it would last long.

He has half a mind to go to Potions and catch the second half of class, but in his state of mind, that's probably not a wise idea. "Tell Belby to meet me outside the prefect's bathroom after dinner tonight," he says bitterly over his shoulder, and he heads back to the common room, collapsing wearily into an armchair with his Gryffindor mates the minute he spots them. "I had a run-in with Regulus in the library," he says darkly when Peter glances at him, alarmed.

"You don't want to talk about it?" Peter empathizes. Emmeline and Mary don't seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary: they're engrossed in their copies of Unfogging the Future and Remedial Numerology: A Flourish and Blotts Recommended Guide, respectively.

Remus just nods, sinking in his seat. His muscles ache with anticipation of the coming moon, but this is no time to let his guard time—there's never a time to let his guard down, not while he's living with lycanthropy. He's learned to conceal it, for the most part, so that no one thinks anything of his visits to the Hospital Wing; but then Belby came along and…

xx

It's later, Divination—they're reading crystal balls again, since Dumbledore refuses to hire an incompetent replacement for their last professor, and Sinistra's substitute teaching doesn't include a rigorous lesson plan. Remus sits on a pouf between Peter and Emmeline and tries to stop imagining a full moon in the orb. He doesn't think they notice his pallid face and shaking hands: Emmeline is intensely focused on her divining as always, and Peter's face is reddening with effort as he struggles to see anything at all. And all the better—he doesn't want their attention, not today.

He hates what the moon does to him. It's not that he thinks ill of himself for it, not at all—he's talented, likable, at the top of the class. And yet there's always this thing inside him, eating at his glory, which, if discovered, could take it all away. Fiscal success hinges on secrecy, and as for his relationships—well, he hasn't forgotten what almost happened to Severus Snape last year, and it still turns his stomach over to think of it. Having his mates there with him for the transformations… it thrills him, comforts him, but terrifies him.

And this potion—this potion could end all that, couldn't it? At least the part of it that's most important to Remus: he'd no longer be a danger to his friends, to a girlfriend or wife or child one day. Sure, he'd have to be careful to take it regularly, but it's not like he would forget to stop himself from turning into a beast once a month. He wouldn't have to treat himself as a threat anymore—he'd still be different, but he wouldn't be dangerous, and he can't think of a greater relief.

But oh, the circumstances of it! From the looks of the recipe, Belby has a long way to go before he'll get it right, and that means a lot of trials and a lot of full moons after which Remus might not wake up. He can't have the Marauders there to help him through it, obviously—Belby can't find out, and he doesn't want to put them in danger (it's such a burden to be a danger)—so he'll be more agitated than usual as it is, let alone the experimental side effects and potential failure that the potion may have. And if, pray tell, Belby gets it right before they graduate, suspicion will doubtlessly fall on Remus as the test subject; no one else enrolled has as questionable a background. His career choices after they find out…

"All right, Remus? You look a little pale," whispers Peter feverishly. Remus starts and glances over: he's had no luck with his fortune telling, it seems, and he's eyeing Remus with empathy and concern.

He forces a smile, if only because Emmeline's glancing at them from behind her orb. "Er, yeah, I'm fine, Peter, thanks," he says in a rush, "but I have to talk to you and the other blokes after class about something, all right? It's important."

Peter quirks an eyebrow but says nothing in dissent; Emmeline's gaze flicks away again. "Thanks, mate," mutters Remus bashfully, and he sinks so that his eyes are level with the crystal ball, resting his chin on the table. For once, the moon isn't staring back.

He doesn't tell them what's going on, not honestly. "You—can't come with me tomorrow," he tells them brokenly in the dorm after class is over, all sweaty palms and throbbing heart.

A cacophony of protests meets his words from the boys, a mixture of confusion and defiance. "But that's ridiculous! Are you mental?" demands Sirius, the loudest of the three, but he doesn't quite drown out Peter ("Why not, Moony, did something happen?") or James ("Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can't do for you?").

"Merlin, am I the only one here who remembers the time Snape almost got himself killed because of me? And don't get defensive about it, Padfoot, I'm not putting blame on you," he adds hastily, "but it wouldn't have been an issue if we weren't frolicking around the grounds making threats of ourselves. There was that time with the Slytherin fourth years, and I know for a fact that Hagrid's getting suspicious." He crosses his arms and fidgets a little—he means it, but he's still lying, and he's never been good at keeping things from his mates.

"Those twerpy little Death Eater wannabes had it coming, and can't we just Confound Hagrid to get around that?" says Sirius, still fuming a bit.

James interjects warningly, "Don't get carried away, Padfoot, you don't want that on your record."

"Listen, I can handle it on my own," Remus insists as forcibly as he can, which isn't very. "I did fine without you lot for fifteen years; it won't kill me to go on like this a little more. Just take a few months to prioritize, yeah? Keep in mind that the next person isn't going to be Snape."

Peter suggests quietly, "Why don't we just transform in the Shack with you and keep you company down there? It wouldn't feel right to leave you all alone."

Remus freezes, gaping. He hadn't thought of that, and he can't exactly accept their offer, not without them finding out about Belby—and he doesn't want to know what sorts of opinions or interference they would have in the matter. "No," he says feebly, frantically racking his brain for an excuse. "No, you can't; I won't let you."

"But Moony—" begins James impatiently.

"Don't think I don't know what kinds of scars you end up with after one night with me," Remus improvises, hoping his face won't give him away. "Lily Evans does a damn good job concealing them, but—"

"Lily doesn't just conceal them, she heals them," snaps Sirius. "It's good as new by the time she's done."

Remus shakes his head, thinking wildly. "And one of these days it'll be too big a wound for her, or she won't get to you in time, or—no. You can't, not for the next few times, and I'm not taking no for an answer."

And he doesn't: his voice shakes, but his resolve is firm, and they've grudgingly agreed by the end of the conversation. They catch the last half-hour of dinner with the girls, then disperse for the night: Peter with Siobhan, Emmeline with Maggie McKinnon, the rest together in the common room. Remus, though, breaks off from the pack after a few minutes and heads into his dormitory, breathing quickly.

He doesn't have much time. Rummaging through James's trunk and trying not to feel like he's a terrible mate, Remus pulls out the Invisibility Cloak and stuffs it in his bag, then shoves in a few books for good measure and hurries out of the tower. Belby—if there's anything good about him, he's dependable—is pacing outside the door as directed, his eyes slanted and suspicious when his gaze falls on Remus. "You're late," he accuses, pausing to lean against the corridor wall.

"If it turns out that I show you what was slowing me down, you'll feel lucky I came late," dismisses Remus before he gives the password for the bathroom. He's worked up from the earlier confrontation and isn't afraid of another one. "Get in."

Belby darts inside with him and locks the door behind them. "I take it this means you're on board?" he prompts, arrogance laced through his voice.

For a moment, Remus just looks dumbly back at him; then he says scathingly, "You think I'm going to trust you on this, just like that? Merlin, Belby—Devil's Snare clippings, Alihosty leaves, infusion of silver? What the hell were you smoking when you came up with this?"

"If you knew a thing about potion-making, you'd realize that the essence of belladonna reacts antagonistically with the Alihosty and reverses it to cause serenity instead of hysteria, and the asphodel acts as a sedative so that the Devil's Snare can take proper effect," retorts Belby, not missing a beat. "The Devil's Snare, when ingested, isn't what kills you—the overdose of naturally produced adrenaline is. Prevent that, and the clippings, guided by the silver and newt's eye, should counteract the lycanthropic brain cells activated by the full moon—you'll remain in a wolf's body, but your mind will be your own."

Remus quiets, blushing hard. "Mudbloods are good for one thing: sometimes, their sciences play a part in wizardry," whispers Belby with a hint of a smirk. "Still have doubts? Or are you bold enough to question the one here with a background in chemistry?"

"If you haven't thought this through, it could kill me," says Remus, dropping his voice. "I know you're conceited enough that you wouldn't care that I'd be dead, but don't you realize what would happen to your career when they found out it was you?"

"Yes," Belby says steadily. "So are you on board?"

After another pause, Remus pulls out the Cloak and thrusts it at Belby. "This is an Invisibility Cloak. Use it to sneak out of the castle at around ten o'clock tomorrow night, then go to the Whomping Willow—prod the knot on the trunk with a stick; it'll freeze the tree long enough for you to get in the passageway that leads to the Shrieking Shack. Ten o'clock, Belby, after that I might have transformed already by the time you get there. Bring the potion with you."

"You're a righteous little bastard, aren't you, Lupin?" asks Belby drippily.

He scowls and slams the door on his way out.

The next morning, Remus checks himself into the Hospital Wing and gets through the day on Madam Pomfrey's store of Dreamless Sleep Potion. He's tense and alert when the dose dries up at quarter to nine, so he coerces Pomfrey to take him to the Shrieking Shack earlier than necessary and waits it out. Any last-minute doubts he has he shakes off: it's too late to waver.

Belby comes promptly, though it feels like eternity has passed twice over by the time he arrives. He's got the Invisibility Cloak in a bundle under his arm and a glass vial squeezed in his hand. "Drink up," he says icily, tossing Remus the vial; it slices through the air on its trajectory before he catches it. "Anywhere you want me to stash this on the way out?" he adds, hoisting up the Cloak a little.

"There's a bedroom that way," says Remus, pointing; "leave it in there, and lock the door just in case."

Belby nods curtly and readies his wand toward him. "What are you doing?" says Remus sharply, backing away with the vial in his hand.

"You think I'll just give you an untested potion and then leave you here?" laughs Belby incredulously. "I have to stay to track your progress first—immobilize you if it doesn't work, revive you if it backfires. It would be irresponsible not to monitor your transformation."

"Of course," mutters Remus. "Here's to hoping you're as brilliant as they all seem to think."

He gulps down the potion and waits for the moon to come out to play.

Chapter Text

November 7th, 1976: Marlene McKinnon

She must have dreamt about him afterward, because when she’s stirring a little and still half-asleep, she can already feel the shame of (what?) bubbling in her stomach. It only takes a few more moments and a grunt from the body beside her, though, to remind her what she did, where she is—where is she? Hoisting herself up by the elbows, Marlene’s surprised, then shocked, to feel blankets slipping down her chest and a mattress creaking beneath her. She isn’t—she couldn’t have—

Bugger.

Losing her resolve was mistake enough; she knows better to do it in his dormitory. It’s too personal, too intimate, to mix in pillows and pajamas and Quidditch posters tacked up on the headboard and roommates—oh, lord, Black better have made sure they would be alone in here, else she won’t be able to hold her head up anymore. Marlene reaches down and feels around on the floor for whatever she was wearing last night (she’s not going to take the walk of shame with his blankets draped around her, she’s not), and she’s relieved when her hand hits her dressing gown. Only after she’s donned it does she dare open the curtains and check whether they have company.

They do—not Lupe, he’s stuck in the Hospital Wing, but Jay and Pete are snoring away in their respective beds. She gathers her undergarments and hightails the hell out of there before either of them wakes. What time is it, anyway? After miraculously finding her watch in the pocket of the dressing gown, Marlene checks and sees that it’s quarter to six in the morning: too late to go back to bed, too early to find Lily and sort herself out. All she wants is to curl up in bed, her own bed, and go back to sleep and forget that she slipped up again, after all these weeks of staying strong; but she doesn’t think she can face the girls, not yet, not ever.

So Marlene makes a break for the nearest bathroom and takes the hottest shower she can stand. She can’t scrub away that shame that’s filling her up and boiling her over, but clearing her head and remembering… she can’t say it helps, but at least she isn’t blocking it out. It isn’t the sex itself that bothers Marlene—she’s maybe a little sore, now that it’s over, but otherwise all right—it’s the implications, the what-did-I-do and the where-do-I-go-from-here.

Their pattern is misleading. She quickly cycles through their history: he approaches her, she accepts him, she has enough and cuts him off until the next time. Only Marlene’s the needy one, and Black rejects her over and over, every day, every minute. It’s not about who kissed whom first, it’s about how he can’t even look her in the eye until it’s over, and then he just sneers at her like she’s served her purpose and walks away for the rest of the day, or two, or ten—however long until he’s ready again. Her power over him is only an illusion: it’s Black who decides whether he has any use for her.

She knows, too, that they’re not exclusive. Marlene may not date other blokes, but he doesn’t try to hide his flings from her; more often than not, she’ll taste Veronica Smethley’s lip-gloss or smell Dana Madley’s perfume on him when they meet. She has every right to give him up, humiliate him, even—so why does she apologize between kisses for the nights they spend apart?

But last night—it was different, in part because she’d gone longer without him, but also because of the interest he showed in her. Less like his usual detachment and borderline apathy, more like the time it all started in fourth year. He held her back in the common room long after everyone else had gone up to bed—god, she’s remembering now—just studying and trading the occasional comment. And then Black told her (what did he say?) Lupe didn’t need him anymore, and he was looking at her properly for the first time in weeks, and her breath caught in her throat, and he crossed the room and leaned in over her so they were nose to nose, and he paused to breathe her in for a moment, and then—

Downhill from there. Marlene shuts out the details, knowing she isn’t ready to recall them just yet (ever). But he took her up to his dormitory when it wasn’t empty, there was a first, and he stayed after—she’s not sure what to make of that. He always dusts himself off and leaves her hanging after, always, but last night… last night was different.

Marlene turns off the water abruptly and steps out of the shower, toweling herself off. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem to matter whether Lily is still in bed or not—she’s in for a rude awakening.

But Lily isn’t there when Marlene braves the dorm, just Mary and Em fast asleep and Alice rummaging through her trunk for a fresh pair of robes. “Where’s Lily?” she asks immediately, standing stricken in the doorway.

“I don’t know,” says Alice wearily. Upon closer inspection, she looks exhausted—Marlene isn’t the only one who didn’t get much sleep last night, it seems. “She never came to bed, not that you would know. Where were you last night?”

“Nowhere,” says Marlene, but Alice doesn’t seem convinced. “Look, Alice, I really don’t need you to get all prefect on my arse right now, so if you’re not going to help me find Lily—”

Pulling out a pair of robes and slamming her trunk shut, Alice interrupts, “You weren’t with Lockhart or anything like that, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t with Lockhart,” she sighs. “You thought I was? Really? I’m not desperate enough to shag Mare’s exes, Alice, I thought you knew me better than that.”

Alice laughs, a tinkling little giggle that she hides behind her hand. “I dunno; the two of you always look so cozy in Herbology.”

Snorting, Marlene answers, “Right, because Mary replacing Cattermole with him in our group and him hitting on me all hour is criteria for ‘looking cozy.’”

Alice shakes her head and smiles. “I’m going to head down to breakfast; would you like to come?” she asks.

“I’d better not; I have a few things to take care of. If you see Lily, can you tell her I’m looking for her?” Marlene says. Alice nods her assent and gives her a little wave as she departs.

She has nothing to take care of—except maybe the regret in the pit of her stomach, but it’s not like she can do anything about that—so she shuts the hangings around her four-poster, curls up under the covers, and waits for a distraction.

It comes, finally, when Em wakes up—no, she’s fully dressed and slamming the dormitory door; Marlene must have been out longer than she thought. “Get up,” Em says flatly, parting the hangings on Marlene’s four-poster. “Lily wants to see you. She’s in the Hospital Wing.”

“Oh my god! Is she all right?” cries Marlene, starting.

She’s across the room and half-dressed before Em corrects her with a smug little smile. “Just fine. She’s visiting Remus in the Hospital Wing. They’re both asking for you, by the way.”

Kicking on her shoes, Marlene says, “All right, I’m ready. You coming?”

She shakes her head. “I have Divination to study. Give Remus my regards.”

So Marlene heads alone to the Hospital Wing, feeling just as dizzy as she did at the start of this damn morning. Distracted as she is, she nearly gets caught in two trick stairwells and takes a couple of wrong turns before she finally knocks into—oh, lord, she doesn’t have the patience for this—!

“If it isn’t Marlene McKinnon! Was it my angelic poise and stature that threw you off balance?” Stepping back, Gilderoy Lockhart beams down at her from an impressive height of 190 centimeters, plucking a flyaway strand of hair back into place as he tries to strike a handsome pose.

“Your familiarity with the word ‘stature’ certainly throws me,” Marlene says to herself, biting back a number of louder, snider comments.

Lockhart conveniently doesn’t catch this. “Where to, darling?”

“Away from you,” she retorts.

“The Great Hall for a late breakfast it is!” Lockhart declares, seizing her hand and leading her down the stairs with a prance that Marlene assumes must resemble a Muggle model’s runway walk. She tries to recoil, but Lockhart will have none of it and doesn’t bother to loosen his grip. “Have you given any thought to coming to the Quidditch game next weekend with me?”

“Why would I have?” asks Marlene.

He continues, as if uninterrupted, “The odds are in Gryffindor’s favor, the whole school’s been saying it, and as this is the only match of the season where you won’t have to worry about Hufflepuff knocking you out of the running… I’m on the reserve team, did you know? Rumor has it I’ll be the team Seeker next year if Benjy decides to switch to Keeper.” Lockhart’s chest swells with pride at this point, and he squeezes her limp hand a bit tighter.

Marlene can’t help but roll her eyes. “How rude that Fenwick can’t be bothered to confirm this himself to his protégé.”

“Ah, well, you can’t blame a bloke,” says Lockhart, grinning. “Believe me, I’d be his closest confidant—”

“Again, the extent of your vocabulary amazes me,” Marlene mutters.

“—If he weren’t so taken with Elisabeth Clearwater. She’s always been a charming one, not that she has anything on you,” he adds with a wink. “Quidditch team captain and Benjy’s fellow prefect—it’s no wonder they spend so much time together! Benjy’s a decent Seeker, though he can’t quite compare to my natural talent on a broomstick—he’ll be much better suited to Keeper next year, I reckon.

“But Hufflepuff still has it in the bag this season under Elisabeth’s direction, don’t you think?” Lockhart muses. “I can’t imagine how Ravenclaw will win a single match with Charlotte Fawcett Captaining, and Meadowes and Black can’t compensate for the lacking abilities of the rest of the Slytherin team. Sorry to say, the same goes for Gryffindor’s talent pool this year, I’m afraid—”

She’ll be damned if Lockhart, of all people, can get off saying that about her team. “Oh, have you forgotten about Meghan McCormack? Professional scouts have tagged her as a candidate for the British team at the World Cup already, and she’s only a fifth year.”

“We’ve got her brother, Kirley,” Lockhart points out smugly.

“Or the Prewetts? Gideon’s got to be the best Captain Hogwarts has seen in years, turning the Gryffindor team around like that, and he and Fabian together are a force to be reckoned with,” Marlene continues.

He smiles. “You say that like Elisabeth hasn’t done the same for Hufflepuff! Don’t be silly, dear. Besides, he and Fabian are hardly an unstoppable team. Have you ever considered that Fabian might be leaking information through Meadowes to the Slytherins?”

“Fabian’s above that. Hell, Meadowes is above that,” says Marlene heatedly. “All your Chasers combined have nothing on James Potter, and with what they’re saying about that new Beater, Anna Moon—”

Lockhart interrupts dismissively, “Ah, well, only time will tell. Can you see now why this is the match to attend with me? All that rivalry will be out in the open after Hufflepuff’s first game!”

They’ve reached the Great Hall, to Marlene’s relief. Lockhart makes to enter with her, but she sharply pulls away. “You know, Lockhart—”

“Darling, call me Gilly,” he insists.

Thoroughly disgruntled, she fights to keep her temper under control. “I don’t think I’m that hungry after all. Say hello to my brother Matt if you see him, will you? He’s a first year Hufflepuff—really short, can’t miss him—”

Setting off again for the Hospital Wing, she simply chooses to ignore the shouts of “Quidditch! Think about it!” at her receding figure. Her frustration with Lockhart is gradually replaced by the lingering confusion of earlier until she winds up at Madam Pomfrey’s door. She throws it open without knocking and scans the room for Lily’s red hair; not finding it, she doesn’t wait for permission to dart to the only bedside with closed hangings.

Lily starts a little; Lupe, covered in blue-green bruises and sporting a black eye, gives a weak half-wave. “You look horrible,” Marlene blurts out on instinct. “I mean, more horrible than you usually do when you end up in the Hospital Wing. What happened to you? Chronic illness doesn't give people black eyes, does it?”

Lupe just shrugs, him and Lily both looking uncomfortable, and since when is Lily in on something going on with Remus that he hasn't told Marlene about? She doesn’t want to push it, though, and awkwardly says, “Where are the rest of the boys, anyway?”

Lily says, “James and Peter were here earlier, but Madam Pomfrey threw them out. I haven’t seen Sirius, though, and they said they haven’t talked to him since last night…”

Marlene’s stomach gives an unpleasant lurch. “About that.”

There’s a long, uncomfortable pause. She can’t bear to look at either of them, so she bows her head and fiddles with the hem of her robes, a hot blush spreading across her cheeks, down her neck. “You didn’t,” Lily finally says, her voice sounding strangled.

“Lily, Lupe went through enough last night; I really don’t think he needs to—”

“Remus can take it,” Lily interrupts, tensing. “Lord knows you need to learn to own up to your mistakes. So you gave in again?”

She pleads, “It was more than that! It didn’t seem like he was just using me again, it was—god, I woke up in his dormitory this morning, do you know how hard it must have been for him to bring me up there and then to find I was already gone when he got up? And he said—he said…”

Remus doesn’t need me anymore.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” She rounds on Lupe, who just blinks back at her through swollen eyes. “You were up to something last night, something more than just being sick, something so serious that Madam Pomfrey somehow couldn’t heal the bruising. Whatever you did last night, Black didn’t want you to be doing it, it was dangerous, you were doing it without them, you…”

They're all a little scared by now, Marlene reckons—at least, she expects that she's not the only one feeling dizzy and hot and seeing stars. How many damned secrets are there in this school, and for what?

Quietly, Lupe says, “You can’t tell anyone. Please, Marlene, it’s too big to explain it to you, and it’s not safe for anyone to suspect anything, all right?”

She nods slowly, seeing Lily relax out the corner of her eye. “I’ll keep quiet,” she agrees. “But jeez, Lupe—I’ve known you for going on six years now, I’m one of your best mates, we’ve trusted each other with so much before—you didn’t even know Lily before last summer, how does it work that she knows what you’re up to and I don’t?”

“She wasn’t supposed to find out,” says Lupe wearily. “Too many people know already. Please, just let it go, it isn’t about whether or not I trust you.”

She gives him a long look. “All right,” Marlene finally consents, though she knows she can’t quite let it go, “but you’re not just getting off scot-free. And you can’t talk to anyone about me and Black, and that includes Jay and Pete.”

“Of course I won’t,” he says, easing himself deeper into the pillows. “I owe you one, Marlene. You have no idea what it means to me.”

“A hell of a lot, I should hope,” she says darkly.

Lily breaks the ensuing silence by awkwardly clearing her throat. “If we’re done here, I’d better get going; I have to be at the Ministry in half an hour for my internship. I think this is the month I’ll finally get to go to France, so I can’t start making a bad impression or anything by showing up late.”

“Yeah, of course. Good luck,” says Marlene not entirely sincerely. Lily lets it slide, though, parting the curtains to go with a little wave to them both.

She starts to make small talk, but judging by the look on Lupe’s face, he has other ideas. So Marlene patiently waits, fiddling with the edge of her robes, until he finally asks, “How do you girls stand it?”

“How do we stand what? Blokes? Menstruation? The societal prejudice against us?” she prompts, readying herself for a feminist rant.

Lupe gives a half-smile and shakes his head. “The gossip. The things you concern yourselves with… take you and Sirius, for example. You have sex sometimes—so what? Not that what you have is healthy, or isn’t detrimental,” he adds hastily,  “but—that’s really your biggest problem, sex? And look at Mary, she’s changing her whole life and outlook around over her hair color, a bit of makeup, and one bloke. Then there’s Lily—god, I would be a wreck if that had happened to my parents, but half the time, it’s like she’s more worried about James and Snape than the fact that she’s an orphan.” By the time he’s done talking, he looks exhausted, depleted; he twists his lips a bit and tugs at his blankets, but he doesn’t quite have the strength to pull them up any further.

So Marlene leans in and tucks them around his shoulders, not meeting his eyes as she replies, “It’s not just a bit of gossip. I reckon we’re all at least a bit shallow—except Em, not that I understand her—but it’s more than that, it’s…” She trails off, searching for words. “We’re not thick, you know. We know there’s a war going on out there, that people are dying—but you can’t waste away half your life worrying about it. There’s nothing we can do—at least, not yet—” He quirks an eyebrow, but she doesn’t elaborate. “—So you worry about blokes and Glamour Charms instead, because at least that’s doable, you have control of that. It may not matter as much in the long run, but since you can’t change the world… nobody in this school is important enough to change the world yet, none of the students, anyway. You really think Lily wants to dwell on her problems, or that Mary wants people to compare her to Veronica Smethley all the time?”

“But she’s nothing like Smethley,” says Lupe, his forehead creasing in a frown. “Yeah, they’re mates, but that doesn’t mean they have much in common other than Witch Weekly. Smethley’s not half as good a person, for one thing.”

Marlene sighs. “I know that, and you know that, but are you naïve enough to think that anyone can see that about her other than the Gryffindor sixth years when she’s running around spreading rumors every chance she gets? People don’t care about people very often, Lupe, they just care about themselves and say everyone else is a bitch until proven otherwise. Look at us—we do the same thing with Smethley’s lot, don’t we? Even with the Slytherins.”

Lupe goes rigid; she can feel it through the mattress. “They’re not necessarily awful people, and maybe some of them aren’t little Death Eaters in training, but I don’t trust their motives. They ended up in that house for a reason. Resourceful and cunning…”

“Do the Slytherins have anything to do with how you got here?” she asks softly.

Panic lines the contours of his face. “Not directly,” Lupe mumbles.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I can’t,” he says, looking pained. “Believe me, it’s not the kind of thing you want to involve yourself in. If things were different…”

Marlene smiles weakly. “There’s enough already in my life that no one should want to involve themselves in. Just think about it, yeah?”

Closing his eyes, Lupe answers, “Maybe someday.”

She tells herself she’ll leave when she’s sure he must be asleep, but when his breathing has been steady for at least a quarter of an hour, she still hasn’t budged. Lupe is kind and strong and everything she’s not, but at least for the next few days, this is all he’ll amount to—a bruised mess struggling to recover. Maybe this is all anyone amounts to on the inside, Marlene thinks; maybe she doesn’t have to throw in the towel because she ran away from home and she’s lying about her father and she’s letting Black use her and Dumbledore—

Marlene hasn’t been able to stop thinking about his offer. Oh, Marlene has tried to put it out of her mind, knowing that she has another year and a half before she’ll have a chance to accept it, but the idea that she doesn’t have to make the Auror program to do something about Voldemort’s forces is an enticing one. It pains her a little to think it’ll make her more like Doc, but then, she can’t blame him for not being the most involved father in the wizarding world. He’s lived the last sixteen years as though he only had a daughter on Christmas and her birthday at Mum’s request; he can’t be expected to turn his life around when Marlene unexpectedly chose to move into his flat.

There are so many stigmas she’s caught between—bastard child, teenage slut—that it’s no one’s fault if her family’s not perfect. And her parents love her, she knows that, even though Mum doesn’t understand her and Doc is never around. At least, Marlene figures, she’s not in Lily’s shoes with no place to go but someone else’s bachelor pad, or horribly disfigured and lying in a hospital bed like Lupe.

Glancing away, she checks her watch—lunch is nearly over—and casts one last look at Lupe’s broken figure before she goes.

Although this train-wreck of a day has her stomach twisting too much to eat, she has nowhere better to go than the Great Hall, so she takes a deep breath and steps through the doors. Who will even be here to shield her from Black? Almost everyone has an internship, except the two of them, Lupe—he’s out of commission, obviously—and—Em isn’t even in the hall. Of course.

It’s too late to back out now—she’s reached her usual seat at the Gryffindor table. Black glances up from his overflowing plate, then instantly looks away. “’Lo, McKinnon,” he says softly between bites.

“Black,” says Marlene in turn, sitting awkwardly across from him, and it strikes her that even sex wasn’t enough to put them on first-name terms. Sure, Black’s sort of like her nickname for him, and all of the boys switch off between calling the girls by their first and last names, but that doesn’t seem like enough to her.

“I’m surprised you’re not with Lupe,” she says to take her mind off of it, pouring herself a goblet of pumpkin juice so she doesn’t feel so out of place. “Lily and I have been in there all morning, and she didn’t see you, either.”

He chokes on his casserole at that. “Who told you about Remus?” Black splutters.

“Em,” says Marlene nonchalantly. “Come on, Black, you didn’t think people would hear about it? He winds up in the Hospital Wing all the time with—you know, whatever it is he's got.”

“Right, yeah. I just reckoned he wouldn’t want to see me after that,” Black improvises, still coughing. She hasn’t forgotten that something’s up, but she promised Lupe she’d keep quiet, so she will, even with his well-informed mates. “Speaking of the Hufflepuffs, Lockhart has been yelling about your infatuation with him all morning. Something about a run-in on the way to breakfast…?”

Snorting, she explains, “I skipped breakfast; he just decided to escort me to the Great Hall before I could get in a word edgewise. Thinks I’ll be his date to the Quidditch game next weekend.”

“You’re not interested?” he asks with—is that a hopeful edge to his voice?

“Lockhart’s a thick arse; of course I’m not interested,” says Marlene, not missing Black’s visible relief. “Anyway, I reckon I’m going with the other Gryffindors like always, rallying behind you and Jay and all that, not that you’ll need luck on your side to demolish Slytherin.”

Black replies through a mouthful of beans, “Lily and Mary and Remus will go with you, I reckon. Peter's taking Flynn—can’t believe they’re still together, those two—Abbott is going with Cresswell and Longbottom, I think it's a double date—Em never goes to Quidditch games, but you know that already.”

“A double date? Who’s Frank seeing? I thought he was single.”

There's a wicked glint in Black’s eyes. “He was until a few days ago, when he got with Dana Madley.” Marlene spits out her mouthful of pumpkin juice, “I know, I couldn't believe it when I heard, either.”

“Scourgify,” she says to clean up her mess, then laughs a bit incredulously at the news. “The Dana Madley? That daft bitch who somehow landed herself in Ravenclaw? I didn’t think Longbottom would go for someone that… er, busty, or that much of a gossipmonger, for that matter. Didn’t she and Jay have a thing briefly last year?”

Black shakes his head. “Almost. She was really pushing for it, and you know what James is like sometimes, so he led her on a bit more than he ought to have—but he never could have gone through with it. Whatever he says, he’s always been holding out for Lily.”

Not that Black knows anything about holding out for her, even when he knows he’s already got her. Marlene drops her eyes; Black drops his voice. “You know I can’t,” he reminds her, sighing. “There’s too much baggage, I’m too… I wish I could, but I can’t, I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry,” she says slowly, clenching her fist around her goblet.

“Marlene—”

Glaring, she stands. “I know you can’t, I just can’t fathom why not, or why me.”

“Don’t go, we can talk about this, I know I owe you that,” Black protests, struggling to keep his voice down. “Last night—”

“I have to go; I promised Mare I’d meet her after lunch,” fibs Marlene, and she feels so tired again, not that she’s felt anything else all day. “I’m going.”

So she goes.

Chapter Text

November 8th, 1976: Lily Evans

Monday

She throws open the doors of the Great Hall to find the Slytherin table full of maroon hair and frowns. Turning to James, Lily can tell that he and his mates are the culprits—he’s not laughing openly, but there’s a smug upturn to the corners of his lips. “But why, James?” she says with a grin.

He starts to chuckle now that she’s said it, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and holding tight. “It’s Quidditch Week, Lily. You can’t have thought we wouldn’t kick it off with a bang,” James reasons.

“Quidditch Week?” Lily repeats, raising her eyebrows.

It’s a bland, colorless morning, complete with grey clouds above and a draft that rattles the windows. Remus is battered, Marlene is suspicious, Sirius is guilty—and James is guiding her away from worry, away from everyone, in fact, spinning her around and back out the doors before she’s taken two steps inside. “You haven’t forgotten, have you, after all the practices Sirius and I have been to lately? Gryffindor versus Slytherin on Saturday—and you’d better be there. The week before the game is always brutal; where have you been for the last six years not to know that?”

Skipping games and going to the library with Severus, Lily thinks, but she suppresses it. “I know, I just didn’t realize that a whole week of buildup is necessary—what are you doing?” she says, scrunching up her eyes as James prods the tip of her head with his wand.

“Relax, it’s just a Glamour Charm,” says James. “I’d think you could recognize one by now—haven’t you been helping Mary with them every morning?”

She replies, “Not nonverbally. Is this really necessary?” Lily rakes her fingers through her hair and pulls a fistful forward: it’s an auburn shade now, streaked with gold.

James snickers, “Didn’t you see the warning flyer in the common room earlier? Anyone with red hair who passes through the doorway may come down with a terrible case of head lice—the Slytherins, now that we’ve dyed their hair maroon for the next week.”

“What a shame,” Lily says, shaking her head. “And here I thought that red hair was just a minor nuisance.”

“Under different circumstances, I’d say it rather suits you, actually,” teases James. He adds, sobering, “For what it’s worth, if not for the lice, you wouldn’t ever need a Glamour Charm.”

With a smile, she leans in and rests her head against his breastbone, accepting a proffered hug. It’s nice, whatever she and James are doing together. (Lily can’t for the life of her figure it out on her own.) She’s not used to letting people in so soon, especially James after all she’s put him through and all he’s seen of her, and she hasn’t forgotten that he may or may not be interested in her, but… somehow, the possibility doesn’t scare her.

Sometimes, when she lets herself consider it, it intrigues her.

Hearing a few gossipy fourth years pass them, Lily reluctantly pulls back, though she keeps one hand in James’s. “And the highlights? Are those necessary?” she asks playfully.

“Come on, you have to show some sort of Gryffindor spirit,” says James, running his fingers through a lock of her hair. “To breakfast?”

“Actually, I’d better go back upstairs, warn Mary about the lice,” Lily says, shaking her head.

James grins, saying, “Red again today?” When she nods, he adds, “No one can pull off red as well as you can, you know.”

She’s smiling to herself all the way up to the Gryffindor Tower.

xx

Tuesday

The wind dies down enough that a walk around the grounds is tolerable—and for that, Lily’s thankful, since outdoors seems to be the only place where she can get Marlene alone. “I’m not going to tell you about it,” Marlene is saying as the doors swing shut behind them. Lily didn’t miss her intonation: not you.

She sighs, “Don’t be that way—please? I know from Alice that you spent half of yesterday morning running around trying to find me; what else could you have wanted?”

Marlene shoots her a glare that has her blushing and looking down. “That was before I knew you were going to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying to you. I don’t want to sell you some story—if I did, I’d keep trying to shove that down your throat long after you figured it out,” she argues. “I’m protecting his privacy. You’d understand if you knew—”

“But I don’t know, do I, so why should I believe that?” Marlene demands.

And it’s killing her because she so wants to give up all this pretending and come clean—Remus is a werewolf—but it’s a secret that, lord knows, could ruin his future if the wrong person finds out, and it’s not Lily’s place to decide who can be trusted. “Because you believe me,” Lily says instead because it’s the best she can come up with, “because you left your family and took me in to get me through last summer, and you ought to know, after everything, that I’m not going to hide things from you like—like—”

“Like a bitchy little nine-year-old brat,” Marlene finishes for her when Lily can’t come up with the right words.

She hides her grin in the crook of her elbow, faking a cough. “Yes, exactly. Look, Marlene—that’s Remus’s business, and I’m not going to meddle in his life by telling you what he’s going through. But don’t punish me by keeping quiet about Sirius. I may not have said anything all those times he came over last August, and all right, maybe it’s easier just to let Alice dock points and handle it most of the time, but you said it yourself, this is different—”

Marlene interrupts, “Oh, so you’d rather not ‘handle me’ when there’s someone else to do it for you, and you don’t trust me enough to tell me your secrets, but you still get all offended when I don’t confide in you?”

This isn’t her secret; this isn’t fair. She doesn’t even understand what’s going on with Remus: all Lily remembers is meeting James and Peter in the common room that night to heal their wounds, only James said Remus wouldn’t let them come, they don’t know why, they don’t believe his excuses, and it’s been so long since he’s done it alone, he could bloody well get himself killed in his state, so could she think of some dumb excuse about why he’s in the Hospital Wing in case it’s an extended stay? Sirius wouldn’t come (probably because of Marlene, she knows now), so it was just the three of them traipsing down to his bedside the next morning, and god, all the Healing in the world can’t ever erase the memory of seeing him so battered and defeated—and she can’t explain any of that to Marlene, and it wouldn’t matter even if she could because it isn’t something that can be cured.

Lily blocks out the memory of it—what more can she do? “Please talk to me,” she says softly, her lip quivering. “It’s too much to carry alone.”

“Maybe it would be for you,” says Marlene, her voice wavering by the smallest fraction, “but I’m stronger than that.”

She turns on her heel and marches back to the castle. Watching Marlene’s retreating back, Lily heaves a sigh and hopes she can call this progress.

xx

Wednesday

Only James actually calls it Quidditch Week, but he was right about the anticipation, it seems. By Wednesday morning, Lily has heard reports of six scuffles between Gryffindors and Slytherins in the younger years, one of which involved injuries so bad that Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping the student overnight for observation. “I’m just glad that nothing too serious has happened yet,” Alice says when Lily brings it up in the dormitory. “Can you imagine what could have happened if older students had been involved?”

“Who’s to say they won’t be? There’s still another three days before the match,” says Lily fervently, crossing the room to Mary’s bed and murmuring a quick “wake up, Mare, you’ve got Herbology.” Aquarius follows her, leaping onto the bed and licking a dazed Mary’s face.

“Don’t remind me,” Marlene snarls, scraping her hairbrush against her scalp and yanking it through her tangles. (She’s been more than a little upset since Sunday.) “Another hour and a half of working with Lockhart—god, why did he have to replace Cattermole?”

Batting Aquarius away as she wakes up, Mary replies, “Let it go, Lene. You can’t actually expect me to work in the same group as Reg after what happened in Hogsmeade, can you? Greta’s not going to separate from Ver, and Davy is with Reg now, so unless, like, you want to go join Benjy and James and Sirius—”

“Lord, no,” snaps Marlene. “Can’t we split up or something, though? Alice and I can partner Gudgeon and Cattermole, or—” 

“No,” says Mary shortly, and they can all tell it’s the end of that discussion. “Thanks, Lily, but I think I’m going to go natural today. I haven’t done black in a while.”

Lily nods and slides off Mary’s bed. “You’re running a bit late for class—do you want me and Em to bring back some breakfast while you’re getting ready?”

“That would be nice—thanks, Lily,” says Alice with a smile.

Lily bids them a cheery goodbye and departs, Emmeline in tow. “I hope you don’t mind me volunteering you like that,” says Lily to break the ice. “I just thought—I mean, I didn’t want to leave you out or anything—”

Emmeline folds her hands and looks down. “It’s not surprising. You’re one of them now.”

“One of—I’m sorry, what? I’m not—” She trips over words at first, uncomprehending, unsure. “It’s just me. It’s Lily.”

“It’s not,” Emmeline says with a tone of finality and a funny little smile at her lips.

To no avail, she mulls this over on the walk downstairs, giving it up when they reach the Great Hall. Lily really ought to talk to her: it’s been a while since the days when they were Gryffindor outsiders together, and though Lily’s grateful to have the others as mates now, she rather misses Emmeline’s quiet companionship that she traded for the girls. “Clearly, we need to catch up,” she says hesitantly, gauging Emmeline’s reaction out the corner of her eye as they approach the Gryffindor table. She’s always on her guard, Emmeline, but she looks at least a little surprised by the proposition. “Do you want to have breakfast together after we drop some food off upstairs?”

Emmeline says slowly, “Margaret and I…”

“It’s one meal. You can make it up to Maggie,” Lily coaxes her, tossing a few apples and rolls into her bag before turning back around.

Though she spares a glance for the Ravenclaw table, Emmeline nods, giving in. “All right. Breakfast,” she agrees timidly as Lily pushes open the doors.

Lily repeats, “Breakfast.” They start to mount the staircase again, both smiling, albeit a bit timidly, and she finally feels like something is going right for her, like she can forget for a moment or two that everyone’s in big trouble: she, Remus, Marlene…

It doesn’t last long. “Do you hear something?” Lily asks. The halls aren’t echoing with just their footsteps anymore; there’s some sort of scuffle in the background, some shouted incantations.

“Hear what?” Emmeline is saying, but Lily’s already rounding the corner, her bag clunking painfully against her thigh, and then she knows that there’s no need to explain this. It’s Sirius versus the Slytherin Beaters, Amycus and Alecto Carrow, twins from their year. He’s holding his own, but all three of them look pretty battered, and she’s horrified.

“Sirius, don’t!” Lily yells, worming her way out from under the strap of her bag and whipping out her wand. “Protego! PROTEGO! EXPELLIARMUS!”

As Sirius and the Carrows fly apart, one of the wands flies into her free hand—Amycus’s, she notes with relief. She hastily disarms Alecto and Sirius, then stashes all three wands in her robe pocket and cautiously drops the shield. “Can you find Alice or someone to handle this, Em?” she says, glancing over her shoulder—but Emmeline’s already gone, replaced in the unexpected form of Dorcas Meadowes, the Head Girl.

Dear lord.

“Vance ran into me in the corridor, said there was a duel going on,” Meadowes says breathlessly—has she been running to get here? “A pre-match dispute, I assume?”

“It looks like it,” says Lily, looking to Sirius. He nods, cold fury fueling a spark in his eyes. “But I don’t think anyone’s seriously injured.”

Meadowes sighs, but her fist clenches around her wand—she means business. “All right. Thirty points from Gryffindor, sixty from Slytherin, and don’t let me catch any of you fighting again in the next week, or I’ll see to it that you don’t play on Saturday. Can you make it to the Hospital Wing on your own, or do I need to drag your arses down there myself to ensure that Madam Pomfrey takes a look?”

They go of their own accord, though not together. What were you thinking? Lily mouths furiously at Sirius; he brushes past her with a silent I’ll tell you later, and she intends to hold him to it.

Once the Carrows are gone, Meadowes compliments her, “You handed that well, Evans.” Lily’s surprised, but she hides it, offering Meadowes a half-smile. “From what Vance was saying, it was pretty bad. Curses flying everywhere—”

“I cast a pretty strong Shield Charm,” says Lily modestly, shrugging. “But thanks.”

“Either way, five points back to Gryffindor for wand-work and quick thinking—actually, no, let’s make it ten. Gryffindor’s going to take quite a hit when they finally catch Potter’s gang for the lice,” says Meadowes. She grins as she departs, a few maroon stripes still in her hair gleaming under the lamplight. It only reinforces Lily’s notion that she’s not half bad for a Slytherin: Fabian must not be as crazy as everyone thinks for going out with the girl.

It’s not until she’s back in the dormitory, passing over food and gossiping about the fight, that it occurs to her that Emmeline blew her off for breakfast.

xx

Thursday

Sirius won’t talk, so she goes to James instead, catching him alone in the common room the following evening. “He wouldn’t even mention it to me—I didn’t find out about it myself until Defense Against the Dark Arts today. Andy held him back after class to talk to him about it.”

It’s late—late enough that they’re the only ones still up. The last fifth and seventh years finally went up to their dormitories about ten minutes ago, leaving them alone: the other sixth year girls are all in bed by now, Sirius and Peter at Remus’s bedside in the hospital wing. “But why?” Lily persists. “I know he’s a bit… aggressive, but he’s not the type to attack people for no reason, is he?”

James says, “It’s probably just the timing. Inter-house tensions are high to begin with this week, and then there’s Regulus… Sirius reckons he joined up with Voldemort last summer, that’s why he left home.” He trails off for a minute, looking morosely into the distance, then continues, “And before the full moon, Remus was avoiding us, skipped a class or two—and he kept talking about Belby like he’s a threat.”

“Damocles Belby?” says Lily, surprised. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“Dunno. None of us know,” James sighs. “I reckon he’s just on edge about the whole of Slytherin House these days, and the Carrows were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” 

Lily muses, “Huh. Belby.”

They sit quietly for a minute, the room silent apart from the pat-pat-pat of rain against the castle. She says, finally, “I don’t think I mind you lot being there with Remus when he transforms… I did at first, but from the looks of it, it’s much worse on him when you’re not there, and you seem to have a handle on staying alive when you’re there. You’re all still completely daft for putting yourselves in danger like that,” she says quickly when he starts to chuckle, “but on the flip side—it’s sweet of you to do it for him.”

“Insults to my masculinity aside, glad to have your approval,” jokes James, smiling warmly. She feigns irritation, but her halfhearted complaints are lost against his chest as he scoots in closer on the couch and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

“I guess this means you were right about Quidditch Week,” Lily mumbles sheepishly, her words muffled.

James laughs again, shaking his head. “Guess so,” he echoes. “How could you not have noticed until now, though, honestly? Macdonald’s the clueless one, not you.”

“Be nice. Mary’s not as thick as people give her credit for,” chides Lily gently, tilting up her chin to meet his eyes. “But really… I suppose because of Severus.” James stiffens but nods for her to go on. “He’d always point out all the stupid things people did whenever a match was coming up, of course, but I just—well, neither of us ever got into the sport, so we never really stopped to notice that all the drama was in the week leading up to the game, or that it was at its worst for Gryffindor versus Slytherin. We wouldn’t even go to the games; we used to spend the morning of a match working on Potions essays together in the library.”

“You mean you’ve never seen me in a Hogwarts match before?” says James incredulously. She shakes her head, sheepish. “But that’s just—it’s—that’s a disgrace to the noble Gryffindor name!” he declares grandly, gaping at her.

“Come on, it’s not that bad—I saw you at the Prewetts’ place last summer, remember? And I’m going this year, too,” Lily says in her defense, grinning.

He maintains, “But to have skipped every match for five years…”

“It’s not a crime to dislike Quidditch, James.” He doesn’t look like he can handle this revelation, so she elaborates, “It’s not that I don’t like to fly, but making a sport of it—to me, that’s like taking something beautiful and, I don’t know, taking all the wonder out of it. All that competition—it’s like you’re focusing so much on the heat of the moment that you forget why wizards invented broomsticks in the first place.”

“People didn’t dream up broomsticks because people like to be up high, they just wanted to move fast,” says James lightly, but she knows from the look on her face that he’s taking her seriously. “You can’t really feel the wind on your face if all you’re doing up there is floating in the clouds.”

Sighing, she asks, “How is it that you’re able to make things like that look decent?”

“Things like what?” repeats James blankly.

“You know. Sports, pranks, the whole nine yards,” Lily lists, ticking them off on her fingers. “Not that you make me want to go hex a Slytherin or anything, but—I never used to be able to understand you, you know that.”

“Oh, so now you’re claiming to have me all figured out?” James teases.

She doesn’t smile, necessarily, but the corners of her lips turn up. “You’re not the kind of person I’ll ever have all figured out, I don’t think, but you make me want to at least try.”

“Good save. Nicely done,” he mocks, but he gives himself away by squeezing her shoulders.

“They’re onto you lot about the head lice, you know,” Lily informs him after a pause. “Dorcas Meadowes told me so after she broke up the fight yesterday. She knows it was the boys, at any rate, even if Dumbledore doesn’t have enough proof to punish you yet.”

“Oh, but I’m one step ahead of you, Lily; McGonagall docked twenty points for it after lunch. Since when do you talk to Meadowes, anyway?” he adds offhand, straightening up.

She shrugs and says, “I don’t, really. We just got to talking a bit yesterday after Sirius and the twins left… she seems nice.”

James agrees, “She’s all right, Meadowes. She’s a Slytherin for a reason, but she’s not filth like a lot of them—she’s more towards the ‘resourceful’ and ‘ambitious’ end of the spectrum, if you ask me. She’ll have a hard time serving a successful term as Head Girl, though; from what I hear from Remus, she’s an easy target for the prefects.”

“That’s what Alice says, but I think I understand where Dumbledore was coming from, giving it to her,” says Lily thoughtfully. “Haven’t you noticed that none of the fights this week have involved first years? It sends a good message, pairing her up with Kingsley. It may be too late for some of us, but…” She swallows painfully, thinking of Severus.

James says, “It’s like that saying about old men starting wars and young men fighting them. The only reason the Slytherins are endorsing all the blood purity shit is because of how they’ve been raised and what they’ve been told by the old blood families. If they can break the cycle early, there won’t be anything to fight about; Voldemort will be outnumbered.”

Lily curls up against him, taking in his words. “You’d make a good leader, you know that?”

His answering smile is melancholic. “As would you.”

xx

Friday

Potions class is painfully awkward. It’s the only class the Gryffindor and Slytherin sixth years have together; add that to Lily avoiding Severus, Remus and Belby exchanging significant looks, and Sirius sending Alecto Carrow death glares, and it’s almost more than any of them can take. Mundungus Fletcher is the only remaining Slytherin who isn’t holding a grudge against anyone in the room, but his good nature only aggravates the other students.

And worse, Slughorn is eager to play on the competitive mood. “First pair to successfully brew the potion earns ten points to their house and a free pass to the Slug Club’s next gathering!” he announces, clapping his hands once with excitement. “So get to it! Sirius, Remus, I’m going to have to ask you to separate—back with your usual partners, please.”

“Get me out of here,” Sirius mutters to them out the corner of his mouth as he passes, begrudgingly taking his seat next to Marlene.

“For once, I’m going to have to agree with Sirius,” Lily sighs, flipping through her textbook to the appropriate recipe. James grabs her free hand under the table and doesn’t let go.

Class is only five minutes underway before Marlene’s frustration with Sirius seems to outweigh her recent spat with Lily. She makes a point of following Lily to the ingredient cupboard, then says under her breath, “Tell me again how I landed him as my partner.”

“If I recall correctly, you blew up our potion on the first day, so Slughorn split us up and put you with Sirius,” says Lily, her grin widening at the resentful look Marlene gives her. “Good luck!” she adds cheekily, though she’s just as anxious as Marlene seems to be.

“Same to you,” replies Marlene, sensing this, as she gathers her ingredients in her arms and walks back to her seat.

They’re all thoroughly disgruntled by the end of the period; so much so, in fact, that Sirius and Marlene are speaking normally again (Lily isn’t sure how long that will last). At least, semi-normally. “And now I have to put up with Black for another hour and a half before dinner,” Marlene accuses, jabbing her thumb into his chest, “since all the other boys will be in class, Remus is out of the Hospital Wing, and he has no friends outside of Gryffindor.”

“You make it sound like my good health is a bad thing,” says Remus, feigning hurt. He was finally released from Madam Pomfrey’s care this morning during breakfast, and apart from a few blue-green bruises and a splint on his left arm, he’s well on the way to a full recovery.

“If my presence is so offensive to you, I’ll just find Gid or Benjy or someone,” says Sirius, rolling his eyes. “I’m not antisocial, McKinnon.”

“No, just socially incompetent,” Marlene says scathingly, crossing her arms. “You disgust me, you know that?”

James shakes his head at their antics and takes hold of Lily’s wrist, tugging her out of the group. “If you’re finished with the theatrics, Lily and I will be going now; we have a report due for History of Magic in four hours.”

“But I finished that essay two weeks ago,” she protests feebly, though she lets James pull her along. “You’d better have written yours already, or—”

“It’s written,” says James, shushing her, “but who else am I supposed to enlist to proofread it, Amelia Bones? We can’t have that.”

As it turns out, James’s essay needs a lot more than a little proofreading, but Lily lacks the patience to give it more than a quick read-through. “You have to do your own work, James, I’m not just going to rewrite the whole thing for you,” she says to answer his protests.

“You’ll regret this when I don’t talk to you in class today,” he says, half threatening, half amused.

“Oh, lord, I’m just dreading the thought of being able to take notes in peace for once,” Lily replies, grinning back at him.

“How else do you think you’ll get through the period?” he retorts, but his face falls as he turns back to the essay, daunted.

But Lily knows James better than that by now, knows him well enough to be sure that he’ll keep a hand on her knee and a steady stream of whispers in her ear. He’ll finish the essay just in time—probably score an “O” on it, too—because he may be a procrastinator and lack much respect for the rules, but he’s the type of bloke who, like it or not, always pulls through in the end.

“Good luck,” she tells him, even though he doesn’t really need it, and she really means, Make me proud tomorrow.

He says with a sheepish smile, “Thanks”—I will.

Chapter Text

November 13th, 1976: Peter Pettigrew

Peter hadn’t been a student at Hogwarts for a day before Raymond Ketteridge tried to beat him up Muggle-style: it only took one comment before the Sorting to Remus that Slytherin sounded awful. Sirius fought him off easily before any real damage was done to Peter’s bone structure, but Peter never forgot the incident, and in his mind, Ketteridge hasn’t matured one bit since the days when he was a pudgy-faced eleven-year-old kid who thought that a punch was an all-purpose quick fix.

So Peter’s not surprised for long when he’s woken Saturday morning by the sound of James’s fist punching through the headboard of his four-poster. After all, following Meghan McCormack around the castle for hours after dinner and going on to hex her into oblivion in the middle of the night is exactly the sort of thing that an oaf like Ketteridge would do.

“Calm down, Prongs, it’s not that bad,” Remus says as Peter lets the news sink in and wakes up properly. “Well, it is for Meghan, of course, but you can still get through the game without her—you have reserve players, right?”

“Just a Chaser and a Beater,” says James, flexing his fist and wincing. He’s punched clean through the wood, leaving a hole in the headboard and splintered cuts in his hand. “Dammit.”

Remus rationalizes, “Then you can play Seeker and have the Chaser take over for you.”

“I know, that’s what I’m going to suggest to Gid, but that doesn’t fix it!” James says heatedly. “Robins hasn’t been practicing with us, he probably won’t know half the plays Gid uses—and anyway, you know I’m not half the Seeker Meg is, no one at this school is half the Seeker Meg is! It’s one thing to do tricks on occasion with a Snitch I stole from practice, but I’ve been practicing Chaser, I haven’t been training as Seeker. God, you know how bad my vision is, why do you think I didn’t make Seeker on the team in the first place? What if I can’t even see the Snitch when I’m out there?”

Blearily, Peter pulls himself into a sitting position, still blinking against the harsh light of day. He lets Remus handle James—god knows that Remus will do a better job of calming him down—and fumbles for his wand on his nightstand, casting a quick Reparo in the direction of James’s bed once he’s found it. “Where’s Padfoot?” he asks as Remus pauses for breath, realizing that Sirius is nowhere to be found.

“He burst in here, let me know what happened to Meg, and then took off,” says James bitterly. “Gid’s probably having a team meeting right now that I’m missing.”

“So go. Get a plan, figure it out,” Remus advises simply.

James shakes his head. “I can’t, there is no plan, I—”

Fully awake now, Peter crosses the room and plops down next to James on his bed, giving his best supportive smile. “You had the Map last, right? Find Lily on it, have her heal your hand, and then talk to Gideon. You’re James Potter; you can do this.”

“I…” James gulps nervously and rakes a hand through his hair. “Lily. All right. The Map is in my trunk, I think…”

Lily’s still in her dormitory, as it turns out, so Remus patches him up as best as he can (which isn’t too well, but at least the splinters are out) and sends him to the Great Hall to strategize with Gideon. “He’ll be fine,” Peter says as the door slams shut behind James.

“He always is,” Remus agrees; then, smiling, “Ketteridge, huh? I wouldn’t have expected it from him; it’s been a while since he’s terrorized anyone.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not surprised,” says Peter. Once an oaf, always an oaf: he may not look it, but Peter’s not the type to forgive easily.

It’s quiet for a moment as Peter changes into his robes and Remus searches for a clean Gryffindor tie. Then, softly, Peter says, “It’s not just about our safety, is it?”

And Remus bows his head and closes his eyes, and Peter knows he doesn’t want to talk about what he did last full moon, but he answers anyway because they both know Peter won’t pry: “No, Wormtail, it’s not.”

When Remus isn’t looking, Peter snatches up the Map James left behind and stuffs it in his pocket.

They change quickly and wait for Lily to emerge from the girls’ dormitory, filling her in on Meghan’s accident and James’s hand on the walk downstairs. True to their expectations, James is in his element when they meet him in the Great Hall. The Gryffindor team is gathered at the end of the table that the seventh years usually frequent, along with a nervous-looking fifth year who Peter assumes is the reserve Chaser. “I heard about what happened. That was low, what Ketteridge did to Meghan,” says Lily, frowning and whipping out her wand. “Episkey.”

There’s a spark of determination in James’s eyes when he answers, “If anything, Slytherin’s going to pay for what they did to her last night. Robins is filling in as Chaser—I’m taking Seeker.”

It’s almost like James is a different person outside of their dorm. There’s a private James and a public James—insecure, then confident; shaken, then composed. Peter takes one look at Lily’s expression and can’t help but wonder whether James has ever lost his cool around her.

They part soon after that, leaving the team to their last minute planning. Remus and Lily rejoin the other sixth years, while Peter heads for the Ravenclaw table and takes a seat next to Siobhan Flynn, a fifth year (and a Ravenclaw Beater herself). They’ve been on a few dates in the last couple of months, and while nothing is official yet, it felt only natural to take her to the first Quidditch game of the year. “Rooting for the Lions, I hope?” he asks, looping an arm around her waist.

Siobhan grins, setting down her spoon. “Well, since it looks like Gryffindor and Hufflepuff will be the teams to beat this year, it is in Ravenclaw’s best interests that Slytherin win … hey!” She giggles at Peter’s responding scowl. “Gryffindor has their work cut out for them today, though… did you hear about Meghan McCormack?”

“James and Sirius are my roommates; how could I not have heard about Meghan McCormack?” He leans in and grabs a breakfast roll off the table—he’s too excited about the match to be hungry, but he still ought to eat something to tide him over until lunch. “Sirius said they think Ketteridge did it—you know Raymond Ketteridge from Slytherin?”

“Ketteridge? You’d think it would have been one of the team members, not him. They’re not even in the same year; what’s he got against McCormack?” wonders Siobhan before taking another bite of cereal.

“Probably did it on someone else’s bidding. Ketteridge isn’t nearly clever enough to dream up something like that himself,” says Peter darkly.

Siobhan giggles again, then pales and shakes her head. “How’re they going to win without McCormack, though? That’s what I want to know—I know how you feel about Regulus Black, but he’s a damn good Seeker.”

“James is playing Seeker. One of the reserves is filling in as Chaser,” says Peter, nibbling on the roll.

“Ooh, that’ll be interesting to watch,” says Siobhan, swallowing. “Potter versus Black, and not the Black he’s mates with…”

“One more hour until it all plays out,” Peter says with a hint of apprehension. “Anyway, I’m going to go find Remus, but I’ll meet you in the stands in half an hour, all right?”

She leans in and pecks him quickly on the lips. “Half an hour,” she repeats, smiling.

He lied. He knows exactly where Remus is—at the Gryffindor table, talking to Lily and Alice. No, it’s something he has to do, something he should have done a month and a half ago the minute he put the pieces together. The timing is finally right: if all goes well, he’ll only be a few minutes late to the game. Almost everyone’s attention will be focused on the Quidditch pitch—too focused to notice that he was ever missing at all.

Everyone’s attention—but Emmeline’s.

xx

The stands are packed, but he finds Siobhan all right—she’s near the sixth years’ usual spot in the Gryffindor section. “Have I missed anything?” Peter asks her, smiling and leaning in for a hug.

“They’re about to start,” says Mary as Siobhan kisses his cheek.

“Sorry I’m late; I was talking to Em about that Divination paper. Her marks are fantastic in there,” he says hastily by way of explanation.

Good-naturedly, Siobhan shrugs. “No worries. We were just, uh, noticing Alice’s double date down there,” she says, pointing a ways down and to the left to Alice, Dirk Cresswell, Frank Longbottom, and Dana Madley. “Dana's on the Ravenclaw team with me, and honestly, I have no idea what Frank sees in her.”

Peter chuckles, then starts to applaud as he hears Mike McKinnon, one of Marlene’s brothers and the usual Quidditch commentator, announcing the start of the game. “And here come the Gryffindors, captained by Chaser Gideon Prewett! There’ve been a few changes to the lineup this match: this is the first game played by new Beater Anna Moon and reserve Chaser Ryan Robins, and James Potter’s first time Seeking, in light of recent pigheadedness I’m sure you’ve all heard of by now—”

“MCKINNON!” McGonagall was clearly not pleased with Mike’s biased commentary.

“Just stating the truth, Professor, it’s better for Ravenclaw if Slytherin wins anyway—and speaking of which, here they are! This year’s Captain is again Dorcas Meadowes, whom I hear isn’t as wretched of a Head Girl as everyone thought—sorry, Professor, I’m just setting the scene—we’ll see how her Keeping shapes up against the Gryffindor Captain and reserve! There’s just one new member of the team this year, Regulus Black, playing Seeker—will Sirius Black pummel him with Bludgers before he has a chance to catch the Snitch? I know, Professor, but it’s just background, he was at my house half the summer, trust me on this.”

Peter laughs freely, knowing just how true that is. “Captains, shake hands!” Madam Hooch interrupts, and Gideon squeezes Meadowes’s hand in a death grip as Hooch releases the Snitch and the Bludgers, then throws up the Quaffle and blows her whistle.

“Come on, Prongs, do Meghan proud,” Peter murmurs as the players speed into the air. On his way into the sky, James sideswipes Regulus with a sense of cocky competition.

It’s going to be an interesting game indeed.

xx

Peter doesn’t get overlooked. Okay, so he’s quieter than the other Marauders—so what? It’s all right by him that they have bolder personalities than he does. Just because he doesn’t crack jokes and girls don’t fawn over him doesn’t make him less. He’s a different sort of mate than James and Sirius—softer around the edges, like Remus, but wiser than he is clever—and they value him all the same for it. Everything needs balance, even the Gryffindors, and Peter is perfectly happy to be the dependable one.

But Emmeline is a different kind of quiet, the wrong kind of quiet. She’s become a cold, unfriendly sort of girl, frown lines carved into her long forehead—it’s been two years, and she’s still shutting them out. He feels for her, but she’s gone too far.

There’s a difference between distance and punishment.

xx

“And it’s Gryffindor in possession, caught by fifth year Edgar Bones! It’s Bones’s third year on the team and first year dating Meghan McCormack, who’s out of commission as Seeker after last night’s attack, I’ll bet that’s got him riled—right, Professor—Bones in possession, flanked by Prewett and Robins and heading toward the Slytherin goal-posts, but they’re not going to get there as fast as they’d like—nice Bludger from Alecto Carrow, but Prewett catches the Quaffle—Bones is steady again and supporting him—Prewett is in the scoring area—he shoots—he—no! A quick save by Meadowes! Bummer for Prewett, but Meadowes is good, she certainly is—

“And Nott from Slytherin has caught the Quaffle, but Bones and Robins are blocking him easily, they’re in standstill—Black from Gryffindor is in a hell of a mood on the field today, excuse my French, that’s got to be the fifth or sixth Bludger he’s hit that’s almost knocked a Slytherin off their broom, is anyone keeping count of these? If Gryffindor could have ten points for every collision—one of Moon’s Bludgers makes Nott drop the Quaffle—and— what the hell? Potter in possession? But he’s Seeking today! There’s no foul in the book for it—clever tactic, especially with his skill, but you’ve got to realize, Potter, what if Black gets the Snitch because you weren’t—and he scores, first goal of the game, ten-zero to Gryffindor! Nott in possession again…” 

xx

Oh, there she is—studying in the far corner of the library, just like he predicted. “Em, there you are,” he murmurs as he quickly crosses the space between them. (He takes care to keep his voice down: he doesn’t need Madam Pince breathing down their necks over the conversation he intends to start.)

“Isn’t the match starting soon?” Emmeline points out. Pushing him away—well, that was only to be expected.

I’m sorry for this.

He says, shrugging, “You’re not down there, either.” She doesn’t have a retort for this, so he goes on, dropping his voice, “Why haven't you told anyone that you’re an orphan?”

xx

“Another goal from Robins puts the score at thirty-ten for Gryffindor! Prewett in possession… it’s a surprisingly clean game from Slytherin today, Meadowes really has cleaned up her team well. She and Fabian Prewett are both fantastic Keepers—Prewett’s blocked, what, four of five attempts?—but Potter’s involvement and her unfamiliarity with Robins’s style have Meadowes missing more goals than usual today, and—Prewett’s called a time-out! Did he know beforehand about the stunts Potter’s been pulling?

“…That’s a penalty to Slytherin for blatching—flying with the intent to collide. Don’t be so nasty, Black, you don’t want to corrupt Moon so early, it’s only her first game, you know—you may loathe your brother, but a Bludger will set him off course just as well, that’s no excuse for illegal behavior! I know, Professor—Yaxley scores, thirty-twenty for Gryffindor—”

xx

Emmeline goes deathly still, her quill sliding out of her fingers and dropping softly onto the desk. “Excuse me?” she asks eventually, her voice strangled and high-pitched.

“Come on, there was no way you could have hidden it for long. I mean—” He’s trying to be gentle about it, but there’s still a blush darkening on Emmeline’s otherwise pale cheeks “—it’s always your sister who takes you to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and who writes you during the year, and you never mention seeing your mum or dad, not that you’ve mentioned much of anything to any of us since fourth year when it happened—”

“Shut it,” says Emmeline reflexively. Peter trails off, downcast but the tiniest bit satisfied with himself—he’s always been good at figuring people out. Without him, who knows how long Remus would have lied about his lycanthropy undetected?

After a few deep breaths and some color lost from her cheeks, Emmeline adds, “Who else knows?”

There's another implication in her question: whom else did you tell? “Just me,” says Peter, and she looks a bit relieved at the news. “But I know Alice is onto something, and you ought to tell her if she asks. It’s only a matter of time before it all comes out. We’re your mates, Em, we’re the ones who will be there for you when you need someone to talk to; that you turn to, to get through the hard stuff—”

“You think I need your lot in my life?” says Emmeline harshly, “that it isn’t maddening to me to hear all your little rumors and your gossip when I know how far you are from the bigger picture? Please. It’s insulting to be around you.”

xx

“Potter in possession again, I don’t know whether he’s a genius or a fool—he’s swerving to avoid one of the Carrows’s Bludgers, Moon hits the other one out of his way—he’s approaching the goalposts—he drops the Quaffle, Potter drops the Quaffle, he’s catapulting toward Meadowes—has he seen the Snitch by the hoops? He’s lucky he noticed it, honestly, though I’m sure Black’s Bludgers could have compensated if Black were to see it and Potter weren’t—Black is tailing him, but he hasn’t quite caught up, he’s—they’re—for Meghan, Potter!—no, dammit, Black, now he’s lost sight of it! And—yes, Hooch has called it, penalty to Gryffindor for blagging, or pulling another player’s broom tail!”

xx

“It’s not, though. I know you think you’re so much more… perceptive, I guess, than the rest of us, and you probably are, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else is shallow,” Peter defends weakly. He’s sadder than anything about what’s happened to Em, to their friendship, and he’s sure it’s starting to show. “Sirius and Marlene had to run away from home last summer, it got so bad with them and their families, and Lily lost her parents, went through the exact same thing as you—but she didn’t cut us out. She barely even knew any of us before that blowout she had with Snape, and she only really talked to James and Marlene when her parents died, but even she realized she could turn to us—and you didn’t?”

“Lily’s not smart, she’s dependent. I thought she had the right idea about things for the last five years, but no, the minute her mate does something against her, she goes running into someone else’s arms,” Emmeline snaps.

Peter sighs, “It’s not like that—you did the same as Lily did, jumping straight from Sirius to Maggie McKinnon. Only difference is that now you’re the one acting like you’re so much better than the other Gryffindors, and that hurts, Em, it really does.”

She doesn’t have anything to say to that at first, finally muttering, “You ought to know why I quit on Sirius, if you claim to know so much about me.”

He replies, “None of it was Sirius's fault, and you know it. Don’t punish him for what happened to you. You’re no better than him or the rest of us just because you’ve been through things, Em, and you know, the thing is, all of us care about you and would want nothing more than to be there for you if we knew that anything was wrong, but you’re too caught up in your… your disillusionment to bother appreciating it, or even seeing it.”

Since Madam Pince is starting to look aggravated by their whispers, he turns to go, adding over his shoulder, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Em, I really do.”

xx

“And Meadowes blocks a goal from Bones—she’s back on her game, now that Potter is looking for the Snitch like he ought to, but he’s already helped put Gryffindor in a considerable lead of seventy to thirty. Slytherin in possession, Amycus Carrow on the verge of bludgeoning the Gryffindor team to death, Sirius Black looks tame in comparison right now—didn’t they get in a row last week? Of course, Professor, I am focusing on the game—Prewett lets in Nott’s goal—Gryffindor in possession again—it’s seventy-forty in Gryffindor’s favor, Slytherin is catching up—”

xx

Peter doesn’t get overlooked in part because he’s not interested in falling through the cracks. Emmeline, on the other hand, can’t say the same. And it looks like it’s up to Peter to show her that it doesn’t have to be this way, ugly truth and all.

He hopes it’s not too late to forgive and forget.

xx

“Potter, that better be the Snitch you’re chasing, Gryffindor’s only twenty points ahead now—Slytherin’s been gaining on you for an hour and a half, there’s not much more of this that three of us houses can take—shut it, Professor, Black is gaining on him, Black is ahead of him—BLACK CATCH—no? NO! BLACK KNOCKS BLACK OUT OF THE WAY WITH A BLUDGER TO THE HEAD, CLEARING THE WAY FOR—POTTER CATCHES THE SNITCH! GRYFFINDOR WINS, TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY TO SIXTY!” 

xx

McGonagall would never have allowed the after-party to go on until three o’clock in the morning—but then, Gideon Prewett was in too good a mood to complain, none of the other prefects minded as long as Gideon was all right with it, and nobody who wasn’t a prefect was dumb enough to report it to McGonagall. Besides, Edgar Bones and Fabian Prewett didn’t manage to sneak Meghan McCormack out of the Hospital Wing until half past two, and it wouldn’t be fair to Meghan if the festivities ended without her, would it, after all she’d been through in the last twenty-four hours?

Peter’s dancing with James when Meghan comes up to congratulate him on his performance on the field. Edgar’s pedaling her over in a contraption called a wheelchair, something Mary says that Muggles use all the time in hospitals when they’re not strong enough to walk. Peter thinks it’s bizarre-looking and unnecessary, but after all, Meghan is on bed-rest for a week; it wouldn’t do to aggravate Madam Pomfrey any further than she will be when she finds out that one of her patients is missing.

Pomfrey’s potions have her a little dizzy, but she’s lucid enough to communicate, at least. “Potter!” she calls, her speech a bit slurred from Pomfrey’s regimen, but her eyes are bright and excited. “Eddie says you were a hero today.”

“Did he?” laughs James, letting go of Peter for a moment to clap Meghan on the shoulder, grinning at her and Edgar. “Because Lily and Gid keep telling me I was just being a flashy show-off and came close to losing the game for us instead of winning it.”

“Gid’s an arse, and Evans doesn’t understand Quidditch,” says Meghan. “You lot call yourselves pranksters, right? Can’t say that unless you’ve got a few stunts up your sleeve.”

James smiles, rumpling up his hair. “Honored to have done it, but no one could ever replace you, Meg.”

Peter takes this as his cue to leave, struggling to find a familiar face in the crowd. Reaching the hearth, he finally catches sight of another sixth year—Mary’s curled up on the sofa, guzzling down a butterbeer but otherwise on the verge of falling asleep. “Hey, Mare,” he greets, plopping down next to her and prying the drink out of her hands. “You look like you’re about ready to turn in,” Peter adds, smiling faintly.

“Reckon so, yeah,” Mary yawns. “What time is it?”

“A little after three—no, that’s enough butterbeer, any more and you’ll be up all night,” says Peter, kind but firm, and he sets it on the coffee table in front of them.

She curls up against him, half in his lap, slipping her arms around his waist. “I miss Reg,” she says abruptly, to which Peter doesn’t know what to tell her, but she quickly adds, “Why aren’t you with James or Rem or Sirius?”

“James is talking to Meghan, and Remus and Sirius are… somewhere,” he says vaguely, not entirely sure himself.

“Oh,” accepts Mary. “So why are you with me instead of them?”

“I like being with you,” says Peter honestly. Mary smiles blearily, as if hearing this is a pleasant surprise, and Peter feels a rush of empathy for his mate, holding her close and resting his cheek against the top of her head for a moment. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs. Do you want me to find Alice or someone to help you up, or can you make it on your own?” he asks after a pause.

Mary gets up, stretching and waking up a little. “I’m tired, Pete, not tipsy. It’s just butterbeer,” she says crossly, then adds, “Oh, and Alice thinks Siobhan is perky.”

“Perky?” repeats Peter with a grin as he stands as well. “Now that you mention it…”

He walks her to the bottom of the girls’ staircase, then quietly bids her goodnight. She gives him a little wave as she starts to mount the staircase, which he warmly returns.

When he turns around, something chapped and insistent presses hard against his mouth.

It’s Emmeline—Emmeline!—who pulls away, her cheeks bright red and a grin on her face. “I know. I’m sorry,” she says immediately. “I’m going to regret this tomorrow, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here, and I know you have a girlfriend—”

“Siobhan isn’t my girlfriend,” says Peter breathlessly, taken aback, his mouth miles ahead of his mind. “Not officially, anyway. We go out sometimes—”

“Stop talking so much,” says Emmeline. It’s like she’s a whole new person after one conversation and a butterbeer or two, and he fleetingly wonders whether she’s been bottling herself up, waiting for someone to take note of her. “I’m going to kiss you again,” she says now, matter-of-factly, and Peter could swear that she’s glowing, vivacious, alive.

“You shouldn’t,” Peter says, but they both know he doesn’t really mean it.

He supposes that… she ought to be scared, and he ought to be flabbergasted, but—they’re not. She’s beaming, and he’s nodding, and he kisses back the second time she leans in.

Chapter Text

November 14th, 1976: Mary Macdonald

So this is what limbo is like. Not the faraway thing her parents tried to sell her at Sunday school—her dad decided her witching soul was damned anyway when he allowed her to go to Hogwarts—but why is she bothering with their hoity-toity ideas? No, she’s in limbo like paralysis, a record skipping, time stopping and a moment freezing over.

This is the part before it gets old, Mary thinks, the little time she has to entertain pity instead of irritation. There’s no getting around it: people will tire of her eventually. They’ll call her a basket case, mutter a hex or turn a blind eye at the… would it be arrogant to call her lifestyle an absurdity, to say it’s really that nonconformist? Either way, she’s running out of time to be the victim. The game’s going to end, Reg is going to win, and everyone will forget all about Mary Macdonald and her poor, broken heart.

This is the safety of healing, the comfort of transition—only she’s not going anywhere, she’s just here, like limbo, falling in amber and fossilizing every time she sees her latest ex (and Mary’s had a lot of exes but none that meant this much). She has two options, while there’s still time: move on or get him back.

She can’t move on, and he won’t take her back, but she’ll settle for a compromise (a pretense or a lie). Anything’s better than freezing in this time.

There’s an X through November 13^th on the calendar that she keeps in her handbag, and not the kind that signifies her period. Six weeks she gave herself to recover from him, and those six weeks ended last night. Mary may have hung around the kitchens until midnight trying to work up the courage to catch him outside his common room and tell him goodbye, but when the clock struck twelve, she knew enough to sneak back into the common room and cast her lingering insecurities off onto the unsuspecting Peter Pettigrew. She and Reg are over now. What other choice does she have?

Surveying herself in the mirror, she almost doesn’t recognize her ivory skin tone, the pitch-black color of her hair. Mary feels half diminished, half refreshed: Reg has reduced her, sure, but she’s back down to her roots now (all puns aside). She’s never really liked the way she looks before, always thinking her nose too pinched and her chin too short and her complexion too pale to suit her, but then, she’s got different priorities now. Mary’s no longer interested in being dark like Marlene or blonde like Alice, and she doesn’t need any more of Lily’s Glamour Charms to help her come into her own. She’s just Mary, and if that bothers people—well, people didn’t respect her much when she was trying to please them (herself) to begin with. The world isn’t going to end; her hair can’t fire any Killing Curses for want of Sleekeazy’s, that’s You-Know-Who’s job.

If she still wants to catch up on the latest rumors every once in a while, that’s fine, too.

So Mary doesn’t bother to contain her excitement when she realizes why Emmeline is receiving the Spanish Inquisition from the other girls on Sunday morning. “Hold on a minute,” she says dramatically, ripping open the hangings of her four-poster. “Like, am I hearing this right? Em made out with Pete last night? Em? And Pete? Who has a girlfriend?”

“He said Siobhan isn’t his girlfriend,” mutters Emmeline, not making eye contact.

“She’s as good as,” says Alice, a little gentle and a lot scandalized. “Really, Em, what were you thinking? Stealing someone else’s boyfriend is no way to start a relationship—”

“I don’t want a relationship; it was just a bit of kissing,” Emmeline says steadily.

Alice shakes her head and tuts, “Then that’s almost as bad, isn’t it, risking breaking up Peter and Siobhan over a bit of kissing! I thought you were more sensible than that.”

Marlene breaks in, “Don’t kid yourself, Alice, we all know you and Lily are the sensible ones.” Mary glances quickly at Lily; she’s blushing a little, rolling her eyes. “Em’s just the least, you know… rash. I mean, god, have you ever had a boyfriend before?”

“No,” says Emmeline, pulling on her robes.

“Kissed a boy?” Marlene persists.

There’s an ever-so-subtle pause, then: “Yes.”

No one knows quite what to say to this, but Mary, thankfully, is still enough of a gossip to fill the conversational void. “Who?”

Try though Mary and Marlene might, they can’t get her to say another word on the subject. Alice keeps Emmeline talking, though, interrupting, “All right, then—damage control. The whole of Gryffindor must know about this by now; how in god's name were you planning to explain yourself and spare Siobhan what little heartache you can?”

“I, er, wasn’t?” says Emmeline, very hesitantly. “Peter can take care of himself.”

Alice looks fairly indignant at that, but Lily says calmly, “It’s not all Emmeline’s mess to clean up, Alice. It’s not like she came onto him intending to steal him away no matter what he wanted; the whole thing looked pretty voluntary on Peter’s part from my angle. If he were really all that faithful to Siobhan, he wouldn’t have, er…”

“Snogged the daylights out of Em in front of the whole house,” Marlene fills in without a trace of modesty. “He’s the one who’ll have to explain himself to her.”

“But why did you kiss him in the first place, Em?” asks Mary eagerly. “Maybe it doesn’t matter to Siobhan, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”

“We had a row,” says Emmeline, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. They gape at her, and she goes on, “He called me out on some things… it was sweet of him to notice. I had to—well, I had to thank him somehow, didn’t I? Show him that he, erm, got to me. And maybe, er, that wasn’t the smartest way to, but… I was lonely… we’d won the game, everyone was so happy. It felt a bit like it would all work out, like I could do something bold without worrying about the consequences for once.”

Em’s reasoning is bizarre, and she looks mortified to be saying all this, but Mary can certainly relate. She did relate last October at Hogsmeade—trying to salvage just one kiss, one minute with the bloke that matters… “And is that what it meant to Peter?” she says.

“I don’t know; we didn’t really get a chance to, er, talk last night,” says Emmeline with chagrin.

Sighing, Alice says, “Then you’d better get downstairs and figure this all out with him.”  Before someone gets hurt, she seems to imply.

Still blushing, Emmeline nods. Sheepish, Mary realizes, that’s the word for Emmeline’s behavior. It’s still not friendly, but it’s personable, at least, a step closer from the coldness of the past year or two.

Whatever Peter said to her must be working.

By lunchtime, it seems everyone has heard about the celebratory party—Meghan McCormack sneaking out of the Hospital Wing to attend and Peter snogging Em. Veronica Smethley knows all about it when Mary catches her in the Entrance Hall after eating, at least, and Mary knows she’ll make sure word gets around by the end of the day. 

“It’s just unbelievable, you know?” says Ver, thirsty for details. “I mean, I just didn’t think Vance would do something that slutty. She’s so holier-than-thou all the time. And Pettigrew’s not even good-looking! I’ll bet he couldn’t believe his luck, having two girls be interested in him at once…”

“Em’s not a slut, and Peter isn’t ugly,” Mary says stiffly.

“Whatever. You know, I never liked either of them,” Ver maintains, gesturing accusingly. “I mean, Christ, Mare, you are the only one who’s tolerable out of all the Gryffindors. Honestly, it is a damn shame that you got Sorted in with that lot. I don’t know how you put up with them, what with the way they parade around acting like they’re so much better than the rest of us with their drama and their wealth and their popularity—and it’s like, no one even likes them except each other. They’re so caught up in their superiority that they don’t—”

“—You know what, Ver, would it kill you to lay off of my mates every now and then?” interrupts Mary tersely. “I don’t expect you to like them or anything for me, but, like, it’s my house, too.”

Ver rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to defend their behavior just because you share a dorm with them,” she says.

“I shouldn’t have to defend them! They don’t always like your house, but that doesn’t mean they go around badmouthing you to me all the time, and I wouldn’t let them if they did, so pay them the same courtesy,” Mary says, exasperated.

“I don’t know, Mare, I just don’t see what you see in any of them,” mutters Ver, “and it’s about time you realized that you deserve better mates than that.”

Mary says, “They’re not as bad as you say they are, you know. Like, how can you judge them when you don’t even know them?”

Ver snorts derisively. “I don’t have to ‘get to know them’ to see what they’re like.”

You’re such an effing hypocrite, Mary thinks—but she holds her tongue and says it a bit more nicely. “First impressions don’t mean as much as you act like they do, Ver. Look at Lene—you’re down on her all the time about her and Gilderoy when she doesn’t even like him that way, but I never heard her say a word against Greta when she was going out with Sirius, and you should know by now that Lene and Sirius had a thing going.”

“It’s McKinnon’s own damn fault that she couldn’t see that Black was using her. Anyway, she knows that Gilly and I are meant for each other, but if she really weren’t egging him on, you wouldn’t see him still talking to her. It’s been a month, Mare! Gilly isn’t that daft!”

“You’d be surprised. Wasn’t it his fault that Davy almost lost an eye to the Whomping Willow?” Mary says. “It’s not that I don’t like Gilderoy, but you can’t blame Lene if he’s interested in her. That’s on him.”

Ver still isn’t satisfied. “Lord, Reg dumping you must have really put you through the wringer if you’re acting this anti-Hufflepuff because of it,” she says dismissively.

“Shut it about me and Reg. Let me know when you’re ready to stop acting like such a bitch to everyone, yeah?” says Mary, thoroughly fed up with Ver at this point. Ver protests, but she leaves her behind, slinging her bag up her shoulder and mounting the staircase in pursuit of her common room.

Her irritation with Ver carries through the week, enough that she brings it up to Peter the next day. “What do you think of Veronica Smethley?” she asks him midway through first period, when everyone else is in Charms. They’re the only two Gryffindors who dropped the class this year, and it’s become their tradition to spend Monday mornings playing wizard’s chess in the common room. Though Mary’s always been terrible at mind games, she’s been slowly improving with Peter’s help, and she’s four points ahead of him in today’s match.

A moment passes as Peter concentrates on the board, his small eyes narrow with intent. “Knight to d5,” he says finally and glances up at her. “Smethley?” he then repeats, blinking. “The Hufflepuff you’re always hanging around? She’s… er…”

Of course he’d never say anything outright cruel about one of Mary’s friends, she realizes with satisfaction: she was right about her mates in yesterday’s argument. “Like, what do you really think of her? More and more lately, I’ve been getting the feeling she’s an arse.”

“Erm,” he stammers, “if you’re going to put it that way… I can’t say I’ve ever liked her very much. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person I’d trust with things.”

“I think you might be right about her,” Mary sighs. “She’s always so ready to trash everyone else for their flaws. Not that it’s the worst thing in the world to want to know things, but, like, is it really okay to be the one spreading the rumors? Rook to f5.”

“Pawn to g4. Yeah, I know,” empathizes Peter. “People aren’t always who you think they are,” he adds at an afterthought, resting his cheek in his hand.

She looks up at him again, biting her lip. “I know. Look at Em—talk about radical changes. Have you talked to her since Saturday?”

“I’ve barely seen her,” Peter admits, coloring. “I keep putting it off until I have to in Transfiguration tomorrow. I just… I don’t even know what that was. How can I talk to Em about it when Siobhan still believes that I’ve been cheating on her all along? We didn’t ever say it was exclusive, exactly, but pointing that out isn’t going to help, and it’ll only make things worse if she sees me with Em and gets the wrong idea…”

Surveying the chessboard, Mary mulls this over. “Er… rook to g5. Pete, is Siobhan important enough to you that you want her to be your girlfriend?”

“What do you mean?” asks Peter, baffled, as he raises his eyes from the board.

“You keep saying that she wasn’t your girlfriend when it happened, so you think she should forgive you. But do you want to make it official, or are you just stringing her along? Because if you don’t want a commitment, she shouldn’t have to take you back,” says Mary.

Peter slouches a bit in his seat, looking utterly overwhelmed. “Good point,” he says finally. “I just don’t know… I wouldn’t ever string her along, but I don’t…”

“If it’s taking you, like, this long to make up your mind, that probably means that she doesn’t mean enough to you,” she says gently. She hates advising him to be alone—look how she’s doing without a boyfriend at her side—but knowing how Marlene and Sirius’s relationship has affected Marlene…

He knocks his king over in resignation and straightens up. “You’re probably right,” he says meekly. “I just wish everything were less confusing with Em. She’s hard to figure out.”

“Em’s a pretty private person,” Mary agrees, starting to clean up the chess pieces. “I have half a mind to think there’s something huge she’s covering up… I wish there weren’t, like, so many secrets with her, you know?”

“I wish there weren’t so many secrets with all of us,” Peter echoes darkly.

xx

“Could you work with Pol today?” asks Carol Davies as Mary enters the Arithmancy classroom, poised to toss her bag at her usual seat.

She blinks, hitches the strap of her bag back over her shoulder. “With Pol? Really?”

“Just the once. Please—I promised Charlotte Fawcett I’d work with Frank instead today. Someone’s got to talk some sense into him over this Dana Madley nonsense.”

Mary’s intense hatred of Pol Patil is not a very well kept secret. They get along all right for Greta Catchlove’s sake, but everyone knows that he’s too smug for her and she’s too dumb for him. Still, it’s not Mary’s place to complain about talking to Pol for her—he did ditch Carol for Greta. “Pol. Okay, yeah, I guess so.”

So she relocates, much to Pol’s confusion. “I thought you worked with Davies this hour,” he says. Implied ‘get the hell away from me’ free of charge, Mary thinks bitterly.

“She’s staging an intervention for Longbottom,” says Mary shortly, pulling out her copy of Numerology and Gramatica. When Pol quirks a skeptical eyebrow, she adds, “Dana Madley? Don’t, like, try and tell me you haven’t heard about that.”

“It’s not like the man needs a bloody intervention, Mary. It’s his life, let him do what he wants with it,” counters Pol as he digs around in his bag.

“Says Greta Catchlove’s boyfriend,” Mary mutters.

He straightens up and glares hard. “And you’ve spent the last month pining over Reginald Cattermole, of all people. What’s the difference?”

“Yeah, well, that’s over now,” she says firmly—it’s not a lie if it’ll be true soon. “You may get better marks than Reg, but you look pretty pathetic in comparison, leaving Carol for Greta last summer. Come on.”

“Remind me again what my taste in women has to do with Frank Longbottom,” says Pol.

As she’s starting to attract attention, she lowers her voice and softens her gaze. “Only that there’s a pretty strong parallel there, don’t you think? He picked Dana, you picked Greta—”

“What’s it to you? It’s not like Frank was seeing anybody else before Dana came along. Anyway, Greta’s your mate—you’re one to talk about my tastes—and anyway, it’s just Hogwarts, it’s not like it matters who I snog for the next year and a half.”

“You know what, Pol, it does matter,” says Mary hotly. “You may be an arse, but there are people here who care about you, don’t ask me why, and even if you don’t give a rat’s arse about them, you ought to at least respect that and not, like—not toy with their feelings.”

To her increasing fury, he’s losing interest and starting to doodle along the edge of his parchment. “Like you have any business giving out relationship advice,” he snorts. “Why are you even telling me all this, anyway? If you hate me so much, why should my opinions matter to you?”

“You’re infuriating,” she groans. “Shove off and go work with Lupe or something.”

“Damn, Mary,” says Pol, packing up his things, “and here I was hoping you cared about more than just feelings and boyfriends.”

She throws back at him, “So sorry that I’m not enough of an intellect for your fancy. Tell Greta hullo for me next time you two have a substantial conversation, will you?”

As he smirks and walks toward Remus and Alice’s table, two rather frustrating things occur to Mary: first, that he seems to have enjoyed all this; second, that she can’t answer his question—she has no idea why she confided anything in him at all.

Mary wishes she could talk to Marlene about him, that she could talk to Marlene about anything anymore, but she doubts it. Marlene’s with Lily these days, their recent row aside. And to whom else can she turn? She loves Alice, but god, she’s a little too hoity-toity for relationship advice. Em may be warming up to the girls again, but who’s to say that she won’t revert the minute Mary approaches her?

Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s heading straight from class to the Hufflepuff common room entrance. She misses Reg; she really, really…

“Were you waiting for someone?” Mary turns, startled; a third or fourth year girl is approaching, looking a little snappish. “You’re a Gryffindor, right?”

“Yeah, I was looking for Re—er, for Gilderoy,” she improvises—he’s the first (well, second) Hufflepuff she thinks of. “Gilderoy Lockhart. He’s a sixth year. Do you know him?”

The girl snorts under her breath. “Who doesn’t, with his mouth?” she says, mostly to herself. “Just give me a minute. Muffliato,” she adds, and Mary can’t hear the password over the ringing in her ears as the girl slips into her common room.

She slumps against the opposite wall, closing her eyes and letting the tinny sound fill her up. God, she’s got to get a grip on herself. It’s hardly been two days since she cut herself off; Mary can’t go running back to Reg now, not this soon.

When the ringing subsides, she looks up—Gilderoy’s taken off the hex and is coming out of his common room. She sees a flash of bright yellow before the still life painting seals itself again over the entrance. “If it isn’t my darling Mary Macdonald!” he cries as she opens her eyes, seizing her hands and engulfing her in an emphatic hug. “It’s been too long since our last chat! Tell me, what lucky stroke of fate was it that brought you to our little nook of the basement today?”

“Just stopping by,” says Mary evasively, but she changes her mind—she could use someone to talk to, anyway, and Gilderoy has done nothing to deserve dishonesty. “Well… I was going to see Reg, but then, like, I figured that wouldn’t be a very good idea.”

As Gilderoy pulls back, still gripping her shoulders, his face takes on a look of concern; he purses his lips and shakes his head, tutting. “I know,” he tells her with a sigh. “I was so sorry to hear of your falling out with Reginald last October. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the pangs of despised love?” He pauses for a moment, staring morosely at her, then gives her shoulders a forceful little shake and adds, “From Shakespeare’s Hamlet—an abridged quote, at least. Marlene will certainly be impressed, don’t you think?”

“Gilderoy, I’m sorry, but I just… don’t think Marlene sees you that way,” says Mary as gently as she can, maybe a little hesitantly.

She should have known that he wouldn’t be that easy to dissuade. “I’ve been working my way through the great soliloquies in all the Shakespearean classics,” Gilderoy informs her, retracting a hand from her shoulder to gesture purposefully to his right. “A little Christmas surprise for the light of my life.”

Mary bites her lip—she’d hate to crush his vision of love, but then, it’s better in the long run that he know the truth. That, and Marlene may kill her if she doesn’t try to talk him out of it when given the opportunity. “To be honest, like, I don’t even think Marlene has ever heard of Shakespeare. She’s a pureblood, remember? They have things like—like ‘God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs’ and ‘Moontrimmer,’ not Muggle poetry.”

“All the better to enlighten her!” Gilderoy cries delightedly. “Or perhaps she would believe it if I told her I had written them myself?”

Mary bursts out laughing, but at the hurt expression on his face, she sobers up enough to tell him, “Come on, Gilderoy, that’s unethical, you can’t. Anyway, you’d know the truth, and that sort of, like… I dunno, negates it, don’t you think? If she even believed you, I mean.”

“I suppose so,” says Gilderoy, his face falling. “Dear god, what could Sirius Black possibly have that I don’t? Can she honestly not see that we’re made for each other?” Histrionically, he falls to the floor and buries his face in his hands.

With a half incredulous, half sympathetic sigh, Mary crouches down beside him and squeezes his hand. “They have a complicated relationship. They’ve been on and off for years; Marlene’s not just going to forget about him and fall for you the minute you show interest,” she explains patiently.

“Do you suppose she would be jealous if I took up with Veronica?” he asks with a hint of hopefulness, peeking at her through his fingers. “Never have I seen the likes of that girl’s loyalty! I reckon she would agree to it if I asked her.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” says Mary, for both Gilderoy’s sake and Ver’s. “I know you have your heart set on it, but if Marlene isn’t interested, she’s not interested.”

Gilderoy doesn’t reply for a minute, thinking this over. “Ah, well, it was worth a good shot,” he says finally. “Besides, you know what they say: absence makes the heart grow fonder. She’ll come around soon enough.”

“If that’s the way you want to look at it,” Mary mumbles, smiling a bit.

“But look at me, prattling on about my own woes, and such insignificant ones in comparison!” declares Gilderoy. Mary laughs again at this—he has a funny way of showing sensitivity. “What about Reginald could possibly render you so upset?”

She leans back, resting her head against the wall. “I dunno. He was always such a nice bloke, and… it’s not even him, really, it’s just… I get lonely, you know?”

“I… well, yes, of course,” admits Gilderoy sheepishly, looking a little embarrassed by this.

They sit together for a while, both mulling over their respective situations. Mary’s the first to break the silence, saying, “My parents were always really religious. They’re Catholics, you know, so they hate anything to do with witchcraft.”

“Oh?” Gilderoy says, looking at her with a mixture of interest and concern.

“Well, not so much Mum anymore, now that she knows that her daughter’s a witch, but Dad didn’t want me to go. They tried to get me to repent for being a witch at Confession on Sundays, but the letter said it was top-secret, and I never trusted the priest there, and…” She trails off for a moment, reflecting. “They’re divorced now—Dad couldn’t accept it in the end. And then I came to Hogwarts, just when I’d gotten done breaking up my family over it, and I’m not even… god, look at my marks, I’m not even a talented witch, and everyone hates me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mary, I’m sure that no one hates you!” says Gilderoy genially.

She shoots him a glare. “Don’t be so optimistic; everyone hates you, too.”

“On the contrary, I’d have to say that everyone adores me,” he says, half proud and half indignant.

“Marlene doesn’t adore you,” says Mary.

This gets to him, at least, and his grin falters a bit. “I don’t hate you,” he says quietly, and Mary feels a rush of guilt and affection for him. “And anyway, what about those Gryffindors that Veronica speaks so poorly of? I’m sure they can’t be that unbearable. There’s Marlene, of course—and Alice Abbott, I’ve always been fond of her. Emmeline Vance… eh, not so much, but I’m sure that she likes you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” says Mary, but she can’t stop herself from smiling at him. “Like, for what it’s worth, I don’t hate you, either.”

He smiles back, then pats her hand and stands. “Well, now that we’ve cleared up our allegiances for the day, I must be going,” he decides, helping her up. “Things to do, soliloquies to learn!”

“You’re not one to give up easily, are you?” asks Mary, shaking her head. “So this is the part where you hex me and I can’t hear the password, right?”

Gilderoy stammers for a moment, finally managing, “Yes, I’m terribly sorry about the way she treated you back there. House rivalries, you know. But Dorcas Meadowes will have them all shaped up in no time, don’t you worry! Just don’t attempt to break in anytime soon, or I might have a situation on my hands with the younger years,” he says with a wink. “Puffskein,” he adds commandingly in the direction of the painting, and it swings forth to admit him.

She almost misses it, but Mary catches a glimpse of Reg before the painting blocks her view—looking taken aback, his mouth in a small “O,” and staring straight at her.

Turning on her heel, she leaves before she can do anything dangerous.

Chapter Text

November 18th, 1976: Sirius Black

Sometimes, Sirius thinks he might have been better off in Hufflepuff. He knows that he doesn't belong there, per se: Lockhart and Cattermole's lot are far from his ideal roommates, and he doesn't know if he could stand to deal with Veronica Smethley's catty theatrics full-time. If there's one thing Sirius can't help but do, it's to make a statement, and to him, Hufflepuff just isn't bold enough for that.

Despite this, though, the theory seems so appealing at times. Gudgeon's a dimwit, but he's a loyal dimwit, isn't he? Maybe Sirius couldn't love them, but he could at least trust them, and considering that Moony still isn't talking about the last full moon… Sirius feels that he could use a little more faith in his allegiances right about now. Sirius may not be thick, but he knows he's not clever enough to doubt the right people. If Sirius were in Hufflepuff, his family wouldn't loathe him. If Sirius were in Hufflepuff, he'd have mates who didn't have anything to hide from him.

Sirius isn't thick enough to think it a veritable possibility, to succeed in Hufflepuff. He's the breakout rebel, the Black Gryffindor, the walking paradox, the match for James Potter and Marlene McKinnon; he's no Hufflepuff, and he knows it.

But he puts a hell of a lot of faith in people for a Gryffindor.

"A word, Sirius?" says Andromeda at the end of Defense Against the Dark Arts. He's halfway to the door, but reluctantly stops, returns, and tosses his bag onto the nearest desk. Prongs raises an eyebrow, but Andromeda adds, "Go on ahead, James; we'll only be a minute."

Warily, he leaves Prongs behind and approaches his cousin, maybe a little defensive from the outset. When the door finally snaps shut, he lowers his eyes and waits for the lecture to come.

Andromeda doesn't disappoint. "Saw you play against Slytherin last weekend," she says with borderline casualness, crossing her arms. "Must feel good to have been so instrumental in that win, mustn't it? To have landed your brother in the Hospital Wing after that Bludger he took?"

"It's a Quidditch game, not a duel to the death, Professor," says Sirius, finally meeting her eyes. (Their particular shade of brown isn't soft enough to keep out the ice after his response.) "I wanted to win the game."

"You wanted to punish Regulus," Andromeda counters.

He explodes, "Not everything I do is about this goddamned family, and it's about time you believed that!"

She wavers for a second, just looking at him with her mouth half-open. "Sirius, the only reason I took this job was to look out for you. I think I've held you back after class enough times that you've figured that out by now. After you ran away last summer…" she says finally, heaving a sigh.

With a rush of something like resentment mixed with guilt, Sirius says halfheartedly, "I can fend for myself, Andy; I don't need a babysitter. Just because I left home—"

"—I know about Marlene McKinnon," says Andromeda, silencing him instantly. "The Sirius I know doesn't treat anybody like that."

"You don't know what you're talking about," says Sirius, fuming. She doesn't understand: Marlene isn't the issue. Marlene is his safety net and the thorn in his side, Marlene is collateral damage, Marlene is the one person in his life he knows won't run away no matter how horrible he is, and he knows he's been pretty horrible, but Prongs has Lily and Wormtail has Emmeline (Emmeline!) and Moony—well, frankly, Sirius doesn't know what the hell Moony is doing, but he doesn't trust it, he doesn't trust him, and Andromeda doesn't know shit about what that's like.

He doesn't bother hearing her out, even though he's been alone with her for less than a minute. "Leave me the hell alone," he says, and her protests fall on deaf ears as he picks up his bag and jogs out of the classroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

(Sirius puts a hell of a lot of faith in people for a Gryffindor. And when that trust is broken…)

Sirius isn't much of a brooder; when life gives him lemons, he's not exactly going to accomplish a whole lot by glaring at them, is he? Maybe he's dysfunctional, maybe he's rash, but if he jumps into something and gets it wrong, well, at least he can say he made the effort. Everybody ought to be a little rasher in life, Sirius thinks; but enough thinking.

Yeah, it's unwise, but he never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box. Sirius is impulsive; surely his history with Marlene and Emmeline and all the others is testament to that. In fact, Marlene's usually the one he goes to at moments like this, but carrying out all those bad ideas with her is starting to catch up to him, it seems, and he honestly doesn't have the patience to remind himself of all that baggage right about now.

So he doesn't go to Marlene. He goes to Belby.

He's surprisingly difficult to track down, even with the help of the Map, as he seems to be splitting all his time between the Slytherin common room and conspicuous public places. It isn't until Friday night that Belby finally retreats to the library—alone.

Sirius seizes his chance and hardly gives Belby five minutes to settle in before he's down there, panting, seething. He's got seventeen years of rarely released anger to unleash, and anyone who messes with Moony evidently needs to be taught a lesson.

"I'm sorry, Black, was there something you needed?" says Belby coolly, running a finger past titles on the shelf and not once raising his eyes.

Snarling, Sirius lunges for him, knocking his wand out of his hand and pinning him against the bookshelf. Belby can try to smooth-talk his way through whatever he wants, but when he's facing off a Quidditch champion in a show of physical prowess, he's bound to fall short. He chokes and splutters, mostly dramatically, as Sirius tightens his grip on his neck. "Shut up, for god's sake," Sirius spits, and Belby quiets, face purpling and eyes bugging out, but breathing. "Now tell me what the hell you did to Remus."

Belby says nothing. "Answer me!" Sirius says, a roar and a whisper all at once.

All Belby can do is cough. Sirius slackens his grip but lodges his wand between Belby's chin and Adam's apple, just to make his threat clear, and sneers, "Not so suave when you're in real danger, are you, Belby?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Belby wheezes, backing as far into the bookshelf and away from Sirius as is possible.

"Don't lie to me!" demands Sirius, jabbing his wand into Belby's throat for emphasis. "Whatever you're up to has got him so damn jumpy that he's lying to his mates and sneaking around, and it's your goddamn fault he ended up in the Hospital Wing covered in bruises breaks this week, I know it! You may be a fearful pansy ass, but if you honestly think you can get off with pushing around one of my mates-"

Belby says frantically, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead, "I didn't do anything to him, I swear to god! Dammit, I'm helping him! Let go of me!"

It's all Sirius can do to keep from Cruciating his sorry arse to the grave. Unsteadily, he breathes. "Didn't look like you'd been helping him when he wound up lying half-dead in a hospital bed a fortnight ago," he says.

"He would have been all-dead if I hadn't been there before Pomfrey came to collect him," says Belby hastily. "I'm not trying to get him killed; it's just more difficult than I thought it would be—you aren't supposed to know, no one can know—"

Sirius is so shocked that he forgets he's supposed to be threatening the bloke. His hands drop to his sides, and he hisses, "You know about—about—goddamn it, I'm going to murder Snivellus!"

"Snape knows?" says Belby, though he looks considerably less shaken now that he's gathered his wand off the floor. "He didn't… I figured it out myself; I'm not thick, you know."

"Could have fooled me," says Sirius, not even bothering to think through whether the insult is honest or not. "Save yourself the trouble and don't screw around with Remus anymore, Belby. Whatever the hell you think is helping him isn't."

Belby doesn't reply at first, massaging his neck and training his eyes to the floor. After a heated silence, he raises his gaze to Sirius and says calmly, "You'd make a wonderful Death Eater, you know. Just the right mix of intimidation and ignorant loyalty."

His insolence, above all, is what sets Sirius over the edge. "Conjunctivitio!" he bellows, smirking for just a moment as Belby's hands fly to his eyes before adding for good measure, "Petrificus Totalus!"

He leaves Belby there, eyes burning and unable to do a thing to alleviate the pain. If Pince doesn't kill him, Dumbledore will, but Sirius is beyond caring. No filthy bastard is going to eff with Moony, even if Moony himself is too thick to appreciate it.

Maybe growing up toujours pur has permanently scarred him; maybe he just plain doesn't have a conscience, but Sirius feels no remorse. Sirius doesn't feel anything, save perhaps a sort of distant appreciation of his apathy, now that he's blown off steam. Belby never turns him in, probably out of terror—good riddance, Sirius figures with some satisfaction—and the week progresses as normal, or as normally as it can these days, anyway.

He comes of age. It reminds him of the relatives that aren't his family and the house that's not his home, and he doesn't like to talk about it, and the Marauders know better after this many years than to celebrate it, so his birthday passes largely unnoticed.

Quidditch is the following Saturday, Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw. They made plans weeks ago to all go together, the Gryffindor sixth years and he, but it falls apart at the last minute, spiraling after Lily backs out. Prongs and Marlene aren't happy, but as she puts it, "This weekend is my last class with Brinn for my internshp before the International Confederation of Wizards meeting coming up two weeks from the game. You think I'm going to pass that up for a Quidditch game that none of my mates are even playing in?"

From there, Mary and Alice decide it's all right for them to skip the game for their own internships, too. Emmeline denies ever having been interested in the first place but, to everyone's surprise, agrees when Wormtail asks if she'll go to it with him, "just as a chance for us to finally figure all of this out," of course.

In the end, the only ones going are himself, Moony, Prongs, and Marlene. Sirius is none too happy, but he keeps his emotions in check and his mind on the game.

"Kicking off the game here, Kirley McCormack from Hufflepuff takes possession of the Quaffle, to no one's surprise—Hufflepuff Captain Elisabeth Clearwater has put her efforts into building a strong Chasing/Keeping front for the season. With all four house team's Seekers being especially talented this year, her strategy is to cancel out the unpredictability of Seeking outcomes by scoring as many goals as possible before the Snitch is caught, the net effect of which Hufflepuff hopes will win them the Quidditch Cup in the spring." After her dissatisfaction with the commentary on the game last fortnight, McGonagall's replaced Mike McKinnon with a pudgy-looking girl that Sirius doesn't know, though judging by her narrative style, she's probably a Ravenclaw.

Moony seems to have gotten the same impression. "She's a good commentator," he remarks as Hufflepuff scores its first goal. "It'll be interesting to hear all the back-story on strategies and everything, don't you think? Gives you a feel for the context of the game. She's smart to approach it like that… in Ravenclaw, probably."

"And it'll help us prepare for our match against Hufflepuff in February," muses Prongs. Sirius tears his eyes away from the action to glance at him. He's narrowing his eyes like he does when he's been struck for a prank idea. "If Liz has been focusing on her Chasers, I almost wonder if we should pull Fabian out and make Meghan our Keeper for the game…"

Frowning, Marlene says, "The Prewett twins have been on the Gryffindor team since they were third years; you really think that replacing Fabian with an inexperienced fifth year Seeker is going to improve our chances against Hufflepuff's strongest Chasing front in years?"

"It'll be risky," Prongs admits, "but think about it. Meg's always wanted to play Keeper; she's been practicing at it for years at home by playing Kirley. On the one hand, Kirley will know all her techniques, but if he doesn't know that we've switched her position until game day, it might throw him off… and she'll know how he plays, so won't that give her an advantage in blocking his goals? And she can get us familiar with how the Hufflepuffs play beforehand so we'll know what to expect from them during the match, whereas they'll be practicing to beat Fabian's Keeping style and won't be prepared for Meg when they learn about the switch," he explains, keeping his voice low in the hope that no one overhears.

Unconvinced, Marlene presses, "You'll have to be so careful not to let the word spread before the game, if you're going for the element of surprise… and besides, even if putting Meg on as Keeper does help us win more goals than the Hufflepuffs, it still means losing our Seeker and giving Benjy a much better shot at catching the Snitch. Meg's never lost a game yet as Seeker, and even if you did pull it off by replacing her against Slytherin this month…"

They're silent for a minute now. It's a dreary day for a game, all muggy and overcast and unusually hot for November. Humidity stifles him; sweat bubbling across his skin dizzies him, and every couple of seconds, he reaches to swipe the wetness out of his eyes and off his temples, struggling to breathe clearly.

Sirius mulls it over while watching the game, listening to the in-depth commentary: "And a Bludger from Ravenclaw prevents Jones once again from shooting! Ravenclaw's strength this year is in its Beaters: Bernhardt has experience, Flynn raw talent, whereas Hufflepuff's Beaters are both new to the team this year and seem to be having a hard time finding their footing. This is the third time that Bludgers have kept Hufflepuff out of the scoring area, and out of the four attempted goals Hufflepuff has made, Shacklebolt's blocked half—not bad against this team of Chasers. Even if Ravenclaw's Chasers will struggle to score, the supporting players are stopping Hufflepuff from gaining the early advantage they'd been hoping for."

"That's it," murmurs Sirius suddenly, realizing. "That's it," he says again, louder, to his fellow Gryffindors. "It's all about the long-term strategy, isn't it? Dorcas Meadowes is good—if anybody has a real shot at blocking most of Hufflepuff's attempted goals, it's her, and you have to admit, my brother's a good enough Seeker that he'll be able to catch the Snitch with the Carrows' help. Hufflepuff is a strong team, might even be the strongest team at Hogwarts this year, but they're not infallible. Ravenclaw's holding their own against them, Slytherin can hold their own against them—Prongs is right. Fabian's good, but Hufflepuff, sorry to say, is probably better; if we're going to stop their Chasers, Meg is the person to do it. She'll throw them off."

"And the Snitch?" prompts Marlene, crossing her arms.

Sirius says shortly, "I'll see to it myself that Benjy Fenwick gets nowhere near the Snitch this February. Bring it up to Gid at next practice, James; I'll back you up."

"I don't like it. Using deception as your strategy… it feels dishonest," Moony says softly.

The crowd roars; Hufflepuff's scored again, bringing the game total up to thirty to nothing. "We're well within our rights to keep our tactics a secret," defends Prongs.

"It's not deception; it's thrill tactics. You can't rely on schemes like that if you're serious about winning," says Marlene, still suspicious.

"There's nothing wrong with a little risk," breathes Sirius. "Nothing wrong with a little deceit."

Grinning, Prongs says, "You're up to something, Sirius."

He keeps his eyes fixed on the pitch, unsmiling because Prongs doesn't understand. "Just thinking of a little talk I had with Belby last week. It's nothing. I've already taken care of it," he says in clipped tones.

Sirius doesn't look, but he doesn't have to. He knows Moony; he knows that his friend's bound to turn pale. "Belby?" Moony asks, voice wavering. "Why would you want to do something to—to Belby?"

This is it, Sirius thinks, composing himself. Hufflepuff scores a fourth goal. When he knows he can keep his face straight, he turns to Moony and says calmly, "Only because I know he did something to you."

No one knows quite what to say to that, so Sirius goes on, "Sneaking around, keeping secrets… it's not like you, Remus, and don't think that none of us have noticed how afraid of him you are lately."

"So you went to teach him a lesson?" says Moony, his voice unnaturally high-pitched. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I've put him in his place, that's what I've done," says Sirius gruffly.

"No, you haven't. Dammit, Sirius, you…" Moony is breathing heavily, closing his eyes, visibly upset. "He's enough of an arse that you probably haven't stopped him, but from now on, Sirius, stay out of it. It isn't what it looks like."

Sirius snorts, "Oh, so he's not trying to kill you and land you in the Hospital Wing?"

"He's trying to keep me out of the Hospital Wing from now on. If what he's doing works…"

Taken aback, Sirius and Prongs exchange a glance. Out of the Hospital Wing? He can't possibly mean that…

"Does one of you want to explain to me what the hell you're on about?"

Marlene. Of course. "Back off, McKinnon, this isn't your problem," dismisses Sirius.

"The hell it isn't my problem, Black. Don't expect me to stay quiet and play the part of your ignorant bitch; if Lupe is in trouble, I have the right to know about it, especially when you don't seem to have a shred of patience and insist on flaunting your knowledge about it right under my nose!" she snaps, turning redder and redder as she speaks.

Sirius moves to fight her, but before he can get a word out, Moony says quietly, "I'm sick, Marlene. I've been sick for a very long time, and Belby's trying to—to cure me."

"It's incurable, Remus," says Prongs as gently as he can. "Belby may be arrogant enough to think otherwise, but—"

"You don't know that!" Moony explodes. "I've been dealing with this for half my life; it's worth a shot, isn't it? Maybe it's curable if people would stop treating it like it… like it's not worth curing, all right? He spent months developing the potion, and I tried it one time, and it didn't work, but of course it didn't work, these things take time, there's a whole process, and I've seen the recipes, he's not faking me out. I know he's an arrogant arse, but he's not going to kill me, so can you all just back off and let me try and get better?"

He's pushing his way away from them now, bowing his head with embarrassment and shoving his way past the crowd. "Where are you going?" Prongs calls after him, half impatient, half concerned.

"Crashing Em and Peter's date," Moony yells back, whipping his head around to glare.

"Don't let them hear you calling it that—" Prongs tries to warn him, but Moony worms his way past a clique of fifth years and is gone.

Ravenclaw wins, a hundred and sixty to ninety. Hufflepuff seemed bound to win it for sure, demolishing the opposition at the goalposts, but Dirk Cresswell edged out Benjy Fenwick for the Snitch, and that was that. On the one hand, the strongest team of the year lost its first game, giving Gryffindor an advantage and making Prongs's plan to switch Meghan McCormack's position that much more likely; on the other, it just goes to show that Sirius ought never to count on anything anymore.

He catches up with Mary after that (because Prongs is love-struck and Alice wouldn't understand and Lily doesn't know him and everyone else is part of the problem), tracking her down after dinner and taking her for a walk across the grounds. It's still too hot and humid, but he loosens his robes and brushes his hair off the back of his neck and tries not to mind, and Sirius wants to tell her, tell somebody, that his family broke him and Marlene weakens him and Emmeline is an old sore reopened, but he can't find the words, and Mary is staring at him with impatient mouth agape, so he just shakes his head and says, "You're smart for spending so much time with the Hufflepuffs."

She clearly doesn't know what to say to that. "And why's that, exactly?" she prompts, shifting from foot to foot.

"Less drama," he answers.

When Mary bursts out laughing, he realizes how absurd it sounds. "Less drama? Like, have you met Veronica Smethley before?"

"Yeah, but it's petty drama; it doesn't count for anything, doesn't affect anything," Sirius explains, backtracking. "When you spend a lot of time with Smethley, you just hear about other people's dramas. Spend too much time with your own housemates…"

"Did something happen with Marlene?" asks Mary with concern. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He doesn't say anything. Then, finally, "Not with Marlene; not specifically, anyway. Just…" He thinks back to the Quidditch game, how Moony doesn't trust his judgment, how he cut Marlene down and then Moony left and she looked at him and it…

"There's hundreds of wizards in this school, thirty-three sixth years, eight other Gryffindors in our year, and most of the time, I still feel totally alone," says Mary. She doesn't meet his eyes.

Cattermole, Sirius recalls. "I'd tell you to give it another shot with him if he makes you happy, but I'm not really in a position to talk," he says with a little self-deprecating snicker.

"Does Marlene make you happy?" Mary asks, her eyebrows furrowed and voice solemn.

He sighs and throws back his head for a moment, the air falling heavily on him, the enormity of his mistakes sinking in. "I dunno. Not anymore… not really. Not like that. It's just easier, sometimes, to go to her than it is to deal with all the rest of it."

"Then you need to end it," she advises, giving him a sympathetic smile.

Sirius refutes, "No need; it's already over."

"Not properly it isn't. You need to end it for real, with, like, actual closure this time. The two of you can't keep doing this, Sirius," says Mary. He flicks his hair out of his eyes and doesn't say anything; she gives his hand a supportive squeeze.

Abruptly, Mary plants herself in front of him and stops walking, nearly causing him to run into her. "It would be a terrible idea for me to ask you out right now, wouldn't it?" she asks, looking mostly amused but a little hopeful, too.

And he hates himself for seriously considering it, even if only for a moment, before he turns her down. "Yeah," he mutters, "yeah, it would," and as he leans in to kiss her on the forehead, he holds himself over her, just for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of her hair.

Screw Hufflepuff. Screw all of it. Sirius is done with faith.

Chapter Text

November 28th, 1976: Remus Lupin

Until now, he'd forgotten what it's like to feud with Sirius. They've already been through a similar situation, after the Snape debacle in fifth year, but that time Sirius was the offender and Remus was the one caught in the middle. James and Peter had every right to be angry, of course. Hell, Remus was angry too—but the idea of having to live without Sirius's friendship hurt enough that he didn't abandon Sirius the way James and Peter did.

Perhaps the memory of that confusing time explains why the Marauders' second schism is that much more difficult for Remus: after having come out of that first row so much closer to all three of his mates, Sirius's spurning of Remus for James feels like ten painful steps backward for them all.

It shouldn't surprise Remus how much he's come to rely on Sirius emotionally, but somehow, it does. Not having him around to talk to or laugh with or confide in leaves a hole in Remus's life that he doesn't know how to fill—a hole, in truth, probably bigger than anyone else would have the ability to leave. The warm, hazy, lucky feeling he always gets from being around Sirius is gone, and he's supposed to act like that doesn't affect him, but without it, he's left empty and cold and totally, totally alone, no matter who else is around him.

Working with Belby, trusting Belby with his life, with his secret, is a risky move. Remus gets that. But if anything, he'll need his mates more than ever to get him through the fallout. Without somebody's support…

Sirius refuses to try to see eye-to-eye with him. That's bad enough. But Sirius also takes James out, Peter is dealing with enough in his life that Remus doesn't want to unload his own burdens onto him, and he doesn't need any of the girls figuring out what he is at a time like this, especially when Marlene already knows too much.

At first, he's tempted to seek out Dorcas or Kingsley and ask to take on extra prefect duties with Regulus Black, but on second thought, he'd rather avoid their suspicion. Heck, even hanging around Belby or Black for a day seems like a preferable alternative to the nightmare that has become Gryffindor house at a glance… but then, Remus is desperate, not masochistic.

He goes to Lily. Swiping the Marauder's Map out of James's bag before anyone else is up, Remus dresses quickly and then waits inside his hangings until the moment Lily Evans is alone and decent.

Luckily for him, she's been an early riser ever since she came off her Dreamless Sleep Potion back in September: they're two of the first ones to breakfast. "Hey, Lily, do you mind?" Remus says by way of greeting, approaching her in the Great Hall and tentatively taking the seat beside her that James usually occupies.

"Well…" she says, hesitating. Lily's not one to reject a friend in need, but Remus knows how awfully close she and James have been getting lately.

"Don't even bother considering it, Lily; he's probably going to be hanging around Sirius a lot more than usual today," he says, dismissive and a little dejected.

Lily sets down her fork, twists around in her seat, and looks him properly in the eye. The full moon is a week from tomorrow, so he's already looking under the weather; coupled with the stress he's been under lately, the sight of him probably isn't especially pleasing to the eye.

"James mentioned that there was a blowout at the game yesterday, but I didn't realize it was that bad," she says, her voice laced with worry. "Are the four of you going to be all right?"

"I hope so," says Remus, reaching for a platter of pancakes. "I don't know how I'm going to do it without them."

"Do what?"

And because he's just too tired to fight his only ally and she already knows too much anyway, he tells her, "Belby's working on a potion to cure… my furry little problem. I agreed to be his test subject last month. He hasn't been able to get it to work yet."

If he weren't so exhausted, he'd probably be amused by Lily's startled reaction: her mouth opens and closes, opens and closes, as she gapes. "Yeah, that's what they thought, too," Remus tells her, taking a too-big bite of toast and quickly washing it down with a swig of pumpkin juice.

Studying him, Lily's not eating anymore. "It's not that," she says gently, "but I can't blame them for thinking that you're making a mistake. Remus… your problem has been around for as long as wizards can remember, and nobody's been able to cure it yet. I know it's your choice to do this, but you have to admit, that doesn't seem very promising."

"Gee, thanks for the support," says Remus morosely.

"That's not what I meant. I see where Sirius is coming from; that doesn't mean I agree with him." Remus looks up as Lily continues, lowering her voice to speak freely, "Lycanthropy has been around for thousands of years, but do you know how long it's been since the last known attempt to cure it? Centuries, Remus. Even during the Wizarding Renaissance of the 1400s, no one even suggested studying it. The last time anybody took interest in werewolves, magical theory wasn't nearly advanced enough to treat them, and now that we might have the knowledge to take lycanthropy on again, the stigma has become so accepted that people no longer view it as something that could possibly be treated."

Still, Remus isn't convinced. He wishes that he were confident in Belby's plans, but he's not. Faintly smiling, Lily murmurs, "You know what the last thing was that wizards tried to use to cure this? Feeding werewolves monkshood. Wolfsbane, Muggles used to call it—this was long before the International Statute of Secrecy. It killed most, paralyzed the rest—a whole lot of good Muggle folklore did for werewolves, huh?" She shakes her head and pours herself more pumpkin juice. "Sirius has a point, but he's not studying History of Magic at the N.E.W.T. level."

"James is," Remus points out glumly.

"James," says Lily, laughing, "only even took that class because he knew I'd be in it; everything he hears in that class goes in one ear and out the other. Look, even I have reservations about you working with Belby, if only because he's too young to have strong potioneering experience, and because he's got a shady character to boot. But don't think you're wasting your time on a disease without the possibility of a cure. For all we know, the only reason people think that it can't be treated is cyclical thinking, and if nobody else is willing to try to beat the odds than Belby… well, he's a smart bloke. I can't say I trust him after what happened last month, but you're not stupid… for all we know, this could have a wide-scale payoff for the entire werewolf community one day."

Remus isn't quite sure what to say to that, so he just keeps eating breakfast and avoids Lily's eyes. Sighing, she promises, "I'll talk to James. It'll be all right, Remus."

"Thanks," he says softly with a tentative smile, glancing at her and laughing as he realizes she's raking a hand through her hair just like James. "You know, you told James that made him look stupid once," he says, nodding to the gesture.

Lily freezes mid-motion and cracks a smile in return. "A lot has changed over the last few months," she admits.

"Speaking of change," says Remus (he spends enough time dwelling on his affliction, so he figures it's a worthwhile distraction to take interest in Lily's life instead of just his own), "when is it that you're leaving for France again?"

"The tenth," she replies, breaking into a proper grin at the mention of it. "I leave after History of Magic, right before dinner. Brinn says I can Side-Along-Apparate to Paris with him and do a little sightseeing the night before, and then they're having a two-day convention with the French seats on the International Confederation of Wizards that I'll be sitting in on. The Confederation is having a full meeting in January, so beforehand, they'll be discussing the issues and deciding what propositions that France as a body will bring to the Supreme Mugwump. That's Dumbledore, actually, but all he can really do is mediate the discussion, it's a very democratic setup."

She pauses for breath, full of excitement. Remus can tell she's been very much looking forward to this. "Do you know whether the war with the Death Eaters is going to be discussed?" he asks.

"Oh, I'm sure it will be," Lily assures him breathily. "I know the British are seeking to get international backup for the war at the meeting this winter, and if we can get support from France, that'll be a huge step in convincing the rest of Europe and, in turn, the entire Confederation. It's hard to predict how France will react to the request, but since there's a chance that You-Know-Who's going to set his sights globally and would probably take on France next if he conquers Britain, we're hoping they'll want to keep his influence out of their country and prevent the problem before it even starts for them," she explains.

"Huh," says Remus, mulling it over. The most he knows about the war is the names of his classmates' parents or friends who have been claimed by Death Eaters yet. He doesn't know a lot about international politics, but even so, he hopes to god that France will see sense and step in. "We'll all be hoping for the best for you and your ambassador when you leave," he tells her before biting into his pancakes.

She thanks him, smiling. "That reminds me; I've got to get down to the Ministry to meet with him again in a couple of hours…"

"Before you go, you wouldn't want to go down to the library with me to get a head start on that Defense Against the Dark Arts paper, would you?" Remus asks, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. "It's just… with all that's going on right now between me and Sirius and everything…"

He needn't have worried: Lily must remember from last year what it's like to feel alone in one's own house and year. "Yeah, of course," she says mildly, pushing away her plate and slinging her bag over her shoulder. "I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask you about it anyway…"

He can spend all the time he wants hiding out in the library to study on Sunday, but as he's painfully reminded in Charms the next morning, he'll have to face his situation sooner or later. As Peter dropped the class with Mary this year, Remus won't be able to work with them like they always had every week. He knows when he's not wanted.

To his surprise, however, Marlene waves him over before he has a chance to be the odd one out of their class of seven. "Want to partner me today, Lupe?" she proposes innocently enough, clearing a space for his books on the tabletop.

"What about Em? Don't the two of you usually work together in here?" he asks, even as he's taking her up on her offer.

"Lily and Alice can have her today," says Marlene dismissively, tossing her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six a little too harshly onto the desk. Glancing furtively at James and Sirius's table in the back and probably failing to conceal his wistfulness, he thinks of the strangeness that's sprung up between Sirius and Emmeline as of late and wonders if that has anything to do with the change of pace. Is it too complicated between the three of them?

Oh, who is he kidding? It's been a long time since anything was simple between any of the nine of them. As if in confirmation of this, Marlene clarifies her real reasons (in Remus's mind, anyway) with her next words, spoken deathly softly: "You said you were sick last Saturday."

Remus heaves a sigh: he should have known that this conversation was coming sooner or later. "Look, I'm sorry about everything that happened at the game," he apologizes, twirling his quill between his fingers and avoiding her eyes. "It wasn't fair to bring that up in front of you and then leave you in the dark. It was rude, and you deserve better than the way we all treated you and took you for granted."

She's not resentful like he'd expected her to be. No, on the contrary, she seems a little taken aback. "Thanks, Lupe, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. If anybody owes me an apology on that count, it's Black."

"Ordinarily, I'd explain it on his behalf to spare you the trouble of another argument, but I'm afraid I'm in no position to speak for him at the moment," says Remus heavily.

"Lily told me you're rowing because of what happened," Marlene says, pursing her lips.

Heart sinking, he asks, "Yeah? Did she tell you anything else about what's wrong with me?"

"No, nothing like that," Marlene assures him, resting her elbows on the desk and her chin in her hands. "Believe me, I've been trying to get her to spill that secret for a while now, but she won't budge."

For a moment, neither of them says anything, the last of their classmates trickling into the room as they wait for the bell to ring.

"Lupe, for what it's worth, I don't think Black has any right to be mad at you," says Marlene, finally breaking the tension. "Upset I could understand, if he had your best interests in mind, but accusatory… that's not his place. 'S your life," she tells him, sounding weary. "He's probably just worried about whatever's wrong with you: he and Jay made it sound like this treatment you're attempting with Belby is pretty risky. He'll come around."

"I hope so," confides Remus, and in that moment, he desperately wishes that Fenrir Greyback had never bitten him.

He's a little startled the next time she speaks, whispering, "When you say you're sick…"

"It isn't deadly," he promises. "It's just… something I have to live with." More like live around, but Marlene doesn't need any extra clues, as far as Remus is concerned.

"I hope that's the truth," she mumbles. "Lupe, whatever it is, I'm not going to—to flip out about it, you know that, right? However bad your health is, we'd all stand by you. All anyone wants is for you to be safe."

Try telling yourself that when you realize I'm the danger to everyone else, he thinks, but he can't explain it. Marlene wouldn't understand, not without knowing he falls under the highest possible Ministry of Magic classification in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and god help him if any more people ever find that out about him. "Thanks, Marlene," he says instead, feigning comfort and flipping open his textbook as Flitwick begins today's lecture.

The first few days carry on just the same, Remus taking refuge in books and spells and, occasionally, the girls. It's not until Wednesday that he finally gets James alone, though considering the treatment he's been getting this week, he's not sure whether the company will be something he'll appreciate.

He's surprised into silence when James wordlessly takes the seat next to his in Ancient Runes, but it doesn't take Remus all that long to confront him about it. "I know you disagree with what I've been doing, but I didn't realize that a difference of opinion warrants abandonment, Prongs," he says earnestly.

The instant he says it, he half regrets it. James doesn't look at Remus at first, rubbing his eyes and massaging his temples, and Remus wonders whether all of this has been taking a toll out of him, too. "I'm not mad at you, Moony, but you know how Padfoot gets when he's upset, and I just didn't want to… escalate any of that," he says, at long last, to explain. "I'm sorry. All this must be horrible for you."

"Yeah, you could say that," Remus half agrees. He's glad they're not casting runes today, as that would require total silence for precision; the class is working on compositions instead, so with a bit of help from Muffliato, he hopes that he and James can talk some of this out. "Usually I'd just go to Wormtail for support, but he has enough on his plate already, and besides, I…" He pauses, shakes his head. "You remember what it used to be like before this past year, and I don't want to be the reason we go back to that," he says, dipping his quill into his inkwell to try to diminish some of the melodrama he knows is packed into that statement.

"Moony…" begins James, weary. "You and Wormtail are two of my best mates now, even if it wasn't always like this. Nothing that happens between us is going to change that."

Doubtfully, Remus says, "Remember what it was like last year when you and Padfoot were rowing? Everybody's always thought we're inseparable, but half the time, I still felt like I was just getting to know the two of you… after five years of Marauding, and of you lot making sacrifices for me and my condition, mind you," he adds, shaking his head. "I could never wrap my head around it before… why you'd disregard the law for the sake of someone you didn't necessarily know you could trust."

"Don't think like that," interrupts James sharply, but he says nothing by way of rebuttal.

Sighing, Remus continues, "And then we all split up, and I felt like I was getting closer to you and Padfoot as individuals, but between the two of you… I mean, you withstood that whole situation, in the end, because you two had the tools and the closeness to get through that. But Prongs, what if Padfoot and I aren't strong enough to get through this?"

"Oh, Moony," says James at long last, bursting with emotion and empathy. If this were a sappy novel, Remus figures, they'd be crying and reuniting and falling all over at this point. But his life is no novel; everything he's withstood in the lycanthropic half of his lifetime has been of conflict without resolution, of flat action with the occasional bump up or down along the way. "You and Padfoot are going to come out of this just fine, all right? I promise you that. I'll ask Lily to talk some sense into him about it; maybe he has a problem with Belby, but that doesn't mean he has to have a problem with you."

"You know how he gets, Prongs," Remus says dubiously. "When he gets the idea that he's right and you're wrong…"

He thinks of Sirius's blind intolerance of Death Eater sympathizers like Belby, his friend's familial rejection, and Remus can't say he blames Sirius, but he can't say it doesn't make him worry for their future, either.

"I know," says James, fatigued. "I know."

It seems that Lily and James made good on their promise to talk to Sirius, because by the end of the day, things are more strained than ever. Remus is still avoiding the Gryffindors whenever he can, but when he awkwardly returns to his dormitory for the night after an hours-long stint in the library and sees the look on Sirius's face, he's not sure whether he regrets being so distant or wants to run right back out of the room. He feels out his reaction for a split second before it seems to settle on anger.

"Where've you been?" demands Sirius, his voice dangerously quiet.

"Like you couldn't have checked the Map for the last five days to find me," Remus says bitingly. He ought to back down, he knows that, but it isn't fair and nobody's taking his side and he's had a lot of time to brood over that since the game last Saturday.

It isn't good enough for Sirius, not that Remus had expected it to be. "If you honestly believe there's nothing wrong with going right back to Belby on Monday night after all of this—"

"—I talked to Lily on Sunday. Historically speaking, the notion that it's impossible to cure lycanthropy resulted from a load of prejudice and misconceptions," says Remus with what little patience he has left. "And I trust that Belby's not doing this to hurt me; he'd be too afraid of getting caught and putting himself at a disadvantage to ever try to hurt someone—"

"—Oh, so you'll trust Belby based on your impression of his character? If he's wrong about this, you're going to be the one paying for his mistakes, and he's not going to do a thing to help you for fear of risking his own sorry comfortable lifestyle, you do realize that, right?" erupts Sirius. "And yet you still think he's trustworthy? Or are you just conveniently going to neglect to factor that chance in?"

Maybe a bit childishly, Remus retorts, "Well, in that case, it's not like there'd be an antidote for whatever ended up getting me hurt, so it won't really matter whether Belby's a coward or not, will it?"

"And Lily? You'll ask her for advice at the drop of a hat and won't tell us what's going on with you for a full month?" Sirius retaliates.

"For the record, you and Prongs were the first to find out about this," says Remus hotly. "Is that what this is about? Your sorry ego can't handle my right to privacy? Ever consider that maybe I didn't want to tell you because I didn't trust you to take it any more maturely than this?"

This time, he knows for sure that he shouldn't have said it, but even if Sirius is broken up about it, well, so is Remus, and his mates can't take away his own damn right to defend himself when it's his life, his choices. He shuts Sirius up, at any rate, and notices Peter (shocked) and James (disappointed) for the first time in the silence.

To hell with it, Remus decides, retreating behind the curtains of his four-poster. They've already judged him enough.

Is it wrong that he's relieved the next time he's in Belby's company? As agreed before the secret came out, they meet in the library after Potions on Friday, Belby bringing a revised copy of the recipe for which to get Remus's approval. "If you think you can manage a bit of intellectuality, I had a couple of suggestions to run by you," says Belby with his usual superior drawl.

But Remus doesn't trust his indifference, not for a minute. "Look, before we start," he begins, waiting till Belby makes nervous eye contact before he says any more, "Sirius told me there was a confrontation. Whatever he said…"

"Not so much," says Belby airily, rummaging around in his bag for the recipe. "There wasn't a whole lot of talking involved. A bit of wandwork, some idle threats—"

"Wait a minute, do you mean that Sirius harassed you?" Remus interrupts. He's not entirely sure why he's so surprised, when he stops to think about it: Sirius has been on the rampage lately. "Did you get away from him all right?"

"Clearly," says Belby with a hint of sarcasm. Remus makes a face; he's losing his fear of Belby by the day. "At least, I took steps to ensure that the fourth year who found me will never tell a soul of the condition I was in at the time. No harm done."

He takes a breath, steadying himself, and tries not to consider just how ugly it must have gotten. "Well, whatever he did, I don't want you to listen to a thing he told you. It's none of his business what I can and can't do about my health," says Remus.

"As if I'd ever heed a piece of advice given by Sirius Black," Belby says crossly, but Remus isn't worried, taking it as consent. "If that's all, I want us to try adjusting the quantities of the ingredients this month. We know they're not going to kill you if we don't add drastic amounts of silver, for one thing, and I'd rather play it safe than jump into a whole new recipe and take even more risks until we know we've exhausted the current plan. Considering the kind of hysterical reaction you had the last time, perhaps we should add belladonna extract or take away one of the Alihosty leaves, but in what proportion is the question…"

Truth be told, Remus doesn't have a clue what kind of reaction he had the last time, to put it in Belby's words. The potion hadn't worked; his mind still hadn't been his own; all he remembers is Belby helping him into the castle and leaving him to stumble his way, a bloody and half-unconscious wreck of a man, into the Hospital Wing. But it's all right: no potions master can be expected to get something as complex and uncharted as a lycanthropic cure right on the first try.

Remus trusts Belby with this, and that's more than he can say for anyone else in his life.

Chapter Text

December 9th, 1976: Alice Abbott

“Give me your wands,” says Professor Tonks, more exasperated than anything. They’re anything but eager to comply, Sirius and Marlene in particular, so she repeats, “Your wands, please,” with the kind of intonation that means she doesn’t intend to take no for an answer.

Grudgingly, they hand them over. Marlene hesitates to relinquish hers at first, and there’s a split second of tug-of-war between her and Tonks before she lets go, still fuming. Evidently, she hasn’t blown off a whole lot of steam since class today.

To be honest, Alice hasn’t a clue what any of her fellow Gryffindor sixth years have been up to since leaving the Hospital Wing, and maybe that’s part of the reason why they’ve found themselves in Tonks’s office—why an otherwise carefully controlled session of dueling practice in Defense Against the Dark Arts spiraled out of control the way it did. It seemed like an explosion of spellwork and hostility at the time, Alice reflects, a whirlwind of anger and tension unleashed that ended before it felt like it had started. In retrospect, though, Defense class that morning didn’t so much explode as fall apart, all their suppressed resentments unraveling into a mess of an illegal duel, curses flying everywhere, no allies, nobody safe.

Now they’re in detention, their first time together since the incident, and Alice is passing her wand to her professor and wondering how such a close-knit group of nine witches and wizards devolved into this.

“I’d like all of you to clean the classroom by hand,” announces Tonks as she tucks the wands into her robe pocket. “I want the floor swept and mopped, blackboard cleaned, tables scrubbed with the gum scraped off from underneath, windows wiped, essays filed by year and house—you get the idea. You’ll find all the necessary Muggle supplies in the cabinet by my desk. I’m locking you in and giving you until midnight; when I come back, this room better be sparkling, and you all better be on fantastic terms with each other, do you hear me?”

Marlene still looks ready to put up an indignant fight but, mercifully, restrains herself as Tonks sweepingly departs. The door clicks shut; Alice holds her breath and waits for the chaos to ensue.

Lily is the first to break the silence, sheepish and soft-spoken. “Can I just say—I’m sorry I hexed you, James. It wasn’t my place—Marlene can fight her own battles—”

Awkwardly, James shakes his head. Alice guesses that this isn’t the kind of thing he wants to confront her about until they’re alone. “It’s all right; you were just defending your mate. I got carried away, it’s my fault we started dueling, I retaliated—”

“Can you just snog and make up already, spare the rest of us from having to hear all the sap?” says Marlene sardonically.

“Shut it, McKinnon, it’s not like that,” James says. He stares at the floor and avoids all eyes for a moment, then adds with an edge to his voice, “And even if it were, from what I hear, you’re not in the best position to judge what a healthy relationship looks like.”

Marlene looks ready to lunge for a minute, and Alice is half afraid she will, but she holds back, merely retorting, “All right, fine, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life, but that doesn’t mean I need anyone else’s happiness shoved down my throat.”

James starts to speak up, surely in Lily and his defense, but Lily interrupts before he has the chance. “We’re not happy, Marlene,” she says; “none of us are—why else would we be sitting in detention right now?”

“Speaking of sitting around,” Peter pipes up quietly, “we should really get a move on and start cleaning. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish.”

“Shut it, Pettigrew, nobody cares what you think,” says Marlene dismissively, to which Peter just glares a little but says nothing.

When Peter doesn’t defend himself, Remus steps in to do it for him. “I care,” he says, “and anyway, he’s right. You can’t refuse to do the work and land us here in another week when it’s your fault we’re here in the first place.”

“My fault? Black was the one—”

Alice is a prefect; her job is to mediate in situations like this, and once upon a time, she was good at mediation. Right. “Marlene cast the first underhanded spell,” she says with as level a head as possible, talking over Marlene as she bitterly protests this fact, “but it’s all our faults for reacting the way we did and getting involved. Professor Tonks said—”

“Eff Tonks,” mutters Marlene.

She reiterates, “Professor Tonks said to clean up the classroom and work out our differences that caused the duel, and it’s a pretty smart idea for a punishment, when you think it through, so can we please just follow Peter’s lead and get started?”

They break out the supplies in the cabinet and set to work. Broom and dustpan in hand, Alice assigns herself to floor duty and starts sweeping with renewed empathy for Muggles. How do they stand this, honestly?

Of course, compared to the task of patching up the holes in these friendships, cleaning the classroom will be a piece of cake, Alice realizes within minutes.

Emmeline talks next. (Alice is fast getting weary of this pattern: somebody speaks, somebody squabbles, and sooner or later, everything disintegrates into silence, secrets, and hushed and hateful words. She can’t take it much longer. She doesn’t know why they’ve all taken this for so long—)

So Emmeline talks next, saying, “So are we going to get group therapy over with or what?”

“Yeah, Marlene, what possessed you to defy the rules and throw enough unruly hexes at me to land me in the Hospital Wing for the day?” says Sirius mockingly. He’s still nursing wounds from this morning, holding up to his left eye a cloth dipped in some healing solution or other.

“Sirius,” says James warningly, and Sirius backs down. “Look, we’re not going to get anywhere if we pin all the blame on Marlene, all right? McKinnon and Sirius are not the only ones at fault for this. We’ve been lying to ourselves and each other for too long now, and it’s about time we admit it.”

“So we’re just going to sit around in a circle and talk about our feelings now, are we, James?” says Sirius irritably.

“No,” says James, “we’re going to scrub this room clean, and we’re going to tell everything.”

Meekly, Mary echoes, “Everything?”

“Everything.”

Something of a painful silence follows. Alice is starting to recognize more and more just how disconnected from each other they all are. “Fine,” says Marlene, still disgruntled, “then why don’t you tell us what the hell your deal is with Black and Lupe?”

Paling, Remus protests, “Marlene, I really don’t think that’s such a good—”

“You know, honestly, Jay, if he’s so sick and meddling in something so dangerous because of it, don’t you think that as his mates, we have the right to know?” Marlene continues bitterly, ignoring Remus completely.

Wide-eyed, James says, “Marlene, that wasn’t what I m—”

Alice interrupts, “What do you mean, dangerous?”

Stammering, Remus says hastily, “It’s not that simple—” 

“Eff it.” Sirius. All eyes turn to him. “He’s a fucking werewolf, and he’s letting Damocles Belby use him as his lab rat in the search for a cure that he’s not going to find.”

It’s the kind of statement that should warrant a dramatic pause, but what follows instead is absolute madness. “You bastard, Sirius, that wasn’t yours to share!” erupts James, slamming his fists on the desk he’s scrubbing down for emphasis; a shaking table leg knocks over his wash bucket, and soapy water sloshes everywhere, dousing Alice’s feet.

She’s still processing this as Sirius retorts, “Someone’s got to call him out! He’s making a colossal mistake, and since none of us can knock any sense into him—”

“God, Sirius, how many times do you have to be told that it isn’t a mistake? There’s no logical reason to think that there can never be something out there to at least lessen the effects of lycanthropy,” says Lily now, squaring her shoulders and eyeing him down.

“Wait, backtrack, you knew about this?” asks Mary, her tone almost accusatory.

Marlene confirms, “And didn’t see fit to bother to mention it to me.”

“You mean to us,” Mary says, her anger directed at Marlene now. “Not everything is about you and Lily, Lene.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Marlene shoots back.

“Cut the crap, Marlene, you know exactly what I mean!” shouts Mary. “You’ve replaced me with her, poor little orphan Lily, just because her Death Eater best friend dropped her and her parents died, but, like, that doesn’t mean I’m petty and worthless just because I used to dye my hair blonde and read Witch Weekly. Dammit, Lene, you were the closest thing I had to family; I thought that meant something to you!”

From the looks of it, this shocks Marlene into silence, just long enough for Peter to cut in, “Lord, how self-centered are you?” Mary slumps against the blackboard, shame-faced; Marlene takes a deep breath, steadies herself. “Maybe I’m crazy, but I think my best mate’s lycanthropy trumps whatever misunderstandings you two have right now.”

“On the bright side, at least they don’t seem to think it a complete scandal,” mumbles Remus, smiling halfheartedly.

“I’m sorry, Lupe,” Mary apologizes, head bowed. “I can’t even imagine what that’s like for you.”

Alice’s mind is reeling. Remus, their Remus—a werewolf? All her life, she’s been raised to believe that werewolves are both a joke and a menace—soulless wizarding outcasts that she used to laugh off even as she prayed to god she’d never encounter one. It’s the wizarding way, to hate and fear that particular line of bestiality—and now the joke’s on her, that she’s been living with a werewolf for the last five and a half years of her life. It doesn’t add up. It can’t add up.

If she feels awful about it, it must be a thousand times worse for Remus himself; she knows that. To be on the receiving end of that kind of persecution… Remus isn’t the stereotype for a teenage werewolf, not at all, and he certainly doesn’t deserve any of the intolerance and ridicule that come with it.

“I feel terrible,” sighs Alice, resting her hands on the top of her broom handle and not even attempting to fight off her overwhelming guilt.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Emmeline muses. Alice stares. “Always going out of your way to feel the most politically correct emotions in every circumstance… it’s getting old, really.”

Alice isn’t quite sure what to say to that, blurting, “Forgive me, but I thought this was about Remus.”

“It is about Remus,” says James impatiently, “so Sirius, for god’s sake, if you have so little trust in Belby’s potion, why are you angry with Remus because of it?”

“Because he knows better!” Sirius says, fuming. “Because he can’t trust Belby, and this whole half-arsed plan is stupid and reckless and bound to fail—”

Peter interrupts, “You know, Sirius, that sounds a lot like the kind of principles you live by.”

“Shut it, Peter,” says Sirius, exasperated. “Dammit, Remus, you’re going to end up either dead or ousted from the wizarding world when this goes wrong, and I think I have the right to be mad at you for throwing your life away.”

“He isn’t going to end up—” Lily tries to say.

Remus says over her, “Thank you, Lily, but it’s all right. Padfoot… it’s my life, and I know what I’m doing with it.”

“I hope you do,” says Sirius darkly.

Smiling a bit, Remus says, “Well, he hasn’t killed me yet, has he? I have a lot of input on the recipe… if with nothing else, I trust Belby with this, at least not to do me in on purpose.”

“Remus could use our support, you know,” Peter suggests, timid but standing his ground. “If he’s wrong and really is throwing his life away, he’s going to need us to be there for him more now than ever.”

Sirius doesn’t speak, just goes back to scraping the gum out from under a desk with a penknife. Alice reflects on how much this whole setup sounds terribly like a clichéd empathy card: All I want is to be there for you in your time of need…

“Remus, why didn’t you just tell us?” asks Mary, distress laced into her expression, her intonation.

After a moment, Remus answers, “I didn’t want to burden you with it. It’s a lot of responsibility to carry that around.”

“Says the werewolf himself,” Mary says to this, smiling faintly. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

“How was I to know whether it would have been too much to pile on all your plates?” says Remus. “Everybody has something they’re hiding; I didn’t think it was my place to judge my secrets to be heavier than any of yours.”

A tentative silence starts to settle in. To break it, Lily says slowly, “You could have come to us—you could have at least come to me. I know I haven’t been the greatest mate to any of you before the last few months, but you’ve all come around for me in ways I never imagined you could; the least I can do is return the favor when any of you are in need.”

“I know I can relate, with everything that’s happened between me and Reg,” Mary pipes up. “It’s hard. You shouldn’t have to deal with it on your own, even if it seems stupid.”

“Thanks, guys,” says Alice. She shifts from foot to foot, the water James spilled completely soaked through her shoes at this point. “I should get a mop and start cleaning this up…”

“I ought to help you with that,” James volunteers, leading the way to Tonks’s cabinet of cleaning supplies.

They’re back to scrubbing in silence for a minute now, and Alice can’t decide whether the tension is lesser or worse than before. Remus Lupin, a werewolf… she can’t reconcile it. She can’t.

Eventually, Mary starts to say, “Lily, what I said about you and Marlene—”

“No, it’s fine, I get it,” says Lily, shrugging. “You miss your friend. I can understand that.”

Indeed she can, thinks Alice. “It’s not fine. Maybe you appreciate the last few months, but, like, I know I was never very nice to you for the five years before that. You were my roommate; I should have been better to you,” says Mary.

“It’s in the past now, right?” forgives Lily, smiling weakly. “You didn’t trust Severus, so you didn’t trust me. I get that.”

“Mare, for what it’s worth, I miss us, too.” Marlene. Alice is surprised she’s speaking up and letting down her guard, but she can’t say that she isn’t glad to see it.

“Marlene…” begins Remus, clearly hesitant to speak. “I know that you probably don’t want to talk about it, but we’re supposed to be getting to the bottom of this duel tonight, and in order to do that, we’re going to have to address the hostility between you and Sirius.”

“You’re right,” she says stiffly, not missing a beat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Remus answers, sighing, “Well, I didn’t want to talk about being werewolf, but you didn’t seem to have a problem unveiling that one, did you?”

There’s a slight, uncomfortable pause. “What’s there to say? We used to be friends; now all we have is sex and lies—” Marlene starts to say.

Sirius interrupts, “Marlene—”

“Just shut it, Black, I don’t want to hear it,” says Marlene without even attempting a shred of patience. Alice doesn’t blame her: if she were in Marlene’s shoes, she’d have stopped giving Sirius chances a long time ago.

“It’s not like that…” Sirius says slowly, inhaling. No one else speaks; Alice gets the feeling she’d be intruding to say anything at all in this conversation, and from the sound of it, so do the others. “You do matter to me—”

Marlene accuses, “Just not as much as any of the rest of it.”

“You know that’s not fair. I'm not saying what we have is healthy, but you're just as much a willing participant in it as I am. I never forced you into this cycle. You could have stopped it at any time if you'd wanted to—”

“Could I have, though? I was the one who fell in love with you. You knew I was lonely and needy and pathetic, and you took advantage of—”

“Oh, don't even start with that. Who says I don't need you? Who says I don't have a void to fill? I’m not some grandmaster manipulating your reality. Hell, I probably wish as much as you do that we could have figured out years ago how to do the thing properly instead of sticking ourselves in this circle of feeling ashamed of it and avoiding each other whenever we’re not going at it.”

“If you wanted something better for us, you could have just asked me.”

“So could you,” Sirius retorts.

“I can't believe you're playing the victim after all this time,” says Marlene hotly. “For all that time, you treat me like I'm never going to be enough for you, and now you’re trying to rewrite history like it's all just some simple misunderstanding. I gave everything to you! I'm there for you as a friend when you need me, not that you seek out my friendship often—I let you sleep with me repeatedly even when there are strict wizarding laws against it for minors—I go along with your dysfunctional cycle of codependence—”

“I never made you do any of that. If you want to talk about rewriting history—”

“Well, I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I'd never even met you."

He closes his eyes tightly. “Let's back up. I think we’re losing sight of things here. Marlene—I love you.”

“How convenient.”

He looks like he’s been slapped in the face, physically recoiling at Marlene’s answer. A little embarrassingly, Alice even finds herself suppressing a wince as she keeps mopping, head bowed and sneaking sheepish glances. Finally, Sirius asks, “Would it be better for you if we broke up for good?”

She says bitterly, “Seeing as I didn’t realize we were properly together, I can’t say it would either way.”

There’s a drawn-out pause now as Sirius gapes and Marlene scrubs at the blackboard with a vicious amount of pressure. Alice wishes she could unlock the door and run out of this classroom, stop intruding on this moment; she wishes Tonks had never had the idea for this detention in the first place, even if it does help them all in the end, if only it would have meant that Sirius and Marlene would be alone for this. 

“Do you want us to be together?” Sirius tries again with incredulity.

“Not on your life,” Marlene scoffs.

Another pause. It’s gotten to the point that Alice averts her eyes.

And out of the blue, Mary tells them, “My parents are Catholic and got divorced because Dad couldn’t accept that his daughter was a witch.” Alice doesn’t quite know how to react. “I just thought you should know that, like, you’re not the only ones with messy problems.”

“When my parents died…” Lily swallows thickly, then continues, “They left everything—our house, our savings—to my sister, Petunia. I always knew Mum got along better with Tuney, but I never would have expected…”

“Malicious even in death,” James mutters, crossing his arms.

“James—”

“I never liked your mum, you knew that,” he says shortly, but Alice knows he feels more empathy than anything. That’s James.

Peter says, “I’m sorry, both of you.”

Mary acknowledges, “Thanks, Pete,” wearing a quiet little smile.

They’ve dropped a few too many bombshells today, Alice decides. For someone who tries to lead such a drama and confrontation-free life, it’s a bit more than she’d been prepared to handle. “You know, what we really need is a chance to get away from all of this,” she muses, still mopping. “Get away from the war, get away from our families… just get back to each other, really.”

“Well, it can’t be this weekend; I leave for France tomorrow,” says Lily; Alice can’t blame her for not sounding all that disappointed about it.

“Over the holiday, then,” says James, and judging by his tone of voice, Alice would say that he’s just had a light bulb idea. “Yeah, you can all stay at the manor for a couple of weeks. We have enough guest rooms for all of you, and it’s the perfect time to reconnect, isn’t it? Christmas spirit and all that.”

Unperturbed, Emmeline declares, “Count me out.”

“It’s not optional,” James decides, shaking his head, “especially for you.”

Marlene disagrees, “No, I always spend Christmas with Doc—”

“There’s no need; you live with him full-time now,” Lily reminds her, a smile growing on her lips. “We’re in.”

“Me, too,” says Peter as Remus and Mary nod their agreement.

Turning to Sirius, James asks, “Sirius?”

“It’s either that, Grimmauld, or Hogwarts,” he says with a shrug, “so it’s not like I have much of a choice either way, mate.”

“So it’s settled?” Alice asks, leaning on her mop and looking between her friends’ faces.

James nods, too, rumpling up his hair. “I believe this means it is.”

They go back to cleaning in silence after that—not because they’re angry anymore, Alice believes, but because they’re drained, done, with nothing left to say to one another. It occurs to her that she has nothing of substance to share tonight—that somewhere amidst her determination not to get caught up in drama this year (or any year, for that matter), she somehow lost hold of her closeness to her mates.

No matter what any of the nine of them try to do to stick together, they all seem to wind up in the same position: far too far apart.

Alice mops and mops and prays to god that Christmas at the Potters’ will be a longer lasting solution than any old quick fix.

Chapter Text

December 17th, 1976

Emmeline Vance is not a perfect person. Emmeline Vance is headstrong and judgmental and can hold a grudge like no other, and Emmeline Vance has always had a mouth that gets her into trouble. Before, she used to talk too much, say whatever crude thing was on her mind at any given moment; she chooses her words more carefully now, selecting the most scathingly articulate phrase she can before she speaks. It’s rare these days that she talks at all, but when she does, she likes to think that it makes an impression.

Emmeline Vance is bitter and cold and withdrawn from the world, cocooning herself in the recesses of her spite—and of spite, she has more than enough, more than most consider healthy. Emmeline Vance has a lot to be spiteful for.

Emmeline Vance has a lot to be spiteful for.

Peter is her ally these days—she didn’t really expect Margaret McKinnon to hold her interest for long. Besides, Peter knows her, knows her and somehow doesn’t hate her, and he isn’t to blame, and Emmeline can respect that.

It’s December 17^th, a Friday, and they’re taking the Hogwarts Express back to King’s Cross, heading from there to James Potter’s manor, and Emmeline doesn’t want to go, and Peter knows she doesn’t want to go. They’re taking the Hogwarts Express back to King’s Cross, and Emmeline’s snagged the window seat with Peter firmly planted on her other side, and her head rests on his shoulder, and the pads of his fingers trace along the crook of her neck.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispers, because Peter is her ally and she doesn’t have to scathe him when they speak.

“You’re going,” says Peter, kindly but firmly, and he tilts up her chin so he can meet her eyes. “You’re going, and you’re talking to Sirius.”

She starts to complain, “But I don’t want—”

“Talk to Sirius,” he implores her, and she settles against him again, rolling her eyes and fighting to forget that he’s right.

It’s raining against the window—what kind of a joke is that, rain to start off the Christmas holiday? It’s raining, and he’s right, and she’s wrong, but she doesn’t let herself know it.

Emmeline Vance can hold a grudge like no other, and the one she’s harboring against Sirius Black has been festering for two years.

xx

December 10th, 1976

She’s shadowing one of wizarding Britain’s junior ambassadors to France, Lord Brinn, a handsome man with round, chocolate eyes and a sternness that doesn’t suit his youth, and the first thing he does upon Apparating them both out of the country on Friday night is to whisk her into a café and order two butterbeers.

“We’re not in Muggle France?” Lily asks.

Brinn confirms it. Sightseeing around Paris would apparently have to wait.

Then he directs her, “So recap for me everything you’ve learned about wizarding political relations between Britain and France and the position of each on the war against the Death Eaters.”

She knows some—not everything. History of Magic taught her about British and French trading relations of past and present, and her internship has expounded on those lessons with greater and greater detail, and she talks about those till her mouth runs dry, throat raw.

Just when she thinks she’s said all there is to know, Brinn jumps straight into another lecture. He’s not much for small talk, Lily’s starting to realize. “Modern French and British relations have been forming ever since the mid-18^th century; while European Muggles were warring over the colonization of America, their wizarding counterparts’ disagreement was about the magic employed by Native Americans. It was the first occasion in history that European and American magic ever overlapped, so although many spells, though involving different incantations, essentially accomplished the same feats, other American spells were completely foreign spells, strange spells, a lot of them involving necromancy.”

“Raising the dead?” says Lily, enraptured. “But that’s not possible—the dead can’t be brought back to life successfully, there’s never been a documented case—”

“That didn’t stop the American tribes from trying,” Brinn says, shaking his head, “and the results weren’t always pretty. The French appreciated the Americans’ studies and wanted to continue them, as well as adopt many of the Americans’ other spells and potions for their own use, but the British feared it, citing much of it as Dark Arts and discounting the potentially valuable branches of magic that the Americans were using as well.” He takes a swig of butterbeer, rests his elbows on the table. “The result was a war between wizarding France and Britain that resolved little. The French took away from America a number of good spells and potions, but the French wizards’ failed attempts to continue to study necromancy led to the accidental creation of Inferi—the only American-based magic that filtered into British society at all.

“Britain and France aren’t foes on every front,” he says next. “From what you’ve learned about their economic connections, you already know this. But when it comes to Dark Magic, the French are unlikely to heed any British fears—whenever the British meddle in French borderline Dark affairs, it’s almost like by focusing on potential Dark repercussions, we draw attention away from more positive efforts and turn what could have been good magic into bad.”

Lily nods, absorbing this. “Like the boy who cried wolf,” she murmurs, more to herself than to Brinn. “Now that the Dark magic we’re calling out really is something of concern, the French might not believe that it’s as serious as we say it is.”

“Right,” says Brinn. “Our goal over the next two days will be to convince the French ministry that You-Know-Who’s intentions are hostile, that this war could become a global terrorism scheme if the Death Eaters aren’t stopped early on.”

At this point, the lost tourism opportunity doesn’t feel to Lily like such a waste of time anymore. Furrowing her brows, she asks him, “And how do we do that?”

He reaches by their feet and resurfaces with his sleek black briefcase. Sliding both their mugs of butterbeer to the side, he pops it open on the tabletop to reveal stacks upon stacks of papers, some of them written in prose, some of them cramming as many statistics onto the page as possible. “Facts, Evans, by showing them the facts.”

Lily’s supposed to shadow and not speak at the conference, but even so, Brinn’s determined that she learn all she can about the issues to be discussed before the sessions begin. She has to hand it to him: he takes her internship more seriously than most in his position probably would. Then again, by educating her, he’s taking a small step to educate Britain’s youth about the harsh realities of this war—and she begins to realize as she leafs through Brinn’s preparations just how little any of her peers know; just how shielded from the cold, hard truth all of Hogwarts’s students really are.

The most they hear about at Hogwarts are the deaths and disappearances featured in the Daily Prophet, some of them those of classmates’ families, most of them those of total strangers. Most days, Lily skims the front page at breakfast and leaves it at that—each headline is just another casualty in a war apart from her world, one which she doesn’t support but which never seems to otherwise interfere with her life. No. The Prophet doesn’t report everything, and this is a full-on collision of stats and stories and pictures and pain with three hours of her evening, and if it teaches her anything, it’s that this war sure as hell is something to get upset about, something from which no one is going to be sheltered for long, not Hogwarts and not even France.

This conference is their shot. This conference could be their only shot.

By the time Brinn locks up the briefcase, she’s rubbed her eyes red in fatigue; the research has sapped her of all the energy she had. “You did good work tonight, Lily,” Brinn tells her—he’s still straightforward in manner, but it’s the first time he’s ever used her first name and the first time tonight that he’s allowed himself a shadow of a smile.

“Not like it matters how much I know,” she mutters, maybe out of modesty, maybe because she doesn’t think a soul in the wizarding world cares in the slightest what a silly little girl like her thinks about something as big as war.

“Hey,” says Brinn sharply, and she bashfully looks him in the eye. “What you learn from me matters. In a short couple of years, the fate of wizarding Britain is going to be in the hands of you and your peers, and it starts with this internship—it starts with you. Knowledge is power, and your opinion does count, more now than ever.”

She says nothing. Brinn prompts, “You-Know-Who isn’t just a crackpot on the loose; he has supporters, an army of them, and do you know where they come from?”

“Purebloods,” Lily says quietly.

“Not just any purebloods—the old blood families only. It wasn’t long ago that blood purity determined one’s social class in the wizarding world, but times are changing, and the people who used to rule our world with their family names are getting scared now that they’re expected to learn from their education and work to get money and respect. You-Know-Who plays on that, makes them believe that he’ll spare them when he’s in power, that they’ll be back in power by association,” he explains.

Again, Lily doesn’t answer, so he continues, “The Death Eaters and their supporters are a tiny, tiny minority in Britain, let alone the rest of Europe, and most of them are either washed-up wizards past their prime or their brainwashed children. Our Aurors are doing what they can to fight back, but no one knows enough to make an impact, and Crouch’s new policy—kill first and don’t ask questions—isn’t helping matters. What the war needs, sadly enough, is young blood and a catalyst for political change. Before long, that’s where today’s students will step in. The more you know before you’re thrust into the thick of it, the better.”

It’s like she and James were talking about last month—this war is going to destroy the lives of innocents for the sake of old blood politics until their generation steps in. Enough is enough, and it’s all too overwhelming, but what more is there to do than to do what she can to fight back? Isn’t that what Gryffindors are for? “Okay,” she says simply, because she can’t find any more words to say about it tonight. “Okay.”

xx

December 17th, 1976

Helene’s Manor has more than enough guest rooms to house all of them, but with his mother’s backing, James insists upon assigning roommates every night, for the sake of unity, he tells them. Remus supposes he’s right, that they’re here to reconnect and it’s fitting that all hours be spent with one another to that end—but that doesn’t mean he finds rooming with Sirius on the first night any less awkward.

He’s lying in one bed, and Sirius is lying in the spare one that Mrs. Potter magicked into the room, and he starts talking. He’s not sure whether Sirius is still awake, less sure that he wants him to be. “I’m sorry for not telling you about Belby sooner,” he says into the black. Remus is drowning beneath an overlay of Egyptian cotton sheets, a sheet of sweat thickening on his skin by the minute; it’s winter, but the Potters keep the manor’s bedrooms toasty warm. “I just… I didn’t want to be judged, I guess. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my decision when I agreed to it, and the last thing I wanted was any of you trying to talk me out of it or make me doubt myself even more, because that’s all that talking to you probably would have accomplished.”

He’s a little startled when he hears Sirius’s sheets rustling, then feels a pressure on the mattress behind him. On second thought, Remus should have known that Sirius hadn’t fallen asleep—he hadn’t yet started to hear Sirius’s usual snores. As it’s almost pitch-dark in the room, he can make out nothing more than the blurry outline of his mate’s face when he rolls over, peering out from underneath the sheets. “Hi,” Remus says, maybe a little stupidly.

“Hi,” Sirius says back, but the night and blackness and uncertainty swallow up the word, so that a moment later, Remus isn’t sure whether he spoke at all. He lies there, gravity smashing half his face against the pillows so that the top of his cheek is forced halfway into his eye, and he studies Sirius as his figure gets clearer and clearer in Remus’s nighttime vision—reclining on the covers, cheek propped up in one hand, inky gaze staring right back.

The dim thought occurs to Remus that this is not normal friendship behavior—that he and Sirius stopped following normal friendship behavior conventions a long, long time ago—but it’s late, and he’s exhausted (with both the night and this fight), and he casts the thought aside.

The Marauders are far from normal friends, after all.

“I’m sorry, too,” says Sirius, and unjustly, overwhelmingly, it comes across to Remus like undue forgiveness. “Hey—tell me about the recipe for Belby’s potion.”

“You’re serious?” whispers Remus with a frown.

Sirius doesn’t answer, just crawls underneath the blankets, fumbles blindly for Remus’s hand. Finds it, after a few failed tries. Remus gapes. “I’m listening, aren’t I?”

He holds on tight to Sirius’s hand, swallows with effort, closes and opens his eyes—starts to talk.

This is intimate, Remus realizes, a pit opening up in his stomach. It’s intimate, and he’s missed having intimacy with Sirius.

xx

December 18th, 1976

Mary talks a lot, and that’s why she and Marlene have always gotten along, because Marlene is one for talking, too. Forget that you’re a bastard child and that you and your stepfather have been lying all along; forget that you’ve allowed perhaps the most unhinged person you’ve ever met to use you as his shag buddy; forget, forget, forget, and bury yourself in idle chatter and hashing out somebody else’s problems.

Mary used to be there for that, but then Mary got distant and Lily needed Marlene more, and now she’s alone in a foreign bedroom with Mary and can’t think of a single thing to say to her except I missed you.

“I missed you.”

Well, there goes her discretion.

“I missed you, too,” says Mary blearily, rolling over to face Marlene’s bed. Her hair is black tonight—it was black earlier, anyway; Marlene can hardly see a thing now—and though she wouldn’t on her life admit it, Marlene is glad to see it, so to speak. “I lost you, I lost Reg…”

“I know,” says Marlene, trailing off. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s all right. Gilderoy and I had a couple of intense heart-to-hearts about you,” Mary says, laughing.

“Oh, lord.”

Mary assures her, “He’s not that bad when you get to know him, I promise.” After a pause, she adds, “I may have had, like, a couple weird moments with Patil, too.”

“Pol Patil?” says Marlene. “Am I hearing this right?”

Grinning, Mary says, “Yeah, if you can believe that. I dunno, Carol Davies asked me to attempt to work with him in class once, and it didn’t go well.”

“As expected,” mutters Marlene with a smile.

“But forget about me,” says Mary—that one comes as a surprise. “Did you see the way Pete and Em were all over each other on the train yesterday? They keep saying they’re just friends, but if they try and say that that didn’t mean anything…”

And they talk about boys—not Marlene’s sex life, not Mary’s parents—about boys, and Marlene wonders if Mary’s the one who’s needed her more all along.

xx

January 15th, 1976

(one year ago)

James Potter is an arrogant fifth year with incoming hormones and a sense of entitlement, and Dana Madley can’t seem to stop throwing herself at him.

He catches up with the Marauders after dinner, makes a couple jokes about how the Great Hall is an awfully funny place to find her Prince Charming and does he want to take a little walk with her in the direction of the nearest broom closet? Snickering with Peter and Sirius and avoiding Remus’s eyes, James assents, and they flirt and make some small talk as they cavort down the corridors—not like it’ll matter once they lock the nearest door behind them, he thinks with a smirk.

“Found one!” says Madley with delight, flinging open the closet door and tugging him by the fingertips inside. She locks them in and says a little Muffliato, and there’s a split second in which James should be full to the brim with anticipation of what he knows will come next—but everyone at Hogwarts knows who popularized Muffliato, and now all he can see is Severus Snape’s face swimming before his mind’s eye in all its pallid-skinned, greasy-haired glory.

When James recoils a little at the thought of dear old Snivellus, Madley, of course, takes his reaction the entirely wrong way. “Is something wrong, Potter?” she asks, insecure but sticky sweet.

“No, forget it,” he tells her, locking their fingers together and grinning broadly; she sways in his grip for a moment before tilting up her head and kissing him rapturously, her tongue in his mouth before a second has passed.

It’s the first time James has ever kissed a girl, believe it or not, and he can’t tell whether Madley’s persistent giggle means that his inexperience is showing or that she’s simply enjoying herself. Ah, well—not like he wants to ruin this by asking. He’s intoxicated, and she’s his practice dummy, an overeager map of the female body at his disposal.

He’s feeling her up, and he ought to be reveling in this, but Madley made him think about Snivellus, and thinking about Snivellus naturally leads to thinking about Evans.

He never used to give a lot of thought to Lily Evans. Sure, she’s hot, but their interactions have always been limited to her hollering at him about bullying Snivellus and, sometimes, her as well. When you set aside all the yelling, she’s unremarkable, Evans: smart enough and isolated enough and loyal enough to a loser like Snivellus that she’s always passed beneath James’s radar—but now he’s snogging Dana Madley while he’s thinking about goddamn Lily Evans, first time in his life she’s ever really crossed his mind as more than a piece of arse or a nuisance, and it’s almost enough to make him pull away from Madley again, though not quite.

Maybe he’s crazy, maybe it’s Madley’s tongue talking, but James’s next thought is a real keeper: Evans probably can’t snog like Madley and definitely wouldn’t be as willing to attempt it, but if she ever were to kiss him, it would make a hell of an impact on him. If she ever were to kiss him, it would mean that he’d done more to earn it than shoot her a wink or two in the Great Hall, and it would mean that somebody with standards who mattered to the world believed that he mattered, too.

Maybe it’s a glimmer of the person he has the potential to become—but first, James is more concerned with several things that he realizes in quick succession: that he’s actually thinking about Evans as he snogs another girl, that the combination of thinking about Evans and snogging a girl is getting him a little overexcited, and that Dana Madley is undoing his robes at lightning speed.

He shoves her away and jumps backward with such force that his head collides with the ceiling. “Look, Madley, you are… really sexy, and I’m so sorry”—James would bet anything that Madley has no idea just how sorry he is to pass up an opportunity like this—“but I have to go. I’ll see you around?”

He fumbles to retie his robes and summons all the willpower he has in the world to ignore her coos of, “Oh, baby, it’s perfectly normal to be nervous.” James is half tempted to give in, he really is, but Madley is only a practice dummy to him, and she’s not half as intoxicating now as she was when they first came into this closet—he’s starting to think he wants (if you can believe this) more.

Shamelessly, James flees the scene, even though his tie is askew and his hair is even more mussed than when he ruffles it up intentionally, though he ducks into the nearest men’s room to collect himself before returning to his dormitory—he does still have some dignity left, after all. Upon his return, his mates greet him with raised eyebrows and expectations alike. “That was your first time, right?” says Sirius.

“What makes you say that?” asks James. He’d managed to suppress most of his panic, but it comes back now as he hastily gives himself a once-over, wondering what unkempt detail of his appearance gave Sirius that impression.

On the contrary, though, Sirius just sighs and says, “I dunno, mate, you just look the same way I felt the first time I shagged McKinnon.”

Distantly, it registers that Sirius shouldn’t talk about his first time like that, especially since it was with one of his best mates. “What do I look like?”

His grin fading promptly, Sirius pauses, then says, “Like your whole world just got a lot more complicated.”

James takes a moment to let this sink in. “It wasn’t my first,” he says dully after a moment. “I mean, I haven’t had my first yet—we didn’t do it; I’ve never… done… it.”

“As you shouldn’t, considering the laws in our world against underage intercourse,” says Remus, not missing a beat.

Sirius teases Remus about his use the word intercourse; James ignores them both. “I think I’m going to ask out Evans,” he decides aloud—on the spot, just like that.

“You’re kidding. You haven’t forgotten that she’s Snivellus’s best mate, right?” asks Peter, frowning.

Sirius cautions, “You won’t have a chance in hell, mate.”

Maybe he’s bonkers, but he doesn’t laugh it off, doesn’t even attempt to talk himself out of it. “Yeah, Lily Evans,” he echoes belatedly. “I’m going to ask her out, and I’m going to let her reject me.”

Everything that will come after the inevitable rejection—that’s the part he’s looking forward to the most.

xx

December 23rd, 1976

James has the Gryffindor Quidditch team over to practice, and that’s how Mary ends up sitting in the snow with Fabian Prewett, talking about the upperclassman power struggles and politics.

“Gid wasn’t happy about it, but Sirius and Eddie and, obviously, Meghan were all for it; he was outnumbered. So we’ve been sneaking Ryan to practice, and Meg’s played Keeper and James Seeker ever since,” explains Fabian, blasé.

“So the Hufflepuffs don’t get wind of the plan?” Mary asks.

He nods, yawning. “To get away, Ryan will make up some shit about needing tutoring in Transfiguration—from what I understand, he could use it, poor bloke—and James smuggles him out with his Invisibility Cloak. Then they’ll put up guards around the Pitch so nobody will find out, and I’m sidelined every practice.”

“What do you think of it?”

“Of what?”

“You know, like, sitting out this game because of James’s plan. It’s your last year to play; you can’t be happy about it,” says Mary, shrugging.

Fabian smirks. “Oh, I don’t mind it, really. Gid’s a bastard about some things, but as much as he usually doesn’t trust me, he feels bad about this—if only because he doesn’t like taking unnecessary risks, anyway. I like it, in some ways—Gid lets me help out with coaching, since I’ve got nothing better to do these days.”

Mary can just see it: Fabian reclining in the stands and barking out directions to the disgruntled team. He always has been a smartarse, Fabian, and she bets that his new position on the team suits him perfectly. Honestly, Mary never used to much care for the Prewett twins: their older sister, Molly, seemed all right, but Gideon was too uptight for her, Fabian too full of himself.

These days, Fabian’s been growing on her. At least he’s up front and knows what he wants.

“Gid doesn’t want word getting out, but you lot all would have found out anyway since we’re practicing here. Just don’t be thick about it,” Fabian advises now, his eyes firmly rooted to the practicing team.

“Why don’t you stand up to him more?” says Mary quietly. Fabian glances at her with a frown. “Gideon? You don’t let anybody mess with you, mostly, but, like, I see the way he treats Meadowes and…”

Fabian chuckles low in his throat. “The thing you have to understand is—that inseparable bond people believe is between all twins? Gid and I never had that. He’s always been all caught up in his morals and deciding what’s black and what’s white, and I’m…” He shakes his head, takes a swig of butterbeer, and says, “I’m just along for the ride, and that’s never been good enough for him, you know? I dunno, maybe that makes both of us bastards, but that’s the way it is.”

 “So why Meadowes, then? You can’t possibly have thought you could get away with getting involved with her and still stay out of Gideon’s politics,” Mary prompts.

He tosses his head back and says, “She’s smart and capable and has a good head on her shoulders, and she doesn’t let the other Slytherins get in her way with their crap about how she ought to join up with the Death Eaters. She breaks the rules on her side; I break mine. If Gid has a problem with that, so be it.”

“Bet Gideon wasn’t happy when she made Head Girl.”

“He wasn’t,” Fabian confirms. “Gid’s problem is that he’s so caught up in supporting the right thing that he loses sight of what’s right and what’s wrong. Dorcas might be a Slytherin, but she’s got more balls than he’s ever had; he just can’t see it.”

Because old habits die hard, Mary can’t help herself: “Rumor has it that she’s going to recommend Benjy Fenwick and Alice Abbott for next year’s Heads; you know anything about that?”

Fabian lets out a breath and leans back. “It’s hard to say,” he answers finally. “She doesn’t like to talk about it—says she doesn’t want to fuel the fire, you know? But even if she does put in a good word for them, it’s hard to say whether it’ll have much influence on the decision. Shacklebolt wants Longbottom for Head Boy and either Clearwater or Davies for Head Girl, and he has as much of a say as Dorcas does—and who knows whether it’ll matter to Dumbledore, anyway? Shacklebolt as Head Boy wasn’t a surprise, but Head Girl was supposed to go to Jones or Macmillan this year; Dorcas getting chosen shocked everybody.”

“I remember,” Mary mutters, and she does: it was all anybody could talk about on the Hogwarts Express ride to the castle this year. “What do you think?”

“Me?” His eyes light up—it reminds her of the way Sirius looks whenever he’s in a mischievous mood. “Maybe I’m nuts, but my money’s on Clearwater or Abbott for Head Girl with James as Head Boy.”

“James?” Her head whips around to face the Quidditch playing ground, and she pinpoints her gaze on James. “James Potter? Are you serious?”

Fabian shrugs, holding up his hands. “Hey, he’s got the charisma, the respect of the student body, the leadership skills… all he’d need would be a sensible Head Girl to keep him in line.”

“James Potter, Head Boy. Right,” scoffs Mary, shaking her head in combined amusement and disbelief. “As if.”

xx

December 11th, 1976

A Memory Potion only takes about a day to make, and Brinn sends her back to her hotel room to brew it, giving her the rest of the day off from the conference. “Don’t worry about what you’ll miss in the meantime,” he instructs her. “You-Know-Who is the last item on the list; if you finish this by morning tomorrow, you’ll have it done in plenty of time to catch negotiations about the war.”

“After I’ve taken the potion, how do I control what I learn from it?” asks Lily, scribbling down the last of what she remembers about Memory Potions. She never would have expected her Potions abilities to come in handy at a time like this, but she can’t say she’s complaining.

“Toss a couple of French-English dictionaries and francophone novels into the cauldron two hours before you drink the potion; that should do it, I reckon,” Brinn answers, turning to leave.

“Lord Brinn,” she calls after him, and he stops. “Where does the ‘lord’ in your name come from, anyway?”

Shrugging, he says, “It’s a Muggle courtesy title. My father was a British earl.” And he departs.

Brewing the potion entails three hours of adding ingredients, two hours of stirring, and a minimum of fifteen hours of simmering before it’s ready to be drunk; by the time Lily is halfway through stirring—twice counterclockwise, three times clockwise, pause twelve seconds, repeat—she’s thoroughly homesick for Hogwarts. She can hardly believe it, but she misses James, Marlene, everyone from Gryffindor. Like it or not, she doesn’t really have a family anymore, not when her cousins can’t know about magic and her sister wants nothing to do with witchcraft. That’s where her roommates have come in for the last few months, and despite all their troubles and feuds, she appreciates them more and more by the day.

Some days, she still can’t quite get her head around the idea that the Gryffindors have become her closest friends. It wasn’t all that long ago that Severus was her only mate in the world, that Emmeline was the closest thing she had to an ally in her dormitory, that James Potter was a stranger whose antics she’d laugh off or shout about sometimes and nothing more. James, his mates, the girls—they’re Lily’s everything now. It scares her a little that she’s come to trust them, and sometimes she doubts whether her friendships are real, but there it is.

What happened to them in the last couple of months? Apart from the boys’ short-lived falling out after the incident with Severus last year and Emmeline’s growing distance from the group, the sixth year Gryffindors always seemed so close-knit, bearers of an impenetrable bond. When she first moved in with Marlene last summer and started getting to know the Gryffindors more intimately, their lives seemed so intertwined, their friendships solid. They were happy together—at least, they made Lily believe they were—and she’d doubted whether she could ever fully break into their circle of trust.

And now… Remus and Sirius aren’t on speaking terms; half the time none of the boys are, even. Sirius and Marlene’s relationship is ten times more complex and dysfunctional than it ever before appeared; Mary is a wreck instead of the best friend she once was to Marlene; Emmeline and Peter somehow wound up in a messy romantic entanglement; and Alice, the dependable prefect to whom everyone once turned for guidance and unconditional friendship (at least, everyone save for Lily), is more out of the loop than ever in her determination to avoid drama. It’s almost as though her intrusion on the eight other Gryffindors’ friendship coincided perfectly with its dissolution.

She thinks back to what Marlene told her that first night staying with the McKinnons last summer. We’ve got secrets, all right? Big ones. Was one of those secrets all along that the group is nowhere near as close as it seems from an outside perspective?

Much as she misses her newfound friends, in a way, Lily’s glad to be on her own here in France. It’s all so inexplicably personal—the sights of the city, the things she’s learned from Brinn in her time here—and she doesn’t know if it’s something she can share with her Hogwarts world.

She doesn’t know if she can go back to those petty misunderstandings after facing this weekend the enormity of the war.

When Brinn checks in on her progress after the conference has convened for the day, much later into the night than she’d expected, it’s plain to see that he can tell there’s something wrong. “Evans, if the reports you read up on yesterday are still getting you down, I can’t tell you sincerely that international politics is a field you should pursue long-term,” he says with a sigh after she answers his knock at her door.

“No, it’s not that. It’s stupid; it’s nothing,” she replies, because compared to the reasons she’s here this weekend, this is true.

He accepts this—Brinn doesn’t seem the type to want to get involved in anyone’s personal affairs, anyway. “Forget about it, then, and quickly,” he advises. “Is the potion nearly complete?”

“It just has to simmer until tomorrow morning.”

“Excellent,” he declares, nodding in approval. “Its effects will last for about forty-eight hours, allotting you more than enough time in which to fully understand the French spoken at the conference tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” says Lily. “Thanks for your help, Lord Brinn.”

He nods to her, then proposes, “So what do you say to a bit of sightseeing before you turn in for the night?”

“But you already took me out last night,” she says slowly, not understanding.

“Around wizarding France, yes,” Brinn acknowledges, “but don’t try to tell me that you’d be willing to come to Paris and not even see the Eiffel Tower.”

She glances at the black sky out the window of her hotel room, then at her wristwatch—it’s nearly midnight. “They take groups up this late at night?”

“Evans, we’re wizards.”

Laughing a little, Lily says, “I’m not supposed to use magic outside the castle.”

“Did I ask you to cast the spells?” counters Brinn, extending his forearm.

She takes it, squeezes hard through a moment of Side-Along-Apparition—and they’re at the base of the Eiffel Tower, just like that. “It’s huge,” is the first thing that comes out of Lily’s mouth. “I mean, I know logically that it’s supposed to be huge, but it’s just… huge.”

The Tower looms over them, an imposing structure of winding steel built for the gods, that much more impressive illuminated against the night. As close to it as they are, Lily can’t even see the point at the top from here. “So are we just going to Apparate to the top, or…?”

“Half the experience is in the lift up, Evans,” says Brinn with a grin more boyish than she’d expect from him. “What do you say?”

“Well, if it reduces the chances we wind up Splinched a few meters below the top floor, I’m not complaining,” Lily jokes, running off after him as they dash to the entrance to the elevator.

Though Brinn holds his wand hand steady, it’s still a rickety ride up. They stop on the Tower’s second floor to change lifts; Lily’s tempted to rush to the balcony and stare, but Brinn tells her to wait till they’re all the way at the top, and she takes the advice with only a little hesitation. And then she’s there, gazing out at the city through crisscrossed wire, at once bite-sized and sprawling beneath her, a sea of monuments and a network of lights.

“It’s beautiful,” she tells him breathlessly, and she can’t see his reaction, but she feels his rumbling laughter suspended on the wintry Parisian air.

Fleetingly—so much so that she hardly recognizes it before it’s gone—she wishes that Brinn were gone and James were here instead.

xx

December 24th, 1976

It’s Christmas Eve, and that’s probably why Marlene caves.

He tells her to meet him in one of the parlors at eleven o’clock that night, or maybe she tells him—does it matter? He shows up, and she shows up, and it’s eleven o’clock, and they’re standing there, and then he kisses her.

Flashback. It’s half past nine, and they’re exchanging gifts in the Potters’ kitchen—Alice’s idea, because kitchens are homey and they’re all in dire need of a dose of sentimentality this holiday season. They would have waited until tomorrow for this, but Mary cites some Muggle tradition or other of opening one present each the night before Christmas, and now, here they are.

The trades are obvious: Lily and James, Peter and Emmeline, Remus and Sirius, Mary and Marlene. Alice, the patient odd one out, opens her gift from Remus. And Marlene’s walking out and hooking in the earrings Mary got her when she feels a small parcel drop into her robe pocket.

She glances to her right: Sirius. For a split second, everything stops for her. Back in her room, once Mary’s asleep, she pulls it out and unwraps it to find there a note and a heart-shaped charm—sterling silver, but hey, the boy’s been thrown out of his home with no money; it’s not like she could have expected more.

Flash back forward to eleven o’clock, kissing in the parlor. She doesn’t push away but doesn’t reciprocate, either, and Sirius pulls back and brushes hair away from her face, one arm encircling her waist. “I think we should have a real go at it,” he whispers, foreheads touching.

“What?” she mumbles, staying there with him but looking away.

“Being together,” he says with a genuine smile. “You and me. No more secrecy, no more sex—unless you want to keep that part. Whatever you want, Marlene.”

Her head spins. “And why the hell should I trust you this time?” Marlene demands.

He doesn’t answer for a long while, and she’s already started to sigh and walk out by the time he presses his lips to her cheek. “Because I think I love you,” Sirius says awkwardly—emotions have never been his strongest suit. “I reckon it’s up to you to decide whether that’s enough. Just think it over,” he tells her, and then he’s gone and it’s down to just Marlene.

xx

December 12th, 1976

“You can’t be serious,” Lily says, quiet and shell-shocked, in rapid French.

Brinn tells her warily, voice low, “Evans, be careful—”

She disregards him, shock turning to rage by the instant. “You can’t possibly be serious! Whatever the hell your differences are with Britain, can’t you get over it for the two seconds it would take you to realize that You-Know-Who is a major, international threat to wizardkind?”

There are titters within the French council, their minister saying in exasperated tones, “Again, our Ministry of Magic has judged unanimously that Voldemort is not at this time immediately relevant to the health of the French nation, nor to that of the International Confederation of Wizards—”

“I don’t give a damn what your ministry thinks; you have a chance to alter the course of history here, and you’re too afraid of getting on You-Know-Who’s bad side to do anything about it!” Lily erupts, rising. She’d bet anything that Brinn’s regretting letting her take that Memory Potion to improve her French skills for this meeting. “Didn’t any of you pay a bit of attention to Gellert Grindelwald’s reign of terror in the 1940s? The only reason that he stopped was British involvement—how many more of your country’s wizards do you think would be dead by now if it weren’t for Dumbledore defeating him? And now you can’t even be bothered to give us the same courtesy now that you’re out of the line of fire! It’s despicable!”

“That’s enough, Evans,” says Brinn sharply, eyes blazing. “You’re only an intern; you have no say here. Sit down,” he implores her, and she complies, if only because she doesn’t want to hear the objections of the French Ministry.

They leave in a flurry of apologies and formalities, and Brinn rounds on her the minute they Disapparate from the courthouse. “Evans, in all likelihood, you just blew whatever shot we had of French support for this war, dammit!” he hollers, losing his composure for the first time since she’s met him.

“Like we ever had a shot with them to begin with; their minds were set from the start,” she retorts sullenly.

“If you honestly believe you can go into international relations with an attitude like that—”

“Brinn, much as I hate to be rude, that is exactly why I belong in the profession,” says Lily shortly. “If the best anyone has done so far is that complete political bullshit, the sooner I join the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the better.”

They’re plunging headfirst into a war, and France is willing to watch them fall to the wrong side.

xx

December 25th, 1976

“Can we talk, Lily?”

She glances up, folding her hands in her lap. It’s James—of course it’s James—jerking his head toward the nearest doorway and watching her with a look of concern. At Lily’s nod, he smiles halfheartedly and leads her out of the parlor, walking with her through the winding halls of the manor.

The last time she was here, she felt so misplaced in his home, his presence. Now, James is one of the most comforting things in her life.

“Whatever’s wrong, you can just tell me, you know that,” he starts uneasily, eyeing her.

She breathes out, glances at the ceiling. “Is it that obvious?”

“Painfully, really, but that could just be because I pay a disproportionate amount of attention to you,” James admits, and his smile seems more genuine now when she chances a look at him. “Ever since you got back from France, you’ve been…”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” she sighs. “It’s nothing, it’s just—the French Ministry—they’re refusing to join forces to stop You-Know-Who.”

James breathes out, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s not nothing. That’s…”

“Yeah.” Pause. “Merry Christmas.”

They’ve reached the end of the corridor, a dead end opening into a window that spans ceiling to floor. Without a whit of attention to her dignity, she presses her hands to the glass and stares out at the grounds from which it separates her—hilly and covered in snow, the picture of a winter wonderland. “Well, this is a bit awkward,” says James abruptly.

“Why, what for?” asks Lily, glancing back at him.

“I’d had this whole romantic statement planned out that I swore to myself I’d tell you by Christmas, only now the fate of wizarding Britain is apparently looking a lot bleaker, and I feel like the unluckiest bloke in the country to have been stuck with this rubbish timing,” he says, sheepish but smiling.

Something stops clicking in Lily’s mind, and she echoes, “Romantic statement?”

He shrugs. “It wouldn’t matter anyway; I can’t think what a word of it was now,” James tells her with a little laugh.

And in a minute, Lily won’t be able to remember what the hell is happening now, but one of them is walking forward and then James is touching one hesitant hand to her cheek and, god, they’re kissing, and then it’s over and she’s just had her first kiss with, of all people, James Potter.

And Lily can’t think, but she seems to be able to move, so she starts smiling, and James starts smiling back, and it really feels wonderful to be an idiot smiling on a picturesque Christmas morning.

xx

December 17th, 1976

Emmeline Vance is not a perfect person. Emmeline Vance can hold a grudge like no other, and she’s currently harboring a hell of one against Sirius Black.

After all, so far as she’s concerned, he’s the one who killed her parents.

xx

END OF PART THREE

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: France refused to intervene in the Death Eaters' growing reign of terror (CH24), Marlene caught wind of Dumbledore's underground anti-Voldemort organization (CH12), Emmeline blamed Sirius for her parents' deaths (CH24), and James and Sirius hatched a plan for the upcoming Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff game (CH21).

Disclaimer: OC Mildred LeProut is co-owned by me, Wendy Brune, and StoryGirl02.

xx

February 12th, 1977: Sirius Black

"To nobody's surprise, Slytherin creamed Ravenclaw in last month's game, two-hundred-twenty to twenty, so Hufflepuff will be looking to score two hundred points today to pull ahead of Slytherin and at least one-hundred-fifty more than us to top this season's rankings. If we catch the Snitch, we've got nothing to worry about, but if we don't, we'd better have already scored more goals than Hufflepuff," barks Gideon. Sirius is waiting for the start of the match alongside the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team in the locker room as Gideon carries on, still clearly unsatisfied with the strategy for today's game.

Gideon continues shouting directions: "Hufflepuff's Chasers are the strongest they have been in years, and even if Meghan Keeping throws them off, we're still going to have a time of it trying to stay ahead in the scoring. Potter, I want you to catch the Snitch as fast as possible, all right? I swear to god, no funny business with Chasing and Seeking both in this game—it was your idea to switch positions, and we are depending on you to follow that through today. Black, Moon, keep the Bludgers well away from Potter, all right? Try and hit Hufflepuff's Chasers, help keep us in possession of the Quaffle—but no fouls, or else they will score penalties and this whole charade will backfire. The rest of you—I hope you know what you're doing." They don't, but neither will Hufflepuff when they realize that Gryffindor has changed around half its lineup for today's game—at least, that's the assumption to which they've pinned their hopes today.

He's cut off by the commentator as she begins to introduce the teams. "That's our cue," says Meghan—for all the pressure that they've placed on her to hold her own against Hufflepuff's Chasers, she's looking remarkably confident, even excited—and Sirius swings his leg over his broomstick and hurtles out onto the field.

"And first come the Gryffindors, Captained by Chaser Gideon Prewett! The Gryffindors have changed their lineup for this game, replacing Keeper Fabian Prewett with Meghan McCormack, the team's usual Seeker who was injured and unable to play against Slytherin last November. Like in that game, Chaser James Potter as taken over her Seeking post, and reserve Chaser Ryan Robins has filled his place, in turn. Rumor has it that this unexpected and radical change is a tactic to throw off Hufflepuff's talented Chasers—question is, will the risk pay off? Here they come, led by Captain and Chaser Elisabeth Clearwater. Slytherin only narrowly defeated Hufflepuff in last year's Quidditch Cup, and Hufflepuff's sudden ascension was largely credited to Clearwater's admission onto the team. This year, Clearwater was selected for Hufflepuff's Captaincy over seventh years Kirley McCormack and Hestia Jones, and the Hufflepuffs were favorites for this year's Cup until their surprising loss to Ravenclaw in the second game of the season. Compensating for it will be a Herculean task—we'll find out today whether Clearwater's team is up to the challenge."

Madam Hooch directs the Captains to shake hands, and Sirius watches as Gideon grips Elisabeth's fingers with a curt, closed-lipped nod. The numbers are so far in Gryffindor's favor this season, but no one on Sirius's team is naïve enough to underestimate the Hufflepuff team, and the pressure is on to see whether his and James's plan will pay off.

Sure enough, Hufflepuff is first in possession as Hestia Jones snatches up the Quaffle and heads straight for the goalposts. Sirius tears after the nearest Bludger and beats it in her direction, half spaced out, half following the commentary: Gryffindor saves. Gryffindor saves. Hufflepuff scores…

"…And Prewett has called a time-out as Kirley McCormack scores another goal, bringing the game's total to sixty points to forty for Hufflepuff—not bad against this team of Chasers but still a concern for the Gryffindor team in the event that Hufflepuff catches the Snitch." By the time Sirius reaches the ground, Gideon is already ranting to half the team in a harsh whisper, and Sirius braces himself for the talking-to that's sure to come.

"And you two!" Gideon erupts as James and Sirius approach the huddle. "Bet you're not feeling so confident about your little ploy now, are you? Meghan's good, but how could you expect her to hold her own against Clearwater's team on no Keeping experience? Scare tactics don't work against the Hufflepuffs, they're too good—"

"Is there a point to this tirade?" James interrupts lazily. "Because if you don't mind wrapping this up, I've got a Snitch to catch."

Gideon's eyes flash, but he otherwise doesn't address James's insolence, to Sirius's relief. "Not until we get ahead of Hufflepuff you don't," he dictates. "Do not let Hufflepuff get possession of the Quaffle. We'll score three more goals, then you'll do your bloody best to end this game before we fall behind again, all right? If you see the Snitch and there's any chance that Hufflepuff might catch it, you put your energy into protecting it from capture, not racing for it. Until we're in the lead, we can't afford that risk."

They disband and ascend back into the air. Given Gideon' adamancy against giving Hufflepuff a single penalty today, there's not much Sirius can do to keep his team in possession—Hufflepuff is too good for most legal Beating stunts to work against them. So he drifts away from the center of the pitch, whacking the occasional Bludger but otherwise ignoring the action of the game entirely.

He should have known that he'd be off his game today. Quidditch used to be Sirius's preferred catharsis, the best way for him to take out his frustration against his family, his lot in life, the war. Now, he has half a mind to give up on this game entirely. What does it matter, honestly, whether Gryffindor edges out Hufflepuff for the Quidditch Cup? Winning a trophy isn't going to coax his brother away from the Death Eaters any more than whacking a Beater's bat will avenge any of the deaths or disappearances of the last decade. The harder Sirius has practiced for the last two months, the more helpless he's felt in the grander scheme of things.

But that's all about to change, isn't it?

Gryffindor scores.

If Regulus Black is old enough at fifteen to join the outskirts of his precious Dark Lord's regime, then surely Sirius is within reason at seventeen to want to fight back. Never mind that Dumbledore won't allow students into his little secret society or that the wizarding world sees him as little more than a child—from here on out, he's taking matters into his own hands. They all are.

Gryffindor scores again. One more goal, and then James will be free to—

An eruption of cheers and gasps from the crowd interrupts his train of thought, and the commentator declares, "Fenwick catches the Snitch in a sudden turn of events, and Hufflepuff wins, bringing this match's final score to two hundred and ten points to sixty! That leaves Hufflepuff in the lead for the Quidditch Cup, ten points ahead of Gryffindor and twenty ahead of Slytherin. How this will play out in the final two games of the season is anyone's guess…"

Gideon is furious, even more so when Sirius storms out halfway through the post-match team meeting—but frankly, he doesn't want to hear it, especially considering that much of the blame for Gryffindor's loss falls to Gideon's own shoulders as team Captain and a Chaser to boot. Maybe he shouldn't be, but he's caught by surprise when James follows him out of the locker room and catches up to him at the other end of the pitch minutes later. "Padfoot, what were you thinking?" he demands with a hint of exasperation. "You know that Gid's not completely wrong to blame us for this, and walking out on him is just going to make things worse—"

"Dammit, James, this is not about the game!" he roars. He hasn't called James by his first name when they're alone and away from prying ears in over a year, not since the Marauders started using nicknames and roaming the grounds at the full moon every month, so it startles James, no less because of the venom in Sirius's voice. "You think I give a shit about a Quidditch match with everything that's going on? You heard what Lily said, France's refusal to intervene in the war is a huge step backwards for us—more and more people are disappearing, hardly a week passes anymore without someone getting a letter from the Ministry at breakfast—what the hell do we think we're doing, running around cavorting with a werewolf and pulling pranks and worrying ourselves sick over Quidditch when… when…"

"Lower your voice; you're going to expose Moony," says James urgently. The pitch is almost deserted by now, but he's clearly worried that the few lingering stragglers in the stands will overhear him.

"Remus," Sirius corrects.

James doesn't push it. "I don't like it any more than you do, Sirius, but what more are we supposed to do? We can't exactly mobilize the student body to act—Marlene says Dumbledore won't let anybody join the opposition until they're out of Hogwarts, she's lucky he even told her about its existence, and it's not like we can run some kind of underground resistance on our own. We've got no resources, no information to go on, nothing, as long as we're in school."

Growling, Sirius responds, "Nobody ever did anything noteworthy by sitting on their arses talking about how powerless they were."

"Like that's not exactly what this conversation is about," points out James.

Sirius shoots him a look. "You and Lily are the ones always talking about how the war's not going to end until our generation intervenes; do you honestly believe that that's going to happen if we don't at least try to take action now? The sooner the better—"

"Our generation," says James softly. "You're right, you're exactly—"

"What?"

"Nothing. Listen, I'll—I have to talk to Lily. Do you know where she'd be right now, by any chance?" he asks, eyes alight.

Doubly frustrated with James's insistence on brainstorming with Lily over Sirius, he answers, "She skipped the match to get to the Ministry on time for her internship—don't you belong there, too, now that the game's over?"

"Shit, that's right, Gid called that meeting and I forgot—we'll talk more about this later, all right? As soon as I can talk to Lily—do we still have that thing with the girls tomorrow night? We'll do it then, we can use all the heads in on this that we can get, and I'm sure they'll all want to help—"

"Help with what?" Sirius demands, but James is already taking off in a run towards the castle, shouting something over his shoulder about explaining it all as soon as he talks to Lily.

He doesn't even have time to growl with irritation before a voice behind him calls out, "You played brilliantly out there today, you know, whether or not the scoreboards reflected it."

Finally, a reminder of something that's going right in his life. "Marlene," he greets her, his lips curling up into a smile that she returns after kissing him swiftly on the lips. "Thanks, but I was rubbish, don't deny it."

"Maybe so, but we're not too far behind Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw will be an easier win for us than Slytherin will be for Hufflepuff," Marlene reasons. "Anyway, it's on Jay's shoulders that we lost. If he'd been paying closer attention to the Snitch…"

"I reckon he got cocky after we won against Slytherin last fall. It was a long shot, anyway; Hufflepuff's favorites for the Cup this year," says Sirius. It's remarkable the effect Marlene has had on him in the past few weeks, how quickly just the sight of her can cool his rage and calm him down.

As if to prove the point, she asks him, "So what was that about with James?"

"The usual row," he admits, sighing. "I reckon we'll all go mad in the end if we can't find some way to fight back between now and graduation. He seemed to be onto something but insisted on finding Lily before he'd let me in on it."

"You know how he gets," says Marlene bracingly. "Lily does the same thing, putting James ahead of the rest of us all the time… used to, anyway. I feel like she's been distant lately, I dunno…"

They enter the castle, both lost in thought. Breaking the silence, Marlene says after a minute, "You know Valentine's Day is on Monday, right?"

"Shit. That," curses Sirius, much to Marlene's amusement. "I didn't realize it would be that important to you."

"God, Sirius, it's not like I'm going to Avada Kedavra you if you don't plan something elaborate," she chuckles. "I just figured, after everything that's happened…"

She doesn't need to explain. Their relationship is complicated at best, recovering from dysfunction at worst—he doesn't blame her for hoping that they can use the holiday to make it up to each other, trite though the occasion may be. "Tell you what," he says. "I've got Muggle Studies at half past two, but after I get out, we can snog for a bit in my dormitory and then sneak down to the kitchens for a late dinner and to talk, all right? The house-elves can probably set us up a candlelit table or something."

"Snogging. Romantic," snickers Marlene, but she ultimately concedes, "That does sound nice, though. Sirius Black, using his words instead of his tongue to woo a girl for once. Can you imagine?"

"Shut it before I change my mind," he teases, bumping shoulders with her playfully.

She pushes back, laughing loudly, and they chase each other up one, two, three stories before the nearest staircase to the fourth floor starts to move. "Bugger," says Marlene to herself, and they set off down the corridor in search of the nearest immobile flight of stairs. "Hey, as long as half our class is at the Ministry for internships for the rest of the day, what do you think we should find Em and Lupe and—oh!"

Tripping spectacularly, she tumbles forward and breaks her fall with the heel of her left hand. "God, Marlene!" says Sirius, reaching down to lend her a hand up. He can't help but notice that she doesn't seem to be lying flat on the ground; there's nothing but floor beneath her, but it's almost as if something invisible is resting beneath her feet, propping them up. Whatever is there smells horrid, too, like bread and feet and spoiled milk rolled into one.

Wincing a bit, she struggles into a sitting position, rooting through her robe pocket for her wand. "Look at those splinters… Tergeo. Episkey," she says, healing her hand instantly. "That'll probably be sore for a few days… god."

"You'll be all right, though?" he asks, some of his concern dissipating at her nod and convincing smile. "Any idea what it was that tripped you? For a second there, it looked like…"

"Like something invisible were lying right there?" she finishes the thought for him, indicating the spot where she'd fallen. Sirius nods. "I thought so, too. It reeks, whatever it is… reckon it might be under a Disillusionment Charm?"

He feels around on the floor until his hand hits something solid, then whacks it with his wand while muttering the countercharm. To his shock, the spell reveals the motionless, facedown figure of a girl whom he assumes has been Stunned until he rolls her over, revealing her wide-open eyes. "Somebody put a Full Body-Bind on her," says Sirius. He wonders whether the awful stench is due to spellwork, too, or whether it's her natural scent—glancing at Marlene, he can tell she's thinking the same thing and probably feeling guilty for commenting on it as well.

"Finite," Marlene says shakily to reverse the curse. For a moment, the girl just blinks rapidly up at Sirius, hardly stirring; then she looks wildly around her and scrambles to her feet.

"I'm so sorry," is the first thing she says, addressing Marlene. "Was it you who tripped over me? Are you all right?"

Clearly not having expected this reaction, Marlene just gapes for a moment before answering, "I'm fine, thanks. You don't have to—I mean, you have nothing to apologize for; I don't suppose you lay down willingly in the middle of a corridor and put a Disillusionment Charm and a Full Body-Bind Curse on yourself. Who did—how did this happen to you?"

"Oh, I don't know; could have been anyone," the girl replies, sounding so unconcerned that it worries Sirius. He can't seem to shake the feeling that he knows her from somewhere—at the very least, he thinks he recognizes her voice. "This sort of thing seems to happen quite a lot. You get used to it."

"Was it a Slytherin?" says Marlene, unconvinced and sounding angrier by the second. "I swear to god, if it some little bugger giving you shit about being Muggle-born—"

"Oh, no, no, no, nothing like that," she assures them, smiling weakly. "I'm a half-blood, anyway."

"Then why—?" But Marlene cuts herself short, consciously connecting what Sirius does an instant later: the girl doesn't need dirty blood to be an easy target for bullying. In addition to the stench, she's a good thirty kilos overweight, her baggy robes doing little to conceal the pockets of fat that weigh down her torso, and her face somewhat resembles a rat's, even obscured by acne and framed by a greasy, blonde bob cut. If he were a few years younger, Sirius realizes with a sickening jolt, she'd probably be the butt of his own pranks.

He must be mistaken; they can't have met before, Sirius decides, because surely he'd have remembered how she looks in excruciating detail. But there's something about her voice that… unless… "You're the Quidditch commentator, aren't you?" says Sirius, cutting the uncomfortable silence short.

Blushing a bit, she nods. "I'm surprised you made the connection," she admits. "Most people don't; apparently my voice sounds a lot different when it's magnified, and people are paying more attention to the game than to me, so they usually don't recognize me by sight. I'm sorry, I'm rambling—" He tries to tell her it's all right, but she talks over his attempt at an interruption to introduce herself. "At any rate, I'm Mildred, Mildred LeProut, but you can call me Millie. And are you two Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon?"

In a way, he's grateful for the unexpected recognition. He picked up enough French before he ran away from home to know that le prout translates to fart, but he's too taken aback to laugh at her expense. "How did you—?"

"I commentate your games," she reminds Sirius, "and besides, you have quite the reputation around here, between all those pranks you've done and being the first Black in Gryffindor in generations. And I heard that the two of you were together for good, so I just assumed…"

He's a bit unnerved that Millie follows school gossip closely enough to identify them both without ever having properly met, but he tries not to show it. "Well, we should probably be getting back to Gryffindor Tower," says Marlene awkwardly, "unless you're in—?"

It takes Millie a second to catch on. "Oh! No, I'm in Ravenclaw, actually, a Ravenclaw fourth year," she says.

"You're quite good, you know," says Sirius abruptly, garnering strange looks from Millie and Marlene both. "At commentating the games, I mean. All our mates think so."

"Oh!" says Millie. "Er, thank you. If that's all, I'll get going, then… it was nice meeting both of you," she adds, smiling bashfully as she buries her hands in her robe pockets and brushes past them.

For a moment, Sirius and Marlene just stare down the corridor at her retreating figure without a word. "That was awkward, wasn't it?" says Marlene eventually. Sirius just nods, not trusting himself to speak. "Come on, let's get back to the common room…"

It doesn't take him long, however, to forget all about the stench and the shame that embody Millie LeProut. As he and Marlene reach the Gryffindor common room and begin to take the stairs up to the boys' dormitory, Sirius hears Remus call out from an armchair by the hearth, "You might want to think twice before taking Marlene up to the dorm with you, Sirius. Emmeline's up there waiting for you."

He doubles back down the staircase, Marlene right behind him. "Did she say what she wanted to talk to me about?" he asks. Remus shakes his head, but there's a clenching sensation in Sirius's stomach telling him that he already knows the answer. Peter mentioned this last month, he recalls, something about wanting him and Emmeline to talk about the reasons why everything went wrong between them two years ago. Before now, he'd long accepted that he probably would never understand what prompted Emmeline to give up on her friends, on him, and although he should have expected for months now that Peter's interference was bound to drag up the past again, he isn't sure he's ready to face the conversation he knows is about to ensue.

"Wish me luck," he says with a sigh, and he kisses Marlene's cheek before he bounds up the stairs, ignoring her confusion as to what, exactly, she was supposed to wish him luck for.

Sure enough, Emmeline is sitting on Sirius's bed when he enters the room, her legs crossed and hanging over the edge. "Hi, Sirius," she says quietly, and he's relieved to hear that the usual note of bitter spite in her voice is gone today, replaced by a sense of exhaustion and defeat.

"Remus said you wanted to talk to me about something," he prompts, joining her at the foot of his bed.

She laughs, but it's a hollow sound, nothing like the great belly laughs they used to share—that was years ago, though, and Sirius would be crazy to think that he could bring back the old Emmeline in the blink of an eye. "Don't tell me you didn't see this coming," she tells him, and he's relieved that she doesn't push him any harder when he doesn't answer. Then, so softly it's almost imperceptible: "Your cousin killed my parents."

His head pounds; his insides turn to ice. "My—what? Your parents are—?"

"It was in fourth year," Emmeline says next, her voice wavering. "Remember when you found out your cousin Bellatrix and her husband were finally welcomed into You-Know-Who's innermost circle?" He does, but he doesn't understand what that had to do with— "Do you still remember the Ministry owl I got two days later?"

He doesn't, at first, but when he does, he's horrified. "We didn't recognize it for what it was," Sirius breathes. "You-Know-Who didn't really get started until this past year; it was mostly limited to just Muggle disappearances we'd read about in the Prophet back then… not enough students' families were getting hurt back then to know a Ministry owl when you saw one."

Taking a shaky breath, she nods. "You must know the rumors… how You-Know-Who's followers are supposedly inducted into his top ranks with a murder mission of a wizarding family of their choosing. I'd been to your parents' house the summer after first year; you'd told me how badly you needed the company, and you must have thought that it wouldn't put me in any danger because I'm half-blood. But the way they must see it, one of my parents is a Mudblood, and the other is a blood traitor. Peter and James and Remus knew enough to stay well away from your family, but I didn't. Your family probably assumed I was the closest person to you, and even though you were still living at home back then, they'd already made up their minds that you were scum; even I could see that. So when your cousin had the opportunity to kill anyone she liked…"

Her voice is wobbling and she's staring at the ceiling, anything not to look at Sirius, and for a split second he wishes more than anything that they were fifteen again and they were still best mates because then maybe there'd be a chance she'd let him hug her or hold her hand or rub her back or something to show her she wasn't alone, but it's been a long two years and he doesn't know if he wants to close the distance that's festered between them, and he sure as hell doesn't believe for an instant that she'd let him. A lot can happen in two years—they're testament to that—so he lets her talk uninterrupted, but it's not enough to placate the piece of him that believes she's still the same person as she was at fifteen, just as loyal and just as fiery, too, not a nice person but not the shell of bitter remarks and empty laughs that she's become, either. Emmeline has never been nice, exactly—for that matter, neither has Sirius, it's part of the reason why they always used to understand each other so well—but there used to be a hell of a lot of life in her, enough that no matter how rough around the edges she could be, her vulnerable side was like nothing Sirius had ever seen. He knew that girl, and he loved that girl, and he'd forgotten just how badly it broke him to lose that girl—

He cusses, and loudly. "You thought I was responsible. I was responsible—"

"You weren't!" cries Emmeline, swiping desperately at her eyes. "I thought you were for the longest time, but you weren't, it was just easier to blame you than some faceless Death Eater, you have to understand—"

"Just because I didn't intend it doesn't mean I didn't inadvertently put them in danger," says Sirius, shell-shocked. "That's why you started giving me the cold shoulder—because you were grieving and it was because of me? And I didn't understand what had happened, and that's why…"

He stops himself from saying it just in time. "Why what?" she asks, to no avail. "Sirius—"

"That's why I slept with Marlene!" So much for having discretion about the whole thing. Emmeline doesn't answer him. "Because you and I had been such close mates, and we'd kissed a couple times, and when you cut me off—the other blokes weren't like you, and I thought maybe sex was what I needed to replace you, but it wasn't. But it was all I had, so I kept using her for it whenever she'd let me, and I…"

"Sirius, are you saying…?"

Almost too late, he realizes that she's coming closer, leaning in. "No," he says, more harshly than he intended—though, on second thought, that's probably for the best, Sirius decides as she pulls away sharply. "No, god no, that was years ago, it's different now, Marlene and I are better now—and don't you and Peter have some sort of something going on these days? How could you think—why would you want to—"

"I don't know!" Emmeline cries, the closest to a breakdown that he's seen her yet. "I don't know what I want, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how I'm supposed to go back to the way things were after hating all of you for two years of my life—I just feel so alone, and I don't know what to do to regain anyone's trust, I shouldn't even have to, my parents died—"

She's outright sobbing now, and it pains part of him to see her so distraught, but something in him has clicked off so that he can't find the compassion it would take for him to console her. "And we all would have been there for you two years ago if you'd bothered to tell us," says Sirius coldly. "You shut me out, not the other way around, so don't go digging for any empathy from me now that you think it's convenient to play the pity card."

"What? Sirius, I—"

"Just go," he tells her. She doesn't move, just stares at him, open-mouthed and sniffling. "Go! Get out! Get the hell out of my dormitory!"

She flinches, and he almost feels guilty for shouting at her, but whether or not he's in the wrong, Sirius knows he's too far beyond reason to work things out with Emmeline here and now. She rubs her face clear of tear tracks one last time and flees the room, and the ringing silence she leaves behind seems to echo with recollections of a love that never quite was.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: James hatched a plan to take action against Voldemort in the war (CH25), the truth about Emmeline and Sirius’s fourth-year falling-out unfolded (CH25), Lily and Severus maintained a months-long silence following an explosive confrontation (CH13), and Lily and James shared a long-overdue kiss (CH24).

xx

February 13th, 1977: Lily Evans

Valentine’s Day is fewer than twelve hours away, and Lily can’t seem to escape James. As the Gryffindor sixth years are finishing lunch and leaving the Great Hall, he holds her back, asking with a tone of urgency, “Hey, Lily, can I run something by you? We can maybe take a walk around the grounds or something…?”

“James, it’s February; it’s freezing out,” she reminds him, swinging her legs over the bench at the Gryffindor table.

He glances around and grins sheepishly, acknowledging the wind rattling the windows and the snow that seems to drift lazily through the enchanted ceiling towards them. “Just—come with me? It’s about—well, it’s important.”

“All right,” she says with a hint of suspicion, praying to god that it really is something important. She’s managed to dodge all of his numerous attempts to corner her about Christmas so far in the last two months, but her luck is running thin enough that Lily doesn’t trust it to protect her much longer. With James, she lags behind the larger group headed for Gryffindor Tower, following him as he takes a left turn past the staircase. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Emmeline, would it? Marlene said she had some sort of a fight with Sirius, and none of us have seen her since—”

“Emmeline?” James echoes with a frown. “No, I haven’t talked to her in a while, actually—although I can ask Padfoot about it, if you—”

“Oh, no, that’s all right, I’ll just look around for her once you’ve told me—whatever you wanted to tell me about,” says Lily hastily.

He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push the issue. “It’s—well, it’s about the war,” he says, lowering his voice. Knowing this, she lets out a breath and relaxes a bit as he goes on, “I was talking to Sirius about it after the game yesterday—the usual row; you know how aggravating it gets, especially for him.”

Telling the others about the France fiasco brought the threat of Voldemort to the forefront of everyone’s mind, and like Sirius, Lily has become well acquainted with the feeling of pervading hopelessness that it causes. Nodding, she sympathizes, “I know, but what else is there to be done? We’ve all agreed, there’s not a lot we can contribute on our own. We’re not even supposed to know about Dumbledore’s group, and there’s no way he would let us join him while we’re still in school.”

“But maybe we don’t have to join up with Dumbledore to help. Maybe we don’t have to fight directly in order to do something about it,” says James excitedly.

“I—I’m sorry; I don’t follow you.”

“Think about it. Remember what we were talking about last fall, about how Voldemort’s only support is coming from stuffy old pureblood families and the only shot in hell we have at winning the war is if we get young blood involved?” he says, struggling to keep his voice down and picking up the pace of their walk; she practically has to jog to keep up. Lily nods again. “We can’t exactly go to battle with the Death Eaters without some kind of higher organization sending us on missions or giving us direction, but the one thing we can do while we’re in school that no one else can, not even Dumbledore, is get in touch with other students, find out who’s likely to fight for and against You-Know-Who—and try to convert whoever is neutral, or even some of his supporters, to our side.

“Think about it!” he says again. “Professors can probably peg some of the Slytherins as future Death Eaters and some of the more outspoken ones, like us, as allies, but eighty-five percent of the time, the students do a pretty good job of acting pretty neutral or hiding their allegiances from the staff—and I’ll bet you right now that most of the people in this school who don’t want You-Know-Who to gain power probably aren’t planning on doing anything to stop him, no matter what the teachers tell them they can or should be doing after graduation. People are shaped by their peers, Lily—being surrounded by other teenage witches and wizards gives us a double advantage; we can try and change some of the younger kids’ mindsets about blood purity and recruit the older ones to get off their arses and do something about it once they’re out of school.”

Starting to smile, Lily agrees, “It makes sense—but how do you think we should go about getting in touch with people about it? We don’t really have a convenient platform for—”

“We’ll figure it out, I’m sure of it. I figured we could hash out the details with everyone tonight, but I just wanted to run it by you first, see what you think.”

“Well, if we can get it to work, I think it’s brilliant,” she says sincerely. “We’ll definitely brainstorm more with everyone there tonight, all right? If that’s everything, then, I really was hoping to find Emmeline and—”

“Lily, wait—”

“What?” she says, more snappishly than intended.

The look he gives her in response almost makes her regret avoiding him—almost. “I just—if you’re looking for Emmeline, you might want to check for her in the Owlery.”

“In the—what would she be doing in the Owlery? How would you even know—?” But James just gives her an embarrassed little wave and walks off, rumpling his hair as he goes. Momentarily, Lily considers running after him to pester him further about how, exactly, he was familiar with Emmeline’s whereabouts, but preferring to avoid the risk of an unwanted confrontation, she decides against it, merely shaking her head and setting off in the direction of the Owlery.

In a way, her concern for Emmeline surprises even Lily herself. Emmeline has hardly been friendly with the other Gryffindors for a couple of years now, and Lily has grown accustomed to her borderline antisocial demeanor and sudden disappearances—if it weren’t for the fact that she’s been rowing with Sirius, Lily would probably think nothing of it. But Emmeline has been rowing with Sirius, and according to Marlene she left the boys’ dormitory in tears yesterday afternoon, and the Emmeline that Lily has come to know would never lose her composure like that, never. It worries Lily that Emmeline hasn’t been seen since—and her concern worsens twofold when she enters the Owlery to find her fellow Gryffindor not mailing a letter at all but, rather, sitting in a defeated heap amidst the straw and owl droppings on the floor.

Nervously, she clears her throat to make her presence known, averting her eyes when Emmeline glances up miserably at her. “James, er, told me that you might be up here,” Lily says. “Do you mind if I—I mean, I don’t want to bother you, but—is everything all right? It’s just…”

Emmeline looks away without answering—hardly an encouraging sign, but at least she’s not sending Lily away. Slowly, she crosses the room to join Emmeline on the ground, turning up her nose a little as she clears away the droppings. They just sit for a minute, Lily’s heart beating out of her chest as she surveys Emmeline through the corner of her eye. Physically, the blonde looks awful, down to the ghastly pale shade of her skin and her bloodshot eyes, but even beyond that, her usual bitterness and rigidity have given way to an aura of exhaustion and defeat. “Em, I know we haven’t always—er, we’re not… but whatever it is, if you want to talk about it…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” says Emmeline hoarsely. Then, a moment later: “I screwed up.”

“Okay,” she says, mind spinning. “Okay, well, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t—”

“I’m not a very good person, Lily.” That silences her instantly. “I’m a snobby, alienating bitch, but Sirius was always just as bad, and now…”

Tentatively, Lily places a hand on Emmeline’s shoulder, bolstered when she doesn’t flinch away. “You are not a bad person, all right? You’re just—”

“Yes, I am. And it used to be fine because all of us were awful when we first got to Hogwarts—you would know; we were all awful to you especially. But we used to stick to our kind, we at least had each other… but now… I screwed up. You know it’s bad when even Sirius is too good for you.”

“Listen, Em, I don’t know what happened or what you did, but it can’t be as bad as you think it is, can it?” insists Lily. “I didn’t used to know either of you well, but it was obvious how much you two used to care about each other—that doesn’t just go away, no matter how long it’s been.”

“Really. So you’d be willing to forgive Snape for what he did to you?” Lily doesn’t answer. “Nobody wants anything to do with me anymore, and it’s my own damn fault, so just… where am I supposed to go from here?”

Emmeline’s tearing up again, so Lily gives her a minute to steady herself before she replies. “Just come to the sleepover tonight, all right? James wants to brainstorm about resistance for the war; Sirius can’t hold it against you for wanting to help out, and whatever is going on, I don’t think it’s a very good idea for you to be alone right now.”

“Right,” Emmeline mutters, swiping at her eyes with chagrin.

“You know, for what it’s worth, Em, I always appreciated that you were kind to me after you fell out with everyone else. When I was the outcast, I always knew you’d be there for me if I needed to lean on you—I knew how you felt about Severus, but you stopped holding it against me, and that meant a lot,” says Lily.

Frowning, Emmeline asks dully, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you deserve to know that I don’t think you’re a bad person,” says Lily, “even if Sirius does. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Thanks, Lily,” she says. By the time Lily steps out of the Owlery, Emmeline’s hardly budged from where she was when Lily came in.

xx

She runs into Regulus Black in the library later that day. She’s taken aback but determined to keep a level head when he hesitantly takes a seat next to her, laying his elbows on the table and making no move to pull out a textbook and work.

“Black,” Lily greets awkwardly a few moments later, her concentration on her History of Magic essay hopelessly broken.

“Mudblood,” Regulus responds.

Her stomach churns for just an instant, and then she feels nothing. She flashes him a brief, hard look and then slides her parchment between the pages of Wizarding History and Current Events of the 20^th Century, 1976 Edition, snaps the book shut, and begins to pack her things into her bag. “No, wait, Evans, I didn’t mean that,” he says hastily. “I didn’t mean it, it’s just force of habit and all—”

“Force of habit,” Lily repeats, slinging her bag over her shoulder and standing. The words feel hollow as she says them. “Thought I’d be comfortable with you having that habit as long as you didn’t apply your bigotry to me, did you? Didn’t you see how that ended between me and Severus last year?”

“He misses you,” says Regulus. Her eyes soften, but not by much. “He still—he talks about you, you know, sometimes. What you said last fall about how quickly he gave up on trying to get you back really got to him. It wasn’t that you meant too little to him to fight for you, he just—he couldn’t understand how his beliefs were never a problem to you for so long until he slipped up and made one accidental personal attack, and it was like one mistake just erased all of the loyalty he had to you. You don’t know how much that hurt him, Evans.”

She’s swelling with injustice and deflating with old wounds reopened. Lily doesn’t think about Severus often these days, but when she does, it’s still with more pain and indignation than she can handle. “It wasn’t just the one mistake, Black, it was the last straw in a long line of hypocrisy that I excused for too long, and by the way, how is this any of your business?”

“It’s not,” he says feebly.

“What do you even want with me, anyway? What are you doing here?”

“It’s not like I went looking for you,” says Regulus, “but then I found you and he mentioned you against last night and I can understand that, all right? My brother’s a righteous bastard and there’s no doubt I’ll never speak to the bloke civilly again, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still miss him. Maybe you’ve got dirty blood, but for whatever reason, you still mean a hell of a lot to Snape, and he seemed to mean a hell of a lot to you, too, once, and it wouldn’t be right to let you go on thinking he doesn’t care about you when he does.”

She stares unblinkingly at him for a moment, then says, “You’re the one who stopped talking to Sirius when your family disowned him, not the other way around, and if you valued him more than you valued clinging to your prejudices, you wouldn’t be in this situation, would you?”

“It’s not just about outdated prejudices, Evans, it’s about preserving an entire way of life—”

“Mudbloods are people, too, Regulus,” Lily tells him, silencing him immediately. “You sound like a slave owner. Someday, the history books are going to look back on your lot, and you’re going to be on the wrong side of them. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t answer. “Say hello to my brother for me, will you?” he asks after a pause, quieter now.

“Say hello to him yourself,” she calls back to him as she turns her back and stalks out. 

xx

Emmeline comes. She sits huddled against the headboard of Peter's bed, shoulders hunched and knees drawn to her chest and fingers tracing patterns like protective wards onto the comforter, and she doesn't dare make eye contact with either Sirius or Marlene, but she comes and she listens and she nods along as James lays out the plan. “We've got to get the student body to mobilize,” he says swiftly, as though they have no other choice, and they don't have another choice, do they? “If Dumbledore and his inner circle are our only link to the war effort and they're not talking, the only thing we can do right now to fight is to make some noise using the platform we've got in this school. It'll be like recruitment—the more students who want to get involved, the more likely Dumbledore will listen and take advantage of us, and I'd be willing to bet we can make a hell of a difference just by getting students interested in taking direct action, maybe even getting some of them to change their minds about what they believe about blood purity and You-Know-Who's followers.”

“So where do we start? We can't exactly just walk up to people and demand to know their loyalties and start giving speeches—nobody trusts anybody when it comes to things like this,” Mary says, frowning. She chopped off most of her hair last month, and now oily black clumps of it are sticking up every which way.

“No, it'll have to be more subtle than that,” muses Remus. “I imagine we could start up some kind of prank campaign—only instead of Transfiguring all the professors into nifflers at the Sorting and setting off fireworks displays in the Great Hall, we'll keep the tone more serious and give people an indication that we're not just messing around this time. We can leave messages of some sort in places—like propaganda, almost—and see how much of a response we get. Keep it light for the appeal and to garner some interest, but not so light that we're not taken seriously.”

“Feel out the reaction from different people and use that as a basis to identify who we can talk to directly and whether we're making much of a difference changing the younger kids' mindsets about everything,” says Alice. “I like that.”

With the slightest touch of doubt, Marlene says, “You realize that by identifying ourselves as the culprits, we’ll be putting ourselves in the line of fire of anybody who has it in for You-Know-Who's opponents.” Her eyes flicker momentarily to Sirius, and they all know what she's thinking: even Regulus may very well leak the boys' names to the Death Eaters as potential threats.

There's an instant of dead silence, then Sirius says, “So we don’t name ourselves. We can go by a moniker and keep ourselves anonymous.”

“We can work out the details of the pranks, if we're calling them that, later,” decides Peter, his shoulders brushing with Emmeline's. “We should come up with a name—something to call whatever group we're able to assemble.”

“The Order of the Kneazle,” jokes James as Moonshine leaps into his lap—Lily and Emmeline brought their pets over from the girls' dormitory last night as part of an early spring-cleaning effort.

“No,” says Mary slowly, “the Order of the Phoenix. We could incorporate phoenix imagery into the pranks, hype it up for the attention—but 'Order' still sounds pretty heavy, and phoenixes symbolize rebirth and eternity. We could use some of that in our message, reassurance that anybody who's lost a loved one thanks to this war hasn't had to see them die for nothing—that no matter how many times we're told we're too young, we'll jump back in with another way to contribute. Besides, Dumbledore's got Fawkes—maybe he'll take it as a message to him that we want in.”

Lily and Alice both are beaming by the time Mary is through with brainstorming. Marlene gives her an approving squeeze of the shoulders, and with both genuine confusion and fondness, Sirius asks, “When did you get so clever, Mare?”

Bashfully, she gives a faint smile and continues to scratch behind Aquarius’s ears.

“All right, so we’ll get started on the prank design over the next few days and try to get this up and running within a couple of weeks,” James declares. “And in the meantime, we can keep an ear open to comments about the war from the people we see, try to scope out exactly what we’re dealing with. Everyone good with that?”

They all chime in with their assent, and Lily and the girls slowly start to gather themselves and their pets together and filter back out of the room. “Go on without me,” says Marlene, grinning—she must be sleeping over with Sirius to celebrate the holiday. Out the corner of her eye, Lily notices Emmeline stiffen but say nothing.

“You were awfully quiet in there, Lily,” Alice observes once they’re back in their own dormitory. “Haven’t you and James been planning all this out together? I would have expected you to have more to say about how we go about all this.”

“He seemed to have a handle on it, and anyway, everyone’s suggestions were great as they were,” says Lily vaguely.

Alice looks unconvinced, and she’s not the only one. “What’s been up between the two of you lately, anyway? You were getting so close-knit by Christmas, and it’s like that’s just been falling apart the last couple of months,” says Mary.

“Nothing’s up! We got close, and then we started drifting again. We were only even mates for a couple of months before this; it’s nothing to be alarmed about,” she says, maybe a bit too defensively.

“Uh-huh,” says Mary, but neither she nor Alice pushes the issue further, and for that, Lily is grateful.

It’s not until Mary, Alice, and Emmeline have all long fallen asleep that Lily finally allows herself to dwell on it. She and James were getting close, and then he kissed her and she liked it and something got lost in translation and she bolted—hasn’t had a proper conversation with him since. Something about not just befriending but kissing the boy who tormented her best friend for five years and used to be her number-one toerag, kissing him and liking it, was enough to kick Lily’s fight-or-flight impulse into overdrive, and she fled the scene, taking the severed and fraying ties of their friendship in tow and leaving a two-month silence in her wake. She’s not saying she did the rational thing, nor that one mere instant of panic was enough to make her shut James out again and forget all the reasons why she’d let him in, but—it was disconcerting, to say the least. It was disconcerting, and she liked it, and it was startling how quickly spending a few hours apart from him to get her bearings turned into a few days, a few weeks, a few months.

Talking to Regulus today, hearing for the first time since O.W.L.s that Severus was hurting, too—that, somehow, has shaken her even more than kissing James did. She wonders, not seriously but enough to give pause to the idea, if there’s even the slightest chance that they could ever revive their friendship. She wonders if she should be worried that she’s wondering.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: When Sirius and Marlene found themselves in a complicated and guilt-ridden sexual relationship, the other Gryffindors often interfered in light of strict wizarding laws against underage intercourse (CH9, CH23). Meanwhile, Mary grappled with the latest in a string of failed, short-lived relationships (CH20), Alice privately sought to reconcile her upbringing with Remus’s lycanthropy (CH23), and Remus questioned the strength and nature of his friendship with Sirius (CH24).

xx

February 19th, 1977: Mary Macdonald

“Enough, Mary.”

She clutches at her pillows and tucks her head between the two of them, chills running to her knees as a shock of air hits her. “Leave me alone, it’s Saturday, I’m not even skiving off class,” she tries to bark, but it comes out as more of a congealed puddle of moans than anything.

The top pillow’s gone. Mary sinks beneath the bottom one, but then that’s gone, too. “You’ve been moping for months—months!—over a boy you dated casually for how long? It’s a Hogsmeade weekend, your birthday was yesterday—we’re going out.”

The voice begins to take shape into what she recognizes to be Alice’s as the frigid sunlight stuns her awake. “I’m not going to go to Hogsmeade.”

“We’re not going to Hogsmeade,” says Alice.

“What—not—what?” she says blearily, wincing as Alice tugs at her shoulders and attempts to prop her into a sitting position. “Who’s we?”

“Me, Remus, Sirius. We’re taking you out drinking. There you go, up you get,” Alice coaxes, brushing short, sticky hairs away from Mary’s temples and forehead.

The radically uncharacteristic words spilling out of Alice give Mary reason enough to drag herself into a drowsy state of wakefulness. “What? But you’re Alice, you don’t sneak off to go out drinking with Sirius, everything about that is something you’d report to McGonagall—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m only coming because I’m the only one other than Lily or Emmeline who’s old enough to Apparate out of the village, and the whole reason Sirius wants to get out in the first place is to get away from everybody’s drama,” says Alice briskly. “Remus said Sirius wanted to have him stay sober and take him by Side-Along even though he’s uncertified, so I said I’d take care of it for them if I could bring you with me. My birthday gift to you. Awake? Good, let’s get you dressed then, come on, sweetie…”

She’s startled by Alice’s sudden willingness to bend the rules—not even to bend them but to crack them into splinters on a chopping block. Dazedly, then, Mary goes through the motions of dressing herself in robes suitable to wear underground and poking at her hair until her bed-head looks a bit more like an attempt at artistic stylization. “They already left half an hour ago—I told them we’d meet them in Zonko’s. Ready to head out?”

The whole ordeal feels a bit surreal, if Mary’s being perfectly honest. In the village, Sirius claps her on the shoulder and wishes her a happy birthday as Remus warmly hands her an overstuffed bag of Honeydukes treats “from all us blokes,” he tells her. “C’mon, let’s find a remote enough spot to do this from.”

A quarter of an hour and a disorienting Side-Along-Apparition later, they’ve arrived. “The Basilisk,” says Sirius with a grin. “Best nightclub in the Wizarding Britain underground—not that it only operates at night, mind you.”

She was just about to mention that the place is far more bustling than she’d have imagined for eleven o’clock in the morning—jam-packed, in fact, drinkers and dancers dimly lit by the torches sprinkled across the stone walls. From the outskirts of the crowd alone, Mary can spot a gaggle of hags out on the floor, as well as a pair of vampires up at the bar—one sullen, one evidently plastered, judging by his bellowing laughter and disconcertingly pink complexion. A poltergeist gleefully hurtles straight through the torsos of a pair of enraged wizards, and nearby, a goblin woman laments loudly to a visibly uninterested centaur, “I don’t believe what he says about them working him late at Gringotts, you know, it’s no secret to me all those antics he used to get up to with the mermaids across the way. There ought to be laws against that, honestly.”

“Let’s get shitfaced,” says Sirius, and with an audible humph from Alice, the four of them jostle their to the bar and squeeze in between a pale, heavily pregnant woman and a couple of wizards, maybe around fourteen, chattering away in Spanish over shots. “Round of firewhiskeys to celebrate the birthday girl,” he tells the bartender, who, to Mary’s surprise, serves them up without question. Clearly out of her usual bounds, Alice meekly calls for a butterbeer instead and awkwardly takes swigs from the bottle as Sirius downs half his whiskey in one gulp.

Sampling it, Mary chokes a bit but recovers quickly when something soothing rolls down her throat. “Bit lax security for a place like this,” she remarks. “You’d think you wouldn’t just be able to Apparate in like that, no questions asked.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll be up for inspection anytime soon,” says Sirius, belching.

“This sort of thing is—er—something of a dirty secret well-kept within the wizarding community,” Alice says. “Everybody knows about it, but as long as it operates under the radar, the authorities turn a blind eye to it, for the most part.”

“Dick around themselves in it, more like,” snorts the pregnant woman in a thick French accent.

Mary whips around, both startled that she’s addressed them and stricken by how beautiful she is, all blonde-haired and grey-eyed and aglow. “Oh, sweetie, you’ve had a terribly sheltered life, haven’t you?” she says to Alice with a surprisingly warm laugh, sipping on a firewhiskey of her own.

Sirius and Remus aren’t rattled at all—strangers must fraternize pretty often here, she supposes—but Alice has been equally caught off guard and regards the woman for a moment, belly and all. “Are you sure it’s wise to be drinking that when you have the baby to consider?” she says carefully.

“She’s got bigger problems than a bit of alcoholism to worry her, believe me,” she tells Alice, “and besides, I doubt it’ll have any health effect on her, if the veela blood is strong enough.”

Eyebrows drawn tight, Mary says, “But you’re not—you can’t be—”

“Half,” she says, and drags at length on her bottle. Alice shoots the others an incredulous look, but Remus shakes his head subtly and Sirius positively glowers—and Mary realizes that there’ve got to be pureblood politics at hand here, between Remus and the woman’s part-human statuses and the remarks on the legality of the bar. “Delphine, by the way, and you are—?”

“Alice.”

“Alice. Pureblood?”

“Yes,” she says rigidly.

“Well, Alice, the part your parents haven’t told you is that your Ministry—hell, my Ministry, any Ministry you like, even—they don’t just ignore the industry, they’re the ones behind it,” says Delphine. “Does your lot still get up to arranged marriages these days?”

Alice says “no” at the exact moment Sirius says “yes.” They look at each other, Alice dubiously and Sirius with exaggerated disgust. “Not in all the pureblood families anymore, but they sure as hell still do it in the inner circles,” says Sirius. “It’s why the rich ones never date anybody, because their betrothals haven’t been finalized yet. If our mums had their way, I’d be happily engaged to Raleigh Greengrass by now and James to Dorcas Meadowes.”

“You’re joking!” says Mary, starting to feel a bit lightheaded now that a third of her bottle’s been drunk.

“Yeah, well, it’s all about preserving the bloodline, isn’t it? It’s where all the underage sex laws come from, too—they were written as extra incentive to keep purebloods from getting ideas about shagging outside their carefully selected marriages and rebelling against their parents’ little plans for them, or God forbid tainting the tree with an unplanned pregnancy, because you can never be too sure about contraceptives, can you? Isn’t that right, Delphine? You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, if you’re a half-breed? That’s what they call you, isn’t it, half-breed? Right lot of pissy little arseholes—”

Rather counterproductively, in Mary’s steadily blurring opinion, Remus calms Sirius down by cajoling him into more firewhiskey. “It’s all right, he’s right, at any rate,” Delphine says calmly. “You know out in the Muggle world they’ve been going through a sexual revolution? Why other than societal conditioning do you think that hasn’t filtered into the wizarding world as well? Especially at a place like Hogwarts—you are from Hogwarts, aren’t you, dears?—big castle like that, all those hormones running wild, all those hidden corners.”

“Sirius has sex,” blurts Mary, watching Delphine with rapture. “He and Marlene have been going at it since fourth year—Sirius, this is Sirius, this one,” she says, shaking his shoulder a little. He shakes her off roughly, angrily.

“And I don’t suppose any of you have ever let him forget that, have you?”

“Mostly because of Marlene, we’re not all purebloods, I’m a Mudblood, that’s what they call me, I’ve had a lot of boyfriends, but I haven’t had sex with any of them, but that’s because I’m Catholic,” she says importantly, puffing out her chest, “not that it matters because I’m damned anyway for doing magic.”

“You’re not damned, Mary,” says Remus quietly.

“If anyone’s damned, it’s the purebloods,” says Delphine. “It’s the men and women both—they’re forced into marriages they don’t want with spouses they only sleep with for procreation, and it’s not like they want honest-to-goodness emotional affairs on their consciences, not with the way they’ve been brought up, which is where the sex trade and underground spots like The Basilisk come into play. Go in, drink up, hook up, chalk it up to whatever you put in your system, and carry on the next morning with your head held high because it was one time with a stranger, doesn’t mean it’s ever going to happen again, until it does, and does, and does. The best part’s the anonymity, because if God forbid you do taint your bloodline you can’t be traced. Now, if you’re a woman, that’s a different story, but just because you give birth doesn’t mean the thing’s your child if you can’t say for sure that it’s a pureblood, so usually she’ll drop the babe off somewhere in the black trade to be brought up the hard way.”

“She’s making it up,” Alice dismisses. “The laws aren’t some backhanded design to perpetuate sexual repression, it’s for our own goods, what fourteen-year-old would want to get pregnant and face all those challenges? Better to be strict about it, and it works, doesn’t it? It’s like you said, there’s so much opportunity to shag up at school, but nobody does, do they?”

Sirius says dryly, “Standing right next to you, Abbott.”

“Oh, never mind you, you’re the exception—and it works, it does, people don’t even mention that at school, I doubt people even know how to get out of the castle for things like this, and never in seventeen years have I ever caught wind of a single scandal, that’s despicable.”

“They don’t talk about it because it’s not something that’s talked about, it’s just something that’s done that you don’t admit to, why do you think you never hear about it from your precious little prefect’s seat?” erupts Sirius.

“Don’t push it, mate,” Remus responds, “just have another drink, yeah?”

“It’s true, you know,” says Delphine. “Sweetheart, I’m sure I’m not the only half-veela you’ve seen before, but you never see a relationship between a human and a veela. It’s how my mother’s made her living all her life, it’s how I had to until—”

“Oh, for the love of—”

Not entirely sure why she’s jumping to Delphine’s defense, Mary says, “It’s true, veela aren’t around, are they? I know they’re the mascots for the Romanian—no, Ukra… no, Bulgarian National Quidditch Team but that’s it, mascot, mascots aren’t people, it just shows off their looks, which are very nice, but that’s not the point.”

“Goblins pigeonholed into Gringotts, centaurs corralled into forest reservations,” says Remus pensively. “Hell, the whole Beast, Spirit, and Being hierarchy is only in place to keep wizards at the top of the pyramid. Werewolves can’t come out because they’ll essentially be forced to survive underground—”

Alice retorts, “Because they’re dangerous! There’s no cure, Remus, you know that!”

“Oh, so you think Remus should be forced under the streets now, do you?” demands Sirius, knocking aside the drink in Remus’s hand. “He got bitten as a kid, he didn’t ask for this, and that’s supposed to negate everything he is as a human being, is it?”

“Sirius, it’s all right, I was surprised everyone didn’t react like this—”

“Damn that, Remus, if she attacks you then she attacks me, too!”

Alice says impatiently, “I’m not attacking him, Sirius, it’s just what’s best—can’t you see, Remus wouldn’t have been bitten if werewolves just followed the laws and came clean and didn’t put themselves in a position to harm people! At least it’s something that they keep Remus locked up when it’s time, because I know he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone—”

“Locked up so he can claw himself half to death if he doesn’t have anybody else to tear up, because that’s what happens, Alice, that’s what he goes through, how is that fair?”

“How is it fair to—”

“Settle down, it’s all right!” interrupts Remus, starting to break a sweat. “Sirius!”

Reluctantly, Sirius backs away from Alice, panting. Hesitantly, Delphine says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to provoke—I was only—”

Mary burps and informs her, “That’s all right, you’re very pretty, you know,” and with that she leans in and pecks the woman on the lips.

“That’s very kind, sweetheart, but I’m—”

And with that, Mary breaks down in tears. A pair of arms that she thinks belongs to Remus folds itself over her shoulder, around her waist, clasping in the front, enveloped and not letting go; distantly, she hears him say, “I’m sorry about all the trouble, Delphine, we should probably be off now—take care of yourself, all right? Mary,” he adds close to her head, quieter, “are you going to be okay, can you get up so Alice can Apparate us out of here?”

“Come off it, Remus, you don’t have to coddle her just because she’s turned out to be a lightweight,” snarls Sirius.

“Piss off, Sirius, come on, just take hold of Alice’s hand, there you go—Alice, you don’t have to be pleased with him, but just pull it together and get us back to Hogsmeade before you turn on him, all right, please?”

And then they’re back and the snow bleeds grey into her knees and she’s still clutching that ridiculous Honeydukes gift from the boys in her trembling hand. Alice is gone and Sirius is too and Remus is holding holding carrying kissing her forehead waving his wand and then the Whomping Willow is standing still why is it standing still and she’s falling falling and deposited in a heap of blubber and burp at his feet. She wails. “It’s going to be all right, Mary, just cry it out until you sober up, okay? Here—” and he sprawls out on the floorboards, nudges her head into the crevice above his collarbone, curls himself around her, massages her head, rubs her back, breathes.

And Mary breathes, too, but it’s like sucking through a straw she’s plugged at the bottom with her thumb, like asthma attack, like body and body and skin are ballooning around her and she is so small so so so and the air is coming in through a pair of binoculars pointing the wrong way like pinprick at the end like she is a pinprick in all of this shaking, all of this skin. Like sitting in the confessional lying through teeth like there aren’t any things that she does that she doesn’t mean to do like useless bitch bottom of the class like girlfriend none of them can keep, like dry ice disappearing before she can touch it or anything can touch her. Like maybe this has been a long time coming, more than that, ice born and ice bred and ice all scattered on the wind out the fingers she can never seem to make touch.

She breathes and she breathes and then one minute she slows. Her head is clearer now. “Will it help to talk about it?” Remus asks, and it won’t, but his hands are big and warm on her snow-drenched robes and his cheek is resting on top of her head and his words are kind and not a lot of people’s words are often very kind.

“I thought it was Reg, but maybe it’s just what he does,” she says slowly.

“What’s that?”

“Proof.” Breath breath breath, one two three, steady. “I like him. I always like them. They’re very sweet or charming or—whatever.”

“You have good taste,” he says and smiles.

“Never good enough,” she tells him. “To last. I try to make it be.” Breath breath breath breath breath breath, one two three four five six, not steady, eff it, open and “She was very pretty.” Breath breath “Marlene is very pretty, too.”

“She is.”

Breath. One. “I’m not, though. I just miss Reg and it’s getting to me, that’s all.”

“Okay.”

“I’m Catholic.”

“Okay.”

She sits up, and Remus does, too, knees touching. “Want to know a secret?” he asks her, knees so close and she nods and “Sometimes, I think I… I think I might like Sirius, you know, that way.”

And he’s talking to her like they’re second years trading crushes, and they’re not, but maybe they are. Either way, it feels more considerate than condescending, and she doesn’t laugh, doesn’t press, just holds her knees so still because if she stays and he stays, and if here is safe, then nothing will be hers to own and everything will be little as a pinprick over there. But silence is never safe long before her head starts to sink in, so at last she scooches back and says, “Can we go get a really big lunch at The Three Broomsticks?”

“Sure,” says Remus, and off they go.

In the dorms that night, neither she nor Alice has much of anything to say. “Is it true what James and Pete were saying, that you really went out drinking with Sirius?” Marlene grills Alice when she and Lily first come back that night, flushed and weighted down with shopping bags. “Because I wouldn’t have believed it coming from just Jay, but—”

“We and Remus took Mary out for her birthday, yeah,” says Alice shortly. “They drank, I didn’t so I could Apparate them there and back, we didn’t stay long.”

“Oh,” says Marlene, making a face at Lily when Alice’s back is turned. Mary doesn’t meet her eye—doesn’t, in fact, for the rest of the night.

When the others are long asleep and she assumes it’s only her still awake, Mary jumps a bit when someone pulls her curtains the slightest bit back—Alice. “You still up?” she whispers, so softly.

She’s tempted to lie, just so this day will end already, but doesn’t. “Yeah,” says Mary, scooting over so Alice can lie atop the covers next to her on the bed. Funny, she thinks, that today both started and now ends with Alice, only it’s really not funny at all because she knows and it’s worse than that, she said all those things, all those awful pureblood Remus things. “You’re an arse, you know.”

“I’m not an arse just because I—”

“Remus is a person, not some kind of, like, bloodthirsty beast, a person with a life and a conscience who’s probably blaming himself for things he’s not even conscious to control and—”

“I never denied that! I just—”

“You’re an arse,” says Mary, and Alice doesn’t say anything at all. “Look, about the thing—don’t tell, okay?”

“The—?” Then her brow straightens and her cheeks fall. “I wasn’t going to, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of—I didn’t think there was anything to tell. You got drunk and a bit sloppy, and it happens—loads of people do loads worse than kiss a pregnant half-veela, you know? Most blokes would do worse when they’re sober around a pregnant half-veela, even, I bet.”

And they look at each other and after a second they have to stifle their laughter, except Mary’s isn’t really laughter so much as a whimper. “No, I know, it’s just a stupid drunk story, but I don’t want—I know you think I should let go and everything, but I don’t want it to maybe get back to Reg and mess up my chances, that’s all.”

“Sure, whatever you want. Just be careful, okay?”

“Yeah, you, too,” and she’s not sure whether she’s talking about Frank or Remus or Sirius or that funny little world in Alice’s head that’s maybe starting to spin too fast.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Motivated by Lily’s firsthand knowledge that France refuses to assist Britain in fighting Voldemort (CH24), the Gryffindors informally organized to raise awareness about Voldemort, adopting The Order of the Phoenix as its moniker (CH26); conflict arose between Alice and Sirius regarding Alice’s quasi-purist upbringing (CH27), and Sirius reacted harshly to Emmeline’s attempt at reconciliation (CH25).

xx

February 21st, 1977: Peter Pettigrew

“Careful.” He seizes Mary’s hand, then whips out his wand and mutters a few incantations, eyebrows furrowed; she tugs herself out of his grasp and raises her hands towards her chest as if in resentful surrender. “There, try it now, it’ll just start screaming otherwise.”

“Seriously?” she says, crossly snatching back the book and letting its stained pages fall open into her bony fingers. She’s lost weight the last few months, skin taut and face gaunt.

Peter sighs and turns away, scanning the titles on the shelf. “Well, what else would you expect from Hogwarts? We don’t have a permission slip to be back here.”

“I know that, Peter, I just thought you’d have been able to get a note from McGonagall or someone so you wouldn’t have had to spend the last week cracking the spell. It’s not like we’re looking up Dark magic or anything.”

“For the night before we start rolling out the Order to the rest of the school? It’d look too suspicious. This isn’t like the other pranks; we’re not doing it for attention, we need to be anonymous if we’re going to have a chance in hell of pulling it off.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” says Mary as he sinks down the bookshelf to join her where she’s reading, cross-legged and intent, on the ground. Short minutes pass as they skim chapters and scrawl the occasional note on the parchment leafs they’ve brought, Peter flipping slower than her through his volume—he’s not entirely sure what the hell went down on Saturday that’s got her so rattled, but whatever it was, it seems to have jolted Mary out of her stupor and into frenzied action to kick-start publicity for the Order of the Phoenix. “Ten Galleons says it wasn’t Dumbledore’s choice to keep this stuff locked up in the Restricted Section,” she scoffs.

“No kidding. From what Marlene’s uncle says about the Auror division, they’ve got to be leaning on the Prophet to keep it all quiet—just look at this, Wizarding Genealogy and the Ministry.”

Urgently, he jabs several times at an adorned figure spanning a full two-page spread, what looks to be a web delineating the power hierarchy of the British Ministry of Magic. A startling number of titles are annotated with British pureblood surnames and purist or neutralist designations. She brushes shoulders with him to peer at it, shallow breath scraping his neck, and says, “Read what it says right there—‘the influence of known purist members of the Ministry reaches far enough that the British Ministry of Magic has enacted no new Muggle or Muggle-born protection legislation in the last two decades.’ When was this published?”

Peter flips to the front of the book. “1974—” barely three years prior.

“That’s disgusting.”

They drop to silence for a longer while still, Peter squinting to make out the tight print in the lamplight. The research, too, was Mary’s initiative. In the grudgingly agreed vein that the best they can do for now is to raise student awareness and interest in the war, the idea is to counter common assumptions about blood purity and complacency with the Ministry’s role thus far. To change anybody’s mind, they’re going to need to make grand gestures. To make an effective grand gesture, they’re going to need to back it up with facts. To get facts, solid facts, they’re going to need to spend a lot of time in the library.

Such is how he’s found himself in his least favorite corner of the castle, poring over classified texts on purism and the Ministry during time that could be better spent pulling up his marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Or sleeping. Preferably sleeping. While Sirius and James were getting stone drunk for all of Sunday, he worked out with Remus the logistics and spellwork of their first prank—if it can be called a prank; it’s not exactly comparable to their usual mischievous activities, and far more elaborate than the norm at that—and all that’s left to do now is to look up exactly what they think the rest of the school needs to hear.

“Hey, Peter?”

In his reverie, it takes a second for the words to register. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, still reading.

“Thanks for coming and helping and stuff.”

“No big deal.”

“No, really,” says Mary, and he lets go the book he’s holding and shifts to face her; “because James and Sirius have been out getting plastered, Emmeline is… Emmeline, and then Alice is off working all the time because she does that when she’s cross, you know, like she wants to show everybody up by proving what a model prefect she is—and it’s like Lily and Marlene don’t even care when I try to bring it up to them. Remus was great and everything with the spells, but you—you’ve just been really great, out of everybody.”

“But it’s—not,” he falters, looking back to his lap. “I don’t—everybody’s busy, it’s just a couple hours—”

“Just a couple hours.”

Peter grins and doesn’t meet her eye. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Anyway, I’m really proud of you for taking charge and planning everything out and putting in all the—the rote work, you know? You’ve been really creative, and—and you don’t give yourself enough credit, I don’t think, sometimes.”

“Neither do you. Everybody gives Sirius and James all the credit because they’ve got the big personalities or whatever, but half the time you’re the one running it,” says Mary.

“I’m not that clever,” he says, feeling a bit hot.

“Yeah, well, just because you’re only going for five N.E.W.T.s doesn’t mean you’re not clever.”

“You ever think about looking at yourself like that for a change?”

She rolls her eyes, raises her quill. “I’m not doing this because I’m clever or anything, I just—like, it feels good to be doing something for once. I’m rubbish at magic, I’m rubbish at everything, but—”

“You’re not rubbish.”

“You sound like a less pretentious version of Gilderoy.”

“Shut it,” he says, and then, “Lockhart?”

They’re both bleary-handed and heavy-gaited the next morning at breakfast; he shuffles into his seat at the Gryffindor house table and accidentally ladles far too much syrup onto his waffles. “I’m guessing that means the research went well last night?” says Marlene, grinning.

“If by ‘well’ you mean ‘slowly,’” says Mary, but she and Peter trade smiles all the same.

Delicately swallowing a sip of orange juice, Alice asks, “So we’re doing one a day, right? Not just in the Great Hall but making sure that each one somehow reaches each student—”

“Only if you think you can stomach that much radicalism,” says Sirius, aimlessly stabbing at his plate with his fork.

“For god’s sake, Sirius, just because we happen to disagree on a few finer political points—”

“Finer points, Merlin’s buttocks, you as good as called Remus a half-breed—” Sirius drops his voice accordingly “—right in front of his face and—”

Remus says, “Sirius, I keep telling you, it’s fine, it’s reasonable enough for her to think what she does, it’s about common safety—”

“Screw common safety, he’s not just some—”

“Sirius, I get where you’re coming from, but you don’t have to attack Alice to get your point across.” It’s Emmeline interrupting him, to Peter’s surprise, quiet but sounding more like her old self than he’s possibly heard in years, the girl who used to match Sirius well enough to keep him in check. Marlene raises her eyebrows and glances to Lily and back. “Bugger off if you’d rather milk your pissiness than get along with everyone for the five minutes it takes to play this out, but spare everybody the blowout for later, we’ve got an operation to run here.”

No one’s quite sure how to take that, especially Sirius, who stares down Emmeline in equal parts belligerence, shock, and bemusement. For lack of a decisive response, he starts rapidly devouring the contents of his plate with one last dirty look at Alice.

“Speaking of,” says Remus. Sandwiched between James and Mary, it goes unnoticed by the rest of Gryffindor table when he slips a hand into his pocket and retrieves—nothing, or to be precise, what Peter knows to be a Disillusioned bit of nothing.

“Right.” Remus taps it twice with his wand under the table. “That’ll give it about ten seconds to make it up and a bit more for visibility—go get her,” he says quietly and tosses it out behind him.

For a split second, they all just wait—and then James says, “Don’t just sit there, blend in,” and they snap back to their breakfasts, Marlene setting into a complaint against the essay Flitwick assigned yesterday.

It begins inconspicuously enough—in his periphery, Peter watches Professor McGonagall look left, then right, then left again with a frown. She shrugs to Professor Sprout and reaches for her goblet, then ducks fully with that frown deepening as a buzzing noise begins, louder and louder until it’s catching the attention of the full student body. They glance amongst themselves in confusion for a few moments until McGonagall’s involuntary dance catches somebody’s attention and then they’re openly pointing with one another, questioning, Peter and the Gryffindors playing right along among them.

And then you can see it and it’s just a bit of paper, just a harmless bit of paper flapping around McGonagall’s head, and she’s pulling out her wand but it’s too quick to hit, and it’s getting so loud, and it’s refolding itself from a neat little square into—is that supposed to be a paper airplane? Is that someone’s idea of cleverness? But Professors Sprout and Flitwick and Sinistra are clapping their hands over their ears and McGonagall’s lip is thinning and it’s gusting such great winds down from the High Table, Dumbledore’s beard positively windswept and robes aflutter all the way to the opposite ends of the house tables, and finally McGonagall’s wand aligns with it just right—

But it’s not ripping itself up or freezing midair or falling gracefully into her lap or even into her breakfast, the buzzing is giving way to a deafening echo of a four-string orchestral chord and it’s rocketing high above the tables where all can see and bursting into a streaming banner, rippling in its own wind, proclaiming in such heavy, heavy black, “FACT: In December 1976, France set a European precedent by denying aid to Britain in the war against the Death Eaters.”

And now it’s the students themselves who are deafening, whether stricken by the proclamation itself or the radical shift to the foreboding or the impending nowness of it or the insult to their pureblood privilege, and the banner swells like a balloon and lets them erupt, lets them revel in it, takes its sweet time and then at once, like it’s been waiting all along to make its comeback, drowns out them all with an earsplitting bang, and in instants the banner tears itself to pieces that set themselves aflame, scarlet sparks arising out of the glow in the unmistakable shape of a phoenix, wings raised and stretching high above its head, hovering, cindering, and at last reduced to smoke.

It’s hard, so hard, to seek out a reaction as if he’s as surprised as the rest of the school. “Remus, that’s spectacular,” whispers Lily, “how’d you manage it again?”

“Enchanted Howler—took the basic principles and adapted them to fit—adapted them a lot. Peter’s idea, actually; he put more into it than I did.”

They can’t congratulate him here, now, but everyone’s gaze flickers fleetingly to Peter and he doesn’t want their looks, doesn’t want anything but to get started fast as he can on tomorrow’s demonstration. And then Mary says, “Glad I won’t be with you lot for Transfiguration in half an hour,” and he doesn’t want anything but to survive the next ninety minutes.

He glances to the High Table to glimpse McGonagall’s reaction—torn, now, but between what Peter isn’t sure. Lily is starting to enter full panic, emitting a low stream of “there’s no way we’ll be able to fake it in front of her for the whole class, she’s going to find us out, she’ll get a confession even if she can’t get any proof, especially if we’re going to keep this up, she knows I interned in France, she knows that came from me, the problem’s not even house points, she’s going to take it up with Dumbledore that we’re too young to try to get involved and this is all going to backfire so badly, we won’t be able to see it through, we’re all—”

“Lily, breathe,” says James, but she shrugs him off, rubbing her temples.

Peter can’t entirely read her when they reach her classroom, but judging by the thin, thin line her eyebrows make, whatever they’ve got in store can’t be all good. “Some stunt that was at breakfast,” she says as Remus pulls shut the door behind them and Peter stumbles into his seat, the fatigue returning now the adrenaline from breakfast is starting to wear off.

“Wasn’t it?” James says, flicking a bit of lint off his robes and then looking up to smile cheerily at McGonagall.

“One of you and Black’s stunts, I imagine?”

“Not at all.”

Clearly, she was expecting this. “The level of difficulty may have far exceeded anything I’ve yet seen you do, Potter, but given your proclivity for school-wide pranks and considering that Miss Evans is presumably the only student at Hogwarts who’s aware of the situation with France—”

“Professor, I assure you that Sirius and I have been, ah—otherwise engaged over the past few days and wouldn’t have had the time to dream up the display from this morning, let alone execute it,” says James with a smirk.

“He’s telling the truth, Professor, we didn’t know what was going to happen until this morning,” says Alice, timidly at first but her voice growing stronger. “And—whoever was responsible could have found out about France somewhere else—they quoted it as fact; they’ll have to back that up with sources, haven’t they? And I remember there was a line in the back of the Prophet about it once, they could have caught onto that and done further reason. There’s no reason why Lily had to have been involved.”

McGonagall’s nostrils have stopped flaring, at least, and she says, “Whoever was involved ought to realize that Dumbledore has made it explicitly clear that students are too young to participate in the war, let alone join up with some sort of—of renegade student organization and that this will not be taken lightly.”

“I’m sure they will, Professor,” says James calmly.

“They ought to realize as well the danger of voicing such strong political statements openly and that it is in their best interests to protect their anonymity from the rest of the student body.”

“As they clearly do, Professor.”

“And that so long as their actions remain informational only and do not disrupt their fellow students’ safety and education—they have my full support.”

“I’m sure they would appreciate that very much, Professor.”

Peter can hardly believe their luck. Smiling thinly and giving James the slightest nod, McGonagall turns to the blackboard and instructs, “Very well, then, if you could all turn to page 487…”

The facts continue throughout the week—not all of Peter’s design, to his regret, but homework calls and there’s only so much extracurricular spelling a wizard can work in one day. On Wednesday, they set off a round of fireworks at dinner; Thursday is subtler, featuring embroidery spiraling across the body of every student’s wizard’s hat. “Everyone thinks it’s us, don’t they?” says Alice later that night, idly twirling her hat in her hands.

They’re in the boys’ dormitory, just the two of them—Remus and James are out working on tomorrow’s demonstration (set to take place in all four individual common rooms and as such requiring Remus’s prefect knowledge of the passwords), and Sirius is probably off snogging Marlene somewhere in determined avoidance of Alice. “I think they did at first, at least the others in our year—Mary says all the Hufflepuffs have been asking her about it—but I think it’s starting to make them wonder about it that there’s the phoenix emblem on all of them, that’s new, and that we haven’t come forward, they’d think we would have by now. Plus that Dumbledore’s practically been encouraging it,” he adds: the headmaster made a point of wearing his pointed hat around the castle all day and applauded last night’s dinnertime display, to McGonagall’s visible disdain.

“That’s true,” says Alice softly.

There’s a short but uncomfortable pause. “Looking forward to what we’ve got planned for next week?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Alice…” She looks over at him, half hidden behind careful blonde curls and a fixedly pleasant smile. “You are… I mean, you do want to be doing this, right? After whatever’s going on with you and Sirius and whatever it is you said about—”

“How many times am I going to have to defend myself to all of you?” says Alice, lips still upturned, eyes rounder now in appeal. “I may not believe that the Ministry is pulling some kind of—of conspiracy to keep Muggle-borns in line, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay for You-Know-Who to go around murdering them, that’s sick, that’s absolutely sick.”

“I’m not saying you do,” Peter says gently, “and it’s not like I’m an expert on it or anything, my parents are Muggles, but—but don’t you see that seeing through the Ministry is half the battle here? I mean—You-Know-Who’s been at it for how many years now, and how much progress has the Ministry made fighting him? Honestly, think about it, they don’t even—when you read about it in the Prophet, even then they just talk about him like he’s a whack job terrorist, but he wouldn’t get this much support if his followers didn’t believe in some kind of ideology—”

“Of course they do, killing Muggles, and I’m not saying there’s no discrimination, but that doesn’t mean it’s the Ministry’s fault that purism exists.”

“Okay, so the Ministry didn’t create purism, but wouldn’t it make sense if purism created the Ministry?” Alice says nothing. “Magical government has been around since way before anybody started thinking about Muggles and Muggle-borns. Up until—what, the 1600s?—it was always just back-and-forth between witch hunts and oppression of Muggles; the International Statute of Secrecy was the first time anybody ever thought about Muggles like they were—like people, ever.”

“Peter, it’s been over three hundred years since then.”

“Three hundred years isn’t a very long time in wizard history, just ask Lily.”

She purses her lips and places her hat on the mattress beside her, pulls close her copy of Numerology and Gramatica, and says, “I don’t have time to validate to you my sincerity in fighting You-Know-Who; I have four essays due next week already.”

“Alice, please don’t be like this—”

Sitting there next to him, she is tucked so neatly together with her hat at her side, textbook at her knees, quill behind her ear, curving just so over her parchment; and Peter wonders what she’s going to do when she learns that she, too, breathes and swallows and blinks. “Like what? Honestly, let’s not do this, Professor Vector wants a whole meter and I’m already behind schedule.”

Friday is the first chance all week he gets to catch Emmeline alone. “Walk with me,” she invites after breakfast, and so he does, following her out onto the grounds. By the lake, it’s cuttingly cold, and he jams his fists low into his robe pockets and pulls his arms rigid and tight to his frame, chin bent to his neck. “You were really amazing on Tuesday, you know that?”

“Thanks,” he says, tripping a little. “Things with Sirius going all right?”

“Considering that the alternative is probably him going off at me every time we’re within earshot, I’d call ‘all right’ an understatement,” says Emmeline.

“I’m sorry. That bad?”

“I just… I was an arse, I know I was an arse, but it wasn’t for no reason, was it? My parents were dead and everything felt so… gone—he doesn’t know what it was like in—in my head,” she says. Emmeline’s never been artful in saying these things; she used to speak brashly, and then she spoke nothing at all, and now that she’s come back to herself, she flounders in the slightest surface ripple. “You get—gone like that and you lash out, you have to. But now—and he’s got Marlene, and I don’t think he’s told her anything, but god, the way she’s been looking at me lately, and I just want it to be like before, Peter, that’s all I want.”

“I could talk to him,” Peter offers, for lack of anything better to say.

She laughs weakly and says, “No, that’s all right, don’t, I should… it’ll just take time, it’ll be fine. He’ll come around.”

“Honestly, Em, I think there’s a chance this thing with Alice will make him forget all about it,” says Peter.

“With Alice, really? What’s even going on with her lately? She’s always had a bit of a stick up her arse, to be perfectly honest—” there she is again, the Emmeline of old, harsh but only for the sake of harshness “—but it’s not like Sirius hasn’t known that since we were eleven, so why now?”

“I think—none of them are talking about it much, but I think what went down is she was debating politics with him and made a dig at werewolves.”

“But Remus—”

“I know, and Remus was there, too. Didn’t say much for himself, though, not that he needed to with Sirius going off on her.”

Emmeline raises her eyebrows. Unlike Peter, she’s loose, her arms swinging out even in the chill that’s slowly bleaching the color from her hands. “That’s bull; poor Lupe. Sure, it makes sense for werewolves to take precautions and everything against biting anybody else, and it was a bit of a shock to find out about him, but that doesn’t mean anything about—about Remus, just that he deals with a lot.”

“Yeah. God knows how long it’ll take for this one to blow over.”

Emmeline shakes her head a bit, walks backward and faces him for a moment before turning back around. “Hey, is there anything I can do to help you and Mary with the Order stuff? I feel like I’ve been useless all week.”

“Yeah, actually, what do you think of purple and white?”

“Purple and white?”

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Denied their requests to get involved with Dumbledore’s underground movement against Voldemort, the Gryffindors took matters into their own hands, dubbing themselves the Order of the Phoenix and conducting a series of pranks that target education about the war and blood purity prejudice (CH26). While Professor McGonagall suspected the Marauders as the perpetrators, Lily and James were surprisingly absent from the effort as Mary and Peter took charge of the anonymous initiative (CH28).

Emmeline struggled to make sense of her fragmented relationships with her housemates, having fallen out with them for two years after blaming Sirius for her parents’ death at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange (CH25, CH26). And the Gryffindors’ reputations preceded them in their public interactions with students of other houses, like the admiring Mildred LeProut (CH25), while they were often judgmental toward peers like Dana Madley, Frank Longbottom’s Ravenclaw girlfriend known better for her sexual indiscretions than for her cleverness (CH17).

xx

February 28th, 1977: Emmeline Vance

Honestly, she probably fell into Divination as some kind of jacked-up attempt at self-help. It’s like how Mary takes care of plants since no one can pick up her own pieces, or how Alice retreats into the library and starts acing essays whenever (god forbid) she ends up at the wrong end of a quarrel. Crystal balls suddenly got a lot more interesting in fourth year when Emmeline didn’t want to see anyone else, because then nobody could see her, either, past that shroud of mysticism and spooky one-liners. Suddenly she was unnerving, and within the grandeur of it she could crouch down unnoticed to pass her judgments, some of them accurate, others not.

Everyone projects. Most people around here attach, too, which is probably what makes Emmeline so inaccessible. Since she’s so big on divining, she sees it as an energy thing; she’s spent a few years diverging, rewiring to remember that she’s over here, he’s over there, just because he kissed her and then killed her parents (or didn’t, or close enough) doesn’t mean he has to be over here to loom, to haunt—but these Gryffindors are bad at that, aren’t they, staying out of each other’s heads, and she can still feel herself trailing out the door behind him whenever he leaves, it still takes an hour to pull her mind back into her body from whichever part of the castle she’s vaguely aware he’s in. He is so tall, magnetic. She intermingles. Emmeline tangles into everyone, into her roommates’ limp fingers when they sleep in the night where she lies, and she’s been trying to pull her head into her head since fourth year and it never seems to do any damn good.

It feels like crashing, this thing where she tries to be friendly again because it isn’t worth it to hate anymore when she is so tired, but these Gryffindors are terrible at keeping distinct and Emmeline is, too; she’s a born-and-bred witch, and wizards keep close when they’re so few in a dull world, and Hogwarts keeps close when you sleep beside the same faces for seven years. She wanted to find herself when all she’d ever been was friend, then foe, but Emmeline’s not there. None of them are. She tried to be like Lily, get separate, but now Lily’s in the web and Emmeline’s always been bait, hasn’t she, hasn’t she—

She was arrogant when she thought she could watch and laugh a cold laugh. She was probably watching because she couldn’t look away.

The nice thing about this Order of the Phoenix initiative they’ve taken up is that part of the job is splitting up and keeping ears peeled, so she can contribute without getting too reinvested in the others. And to be fair, some of the pranks have been pretty ingenious, or at least Emmeline thinks so—like today’s, for which everyone’s neckties and robes have been Transfigured from house colors to a uniform purple and white. Younger students eye each other in the corridors, wary without allegiances to dictate who gets a smile and who gets a spitball. Older ones think it’s probably either the boys or Fabian Prewett’s group (or both) behind it all, but they all staunchly deny it; James and Sirius even make a show of envying and seeking out whoever came up with the idea.

“You’re sure you don’t know whether it’s them, though?” the pudgy and somewhat pimpled girl asks again as Emmeline fights the urge to try to shake off her new companion. Whoever she is tracked her down in the corridors on the way out of the Great Hall from breakfast, very wide-eyed and very much about to make Emmeline late to Charms.

“I can ask Lily, but I really haven’t seen anything fishy.”

“Because it doesn’t quite seem like they’re the ones doing it—it’s more serious, you know? It’s flashy like they always are, but it’s not—like—they’re not pelting purists with Dungbombs or writing insults on classroom chalkboards or anything—but the magic they’re using, it’s clever, it’s as clever as they are. It could be them, couldn’t it?”

“It’s not like I’d know if it was. You picked the wrong Gryffindor to ask about it, sorry.”

“Yeah, but you’re in their year, right? So you must have at least noticed that something’s up if they’re involved.”

“Want to know a secret?” The girl leans in a little, mouth hanging the slightest bit open, and Emmeline’s lips turn up despite herself. “You don’t have to only talk to your housemates. Mary Macdonald probably spends more time around Hufflepuffs than she does with us. Lily Evans was best friends with a Slytherin for five years.”

She deflates, like she’s disappointed that she didn’t get something properly personal out of Emmeline. “Well, I know that—I don’t spend much time with anybody in my house, really—but I just figured—”

“I know, but it’s okay to be closer to people from other houses than people within it. I barely talk to the other Gryffindors at all, honestly, so really, there’s nothing I can tell you about whether James’s friends are the ones doing it.”

“I just thought—house lines are such a big deal around here.”

“Kind of seems like the point of this is to change that, though, doesn’t it?” says Emmeline. The girl fingers her necktie, flicks its tip back and forth with her thumb. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Mildred. Millie. I’m a fourth year; I’m in—”

“Tell me later when your uniform’s back to normal,” Emmeline interrupts, and Millie grins.

“Let me know if you do find anything out, though, will you? It’d be cool to maybe get involved with whatever they’re trying to do, you know, meet new people and stuff,” she says, and Emmeline gets the strong impression that this odd, fairly smelly Millie girl doesn’t usually meet a lot of people.

“Sure I will. See you around, Millie.”

Five minutes later, she slips into the classroom just as the bell’s ringing and nods to Flitwick, who raises his eyebrows and smiles while she’s taking her seat beside Marlene. “Where were you?” she hisses, but Emmeline shakes her head for the moment as she scrounges up parchment and a quill from her bag.

It’s not until Flitwick’s gotten through the theory of Aguamenti and gives them time to practice that she answers the question. “I got held up by some girl who was asking whether we’re behind the pranks again. She seemed interested.”

“Think we could get her on our side?”

“Maybe. Aguamenti.” They’re supposed to be filling drinking glasses with water, but the most she can get out of her wand is a momentary trickle. Marlene’s is puffing clouds of vapor that fog up her glasses. “Millie—the girl—she did mention something we might be able to use: leaving writing on the chalkboards. She was saying that if it were the boys, they’d probably be leaving something obscene, but I was thinking we could maybe use it to leave more facts—we could figure out a way to have the writing start a dialogue with the professors if they mention it when it happens, even.”

“Yeah? We could work with that, I bet. We’ve got free period after this; we can grab Lily and Alice and check in with them about it, they’re the best at Charms.”

“Sure.” There’s one of those awkward pauses that tends to come whenever Emmeline’s with a Gryffindor one-on-one, and they busy themselves with their glasses again, still to no avail. “Have you had any luck?” she hedges.

“It’s not like I can go to anybody directly about it, but my little siblings keep saying that it’s all the younger kids are talking about,” Marlene replies, frowning down at the shoddy spellwork. “Not changing any minds yet, but it’s only been a couple weeks, what do you expect? Hopefully we’ll make a little progress on Friday, yeah?”

“Yeah, hopefully.”

“You know, on second thought, maybe we shouldn’t go to Lil and Alice together about it,” Marlene muses, her eyes trained to the desk where they’re partnered up. Alice’s stream of water keeps spilling over onto the desk before she can stem it, and she’s cursing to herself between flat smiles to Lily, who seems fidgety. “Alice gets crazy competitive when she feels threatened, and this fight thing with Sirius has got to still be riling her, from the looks of it.”

“Can we not do the gossip thing, please?” Marlene rolls her eyes but mutters a few words of compliance. Emmeline sighs, casts the spell again; a centimeter of water drops into her glass, but no more. “You’re probably right,” she says after a moment, softening. “I guess I can work with Lily on it, maybe grab Remus, too, if we need it.”

“Sure.” She looks like there’s more she has to say to Emmeline for her shortness, but it’s never done anybody any good for the last two years, so she curbs it and flicks her wand violently to shake off the misty beads clinging to the tip. It results in a gush of water that overflows from the glass to pool on the tabletop, drenching their textbooks. “Bloody…”

xx

She’s been having the dreams again, so when a few nights later she can’t take any more of it, she steals upstairs to the North Tower, breaks the lock on the Divination classroom door, and darts straight for the tall armchair at the window, the one facing away from the body of the room. A belch from the front of the room startles and halts her before she’s walked even five paces, though, and her heart rate accelerates a bit before she swallows and walks briskly forward to find James sprawled out below the professor’s desk, clutching a near-empty bottle of firewhiskey to his chest with a few butterbeers littering the floor. “Fancy meeting you here at a time like this,” he hiccoughs, sloppily pulling her down to meet him.

Yelping softly, Emmeline collapses half on top of the boy, then clears her throat and straightens up a respectable few centimeters away from him. “Fancy that,” she echoes.

“Didn’t think anybody would find me up here!” James declares, another couple burps trailing in his words’ wake. “Reckoned I’d be safe to do whatever—I—please!”

“Apparently not,” she says, then, “I come here to think sometimes.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s quiet. I can make tea and practice divining from the dregs.”

“Tea. You ever sneak into the kitchens?”

“Would you like some?”

“Whatzit?”

“Tea?”

“When I’ve got whiskey? Nah.” He drains what’s left of the bottle, although a good amount of it misses his mouth and dribbles down his chin and onto his robes. With a childlike frown, he swirls the bottle around, presses his glasses up to the opening on top, flings them aside (they shatter with a tinkle) and peers in again. “No, all gone? Can’t be…”

“I’ll put the kettle on, then,” says Emmeline, rising as he starts to rattle the drained bottles around him.

“Ooh, you’re uppity. Uptight, like. You could give Alice a run for her money, you know! Have an uptight contest!”

“Oh, I don’t think anyone would want to see that.”

“Would too. It’d be good gossip. Let go for a night, Em, come sit down, have a drink.”

“There isn’t any left, James; you drank it all, remember?”

“Right,” he says, pouting. He rummages around for his broken glasses as she bustles around preparing the tea, but he doesn’t attempt to repair them just yet, probably for the best.

“You shouldn’t start making this a habit, you know,” Emmeline says as she fiddles with her tea kettle and leaves. “People will start to worry about you… I’d worry about you.”

James hiccoughs. “Oh, but you’re trying! You’re bitter, aren’t you, and it’s hard not to bite, but you’re busting your arse to—”

“Is this necessary?” she interjects.

“No,” says James, without irony. “You don’t talk much.”

“You all talk more than enough. You’re all dialogue and no—pause, no thought.”

“Yeah, but nobody would get anything done—urp—if they didn’t talk. It’d be all anarchy and no ideas. Ideas make change happen. It’s like a—a—a catalyst.”

“Catalyst, huh?”

“Yeah.” He looks so earnest there, eyes unfocused but brows furrowed, studying her as she studies the tea. “I’m not—hic—depressed or anything. Sirius is depressed, so I wanted to be his drinking mate to help him keep out of any trouble or anything, but sometimes I pilfer his liquor.” Emmeline’s a bit impressed by his vocabulary, considering his state. “It makes things fuzzy. And clearer. ‘S cool.”

“Clearer how?” she asks.

He covers his ears and moans as the kettle starts to whistle, then loosens when she snatches it up and pours him a cup. Accepting it, he gobbles it down, recovers, and tells her, “Clearer like I can tell things. Like people think it’s me and Lily running shit, but we’re just—urp—front men, doesn’t mean we do the shit. She’s a mess, I’m more of a mess. I’m plastered. Or like—like you need people.”

The dreams have receded by now, but everything feels foggier with James here, here, in her North Tower where nobody ever goes. To her, it manifests as an energy thing, and she can’t stop herself from latching onto him, onto his drunk, his piercing. She is not safe near him, near anyone. “Give me your cup,” she says quietly.

He obediently passes it to her with trembling hands. She swirls it, stares into the dregs, but they stare back and say nothing and she cannot read anything or tell anything and she stands, leaves it with the kettle for him to tidy up. “Hey! But what’s my fortune?” James calls, and she feels herself lingering leash-like and miserable in the room with him even as she ducks out of the classroom and down the stairs, dragging, dragging.

It’s already done by the time she reaches the Fat Lady—she won’t take dittany for an answer, and that’s when Emmeline realizes it’s well past midnight and certainly long after Alice hoodwinked the portrait. Bugger. She roams the corridors for a while before finally curling up to sleep in a disused classroom, her knife-edged limbs poking into the floor at terse angles and the ground poking back, fraying her whenever she dozes, gnarly, cloudy, nowhere. The dreams don’t come because they have no opportunity to surface; Emmeline is surface, cannot sink, cannot swim. (corpse on waves back floating tightrope taut stretch sever we’ve got your head we won’t let go give me your almighty—)

The bell is shrill. Roused, she rockets upward, forehead hurtling into the desk, and then everything is streaming and splintering in the prickly morning. Cursing, Emmeline collects herself and makes for the Great Hall—she’s not enrolled in Potions, so she has the morning off and may as well catch a late breakfast. The hall’s nearly emptied by now, and only a few scattered sixth and seventh years remain, picking at their food with fatigue or hangovers or both. Dumbledore nods cheerily to her from the High Table as the door clunks shut behind her, and she raises a tentative hand, lowers her eyes, and fiddles with the hem of last night’s dressing gown.

It’s not long, however, before students start trickling back into the hall, sleepy but abuzz with impatience. Peter and Mary seek her out at the Gryffindor table as she watches Dorcas Meadowes move straight toward Dumbledore, who’s chatting intently with Hagrid. “So it worked, then,” she says as they sit down.

“Yeah, and Peeves is taking the opportunity to drop water balloons on everybody’s feet in the meantime, since they can’t go back to change their socks,” says Peter. Mary clicks her waterlogged heels for emphasis.

“Right.”

“Where’d you go last night, Em?” Mary asks. “You were in bed before I was; I thought—”

“Nowhere—I—just woke up and couldn’t get back to bed. Alice wasn’t back yet when I left, so I thought—but when I got back, I was locked out.”

“You weren’t with James, were you? Because he wasn’t there when we woke up, or at breakfast, and we don’t know where he is because he has the—uh—he skived off Potions.”

“Has the what?” says Mary keenly, but Peter shakes his head.

“Doesn’t he always skive off?” says Emmeline.

“Not much, now that Lily’s getting fond of him.”

Mary snorts. Emmeline’s spared responding when Dorcas calls the hall to attention, announcing with fatigue, “All right, so as you all obviously have figured out by now, it seems we’ve got a situation where all the passwords to the common rooms have been changed, locking everybody out of their houses. We’re going to get on taking care of this as fast as possible, but in the meantime, you’re all welcome to stay here in the Great Hall or anywhere within bounds in place of your common rooms. Do we know for sure that all four houses are locked out? Gryffindor?”

Of course—there may only be rumors within the student body, but the staff more or less pinned the Gryffindors as the perpetrators of the Phoenix initiative as soon as it started. It’s with a second’s surprised lift to her eyebrows, then, that she hears grumbled assent from a number of Gryffindors, Mary playing along among them as particularly disgruntled. “Right—Hufflepuff? Ravenclaw? … Ravenclaw?”

And despite the students’ uniformly purple ties, it dawns on them all that Ravenclaw’s the only house missing from the hall. Up front, McGonagall’s thinned lips widen out again as she cocks an eyebrow. Despite herself, Emmeline glances sidelong at Peter, who says in an undertone, “Alice wasn’t able to lock it out—she tried locking it onto one riddle that couldn’t be answered, but she couldn’t get it to work in time, the door found a way around the paradoxes.”

“Yeah? We can work with that, maybe,” Emmeline says back as Dorcas falls back, briefly conferring with Dumbledore again before striding through the double doors and into the corridor. “We could get everyone to convene in their common room, maybe?”

“Make them help each other out and work with the Ravenclaws to crack the riddles and have somewhere to go, yeah,” says Peter. “Em, you’ve got friends in Ravenclaw, do you want to head over and see if they’ll let people in?”

“What, without you? Avoiding your ex-girlfriend?” Mary teases. “You two go; I’m going to go check in with Ver and feel out how people are reacting.”

So they set off for the Ravenclaw common room, Emmeline leading the way. Peter raises a hand to the brass knocker on the door when they arrive, but she pulls him away and says, “We shouldn’t yet—that’ll ask a question, and they probably won’t appreciate us barging into their common room and then inviting the rest of the castle in, too.”

“Right,” says Peter. He raps on the door with his knuckles instead, again when at first he goes unnoticed. As they slouch against the wall in the meantime, he asks again, “So do you know where James is?”

“I found him in the North Tower last night, actually. He was pretty wasted; you might actually want to go collect him before a class goes in while I handle… this.”

“Bugger,” says Peter, and then Emmeline’s alone.

It’s Dana Madley who’s the next to enter the corridor, to Emmeline’s slight irritation. She watches Madley’s pumps click purposefully toward her, then halt as Emmeline clears her throat; the right one crosses behind the left and snaps to a defensive point on its toes. “Elegant,” Emmeline quips.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry. Look—”

“You looking for Maggie? Because I can check for her for you, but I’m pretty sure all the fourth years have class—”

“It’s not that,” says Emmeline. Madley purses her lips, shifts her weight back. “It’s—well, all the other houses got locked out of our common rooms somehow.”

“They got what?”

“Yeah, the passwords aren’t working, everyone’s in the Great Hall for now and Peeves is having a right old party taking advantage of it. Ravenclaws can still get in here, though, apparently, so I was just thinking—”

“That you’d break into our common room into the meantime until it’s straightened out, yeah?” says Dana. Emmeline blinks, doesn’t yet chance a response. “Cracking the riddles together matters to our house, Vance. It helps first years bond with the rest of the house, it—”

“So it’s wrong for other houses to bond together, too, if you let them in?”

“That’s just like you Gryffindors, always assuming it’s your place to do whatever in god’s name you—”

“Sure, all right, think what they want you to think.”

“Excuse me?”

“The house stereotyping. Do what you want, but when You-Know-Who takes over because you were too busy holding grudges to resist—”

“Do you even hear yourself talk?” Madley interrupts; Emmeline rolls her eyes, drawing her knees closer to her chest. “If this is even headed toward a full takeover, which you don’t know—”

“Which we do know,” mutters Emmeline.

“—Then part of picking a side is knowing who your allies are, and I’m sorry, but Gryffindors can’t be trusted to be our allies. You think you can step all over everyone until you need them—”

“I don’t step on anybody,” says Emmeline; “I don’t even associate with the rest of my house—”

“Right, so that explains why you’re always off snogging Peter Pettigrew and mooning over Sirius Black and braiding Lily Evans’s hair—”

“I haven’t been mates with Black in years; get your facts right,” says Emmeline coolly.

“Of course, ever since you threw a hissy fit and decided you were above all the gossipmongers you live with. But you should see the way you still look at him.” Emmeline narrows her eyes. “Don’t you know you’re no different from them, Vance? Alice Abbott thinks she’s better than me, you think you’re better than Alice Abbott, but either way, you’re both arrogant arses who belittle anyone who’s not prudish enough or—or clever enough, or haughty enough—”

“Is there a point to this, or are you going to stand here all day lamenting your insecurities?”

Madley’s face heats up scarlet. “At least I’m comfortable enough with my body to make decisions for myself without trying so hard to meet anybody’s standards. Lord knows who could possibly be enough for you. And Maggie said your attitude was getting better.”

“So I take it that means you’re not letting us into the common room?”

She strides forward, the hem of her robes twirling out and brushing Emmeline’s ankles. “Of course I’m letting you in. The Hufflepuffs are decent, at least, and I’m not going to try and keep the whole castle away just because of you,” she says, pounding the brass knocker on the common room door as Emmeline snarls and collects herself. “Riddle?”

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Masquerading under the moniker Order of the Phoenix, the Gryffindors sought to incite the student body to action against the Death Eaters, starting with a series of pranks to raise awareness and initiate inter-house unity and, most recently, by jinxing all the common rooms but Ravenclaw’s (CH29). James dabbled in alcoholism (CH29), Remus agreed to test Damocles Belby’s cures-in-progress for lycanthropy (CH16, CH22), and rumors flew about the trustworthiness of Slytherin and Head Girl Dorcas Meadowes (CH2, CH8, CH14).

xx

March 4th, 1977: Remus Lupin

On the upshot, it looks like it’s working. As they dizzily surface at the top of the stairs, the Ravenclaw common room door is swinging open to welcome a handful of relieved-looking second years who whip around at the sound of footsteps and bashfully hold it open for the Gryffindors to enter. “Your first time coming up here?” Remus says with a faint smile. They nod. “Ours, too. Good on you for getting the riddle.”

“Thanks,” says the shortest, but before he can scramble away, his frowning companion asks, “Aren’t you lot from Gryffindor? Only Timmy says you’re the ones doing all this—”

“Your mate Timmy ought to get his facts straight before he parades them around the castle,” Sirius says brusquely, shrugging off the warning hand Remus raises to his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s try and find the others…”

The tower’s not crowded yet—it’s early enough in the day that most of Hogwarts is in class or else roaming the castle—but it’s obvious enough that the houses are already mixing; it seems like every student lounging in one of the mahogany chairs is talking to another who’s perched across the study table and flinching every time the door opens, as if Flitwick’s about to waltz in and expel them all for trespassing. But laughter still ricochets off the walls, ivory and stretching high above, and the sheer drapes over the full-length windows are thrown open, and they’re all doused in the wintry-cold sunlight. “This must have been Peter’s and everyone’s doing, right? It’s lucky they thought of it; I was worried that…”

“Relax, Alice, you did great. Let’s not talk about it here,” Lily tells her. Alice’s shoulders stay tense through her smile as she catches sight of Mary and leads the way to the table where she’s seated with Amos Diggory and Samantha Spinnet.

“I miss Gryffindor. It feels like a library in here with all the bookshelves and no armchairs,” Mary blurts by way of greeting as they crowd in, grudgingly dropping her feet from the table as Marlene hops on top of it to sit. “How was Potions?”

“All right. Uneventful,” says Marlene, trilling “thank you” to Mary while she gets comfortable.

To the contrary, it was quite eventful—James’s absence has Remus alarmed and left Lily to contend alone with Snape’s bitter glances, and Belby slipped him the latest recipe of the month that he’s got to find time to look over by tomorrow night’s full moon—but it’s not like they can exchange any of it or ask after James’s whereabouts in the present company. “When did you come up here?”

“Pretty soon after breakfast, actually,” answers Diggory, nodding to them. “I think Em Vance thought to come up here to see if she couldn’t take refuge in Maggie McKinnon’s dorm until the password thing gets figured out, and people just sort of—trickled in after, once they knew the Ravenclaws were letting them and Meadowes gave the go-ahead.”

“Meadowes approved it?” asks Lily.

“Yeah, surprisingly. She’s not here anymore, though; she went off to find Shacklebolt now that he’s getting out of class.”

Remus doesn’t miss Sirius’s scowl, but he doesn’t mention it, either. “Sort of wish she hadn’t,” Spinnet says. “Not everyone’s thrilled about it; Dana’s not going to let anybody hear the end of it, I don’t think. Mentioned she wants to complain to Kingsley right away once he’s back. You’d think people wouldn’t care so much about keeping other people out, but if it’s going to cause this much conflict—”

“Why should it, though?” Marlene interrupts. “Whoever’s behind it must be doing it because stuff like this is such a big deal to so many people, to try and change it, I mean. It’s got to be the same as whoever’s doing the other pranks, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, maybe,” says Spinnet. There’s a thick silence until Remus fishes a deck of Exploding Snap out of his robes and proposes a game.

He steals off with Sirius after lunch, and although James has got the Map, they think they’ve got an inkling of where Peter may have made off with him if he’s found him—that spot they always go to when it’s daytime and they’re up to no good. The hallway stretches behind them far wider than Remus’s comfort zone as they approach the mirror. “We’ve got to stop defaulting to this place before somebody else finds out about it,” Remus says. Sirius narrows his eyes and flicks his wand just to the left of the blemish where your reflection goes blurry.

“Relax, Moony, do you really think anybody else would be clever enough to go looking where we’ve looked? I still reckon there are secrets in this castle that still haven’t made it onto the Map after scouring the place,” dismisses Sirius, continuing to tap out the right pattern as Remus casts a wary lookout behind them.

“You can never be too sure. Hurry up before somebody passes, we’re in the middle of a central corridor, for Merlin’s—”

“Oh, relax and get in,” says Sirius, and with a tug, he falls through the glass, feels the shards in its eyes even as it shimmers without fracture and solidifies again behind them, a one-way mirror, the light of the corridor toppling behind them onto the crumbling stones of the passage.

He’ll never get used to looking out and knowing no one’s going to look back, he means to say, but then he opens his eyes again and sees. “James.” He dashes forward to crouch beside Peter, who’s looking somewhere in the space between anxious and panicked.

“’Ello,” James croaks. “You didn’t happen to bring water, did you?”

“He’s just waking up again,” says Peter, rubbing the gooseflesh on his arms.

“No luck, mate,” Sirius says, then adds, “Saw you got into my stash last night.”

“Noticed that, did you?”

“Regretting it now, are you, from the look of it?”

“Shut it,” says James, bumping a loose fist halfway up Sirius’s chest, as high as he can reach.

“It’s the third time this week,” Remus tells him, glancing at Peter and back. “Not that it’s at all the most reckless we get up to sometimes—” James snorts “—but if there’s something going on, it’s all right to bring it up, and if you’re really just getting wasted over Lily, then we’ve definitely got to talk, James, because some witch is possibly the most rubbish reason you could come up with to get smashed.”

He snorts again, dissolves into a coughing fit after. “Nah, it’s not Lily, I can handle a bit of prolonged exposure to estrogen. Is it just—I mean, don’t you ever wish it would all stop sometimes?”

“Which bits?” says Sirius, thankfully, before Remus has to come up with a response.

“The—I’m a top student, Quidditch team, strutting around with a not-so-secret notorious alias—thing, I’m safe on both sides because the Potters have a good reputation but everyone’s still expecting us at the front of the liberal movement, nobody hates me but Snape and he’s easy enough to toss out. Don’t you want it to stop sometimes? Don’t you just want somebody to hate you so you can just stop trying so damn hard and—”

“It be okay?” Remus finishes, and James colors.

“I know I’m lucky. I know that. I just want to sleep, too, sometimes, let somebody else do it. Be dispensable. Not that I’m important, but…”

Remus thinks back to those novels Marlene likes, the Muggle ones by Jane Austen, with the heroes who bitterly trap themselves in their own cells, who could get out if they decided to and concern themselves with dances and courtships instead. They concern themselves with frivolities, too, bring poltergeists to the Slug Club and snog, and debate whom to snog, then discuss their snogs over dying Muggle bodies and make pranks out of wars, mock green lights with firecracker sparks. They play politics with veelas over drinks in a bar and none of it makes sense, not really, when every four weeks he sheds his old bones and half these people would have him put down like a pet if they knew he was the one keeping them up at night in the Shrieking Shack. People die and kill and get killed and they sit there, all of it swirling, seeing it darkly, trying to stop it and not knowing how and grabbing a whiskey when they remember it’s not their place. Maybe grabbing one too many, like James here, for instance.

“Come here,” says Peter through the pause; “open up—come on—Aguamenti, there you go,” and he rubs James’s shoulder as he guzzles the spray.

“Did it work?” he croaks, water dribbling down his chin.

Remus cracks a half-smile. “The lockout? Looks like it—so far, anyway. It didn’t work on the Ravenclaw knocker—they’ve got riddles, not passwords—but everyone’s holing up in their common room now, which actually seems to be working out better than the Great Hall would have.”

“Good, that’s good.”

“Missed you in Potions. Slughorn pitted Lily against Snape because you weren’t there to partner her; it was tense.”

“And Belby?”

“Got this from him at the end of class. Hold on a sec,” Remus says. He scowls at Sirius, who’s kicking his bag across the ground to him, then dusts it off a bit and rummages through his Potions textbook until he finds Belby’s parchment stuffed in the back. “Recipe for the potion for tomorrow night. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet; we’ve been surrounded until now.”

He passes it first to James as a courtesy, though Remus knows he’s probably too hung over to get much out of it. It’s to his surprise, then, that James hardly glances at the recipe before his eyes widen. “You can’t take this,” he says, feebly raising his arm to pass it to Sirius.

“What?”

“Don’t take this tomorrow, Remus, he’s got aconite in it.”

“Aconite? But we’ve used that in Potions before—Belby’s used poisons effectively before—” says Sirius, snatching it up and reading greedily.

“Aconite. Wolfsbane. They used it to kill werewolves in the Dark Ages; we talked about it in History of Magic a few months ago.”

“Dammit, Belby,” Remus says. “Here, let me see that…”

He has to squint to make out Belby’s scrawl, the letters joined carelessly like this is all so natural for him, Remus’s life. The passageway is dim, so he turns around to face the only light that filters through the mirror onto the crumbling stones, cold on his knees. The glass distorts the light, he fancies—bends it till it casts shadows over the parchment even as it blinds his eyes; and everything is so bright out there, blurry to him, away.

“You can sort of see why he’s trying it, though, can’t you?” says Peter, scooting over from James’s side to peer over Remus’s shoulder. “You said the Devil’s Snare and silver never worked like they were supposed to, right? Aconite’s obviously a lot more toxic to werewolves than silver is, but I get why he’d try new active ingredients when the old ones haven’t worked for months.”

“A lot more toxic—silver’s only dangerous if you ingest it or if you were to somehow get it in your eyes, but I can’t even touch aconite in class without having to worry about going into a coma, that’s why I always have you handle those steps when we’re brewing with it, Sirius.”

“That little shit—”

“He ramped up the sedatives and added fluxweed and leeches,” says Remus. “Looks a little like Polyjuice Potion—they’re supposed to induce metamorphosis and extraction of life essence—it almost looks like he’s trying to—”

“Suck the werewolf out of you and kill it with the wolfsbane?” James says, forceful even though he’s still slurring all his words. “It’s bold of him, to put it one way, but Remus, do you really want to be his guinea pig on this one—?”

“I don’t know. I—don’t know.”

“It’s a suicide mission.”

“I know. I—should go; I need to go find Belby.”

He stands. He’s fine. He composedly slips the recipe back into his bag and slings the strap over his neck, and Peter calls after him as he straightens up, “Remus—”

“I’ll find you later in the common room, all right? This passageway always gives me the creeps, it’ll probably cave in any day now.”

“But we can’t get in there, we locked it up—”

But Remus is already approaching the glass, hesitating—the bright is so cold, why is it so cold and why can he never make shapes out with these eyes—and then crashing through to the other side. He blinks as Hogwarts sets back in around him, his skin warming.

xx

In some ways, Remus is surprised that McGonagall doesn’t seek them out right away for the lockout. No, it’s not until midway through that afternoon when “It’s A Small World” starts blasting at full volume throughout the castle that the shit really hits the fan.

He’s in Divination when it happens and keeps his smile to himself—Mary and Marlene delivered. Professor Shafiq breaks off her talk on heptomology with a little utterance, cocking her head toward the ceiling and then slowly laying eyes on the round table where he, Peter, and Emmeline are seated. “I don’t reckon this interruption would have anything to do with the common room incident this morning, would it?” she says stiffly, but her words are barely audible over the music.

“What’s that, Professor? Afraid you’re going to have to speak up,” snickers Veronica Smethley from the back of the classroom.

She glowers at her, then shakes her head and returns to the standing chalkboard where she was lecturing. “As I was saying,” she says, raising her voice this time, “those of you who’ve taken Arithmancy will recall—”

But they’ll have to wait before they can recall it, for when Shafiq raises the chalk to the board to add to her notes, it wriggles violently from her grasp, raps her on the wrist for good measure (she clutches the wrist to herself, her jaw dropping), and flings itself at the board, promptly beginning to scribble down lyrics in time to the music. It’s a world of hopes and a world of fears, there’s so much that we share that it’s time we’re aware it’s a…

“Dear lord! I—erm—if you could pull out your textbooks, then, and turn to page 984 so you can follow along. Pettigrew, Lupin, come see me after class.”

They swap looks. “But Professor, we didn’t—”

“Oh, just do it, Pettigrew. So you should remember…”

She’s losing their attention, though, and Remus can feel Carol Davies’s eyes on him from behind as a familiar ringing fills his ears—Greta and Veronica must have cast Muffliato to gossip. And hardly fifteen minutes pass before he hears a pounding at the door over the music, shortly followed by the arrival of not Professor McGonagall but Dorcas Meadowes.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Professor Shafiq, but I need to see Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew,” she says breathlessly. She looks haggard, her blonde hair frizzy and flying out in all directions. Behind her, James waves brightly at the class, visibly recuperated from earlier, then Sirius punches him lightly in the shoulder and gives Remus and Peter a wide-eyed look.

“Go right ahead, Miss Meadowes,” Shafiq tells her, and with that, Peter and Remus scramble to their feet.

“Bring your things,” says Meadowes, and he does so, now starting to feel a bit nervous.

They meet her in the corridor, and she wordlessly leads them into the nearest empty classroom, latching the door behind them as they enter and perching herself on top of the professor’s desk, ankles crossed. “You’re the ones doing it, aren’t you?” she asks. She’s speaking normally, but it’s still hard to hear her over the bellow of the chorus.

“I keep telling McGonagall, we don’t have anything—”

“Relax, Black, I’m not planning on ratting you out to her, I want in.”

“You—what?” says Remus.

“I think it’s brilliant,” says Meadows, smiling. “Organizing students to action and giving blood politics an immediacy in their everyday interactions? I’ve been doing what I can from the Head Girl post, but inter-house prefect rounds and more double classes for the first years only does so much. I love it.”

“But you’re—you’re a pureblood,” Sirius stammers.

“So are you, and the Meadoweses aren’t even one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight like the Blacks are—even if my grandparents have been clamoring to be added since the thirties when the genealogy came out.”

“And a Slytherin!”

“Isn’t the whole point of this charade that your house doesn’t have to dictate your loyalties? I’d have expected better from you, Black.”

Sirius is shaking his head in disbelief, fists clenched tight. Remus breathes a little easier. “So say we are the ones doing it,” James says, and all eyes flicker to him. “Why approach us now about it? Why not when it first started?”

“I wanted to be sure it wasn’t just some ruse of yours, that you were actually looking to take action,” says Meadowes. “And I don’t think you lot would be taking this risky of measures to get your point across if you didn’t want to go somewhere with it. I take it McGonagall doesn’t want to let you fight?”

“She seems supportive of the—perpetrators—so far, but from the sounds of it, she and Dumbledore don’t want it going farther than awareness with the students,” Peter hedges.

“Well, I do. Awareness is an important first step, but sitting in a circle bitching about politics only gets you so far. The murders aren’t going to wait until after we graduate, so neither should we. And you can drop the pretenses, all right? I need the secrecy as much as you do—I can’t have Dumbledore knowing I’m involved with an underground movement to mobilize, or Kingsley either, for that matter. Maybe he could be persuaded someday, but I don’t see him changing his mind as long as he’s on the Auror track. I know it’s you four; you don’t have to dance around that.”

It’s the nine of them, technically, but Remus would rather not risk incriminating five others until he knows Meadowes isn’t bluffing, and the others seem to be thinking the same. “What can we do now, though? As long as nobody wants us fighting, we don’t exactly have access to the information we’d need to—”

“We can get access. I mean, I know how to get you access, and you probably would, too, if you thought hard enough about it,” says Meadowes. Sirius raises his eyebrows. “Oh, come on; you’re a pureblood, aren’t you, so I’m sure you know how to get underground. I have a few contacts who trust my surname.”

“So what are you saying, exactly?” says Remus slowly.

She smirks and hops off the desk, seizing hold of a piece of chalk and raising it to the board, despite its protests. “How do you feel about counter-terrorism?”

xx

They don’t discuss it yet—it’s not safe crammed into sleeping bags in the Ravenclaw common room and dormitories, and if they want to meet up the next day, Remus is too busy puzzling over Belby’s recipe in the library to hear about it. He’s not able to seek refuge for long, though, as Sirius tracks him down shortly after lunch, probably with the Map’s help. “Hey, mate,” he greets Remus, pulling up a chair and leaning in closer than comfort.

“You look incredibly out of place here.”

“So I’m told. You think you’ll go through with it?” he asks, nodding to the (by now quite tattered) parchment before Remus.

“Dunno. Probably.”

“You probably shouldn’t, you know.”

“You said that about the silver.”

“The silver was different. Aconite could really, literally kill you if Belby’s wrong about this.”

“Yeah, I know, I thought about that,” says Remus. To be honest, he hasn’t thought about much of anything, except maybe that he’s not sure how much longer he wants to live like this, losing it and counting the damages after, and it’ll be worth it to get fixed, but if Belby can’t fix him—he needs Belby to fix him, he just does, because he’s been broken for a long time now and it makes him feel a little crazy, a little trapped. “I need to get out of this,” he tells Sirius, but he doesn’t expect Sirius to feel that like he feels it.

Sirius sighs, toys with the edge of the parchment. “You can wait the month out, tell Belby to come up with something without aconite for next month.”

“I don’t want to, not if this one might be it.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, watching Remus as Remus watches the recipe, as if a big, glaring right or wrong will leap out of the page at him any second now. “What happens when he goes with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you get him under the Whomping Willow? Does he stay with you down there? Why don’t you end up ripping him apart every month when it isn’t working yet?”

He looks at him grimly, tenderly, and then unfreezes, turning his chair to face Sirius; it scrapes against he ground and echoes through the otherwise empty nook of the library he’s chosen. “I told him to prod the knot with a stick to get in. He’s taken a couple beatings, but it’s otherwise worked all right. He stays to observe any changes in my—behavior, I guess you could say, while I’m—out. At first he was planning to immobilize me if it didn’t work so he wouldn’t get hurt, but that—didn’t work, obviously. He chains me up now, and he’s learned to be ready to set up Shield Charms and stuff if I break loose so he’ll be safe. I get more roughed up than I used to because of the friction, but I’m pretty much all right—not any worse than I used to be before you and the others learned to transform. How violent or docile I get changes depending on the month, but I still can’t remember any of it after—Sirius…”

And he fades out as Padfoot raises a hand to Remus’s hair, tangles his fingers in it; then brushes his knuckles against his cheek and finally settles upon Remus’s chest. Remus closes his eyes. He opens his eyes. “I can ask Lily to go with you tonight, if you want.”

“Lily?” asks Remus, blinking.

“She knows how to heal—a little, anyway—it might help to have her on hand, in case things go badly. I know she’s not Pomfrey—”

Tensing up, Remus says, “I don’t want to endanger anyone but myself.”

“And Belby.”

He hesitates. “And Belby, I guess.”

Shying away from Sirius’s hand, he feels the boils in his stomach settle a bit. Sirius deflates. “Sorry. I just—I worry about you,” he says, retreating.

“I know. Thank you—really—but I’m not putting Lily at risk. I’ll be all right.” At Sirius’s disbelieving look, he adds, “I’ll be all right! I will.” Silence again. “I’ll be fine, I’m fine, look,” and he shakes Sirius’s shoulders playfully till he laughs and laughs.

He’s all in knots when he meets Belby that night, huddling in himself, cradling his elbows. “Wolfsbane, Belby?”

Belby grins (grins!). “You said that about the silver.”

“The silver was different. You’re sure about this?”

“Sure enough to brew it. Drink up,” he says, and he passes Remus the flask. Just in case, he supposes he ought to see his life flash before his eyes right about now—but he doesn’t, and he breathes, and he drinks.

Nothing happens. Then he jolts, and doubles over, and almost retches, but Belby rushes forward and says don’t, you’ll just have to drink more if you lose it, and he swallows the bile, and he blinks his wet eyes back into his head, and Belby’s grip is bracing and too tight, he doesn’t want him here, but when Belby draws back it’s because he can feel himself lurching, can feel the breaks; he howls, he cracks, and it starts to fade out but this time it swims back forward again, why is it in focus he can feel the bones breaking and fade and back and fade and back and black and back and he tries to curse Belby but all that comes out is a roar he doesn’t recognize that bounces off the barrier between them, and Belby’s gripping his wand so tight Remus can see the shaking, at least he can when he sees at all.

And then he drowns in a blinding desire for blood the BOY’S BLOOD BUT HE DOESN’T WANT THIS WHY DOES HE WANT IT and he runs at the shield, crashes solid against it, falls back, stays back, tells himself he needs to stay back. It would be so easy, he senses, just a few quick scratches to his limbs and he could smell what he needs, the room is so dead and he cannot reach the boy he just wants to FEEL SOMETHING but it aches it aches to scratch this is going to hurt in the morning and he stops, he pins his wrists PAWS to the ground and he stays, he yelps with the effort, he does not want this and he stays put, why did he ever want to remember this, WHY DID HE EVER WANT TO REMEMBER THIS—

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: The Ministry awarded seventh years and a select few sixth years year-long internships, including an Auror program to which Alice, Frank Longbottom, and Kingsley Shacklebolt were admitted (CH11). When the Gryffindors began a series of  war-awareness stunts that set the foundation for the Order of the Phoenix (CH26), including a common room lockout that landed the whole student body in the Ravenclaw Tower for the weekend (CH29), Dorcas Meadowes approached the Marauders, suspecting them as the source of the moment and asking them to join her in moving beyond awareness and terrorizing the Death Eaters (CH30). Belby’s latest modifications to a potion to counter lycanthropy left Remus painstakingly half-aware of his facilities while transformed (CH30), and Alice and Sirius fought over politics as Alice battled the prejudices against werewolves she was raised to believe (CH27). 

xx

March 6th, 1977: Alice Abbott

“We’ll be working on the basics of Stealth and Tracking today—can’t have you prancing around right in front of the enemy, can we, so before you go anywhere you’ll have to know how to disguise yourselves. Disillusionment Charms first, then: doesn’t conceal you entirely but just lets your body take on the images behind it, makes you a sort of walking window, chameleon-like. Clear enough?”

Alice blinks and blinks, scribbles, spills black all across the parchment.

“Why Disillusionment, sir, if it isn’t entirely effective?” Frank says with a frown.

“Can’t do it,” answers Williamson. “Highly advanced magic, that. Dumbledore’s been spearheading some research into invisibility lately that they’re saying he’ll have published within the next few years, but it’s all Disillusionment and Demiguise hairs unless he gets it right.”

“Demiguise hairs?”

“Tailors will weave it into Invisibility Cloaks sometimes, since the Demiguise can make itself invisible—I believe that’s the basis of the research being done, studying how the Demiguise cloaks itself and finding a spell to allow wizards to replicate the effect. But Disillusionment Charms are your best bet for a start—you can use it to enchant cloaks yourself, and it’s the dirtiest way to conceal yourself if you’re in a bind and don’t have the proper equipment on your hands. Of course,” Williamson adds sharply, “part of your training is to always prepare yourself so you don’t need to rely on patchwork, but it’s necessary to know, at any rate, in case you do find yourself in trouble.”

He’s leading the way past rows of cubicles to the back of the floor, where they all shuffle into the dank practice room that’s been designated for the Hogwarts Auror interns. By some Sunday mornings, Alice has half forgotten that she and a sprinkling of her classmates even have Ministry internships, what with all the blasted distractions up at the castle, but no matter: she doesn’t have time; she can’t be concerning herself with petty upsets when she’s got Auror training to do.

“It’s easier to do on others than yourself, so I’ll have you start out charming one another and go from there,” says Williamson. “The motions are simple enough, just a sharp rap on the head, but the focus it’ll take gets a little complicated. It’s one of the few spells for which we have no incantation, sort of this paradox where, to hide yourself, you’ll need a spell that itself can’t be perceived directly—that can’t be heard aloud, then, as one consequence. If we consider the theory…”

And he sprouts a chalkboard with a wave of his wand, dragging his hand from high above his head to the ground as the board materializes in its wake, and begins to write. Alice glances right, then left, then catches Kingsley’s gaze and drops it.

A quarter, a half, of an hour passes, and Alice’s eyes do not leave her parchment or her inkwell or Williamson’s chalky hands—

“Williamson?”

He drops in the middle of writing a differential equation: Dawlish’s voice at the door is terse. When Alice rests her quill on the desk, it’s parallel to her folded arms. “Now? It’s barely nine.”

“Moody’s calling us all in, it’s urgent. You’re going to have to leave them,” says Dawlish. “Morning, Shacklebolt, Longbottom, Abbott,” he adds, milder, after a short pause.

“Right. All right. Can you send in Dearborn, then? Or—”

“Can’t, all hands on deck.”

Williamson stammers a moment, then sweeps the board back into his wand and smiles weakly at the three of them. “You’re out early, then, I suppose. Catch a nap, practice on each other at home, be prepared to show me next week? Sorry to run out—you know how to show yourselves out,” he says, swooping toward Dawlish.

“No—there’s no time—does one of you know how to Disapparate?” Dawlish looks to be growing hysterical; Kingsley half raises a hand. “Take them with you? Here?” he instructs, and he hovers in the doorway until the three students vanish with a crack.

“Where d’you reckon they’re off to? It’s got to be a high priority mission,” muses Frank as they straighten out in the shadow of Dervish and Banges. 

“Hope there’s not a lot of casualties,” Kingsley says, and Alice wants to consider the possibility but can’t.

“Ten Galleons says we don’t see Dumbledore at lunch today.”

Kingsley waves goodbye as he stops off at The Three Broomsticks, and then Alice and Frank are alone, winding their way toward the castle in the fresh wind, Frank’s hands shoved in his robe pockets, Alice’s clasped together and twisting.

“You’re not saying much today,” remarks Frank, smiling gently.

“Just thinking about the lesson,” she says, returning it. “It’s frustrating we couldn’t, you know, accomplish much today, but the theory’s all very interesting—at least I’ve always thought. Transfiguration, I mean, because it really gets at the root of where magic comes from, trying to figure out when you get deeper into the math even though you can’t.” Sort of like God or Muggle physics, the push-and-pull. “Not that I’d rather talk semantics than fight the Dark, but at least we were able to get something out of it.”

“You’re so bright, Alice.” He lets his arms swing loose, and when his fingers accidentally brush hers, she feels a flicker of—something. Something that she doesn’t allow herself to entertain. “You’re not saying much lately in general, either.”

“No, I suppose not.” She clears her head of veelas and werewolves and faces.

“Whatever’s up, just don’t bottle it in too much, yeah?” Nod. “And you know I’m here?”

“I know. Thank you. I’m here, too.”

Full lips, round eyes. “Anyway, I think it’s rubbish we get sent home for the day instead of sent to do—something, I don’t know, anything. There’s a goddamned war going on, and you heard what Dawlish said, all hands on deck.”

“I know,” Alice says again. “I know, I think it’s rubbish, too, but they’ve probably got protocols to follow dealing with minors. They’re liable to Dumbledore, to the parents—our parents—if something happens—of course they’re not going to send us out.”

“Yeah, but even if they don’t send us out in the field. They could fill us in on the situation, couldn’t they? Leave out the names and locations and let us do something at least in the office, listen in on strategizing, anything. Don’t they want people to know what’s going on, what’s wrong, defend ourselves? Take care of each other? It just seems so…”

“Stupid,” supplies Alice, and he laughs. “I reckon you’re appreciating the Phoenix stuff around the castle, then?”

“That propaganda? Sure, the thought’s there, but I’ll buy it when I see it at work, mate.”

The grounds are beautiful, beautiful, against the owls flooding the sky with little black letters, and Alice assures him, “Mention it to the right crowd, Frank, and I expect you’ll be hearing from them soon enough.” He raises his eyebrows, goes to ask after her, but she’s walking backward toward the castle, breaking out into a rare, real smile; turning and skipping into the sun.

xx

They can’t meet all together, not yet, with Remus bedbound in the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey would have a field day if eight visitors showed up to talk to Remus all at once, so Peter ducks in there before leaving for the Ministry and brings Sirius a full report to relay to Alice. “Physically, he’s better off than normal—fewer injuries, probably few enough that he’ll be released by lunch, Pomfrey told him—but he’s in a bad place, Peter said. Apparently, he was half conscious all night but not enough to keep control.”

“That’s awful,” Alice says. “But Belby must be onto something, right? If Remus was at least partly aware of himself, compared to—normal.”

“Yeah, well, if it’s going to be like this until he gets it right, it better not be too many more months before he perfects it. Remus says it’s worth it long-term, but he assumes Belby’s going to eventually succeed.”

“And you don’t.”

“Not really, no.”

She looks down, back to the Daily Prophet in her lap that’s not yet flooded with the cautions and obituaries that she’s sure will come tomorrow. “You’re back early,” says Sirius.

“Williamson got called in for a mission. It sounded bad. Sirius…” He looks at her, and his face is hard and Alice is not what he wants, stubborn but frail and wordless and not big enough for him—at least, he seems to think she’s not. “I hate this war as much as you do.”

“Sure you do,” he tells her, but she knows he doesn’t mean it, and so must he. He’s always liked her least, chubby Alice with the ringlets and books, nose in her wand and mouth on her prefect’s badge, chin always pointed up above the masses, and this is Alice take it or leave it, but is it really, honestly? She likes novels and walks and dipping her toes in the lake, but she’s not sure it matters anymore, and she’s not sure where to find herself in there, so long she’s spent attending balls with her parents and writing essays in the library in neat, neat print. None of it feels real, and she’s not sure why she wants to be an Auror, maybe to try to put some of those essays to good use, maybe to make them real, maybe to feel like she’s real.

“I was like you once,” Sirius continues, and Alice looks up. “My family and I didn’t always hate each other. We got on all right in the beginning, but I started listening to what my cousin Andy—you know, Professor Tonks—had to say about Muggles being people, too, and they didn’t like that. They didn’t like me getting Sorted into Gryffindor, either, and it messed me up because I still wanted their validation. What made me not want to be like them was getting to know Peter.”

“Peter?”

“After our first week at Hogwarts, I told him he was ‘pretty cool for a Muggle-born,’ and James ripped into me so hard I probably still have scars from it. It’s easy to think you’re progressive without realizing all the little ways that you’re putting down Muggles and Muggle-borns—and, yeah, ‘half-breeds’ like Remus, too. When I found out he was a werewolf, I tried to put on a supportive face, but on the inside, I didn’t exactly react well.”

“I just don’t understand how it’s possible to become that—that thing every month and not have anything evil—or, or at least violent—inside you.”

Sirius’s face hardens. “Then I have nothing to say to you.”

The Ravenclaw common room is only sparsely occupied, most students probably still lazing around upstairs in their pajamas and drawing their curtains against the sun and its irony, so she’s careful to lower her voice so it won’t carry in the stillness. Flitwick expects to sort the common room passwords out by tonight, as he apparently announced at breakfast when she was at the Ministry, but Alice’s considering resetting them herself after curfew if he hasn’t gotten it resolved by then. Cramming every sixth year girl in the school into Dana Madley’s dormitory to sleep is getting exhausting, and the inter-house unity message is starting to wear off, now that the whole castle has been waking in the mornings with sore backs and crusty eyes. “Have you heard anything else from Dorcas Meadowes?”

Shaking his head, Sirius answers, “No, not since Friday. She waved hello this morning on her way down to breakfast, but she hasn’t come to talk properly at all. Probably giving it a few days to sink in.”

“And how’s it sinking?”

For once, the rigidity fades from his brow when he looks at her, not the other way around. “Heavy,” he says. “It’s—a lot, Al, what she’s suggesting. And how well do we even know this girl? Can we trust her? She’s a bloody Meadowes—”

“You’re a Black,” she reminds him, and he gapes for a moment.

“Yeah, well, she hasn’t exactly been burned off her family tree, has she? Just because she says she wants to use her connections against them doesn’t mean she’s playing them and not us.”

“All right, so how could she use this against us if we agree?”

A horrible brightness comes into his eyes, upturn upon his lips, and he lists off, “Frame us for crimes she plans and erasing any evidence that ties her to them. Giving false information so that we’re accidentally injuring our side instead of hers. Setting us up to get us unwittingly killed—”

“Right,” says Alice, not wanting to realize that a witch her age could be capable of murder, remembering Severus Snape. “Right. So we still keep ourselves out of it so she thinks it’s just you four—give her as little information as possible—and—what else? Talk to Fabian?”

“And get another person close to her involved? Really, given the circumstances, you think that’s a good idea? How do you know he won’t just turn around and report back to her—”

“We don’t. We can’t, but we’re going to have to give a little to find anything out about her, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, maybe, but we shouldn’t move too fast with this.”

Alice concedes, “Of course. What exactly was she proposing again?”

“Tracking down meetings of Death Eaters or their minions and attacking them, basically. She sounded about ready to terrorize any gathering of purebloods she could find, and much as I wish it was that simple…”

“Not all pureblood families are necessarily Dark sympathizers,” she supplies, thinking of the Potters, of herself.

xx

James makes great company for self-pitying, so she finds herself supervising his drinking in the Divination classroom most nights, incrementally swapping his Firewhiskey for butterbeer and ignoring his protests. “You can’t even get tipsy off this stuff,” he whines when by the end of the week she’s confiscated all the liquor; he swigs a butterbeer regardless, sucks on the mouth of the bottle between swallows.

“Oh, come on, you’re tipsy already. Tough up, you look pathetic like that,” she braces him, Vanishing the remainder of the bottle she found him with.

“It’s nobody’s business but mine, anyway, and I didn’t ask you to play bad cop.”

“You know I’m only here because Sirius is getting worried. Sirius, honestly,” she says, even though that’s not entirely true.

“Well, maybe it’s all bullshit. You lot make all these decisions for each other, you did it with Sirius and Marlene for years—”

“And you didn’t?”

“Maybe I’m done, then. Maybe I’ve had an epiphany that—that—you’re all codependent. You get sucked into each other and, and, you think you need to rag on each other all the time…”

“All right, James,” Alice appeases him, laughing.

He frowns dramatically. “You don’t care.”

“It doesn’t matter very much if you’re right or not, since you’re probably only thinking all of this because you’re halfway to drunk.”

“And coming back from it, thanks to someone in this room. So what if I engage in different extracurricular activities from yours?”

“Look at it like this, then: you’re waxing lyrical over alcohol every night and passing judgments on everybody else’s lives just to avoid your girl problems.”

He doesn’t even bother denying it, switching gears immediately and pouting over his bottle. “She’s moving in with Sirius, Alice! His uncle left him a shit load of gold in his will, and he’s getting a flat, and he asked her to live with him in it! All because she hasn’t got any money and her family’s dead! Won’t even look me in the face and now she’s hijacking my best mate’s place, too! How’m I supposed to be able to see him in the summers now without her goddamn face chasing me around?”

“Sirius can come visit you at your parents’,” Alice reminds him.

James hesitates, processing this new bit of information, but apparently deems it unsatisfactory because he carries on, “She’s just everywhere, Al. She’s just all over the damn castle, all the time. We get on, we don’t, we’re mates, we’re not, we’re snogging, we stop, and it’s just—it’s constant. Can’t damn get away from her. It’s like she’s throwing all these scraps and I keep taking them and then she takes them away again… kind of like you and the Firewhiskey!” he adds, beaming as the connection occurs to him and then wagging his finger.

“Sure,” says Alice. “If that’s what’s bothering you, then can’t you just stop waiting for her to go out with you so that it doesn’t give you such a hard time?”

“Right!” he exclaims, but his smile fades quickly. “Well, I tried that. Couldn’t do it. It’s always her who gets to pick, and I just sit here. Drinking. Do you ever try to do something you can’t?”

“Sure,” she says again, avoiding specifics.

“Anyway,” he continues, “Sirius is still mad at you. I’m mad at you, too, if what he said about what you said about Remus is true.”

Alice tenses, considers asking what exactly that is, and doesn’t. “I don’t owe you an explanation for anything.”

“I guess not, but what was it you said I like doing? Judge the shit out of other people?”

If he Petrified her, right now, she couldn’t get any stiffer. “I’ve never done anything to Remus, James. Certainly nothing on par with the things you’ve done to innocent people.”

“Oh, really, like who?”

“Snape, for one.”

He slams his butterbeer down with such force, she’s surprised it doesn’t crack. “Don’t call that little bugger innocent, Alice, I’m warning you, didn’t you see what he did to my face the last time we talked?”

“I’m not saying he still is,” she grants him, “but he’d never done anything to anybody when he was eleven, and that didn’t stop you then.”

It’s a low blow, maybe, but so was his, and Alice is tired of whispers and deaths and windows that won’t open when she’s sleeping, ones that suffocate, smirking, sparkling. Everyone keeps muttering that she’s going to boil over if she keeps up like this, and maybe they’re right; maybe they all can hear the whistling. She pops open her own butterbeer over the sound of his bleating and raises it to her lips.

xx

7 MARCH: BOTH SIDES SUFFER CASUALTIES IN SUNDAY MASSACRE AS CROUCH AUTHORIZES AUROR USE OF UNFORGIVABLE CURSES

Alice passes her copy of the Daily Prophet across the table to Mary to read; she doesn’t need to do more than breathe in the headline, not yet, to know all she needs. “Shit,” says Sirius. Marlene crowds Lily’s shoulder for a look, cheeks paling, and Peter’s entire head is buried behind his copy, pressed an inch away from his nose, only the topmost ruffle of his hair visible over the paper.

“The law only just passed on Friday,” says Remus, looking a bit peaky—whether from the news or from the full moon, Alice can’t quite tell. “Looks like Death Eaters heard about it and retaliated by storming the Atrium of the Ministry around nine o’clock, right when everyone was arriving to work. A lot of people got away by Disapparating, but it was crowded, some of the employees hung back to try to help the Aurors who went downstairs to sort it out…”

“That explains why Dawlish had us Disapparate upstairs instead of leave through the visitors’ exit,” says Alice. “Jeez. How many deaths?”

“They’re saying dozens. More of us than them, but there were more of us on site to take out before anyone knew what was going on,” Marlene answers. “Everyone was throwing Killing Curses, Aurors included. Dammit, I have to owl Doc, I have to…” She wrings her hands, pushes back her hair, pulls away strands and strands, shrugs off Lily’s hand on her back.

“Everyone knows someone who works in the Ministry,” says Peter. “The skies will be crowded, the school owls might all be taken by now—don’t worry if you don’t hear from him for a few days, yeah? He’ll be all right. You’ll be all right, Marlene, you will…”

Emmeline flings the paper away from herself, closes her eyes, stretches her neck as her head falls backward. “They don’t have an official count or list out yet—there were too many. And some of the Death Eaters showed up in plainclothes, so they can’t tell for sure which ones were Ministry workers who turned out to be working with You-Know-Who. But they don’t think anyone there was in his inner circle—he must have known it would be a suicide mission, he wouldn’t send out his most valuable assets.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” mutters Mary.

Lily’s rifling to the back of the paper now, skimming her finger down the editorials. “Look here, page 27—there’s a quote from Dumbledore criticizing Crouch’s ruling. Apparently, he’s letting the Wizengamot make verdicts without trials now; they’ve already sent three people to Azkaban, the families are speaking out. They were all robed and they’ve got plenty of witnesses, but it’s only a matter of time before…”

“Before they start apprehending the wrong people,” says Peter.

Marlene interjects, “But using the Unforgivables… it makes sense, doesn’t it? At least the Killing Curse does—if it means saving the lives of innocent people, of Muggles…”

“Some of them were using Cruciatus,” says Remus, shaking his head. “There’s no excuse for torture like that. No one should have the right to…”

“Shouldn’t they?” demands Sirius. “You haven’t met my cousin, you don’t know what they’re capable of, you haven’t seen what they deserve!”

“And the Aurors won’t let students help, and Dumbledore won’t let us join him,” Lily says. “Dammit, this is why I need to go into law enforcement—and Alice, you were right there. And I’m glad you got out and didn’t get hurt, you didn’t have the defenses to take them on, but…”

“We need to learn to take care of ourselves,” she says quietly. They all go still, watch her. “What if we were still downstairs when it happened? What then?”

Slowly, all eyes flick to Dorcas Meadowes’s seat at the Slytherin table.

xx

END OF PART FOUR

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Lily baffled James with her stony silence following a Christmas kiss (CH24, CH26). After Lily was orphaned and Sirius was disowned, the two rented a flat together to stay in on breaks and during the summer (CH31). Disillusioned by Lily’s trip to France (CH24) and the Ministry’s authorization of the use of Unforgivable Curses against Dark wizards (CH31), the Gryffindor sixth years consented to Dorcas Meadowes’s interest in turning their newly formed awareness and activist group, the Order of the Phoenix (CH26), into a terrorist organization (CH30). Mary and Marlene’s friendship suffered from Mary’s closeted feelings for Marlene (CH27) and jealousy of her friendship with Lily (CH24), while Emmeline made the effort to reconnect with the group (CH29).

xx

April 9th, 1977: James Potter

He bites his tongue, hard. She is so beautiful when she stands there, sits, used to jog across rooms to greet him and—once or twice—leant up to encircle his neck and smile. Her lips, though, so soft but commanding, too—enrapturing. Maybe it was just once, and maybe it’s been months, but that Christmas Day hasn’t fogged up and he replays it again, blows the cobwebs from the undone within her wet smile and her frightened almond eyes, oh she is so enchanting. She captivates him from afar and he chases the bones she drops, tail between his legs and tongue-flashing panting, and silly spoiled James has never known how to take no for an answer.

He doesn’t understand it, the interruption—they’d been doing so well, he’d thought, before. Perhaps he moved too fast, or startled her off, or the rumors all along were true about Lily and Snivellus; anyway, Lily is not his. James has loved her for so long and, god, he tried so hard to be what they thought she needed, but maybe that was manipulative or she thought it was manipulative or you can’t force what’s not there, at least not emotions, and James isn’t particularly interested in overpowering her body with his (not scare her, never harm her) or in slipping love potions into all of her goblets. No. Potters get everything they want (don’t they?), and so he’ll just keep perching at her feet, waiting to fetch a smile, a kiss; ignoring how it stabs him so when she sees him, then always droops a little and trudges off.

“Mate, you’re not making sense.”

“Shut it, Padfoot,” he growls after a very extensive silence; “that’s an excellent nap I was having, really excellent.”

Through the bleary film of his vision, he thinks he sees Sirius flash something between a grimace and a grin. “Think you’re getting your Animagi mixed up. Last I checked, I’m the one who, what was it, wags my tail and likes to play fetch?”

“Shut up!”

“Though I don’t know, man, you sort of botched it when you started muttering about love potions and how Lily—ow—how Lily gets so wet whenever she’s around—OI, let GO of—PRONGS!”

James lets go his chokehold on Sirius and glances around as he straightens himself—the crowd seems to have thinned, and they’re the only ones left in their compartment. “You want any suggestions where you can shove the attitude? And I don’t mean down your throat—”

“Lord, you wake up quick,” says Sirius. “Look, you need to get up anyway, train’s parked. Parents coming to get you first?”

“Nah, I told them to get me from your flat on—Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever it was—thought it’d be easier not to have to pack my trunk up again to meet you tomorrow.”

“Fine by me, but you get to do the honors of breaking it to Lily.”

“Right, okay,” says James, tripping over his feet a bit as his trunk clangs behind him.

“Careful, though, or you might give the lady an orgasm right there on the Knight Bus—”

“I’m warning you, Padfoot, one more time!”

“All right, all right.”

Sirius and Lily’s new flat—courtesy of Sirius’s inheritance from his uncle Alphard, may he rest in peace—is crammed in the back of one of those rent-a-room houses in Muggle London, across from the boiler room, where no neighbors will think to come inside. Good thing, too, because the place is chock full of dancing teapots and (none to Lily’s satisfaction) lingerie-clad models arching their backs within their portrait frames. As Sirius swings the door shut behind them, Lily’s already unrolling parchment scrolls from her bag and laying them out amidst newspaper clippings on the kitchen table, shoving moving boxes out of her way with the ball of her foot. “For tomorrow?” asks James.

“Yes.”

“Quite a bit of intel you’ve got there.”

“Brinn gave me lots to work with for when we went to France last winter. I’ve been collecting articles out of the Prophet ever since, and I started on Witch Weekly last month.”

“Witch Weekly?” says Sirius. “You must be spending too much time with Marlene. Oh, dear, James, I think she’s been indoctrinated.”

She shoots him a look, then goes back to flattening the rolls with a hunched back. If he could, James would work the knots out, but that time is over. “It’s more useful than you’d think, following high society.”

“Yes, well,” says Sirius.

“Just—wait for what she comes up with tomorrow, yeah?” James tells him. Lily freezes stock-still for just a second, but then it’s gone and she’s back to working.

They’ve got a few days to kill before the meetings—with Dorcas on Tuesday to lay out ideas and without on Wednesday to confer. It wasn’t long after the Unforgivable battle at the Ministry that took Dorcas up on her proposition and revealed the girls’ involvement, and they’ve come to some preliminary understandings—scale up the Order pranks to set the stage for future recruitment, but not unravel their plans yet to those interested, not until they’ve done enough scoping to have a concrete plan to lay out to others. Until then, they’ve been tracking potential candidates: Frank Longbottom, Elisabeth Clearwater, Fabian and Gideon Prewett.

Until then, Lily unsurprisingly throws herself into her books and away from James, although she concedes to bantering with Sirius in his tireless commitment to make the most of his new living arrangement with her. He takes James out for a couple of gorgeous nighttime runs on the flying motorbike. They go out shopping in questionable shops for more posters of even barer Muggle women. They swig drinks in wizarding nightclubs and swagger home to pester Lily.

On Monday afternoon, Marlene drops by with Mary in tow to check out the apartment and try to smuggle some words out of Lily. They’re successful in one of the two, anyway. “Oh, lord, this is adorable, so much character. Loving the slanted floors—and they’re wood, too, that’s nice—and that door. It’s so crooked. It’s so perfect.”

“Hullo, James,” says Mary, sidling away from Marlene and Sirius’s incredibly enthusiastic reunion.

“McKinnons treating you all right?”

“Uh-huh. It’s always really nice staying over there,” Mary answers, flashing a glance toward Lily’s general direction in the kitchen.

They put their feet up in the living room, catching up on Marlene’s siblings’ antics and the new flat. “Michael and Matt have been spending way too much time together now that Matt’s at Hogwarts—they’ve been raising hell for Mum the last few days. Em was actually over the other day to visit Maggie, which was—awkward. She’s really trying, I think, though. Tried making small talk with me and Mare and everything.”

“Wow. Well,” says Sirius. “She coming tomorrow?”

“I think so, yeah. I think we all are. Alice is none too happy about it, but there you go.”

“Arse,” Sirius says.

James cuts him a look. “You’re quiet, Mary.”

She shrugs. “It’s… it’s good to be here. With you all.”

“You, too, Mary.” They talk about the war—they always talk about the war—and then he catches her again as they’re packing up, while Sirius and Marlene are again enthusiastically exchanging goodbyes.

“It’s been—good with Marlene, though. It’s hard, too, because—well, Rem might have mentioned—but…”

“Mentioned what?”

“It—nothing. We were just weird for a while, but I think we’re better.”

“We all get weird sometimes,” says James. He’s weird; Lily’s weird. “We’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”

Dorcas (expectedly) and Emmeline (unexpectedly) are the first to arrive the next day and open Lily up properly for the first time since they got off the train. “Good to see you two, too,” she says, shaking Dorcas’s hand and a bit hesitantly returning Emmeline’s proffered hug. “How’ve you both been?”

“Good, you know, excited. Sort of tense about—yes,” says Emmeline. “Dorcas owled me, we went out shopping—”

“I’m commandeering your kitchen for a pot roast,” Dorcas informs them. “Potter, Black.”

“Meadowes,” returns Sirius.

“Here, I’ll show you in, I’ve got some papers all strewn out, I’m sorry, I was preparing…”

“Oh, no, you’re fine,” Dorcas tells her, striding inside with her and Emmeline’s bags. “Just thought it would be nice, you know, because…”

“Right, yeah,” says James. “That’s good of you, Meadowes, thanks.”

She goes all-Muggle while preparing it and lets it stew on the stove as they get started. “Thanks for this. You know, bringing me in. I know we’re not close, and I did spring it on you, cornering you when you were close to getting caught in trouble like that.”

“It’s not like we had much to go on ourselves before you came in, though,” says Peter, smiling. “It’s good having you here to help.”

“Thanks, Pettigrew. I mean, you weren’t totally stranded. Lily, you said you had some ideas worked out?”

“Yes,” says Lily, and she holds up a copy of—“Witch Weekly. I know it sounds far out, but if we’re trying to get into society for information, it’s actually a great start if you read closely. See, look here, two weeks ago they did an interview with some Selwyn woman, and her family’s hosting a gala next week that’s apparently supposed to be—well. And she name-dropped some of the guests, so I was scanning the Prophet archives in the library for any mention of their husbands—which is, I know, but they didn’t seem like the type of women who would… and anyway, well, some of them had spoken out before against some recent Muggle rights laws. You know, the new protections for wizard-Muggle marriages, things like that.”

“So you thought we should get in on it and bomb the place straightaway,” says Sirius. “Foresight, Lily.”

“God, no! No. No, I thought we could maybe find a way in, feel out the people there? Get on the guest list, check it out in advance to see if it’s anyone who knows anyone we know? Something, I don’t know, I know it sounds sketchy…”

“It’s a good thought, Lily,” James tells her, but she pointedly looks to Dorcas.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any connections, would you?”

Dorcas screws up her face in thought. “My aunt’s in with the Selwyns, I think, and she’s always riding me about ditching Fabian and spending more time in the family tradition. I could play on that and talk to her.”

“Um,” says Alice. Eyes flick to her. “Are you talking about Agatha Selwyn, Lily? Because I’m pretty sure my mum’s friends with her.”

“Uh… yeah, yes, Agatha Selwyn,” says Lily, checking the magazine.

“Great,” she says curtly. “That makes two of us who can probably get in, and—honestly, I could probably bring you with me, too, James. Our families know we’re housemates, and your parents—dabble in these things.”

He’s about to comment that he’s on board, glad to provide an extra set of ears since they obviously can’t all make it in, but that’s before Dorcas cuts in again. “Actually, you know what, Potter, my aunt would lap it up if I took you as my date.”

“Oh, hell,” he can’t stop himself from saying, and for the first time possibly ever, for a moment there, Dorcas doesn’t look assertive anymore.

Lily—most of them—is looking at him funny. Alice sits back. “When we were little,” James says precariously, “our parents considered setting us up in a betrothal. It’s not done as much anymore—Sirius’s family is big on it still, I know—so it didn’t pan out, but it was my parents who backed out, not Meadowes’s.”

“That’s brilliant, Dorcas,” says Remus. “Would anyone buy it, though, you think? Everyone knows you’re with Fabian, and James…”

“It’s common knowledge that James is after me,” says Lily frankly, not looking at him anymore.

“Not adults, necessarily,” Emmeline says. “And you know, you could actually make that work. Dorcas, how close are you and your aunt?”

“Fairly, when she’s not hounding me about the family.”

“Perfect. So you can owl her to maybe meet up for Easter, say something condescending about the party—say one of your mates is subscribed to Witch Weekly and was talking about it? Get her on the defensive, and make out like you’re reluctant to go, ask if you can bring James and Alice for moral support, casually mention that you’ve been talking lately to get her hopes up, insist that it’s platonic to make her hope that it’s not platonic.”

“Em, you’re a genius,” says Peter. “Lil, how soon is the party?”

“Er—Friday night next week, so we’d have some time to get you all in.”

“Wouldn’t be fishy that it’s on a school night, either,” Marlene adds.

Mary says, “So you go in and—what? Talk around about politics? You don’t want to incite anything, but you didn’t want to agree with pureblood politics, it’d be too suspicious and it goes against what we’re trying to do anyway. Only the people you want to get close to are the ones who might be in with You-Know-Who—you’ll have to be careful.”

“No. No, we can figure out who knows of them but disagrees with them,” suggests Alice. “It would take some careful social maneuvering, though.”

“Yeah, well, if anyone, you’d be good at that,” says Sirius, and Alice tenses.

“And Dorcas,” says Peter quickly. “Dorcas, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of practice, haven’t you? Growing up in your family?”

“They’re thick into it, yeah,” she tells them. “All right, so I’ll owl her about Saturday or Sunday and let you all know, but we should be a go. That’s really good thinking, Emmeline, Lily.”

“It just made sense,” says Emmeline, shrugging. “It’s mostly Lily.”

They keep on for a while but don’t come up with anything so concrete. Now: the waiting. They’ll not have much to talk about tomorrow, James knows, but he feels like it’s taking over their lives, the war, like they petty drama-distractions can’t hold up any longer against the shadow of the disappearances, the deaths. Sirius and Marlene haven’t even fought in months, he thinks.

Nope, no more drama that James can think of besides his silly head. He finally gets Lily alone that night, and it’s good timing, too, because he’s leaving for the manor tomorrow after they regroup. “You never look at me anymore,” he tells her, twisting his hands. “Why don’t you ever look at me anymore?”

And she looks at him, green-eyed. “I don’t know, James, I think I’m just… it was a lot, okay?”

“You’ve been icing me out for four months just because I kissed you. Four months for a kiss.”

“It was a…”

He leans in. She leans out. “Sorry,” James says.

“It’s all right.” Expectantly, he waits. “You’re always so full of… you’re very intense, especially—especially about me. And you’re an arse. You’ve always been an arse. And we never got on, and you bullied my best friend, and then you were around all the time so fast, and I don’t know who you are. You—honestly, you scare me.”

“I scare you. I scare you.”

“Not like that!” she says hastily. “Not—it’s just a bit much, James. I mildly disliked you, and then you were there after the car crash, and you were there at the dance, and we talked about the war, I went to your Quidditch games, and you kissed me and I haven’t—you’re so many things. I can’t pin any of them down. I miss Sev. I know he’s got no right, but James, I miss him sometimes.”

“Okay. Yeah, all right.”

“James, don’t be like this, please.”

“Why not? You’ve been like this. Four months, Lily.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s fair.”

She leans in. He leans in, too. Lily is rosemary and mango and curved hips under soft skin, and then she is gone.

xx

Dorcas’s robes are silver, like her eyes but less blue, or her hair but less blonde, and the whole effect goes quite pleasantly with her pencil nose and the sharp angles of her jaw. He could kiss her, too, because he’s an arse. Alice wears pink and a subtle narrowing of her eyes.

They leave Alice to make connections and step out onto the floor. “Spin me,” says Dorcas, and after that she leads—does it well, too. “You’re a bit of a flirt, James Potter.”

“Reckon I am, yeah. Less so this year, though.”

“Lily’s good for you. It’s awful, but I think the war’s good for you, too.”

“You’re terrible.”

“I do my best.”

She reminds him of Marlene, except less vicious, and stronger, too. “So you’re with Fabian.”

“Yes.”

“Most people aren’t too happy about that.”

“No—well, I can understand the reservations, but no. I’m like Black that way, but he doesn’t know that he’s like me, because my house colors are green.”

“That, and you don’t make a show of it. You came here, for instance,” says James.

“Black couldn’t have if he’d wanted, though.”

“There’s your difference, though, isn’t it? He couldn’t have come, and he wouldn’t have wanted to.”

“This is true,” Dorcas says. “Think we should find someplace to mingle?”

“Yeah, I reckon so,” he agrees, and the step out and into the other world.

Shortly thereafter, James finds himself tied up with Georgia Greengrass in all her champagne-chugging elegance. Her heels clack together as she supports herself against the wall. “Surprised to find you at a function like this, James. Didn’t your parents drop out of these when you were an itty bitty?—like this big—?”

“Oh, no, they didn’t set me up. I’m here with Dorcas Meadowes—her aunt talked to Mrs. Selwyn and had her invited last week. Always holding out for her niece to integrate herself into these things, you know.”

“Integrate. You’re a polite one, Potter. You all were betrothed for a while there, weren’t you? Who was it who pulled out, your parents? God forbid the Meadoweses back out, isn’t it?”

Oh, is she making this easy. “Yeah, the Potters have been getting away from it the last few years. The war, you know.”

“The war,” says Georgia, swigging. “I don’t understand why everyone associates us with that. We’re not all the Lestranges, you know. Some of us just want some respectable laws in place, you know, defending our rights against those—those…”

She seems to find herself incapable of expressing her distaste and so downs the rest of her glass instead, snatching up a new one from a passing waiter and smacking the old onto his platter a bit too forcefully. The waiter scowls but entirely evades Georgia’s attention as he tiptoes around her to safety.

“One of my mates’ cousins married a Lestrange a while back,” James slips in.

“No good, those ones. Keep away from that mate of yours, honey. Charleses, Averys, you know. No one here, thank god, the Selwyns have fine taste, just fine. Exquisite, even.”

“Charleses, huh?”

“That Reggie Charles. Look out, boy.” Too easy.

Alice and Dorcas, too, have compiled their own lists of surnames by the time James checks in with them: Terrius, Mulciber, Cunningham, Nott—more than enough to do some digging around to identify how deep their political alliances really run. Bedraggled, they latch onto Dorcas’s arms to Apparate out around one.

It really is a beautiful ballroom: French doors, windows that span the walls, creamy parquet floor, arched ceiling decked out with a mural and everything. In it, dancers dip lower than Dorcas did tonight, and their paint-swabbed floor is darker than blood.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Frustrated with Dumbledore’s refusal to let students join his covert, anti-Voldemort organization (CH12), the Gryffindors joined forces with Head Girl Dorcas Meadowes to shift their focus from educating youth about pureblood privilege (CH26, CH28, CH29) toward illegal, underage involvement in the war (CH30), starting with gathering names of potential Death Eaters at a high-society gala (CH32). Mary grappled with her repressed feelings for Marlene (CH27) and jealousy of Marlene and Lily’s friendship (CH24). Mary and Alice learned about the pureblood political motivations behind the sexual repression rampant in Wizarding law, including a thriving underbelly prostitution industry (CH27).

xx

April 17th, 1977: Marlene McKinnon

They’re hurtling along the Hogwarts Express back from Easter holiday, and sometimes Marlene feels like she’s living in transport—toward fitting somewhere and toward the war she doesn’t want but doesn’t want to miss, either, now that Muggles’ blood is spilling in motion too. The past weekend was a blur of so many purist families’ names just lying in her lap with no place to take them out, and she wishes she were huddled with her eight Gryffindors and Dorcas in a compartment now, because their laps are full too and that’s so much less lonely—but that’s not the plan, and if they have a shot in hell at pulling this off, Marlene’s going to have to suck it up and stick to the plan, something she’s never been particularly adept at doing.

No, they’ve got to split up, they’ve got to branch out, because Marlene’s got to recruit—which honestly feels sort of hilarious, as if there’s some kind of go-to criteria to use when deciding whom you can trust to join up with your covert terrorist group. Because there’s no flowchart to decide these things, especially when the gang hasn’t even been able to gauge whether most students are with or against the purists—but she’s got to recruit, hasn’t she? And the ten of them can’t go about doing that if they’re grouped up in a corner scaring off newbies and making it more than obvious that they’re the ones behind the pranks.

So here they are, Marlene and Mary and Lily, all bunched up in the corner of their compartment to leave room for anybody who looks like a safe bet—the train gathers speed—and suddenly Millie LeProut’s moldy-bread scent precedes her as she creaks open the door and sidles inside to join them.

“Oh, hi, Marlene,” says Millie breathlessly, slowly sliding the door back and not turning around again until they hear the gentle click of it closing. “Is it—I mean, everywhere else is filling up, so would it be okay if I were to—?”

“Oh! Yeah, go right ahead—Millie, this is Mary—Lily—” Mary waves her hand once with a raised eyebrow; Lily shrugs and purses her lips into a half-smile “—and this is Millie, did you know she’s the Quidditch commentator this season?”

“No, I didn’t place it,” says Mary, but Lily braces herself into a wider smile and tells Millie, “You’ve been doing a really good job at it, you know. It’s nice meeting you face to face.”

“Thanks. Lily—then you’re Lily Evans, right? So you must know what James Potter is up to—”

Marlene interjects, to save face for Millie. She’s not sure why she’s saving face for Millie, unless it’s just Lily rubbing off on her. “We’re a little infamous, you know, dating right little Quidditch heroes and pranksters as we are.”

“I am not dating James Potter.”

“Yeah, just snogging him occasionally.”

“Mary!”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Mary dismissively, “and yeah, we’re close enough to him and his housemates.”

Stiffening her shoulders, Millie says, “So why are—so when are you all going to stop—I know it’s them doing the Phoenix stuff, I know it is!”

Because she can tell from Mary’s paling face, and because she’s doing her damndest to stick to the plan, Marlene cuts in, “So what if they were? It’s messy what they’re up to—why would anybody want to get themselves mixed up in—”

“Well, Sirius avoids me every time I see him,” says Millie, and Marlene feels a pang of something she can’t place somewhere in her lower abdomen, “and I can’t talk to them, and I’m talking to you, and I want to help.”

Smiling, Marlene answers, “That doesn’t mean there’s anything to ‘help’ with.”

“I’m a Ravenclaw. We pay attention. I know I’m not good for much spellwork—I know that—it was my dad, all right? Last year. I pay attention. I want to help.” She says it in a drawn-out quiver with her head held high, and Marlene glances at Lily for a long moment, then Mary.

Guardedly, Lily starts, “We don’t know them well enough to tell, Millie… but…”

“Well, anyway, they would want to help, too, wouldn’t they? He’s a Black. Wouldn’t you want to find who to help, too? And Lily—you’re—wouldn’t you?”

Mary’s lips are as thin as McGonagall’s get every time Sirius and James join forces with Peeves in the corridors. “My parents were Muggles,” Lily says softly. “Let’s all keep an eye out for you, all right?”

“But don’t—”

“I’m sorry about your dad. We’ll keep an eye out. Do you want to sit down? The trolley should be coming around soon…”

Millie’s face contorts to the point that her pimples flush white, and then the corners of her mouth turn up as she says, “Well—okay. Thanks.”

Marlene elbows Mary hard in the ribs as Lily scoots closer to the window across from them to make room. It takes an additional stomp of the foot for Mary to drop the glare and hedge, “So there’s a Quidditch match coming up pretty soon, isn’t there? Hufflepuff against Slytherin?”

“Yeah, there is.” Millie latches on quickly, adding in a rush, “It’ll be hard to gauge, don’t you think it’ll be? Hufflepuff’s only leading them by twenty; each team’s gotten one game each so far, and Slytherin has Black—Regulus, I mean, not…”

xx

They’re harder to see in the dark, but Mary’s been sporting dark rings under her eyes all day. Marlene can’t stop staring at her cheekbones trying to make the bags out as Mary tugs shut the curtains of Marlene’s four-poster and perches on the mattress. “You’re up late,” says Marlene.

“Yes, well, you were out late,” Mary points out.

“Fair enough,” says Marlene. She might have stayed out the whole night, too, if she’d wound up falling asleep with Sirius in the boys’ dormitory, but Peter had interrupted before she could’ve done so. And while Marlene knows (and believe her, she’s grateful) that he won’t harp on teasing them about it for days after like James or Remus might have, by merit of Peter being Peter, the whole thing was painful enough to drive Marlene right back out to her proper dormitory.

Mary prods, “Hot date?”

“Something like that.”

Alice shushes them loudly. Then Lily shushes Alice, and then comes the thump of someone either shoving a pillow over her head or else hurling a pillow across the room into someone else’s head—Marlene can’t tell which it is.

Eyebrows narrowed, Marlene’s legs twitch as she pulls the sheets over herself and twitch even more when Mary clambers in after Marlene under the covers, even though Mary maintains a friendly distance. Peter had walked in at a really inconvenient moment for Marlene.

In a harried whisper Marlene doesn’t recognize, Mary goes on, “I’ve been trying to catch you alone all day, but you ran off as soon as we got off the train, and…”

“I—yeah. What about? If you’re worried about Millie—”

“Millie?”

“On the train. Quidditch commentator. Look, I know she’s a little overeager, but she means well, you know? And I think she could really—”

“Oh, her. Not about Millie,” says Mary. “It’s about… listen, I don’t think this is working.”

Marlene stretches her legs out and pulls the blankets more snugly up her shoulders, even though it’s stuffy inside the hangings around the bed. “What’s not working? Recruitment? We just started looking, Mare. These people aren’t going to get on board overnight.”

“No—well, not exactly. Maybe we’ll find people, maybe not, it’s like… I mean our strategy, though.”

“Strategy for what?”

“That’s my point.” When Marlene doesn’t answer right away, Mary lets out a puff of taut breath; Marlene tilts her head down to avoid the smell. “We got lucky with the ball, but we can’t just count on being able to con our way into functions and—and get names off a bunch of sloppy housewives—and then what? We don’t know what they’re planning or when they’re meeting or—or even which ones of them are actually in You-Know-Who’s circle.”

Sighing, Marlene says, “I know that, Mare, but we’re doing what we can with what we have, yeah? It’s a starting point. We can talk tactics more in the morning; we’re both free second period—”

“I’m sick of talking tactics. I… need to do something.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that going to be, exactly?”

“Well, there’s underground.”

“And what’s going to help us that’s underground?”

“Me,” Mary says.

Marlene’s chest goes hot, even hotter than her lower belly already is. “No.”

“But I haven’t even told you what I’m going to do yet.”

“Doesn’t matter what you’re going to do. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

“You sound like Alice.”

“Mary,” she says, glaring at Mary through the sting of it, and Mary stares back. Marlene can’t read her—when did she and Mary unlearn how to read each other? “Mare,” Marlene says again, “you’re from a Muggle family; you wouldn’t understand. It’s not safe to get sucked into underground society stuff.”

Mary insists, “You go there. You sneak out all the time to bars and places—”

“To go dancing. Or drinking. I’m not talking about the geographical location; it’s the people you don’t want to get mixed up with. They’re not good people. No skin off their back if they let a name slip and have to—hurt you.”

“What, do you think I’m not prepared to risk being injured? Lena, this is a war that we’re joining. It’s an actual, real, live war. We signed up for the same thing. And I’ll have leverage.”

“Like hell you’ll have leverage,” Marlene mutters.

“Yes, I will, actually,” sniffs Mary. “Against their reputations.”

“Mare. If you’re talking about prostitution, I’m not letting you do that to yourself.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” Mary’s shaking off the blankets and swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress. Sitting up a little, Marlene thrusts out a hand to grab at Mary’s forearm, but Mary yanks it away. “You don’t get to tell me what I can’t do. You screwed up this friendship, okay—”

“Wait, what, back up. I didn’t screw up anything. You got all weird—”

“Because I’ve been going through stuff! Stuff you’d know about if you hadn’t—discarded me—”

“Discarded, oh, really—”

“—The second Lily came running, and I’ve been trying, okay, I really have, but like—”

But Mary’s cut short abruptly when Alice barks in a croaky voice, “Can you please just take it to the common room or something? Some of us actually plan on going to Charms in the morning.”

“I have Charms, too,” Marlene snaps, but Mary’s already pushed through the curtains and stumbled back to her own bed, and none of it’s any use anyway.

Underground… it’s all a sleepy blur, but Marlene knows enough from Sirius’s heritage and the veela and her mum’s cautions that pureblood nightlife, especially where it concerns infidelity, isn’t something anyone wants to get caught up in. Not the people Marlene cares about, screwed up or not, and certainly not someone as blustering as Mary is.

The sick feeling in her chest is getting thicker, and she tries to count her breaths and nothing else until she falls asleep.

xx

She cuts Charms the next morning and heads to the library to think because she knows it’s the last place anyone trying to find her might think to look. It’s even muggier there, somehow, than in the rest of the castle, and Marlene dawdles at the shelves and pokes around in books at random, sure that she’ll doze off if she sits down.

She can’t decide how she feels about Mary—or, anyway, how she feels about Mary’s outburst last night. Even if Mary’s having doubts about it, Marlene knows exactly what she thinks of Mary herself: a little shallow, a little self-absorbed, but honestly, Marlene is those things too, and maybe that’s why she’s lost some of her patience with Mary over the past year—because they bring that out in each other. But at least Mary is thoughtful and kind and trying, which is more than Marlene can say for herself most days.

And maybe Mary doesn’t have it completely backwards thinking Marlene left her when apparently Mary needed her support. But that’s no reason to go on some illegal sex bender, and Marlene doesn’t see what motivation Mary could have except to make Marlene notice her by lashing out. Marlene’s not going to play that game, not if what she knows about how clients treat veela is any indicator of what they’ll do to Mary.

Marlene may not have a history of making the best sexual decisions in the world, but all of hers with Sirius were consensual, at least. Consent gets dubious when pureblood money gets mixed up in it; there’ll be no self-respecting defense against brutality if Mary reduces herself to a transaction, at least not in anyone’s eyes except Marlene’s and maybe Remus’s, and god knows that where the law is concerned…

No, Marlene can’t let this become a thing, even if Mary resents her for it. Marlene knows she’s got no say over what Mary does or doesn’t do—she’s lost her legitimacy; Mary made that much clear—and it’s a damn shame, too, because Mary’s got a lot of mates but not a lot of confidants. Her windpipe constricts for a fleeting moment as Marlene realizes that she’s honestly got no idea whom Mary’s been telling things to without Marlene all year. Maybe Peter. Maybe Remus. They’ve got the softest edges, and they judge the least harshly, out of probably anyone Mary knows.

If she doesn’t want to alienate Mary, she can’t send them both after her—she’ll feel bombarded and just retaliate by delving in faster. Between the two, Peter’s much more stable and probably more likely to protect her privacy; Remus is a wreck of self-loathing, but maybe he’s more relatable, then, because of the werewolf thing. Peter or Remus? Think fast; these are the pivot points.

Peter, she decides. Inhaling shakily, Marlene edges her way out of the shelves and sets off for Gryffindor Tower.

xx

Peter takes the news with the stoic commitment she’d expected from him, but when she doesn’t hear anything else from him half a week later, Marlene can’t help but get increasingly anxious. “Can you just trust me, okay?” he says when she corners him after Defense Against the Dark Arts. “I know you’re just worried about her, and maybe she knows that too, but I shouldn’t break her trust and spread around anything she might say—and I’m not saying she’s said anything!” he adds quickly, reddening.

“I just want to know she’s not going to do anything daft. She’s my mate, too. My best mate.”

“Then you know she’ll come to you about it when she’s ready to, you know? I’ve got this. Really.”

As much as Marlene’s inclined to trust him, he more days pass, the more she catches herself watching Mary in the corner of her eyes like she’ll disappear to someplace bad as soon as Marlene looks away, her muscles progressively tensing up throughout the evenings and not relaxing until Mary reenters the dormitory for the night. Mary doesn’t broach the topic again, and Marlene doesn’t push it, a little because it would be unwise and a lot because she doesn’t want to hear what Mary might say about her next.

So she busies herself with other things, unsuccessfully, instead. Not classes—her marks are a mess this year, to no surprise, and she doesn’t think it would be worth it to try to catch up before finals season. She has Lily, though, and Sirius, and a list of pureblood surnames on parchment, and those at least are concrete things Marlene can hold onto.

Like now, for instance, when she buries her beet-red face in the crook of Sirius’s neck as Professor McGonagall snaps the broom cupboard door shut and waits for them to get dressed and follow her into the corridor. “Dunno about you, but I’m getting really damn sick of people walking in on us shagging,” Marlene mutters into his collarbone.

“New high score,” says Sirius, and she swats at him halfheartedly with one hand while unsuccessfully trying to pull up her panties with the other.

McGonagall’s forehead looks lined and ancient to Marlene once she staggers out of the closet and looks at the professor properly in the light. Is that new, or has she just never had reason until now to pay attention?

“Come with me,” McGonagall tells them, heading down the corridor so briskly that Marlene nearly has to jog to keep pace with her.

“But that’s the way to Dumbledore’s office, not yours,” Sirius says when they reach the nearest staircase and McGonagall starts climbing up, not down.

“Professor Dumbledore’s office,” she says, her lips hardening.

“But we’re seventeen!”

“Mister Black,” says McGonagall, and Sirius drops it.

Marlene hasn’t been to Dumbledore’s office—or, for that matter, spoken to Dumbledore at all—since the beginning of the year, when she’d just failed training for her Auror internship and he’d invited her to join the war effort after her graduation. There’s a hideous symmetry to the thought that she’s started a war effort of her own between this visit and the last one that makes her stomach itch and her face heat up.

Barely registering the password (“Sugar Quill”) that McGonagall puts forth when they reach the gargoyle guarding the Headmaster’s tower, Marlene takes a second to shake her head and snap herself back from her thoughts—it doesn’t work—before following McGonagall up the stairs and coming to a halt outside Dumbledore’s office door, Sirius close behind her. He sneaks in a light kiss to the top of her head when McGonagall isn’t looking, but it makes Marlene feel more testy than reassured.

“Yes, Minerva?” says Dumbledore when McGonagall steps into his office, Marlene and Sirius dawdling in the doorway. He too sounds tired.

“In a broom cupboard on the second floor,” McGonagall offers by way of explanation, jerking her head slightly in their direction.

“Indeed. That will be all, Minerva, thank you.”

She nods curtly to Dumbledore, and the look she casts at Marlene as she edges past them through the doorway isn’t one of anger but of—fear, maybe, or concern.

“Do come in,” he says to Marlene as she stands stricken in the doorway. Tensing her shoulders, she eases into the office and takes a seat in the remaining chintz armchair across the desk from Dumbledore (Sirius has already strewn himself across one of them with a careless slouch).

Dumbledore continues, “Mister Black, always a pleasure,” and Sirius grins—it’s not uncommon for McGonagall to haul him and James off to the headmaster for a particularly disruptive prank, which seems to happen at least every few weeks. “Miss McKinnon, sherbet lemon?”

“No,” she says, folding her hands in her lap.

“Very well,” says Dumbledore, and he helps himself to one instead. There’s a moment in which they stare at each other across the desk, Dumbledore’s eyes twinkling even though they’re creased with fatigue, and then he leans back in his armchair and says, “Miss McKinnon, last time we spoke, I asked you to keep a secret for me. Have you upheld that promise?”

“No,” Marlene repeats, quieter this time.

“No, I imagined you had not as soon as I saw the firecrackers in the Great Hall. I must admit, I was impressed; that particular piece of magic outshone even what I have come to expect from you and your friends, Sirius—”

Hotly, Sirius interjects, “For all you know, that wasn’t us—”

“Mister Black,” says Dumbledore, raising his hands slightly, “it is more difficult in these times than ever to discern whether another wizard’s intentions are with the dark or the light. Let us not play games with one another.”

Sirius falls quiet, and Marlene asks before even thinking about it, “We’re not here to talk about what Professor McGonagall saw us doing, are we?”

“No, Miss McKinnon, we are not.” He surveys them both for a moment, then adds, “I had hoped that you and your classmates had intended to keep your endeavors in outreach strictly educational for the rest of the student body, but I fear I underestimated your conviction to make a difference on the front lines.”

“But Professor—”

“I have a contact,” Dumbledore continues as though Sirius hadn’t spoken, “who, as a long overdue favor, was kind enough to pass along the names of any students of mine in attendance at last week’s gala. Forgive me if I do not for a second believe that Mister Potter and Miss Meadowes have truly decided to resume their childhood betrothal.” Marlene intently studies the beads of sweat slowly forming on her clasped hands. “These are admirable intentions motivating your actions, no doubt, but I had hoped that I had sufficiently impressed upon you the dangers of diving into battle underage.”

“We haven’t dived into battle, though,” Marlene says.

“Yet,” says Dumbledore. Beside her, Sirius stiffens a little in his seat. “Miss McKinnon—Mister Black—is there anything, anything at all, that either of you would like to tell me?”

She doesn’t trust herself to stay quiet if she looks at either of them, so Marlene keeps her eyes peeled to her lap and bites her lip over and over.

Too many seconds pass by before, finally, Dumbledore abates. “Please know that you are welcome—all of you—to come to me at any time.”

“Right,” says Sirius. “That’s all, then?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s all,” Dumbledore confirms, and as she propels herself to her feet, Marlene wonders when exactly everything got so hard to see.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Dorcas and the Gryffindors began recruiting others to join the Order of the Phoenix (CH33), while Marlene turned to Peter for help upon learning Mary’s plans to gather information from within underground pureblood society (CH33). Em made efforts to rejoin the group but never fully repaired her friendship with Sirius (CH29) after explosively revealing the reason that it ended in the first place: the murder of her parents as Bellatrix Lestrange’s Death Eater initiation rite (CH26). Andromeda accepted a job as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor (CH8), but Sirius refused to open up to her in spite of her presence throughout the year. Marlene and Sirius discovered that Dumbledore knew the group had mobilized for the war (CH33).

xx

April 25th, 1977: Sirius Black

They've barely walked ten paces away from the gargoyle guarding the stairs to Dumbledore's office when Sirius flings open the door to the nearest boys’ restroom and beckons Marlene to follow him inside. “Honestly, Sirius, McGonagall just—”

“Not to shag,” he says. There’s no one at the urinals, but ducking his head to check for feet, he spots a pair in one of the far stalls and barks, “You in the corner! Hurry it up!”

“Sirius, really,” sighs Marlene.

He slouches against the stone wall, feeling the coldness of it grind into his back, and when Marlene lays her head on top of his, he doesn’t adjust around her. “I don’t have all day to wait around for you, mate,” Sirius calls out.

“For god’s sake,” responds a familiar voice from the stall, and moments later, there’s a flushing sound and Benjy Fenwick emerges. “You couldn’t just take her to your dormitory, Sirius?”

“Screw off, Fenwick.”

“Sirius,” Marlene chides.

Benjy rolls his eyes, smiling, and kicks a few squares of toilet paper off his heel as he turns on the faucet. “Bloke can’t even go to the loo around here without getting—”

“Fine. You want in? Fine,” says Sirius. Marlene starts telling him to not, but he cuts across her to add, “It’s us, Ben. It’s us who’s been doing the pranks—”

“—Good on you!—”

“—Only it’s more than pranks, and apparently Dumbledore knows it, and I dunno how I’m supposed to get anything done around here if Minnie’s going to be breathing down our necks every time we try to…”

Benjy fumbles around in the sink for the bar of soap he’s just dropped, then shuts off the water without bothering to rinse his hands clean of it. “What’s more than pranks supposed to mean?”

Sirius and Marlene exchange a look, and Marlene begins, “Well, it started as just an education thing, you know—”

“Yeah, I got that part—”

“But things were getting… worse out there, and we needed to do more. We’re still trying to figure out what more, but at least we’re trying.”

Benjy’s eyes dart from Marlene to Sirius back to Marlene again, and he wipes soap scum all over the sides of his robes. Sirius doesn’t like the way their voices are echoing against the walls. “Who’s ‘we?’”

“The nine of us—the nine Gryffindor sixth years—and Dorcas Meadowes,” Marlene says tiredly. “There are a few others in on it, too, but no one else knows much yet. It’s hard—you think you know people, and then…”

“Right, yeah,” says Benjy with a slight tremor in his voice. “I’ll—well, I’ll help, of course I’ll help. Liz would, too, I bet, and maybe Eddie.”

“You work on that, then,” grunts Sirius, and Benjy gives them a sharp nod on his way out.

He finally looks at Marlene properly as the door swings shut behind Benjy, and her eyes are narrow and wrinkled around the edges. “That was risky.”

“He was on our list!”

“That was reckless; you know it was reckless. It’s like you just said; Dumbledore’s onto us now…”

“All the more reason to push harder and prove we’re not just school kids,” Sirius insists. “But that’s not what I wanted to get you alone for.”

“No?”

“No. I wanted,” he says, lightly skimming her cheekbone with the back of his hand, “to check in with you about—whatever that was back there with Dumbledore. You seem pretty affected.”

“I am pretty affected by it,” replies Marlene, turning her head down, her shoulders hunched. “You don’t… it’s complicated.”

When Sirius puts his thumb under her chin to tilt it up, she nudges out of his reach. He studies her—broad forehead, thin lashes, brown complexion—and he tells her, “You affect me,” and the momentary upturn of the corners of her lips looks real to him.

These days, they never talk about how things stand between them. He can still see it that same taut smile of hers sometimes: the self-righteous condescension and the he always left her buried deep someplace where he’s got no idea how to broach it—to dredge up hardness where there’s no space for it anymore, you know, with the war. Marlene is a thicket of accusations, and she’s never taken accountability for her own autonomy, not with him or with Mary or with getting tossed out of her Auror internship. And yet she’s got soft pockets that peek out sometimes, mostly when she’s made to feel shame, and with the possible exception of Em, Sirius has never known how to step back and let anybody so haughty run round with bruises so blotchy.   

They don’t talk about themselves anymore, and Marlene’s smiles are getting kinder, and Sirius reckons he can live like that at least a while longer.

They part ways when they reach the common room, Marlene pressing her lips to his cheek uncharacteristically chastely when she says goodbye, and when Sirius clambers up the stairs and into the dormitory, he’s surprised to find all the beds empty, with Remus gone and James and Peter facing each other, cross-legged, on the floor. “Where’s—?”

“Prefect patrols,” Peter explains.

“Yeah, well, he’s not doing a great job of them tonight. By comparison, it would’ve been excellent for Moony to walk in on me and Marlene instead of goddamn McGonagall.”

James winces. “Tough break, mate. Sit down, have some candy, it’ll help.”

Sirius flops down next to Peter and catches the pack of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans that James tosses to him, but he gets pepper and bogey and gasoline on the first three tries, so he gives it up and nurses a Sugar Quill instead. “She sent us to Dumbledore, but he didn’t even care, just gave Marlene this veiled bull about suspecting we’re mobilizing and how disappointed he is in her, and then we recruited Benjy Fenwick in the bathroom on the walk back—”

“Kinky,” says James, and Sirius pelts him with the remaining Every Flavor Beans.

“Well, we knew Dumbledore would probably deduce what we’ve been doing sooner or later after we stopped the pranks to focus on actually making plans,” says Peter with a sigh, “and we all agreed that if anything we ought to try and speed things up if we’re caught—”

“Which clearly you’re still on board with doing if you’ve already grabbed Benjy,” James adds. “You didn’t waste any time there, did you?”

“He swallowed it easily enough,” says Sirius. “Offered to talk to Ed and Elisabeth, too.”

“Also not surprising,” James says, flicking a bean into the air and catching it in his mouth. “That’s got to be—have we already talked by now to everybody we’d had in mind?”

Nodding, Peter says, “I think that should be everyone. Meadowes already talked to Fabian, who’s working on Gid; Alice got Longbottom last week…”

“Marlene’s planning on talking to Millie LeProut this week,” Sirius adds.

“Who?”

“Quidditch,” Peter supplies.

“Oh, right.”

Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, Sirius interjects, “Do we have any alcohol? I could do to forget about the fact that I’ve got McGonagall in the morning.”

“Not anymore,” says Peter apologetically. “Remus flushed the last of it with James over the weekend. He’s cutting back because of Lily.”

“Shut it,” James says lazily.

“I’m glad to hear you’re taking better care of yourself, but do it for you, not for her, mate. Reforming for other people never turns out to be enough.” Fleetingly, Sirius thinks of Mum chucking him out, of the Howlers that only ever made him feel even more determined to consort with impurities up at school.

“Okay, okay. God.”

Mum, Marlene, Emmeline—considering the kind of women lurking under the trapdoors in Sirius’s head, at least the one in James’s life appears to be a good influence on him. He’s not saying he doesn’t love Marlene, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through when Marlene is your girlfriend, and she’s not exactly the unconditional type, is she?

He’ll always have James, though, and Remus and Peter. A surge of affection for the three of them bubbles up now, and Sirius slides down to rest with his back on the floor, crossing his arms behind his head. “You both know I would do anything to save you, right? Even if the mess was my fault.”

“Us too,” says James, his voice strained.

“The mess is all of our faults already,” Peter mumbles. “Let’s… let’s never blame each other for what we do to protect each other, all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” James answers. “Is everything—is there something going on, Wormy?”

Peter doesn’t answer at first but finally says, “Mary’s got some things going on, but I’m handling it.”

Tilting his head to look at Peter, Sirius considers asking what’s the matter but decides against it. Peter’s never been one to betray anybody else’s privacy even under pressure, and if anyone knows how to decipher Mary to help her with—herself, it certainly isn’t Sirius. “Right,” he says, “well, you can always let either of us know if you need backup with it. Remus too.”

“Thanks, Padfoot,” Peter says quietly, and the matter drops.

xx

The thing about Emmeline is she’s not nice and neither is he, and unlike Marlene, Em’s got no interest in pretending otherwise. He avoids catching her alone when he can nowadays, but unfortunately for Sirius, he isn’t the only Gryffindor who skips Transfiguration the next morning.

The soft pressure at the foot of his bed when Em takes a seat there is what wakes him, and at first he expects to see Marlene when he opens his eyes—it’s not like he’s used to finding anybody else in bed with him in the mornings, except occasionally one of the boys, and he already knows from the racket they made before breakfast that none of them skived off class. It’s a weird, shameful thing, the girl you think is in your bed turning out to be somebody else entirely. It used to happen to Sirius in fourth year sometimes, when he’d skipped straight from Em’s friendship to Marlene’s favors (for lack of any good words), and both then and now, it’s always given him a quicksand sort of feeling, dry and tight and chafing beneath his ribcage.

“You’re missing Transfiguration,” Sirius says blearily.

“So are you.”

“Did you want to get under?” he offers, not because he wants her to but because he’s not sure what else she’s waiting for.

“Oh, Sirius,” she answers, and her voice breaks like violin strings in the winter, and it’s the frigidity that makes him push himself up against the headboard. Em’s twiddling her thumbs like engines, and Sirius wonders what she’d do if her reverie broke—cry, probably. “You think I want things when I don’t. I don’t enjoy seeing you. This isn’t good for me.”

Well, she got that last part right, if nothing else. “You think I spend all my time making assumptions about you.”

“Don’t be that way. I already know I never occur to you,” she fires, but she’s wrong there, too. Just because he doesn’t hide out in the past like Em does doesn’t mean she never crosses Sirius’s mind—hell, he has to look at her just about every day across their politics, remembering her hands and averting her eyes.

“What do you need?”

She rolls her eyes and answers, “I just thought you’d want to know we’re meeting with Dorcas again before lunch to check in about recruitment and follow up on names.”

“Mary could have told me.”

“Mary doesn’t know. I’m telling her after she wakes up.”

“Oh, so she gets to sleep in?”

“You’re so crotchety in the mornings,” says Em.

He’s not sure why he’s feeling belligerent today—because he’s fresh out of patience for any more of her mixed signals, maybe, what with the way nobody is screaming loudly enough about the damn war going on. He wonders how much his detachment affects her, then stuffs the thought away with black envelopes in a corner somewhere.

It might’ve been the dream he’d been having: the details are already fading, but there’s an agitation in the pit of his stomach that hadn’t been there when he was swapping candy and misery with Peter and James the night before. His father had been in the dream, he’s pretty sure, and Bellatrix and some kind of inferno.

“Fine, don’t appreciate the favor,” Em says, but he’s pretty sure she didn’t do it for him.

He knows the feeling. He’s been there—in fourth year, when in a blink she was gone and Sirius was left revved up and skulking in the cobwebs, gunning for a blowout to match the ones circling in his mind. These days, Sirius channels his eruptions into pranks and Defense class and hideaway plots, and he doesn’t take pause, and he doesn’t care when the stitches are splitting.

Speaking of Defense, that’s not going great, either. Take this week, for example, when he just about blinds Alice with a well-aimed Conjunctivitis Curse in dueling practice.

“God, Sirius, how many times do I have to tell you lot: jinxes and hexes only during class duels!” cries Andromeda, blocking Peter’s incoming Stunner and striding toward Alice with a scathing glare at Sirius. “Do you want me to send you to Professor Dumbledore?”

“Just had a chat with him on Monday, actually. He brought sweets,” says Sirius in a deadpan.

“Oh, shut it, Black,” Alice says miserably, but it’s hard to take her seriously when her voice is cracking and she’s flung her arms up in front of her face, whimpering as Andromeda tries to coax them down and examine her eyes.

The rest of the group’s put their wands away by now; Lily and Marlene swap looks, James shakes his head at Sirius with his lips pressed together, and Peter makes a few paces toward Alice and then falls back on his heels as if unsure whether Andromeda will bark at him, too, if he crowds her. Crouching down behind Alice, Remus covers one of her hands with his.

A faint orange glow emerges from the tip of Andromeda’s wand and diffuses out around Alice’s eyes and cheekbones. “All right, Alice, I’m going to need you to open up those eyes for a few seconds. I know, I know it hurts, come on now…”

Andromeda’s obscuring his view of Alice, but she must have complied for at least a moment because Andromeda sighs and gets up, extending Alice a hand. “Alice, I want you to go with Remus to see Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing. Can you do that for me?” Satisfied with Alice’s nod, Andromeda waits until Remus has helped her out the door, then says to Sirius, “You stay here. The rest of you can go.”

They filter out with eyebrows raised, and when Sirius looks sullenly up at Andromeda, there are wrinkles in her forehead that he’d never noticed before. “Sit down, Sirius.”

He sidles atop the nearest desktop and, realizing he’s still clenching his wand with a sweaty hand, jams it in his robe pocket.

“I’m resigning at the end of this term,” Andromeda says now, and she too perches on top of the desk across from Sirius. “I gave my notice to Dumbledore this week.”

“You and every other wizard who’s taught this class.”

Stiffening, Andromeda says, “I’m not meant to be a teacher, Sirius; I took this job to watch out for you, not because it comes naturally to me, and there’s no point staying on for your seventh year when I can’t get through to you. Hell, maybe I set us up for this by accepting the job. Evidently, you’re not looking for guidance from an authority.”

“I did look up to you,” mutters Sirius. “Always, as kids.”

“Well, that was then. Don’t think Professor Dumbledore hasn’t spoken to me about that chat you had with him and Marlene, or that I haven’t noticed those pranks your lot have been pulling. At least when you still lived with Orion and Walburga I knew you were safe—”

“Safe? You left,” says Sirius, and he feels his temper starting to rise. “You ditched your fiancé and ran off with Ted.”

“I decided not to allow the people who treated me the cruelest to continue dictating whether I was permitted to be happy. You of all people ought to understand how they work. They burn us off. I waited until you were at Hogwarts; I—”

“You left me to rot with Mum and Dad!” Sirius erupts, and it feels so good to ratchet his voice so high above the dam he’s spent so long underneath. “You were the only one who—and then you weren’t around anymore at reunions, and Bellatrix…”

“Oh, Sirius,” she murmurs. It’s the second time this week someone’s said that to him, but Andromeda is so very unlike Em, more solemn and protective than dramatic or rash—except, of course, for this one crucial thing, the leaving, that Andromeda did to him, whatever she may claim. “You know I would have saved you if I knew how,” she says now, crossing her ankles.

Noticing that he’s started gripping his wand again, he lets it go. “I thought Alice could deflect the spell. I didn’t want her to get injured.”

“Why cast the curse, then?”

Because his tolerance is damn shot with all of it, but he’s not about to tell Andromeda that. The room feels chilly, and Sirius answers, “We… there was a fight. She doesn’t see the problem with—she thinks the laws aren’t corrupt, but they are.”

With a half-smile, Andromeda tells him, “People are products of the environments where they’re raised, and the Abbotts go back a long way in society. So do the Blacks. You forget that neither of us saw Muggles as our equals until coming to Hogwarts.”

“Yeah, and it took me all of a year, maybe, to work that one out for myself. She’s of age.”

“I know, but you can’t just run around cursing anyone and everyone who doesn’t understand what—what privilege is, or a microaggression is,” Andromeda says, and she’s right: he’d be better off saving his energy to aim straight for the source, not punching out in the symptoms.

He shouldn’t have missed that meeting with Dorcas on Tuesday. 

“You’re good at your job, Andy; don’t underestimate yourself,” Sirius tells her, and then he sprints out the door.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius and Alice’s feud over purity politics led to Sirius firing a Conjunctivitus Curse during Defense class (CH34). Damocles Belby continued to refine the recipe for the Wolfsbane Potion, finally achieving a version that allowed Remus to remain lucid during the transformation, though still unable to control his actions while in wolf form (CH30). Remus grappled with his romantic feelings for Sirius (CH24). The Order of the Phoenix scoped out a pureblood gala for Death Eater names, but otherwise struggled to come up with a concrete strategy to begin enacting their plan of counterterrorism against the Death Eaters (CH32).

xx

April 28th, 1977: Remus Lupin

- five -

To Remus’s surprise, Madam Pomfrey deems Alice free to go after two potions, three charms, and twenty minutes in the wing. Because it’s Alice, whatever their differences these days, and because her jaw is set so firmly that Remus is sure it’s taking all her willpower not to start crying again, he keeps her company all through her observation and offers to walk her out after. There’s been something off with Alice—her voice has sounded duller, her shoulders always hunched—but he hasn’t commented on it, whether for her benefit or for his he doesn’t know.

“I’m glad Madam Pomfrey discharged me as quickly as she did,” Alice remarks as Remus helps her off her cot and they set off for the Gryffindor common room. “I was worried she would keep me overnight and I’d have to miss the meeting.”

“You probably wouldn’t have missed much even if she had kept you. I don’t think anyone’s made much headway with the names we got at the gala—tonight will probably be more organizational, now that we’re gaining members.”

Alice looks at him sideways as they trudge down the corridor. “You seem tired lately.”

“Full moon in five nights,” he says curtly.

“Oh.” There’s a very strained pause, and then she adds, “Well—you always look tired, you know, around then, but never this much. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’ve been taking a dose of Belby’s potion every night. We think the recipe is just about ready, but he’s having me take it for a week beforehand this month instead of just the day of. It started wearing off and I started losing control halfway through the night last time, so he’s trying something about tweaking the formula to be extended-release instead of immediate.” He cringes on the inside as he hears a thin note of anxiety snaking into his voice.

He drops Alice off at the common room with more than an inkling of relief and, when he trudges up to the dormitory, finds a morose-looking Sirius who’s glaring daggers as Remus opens the door. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Remus says, “Okay.”

Sirius says, “I don’t,” and Remus says, “I know,” and Sirius crumbles.

- four -

They all know the big blowout is coming, but Sirius skives off Potions and puts it off by at least another few hours. In his absence, Marlene partners Alice, leaving Remus on his own to chance glances at Belby while frenetically chopping beetle eyes and sage.

By the end of the period, his cauldron’s hissing like a bastard and billowing out steam. “Off your game this week, Lupin?” Belby snarls from behind him as Remus hastily ladles potion into a flask for Slughorn. Once corked, it vibrates around in his palm as shocking violet clouds build up inside it.

“Do we really have to do this here?” Remus sighs.

“It’d be too conspicuous if you’re lurking around me outside class,” says Belby. “Here,” he adds, and he slides a thick stack of parchments onto Remus’s desk.

He glances down, skims the title. “You’ve already drafted a journal article?”

“If it doesn’t work this month, it at least gives me a base to work from. I don’t want to be starting something of this magnitude the same time as exams.”

“But what do you want my opinion for?” says Remus.

Already sidling past Remus’s desk and up to Slughorn’s, Belby turns around and sneers, “Well, I’d ask Severus, but he’s too proud to help anyone but his precious Lily, and I could use a second set of eyes.”

Shaking his head, Remus Vanishes what remains in his cauldron—which isn’t much, as it’s evaporating fast—and hurries up to Slughorn to hand in his flask before its contents vaporize completely.

The document reads… fine, if a little arrogant in tone, but could anyone fault Belby for that, really? In hindsight, Remus is surprised nobody before Belby in how many years thought to test it as a treatment for lycanthropy? But then, with a taboo that strong and a host of nightmarish tales in wizarding Europe’s collective memory to go along with it, of course you’d think anyone would be mad to try it. And maybe Remus was mad, too, for drinking it, but how a thing like this could possibly not have driven him to those kinds of lengths…

He can barely remember anymore what it felt like not to live in dread of this thing, this parasite, as a boy—like a silly dream you’ve forgotten and only still recall by the memory of having told it to others the day after. All of it is dreamlike now, but Remus knows he must have felt shocked as Dumbledore hand-delivered his Hogwarts letter—frightened as he sat very still on the living room sofa with his mother and father as they told him he was different now, and all Remus could do was count the stripes on the wallpaper and wring his hands in his lap and nod and nod—

Yes, Remus must have felt something all those days through all that waiting in that other life he lived before he swallowed Belby’s bullets—before he quit. Some lives, though, are better forgotten.

- three -

They have a meeting with their new recruits: Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick, Frank Longbottom, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Elisabeth Clearwater, and Mildred LeProut. Alice invited Dirk Cresswell, too, but apparently he turned her down. Remus is sure there’s a story there, but Alice clearly didn’t want to talk about it, so he’s not pushing it.

Remus doesn’t think much is going to be accomplished, besides clueing the newbies into their still-in-the-works strategy and encouraging them to get the word out to anyone who might be sympathetic, but then Dorcas Meadowes drops the bombshell that she’s gotten word of a Death Eater gathering slated to happen next Friday night, in six days’ time.

“You’re lying,” says Gideon immediately, crossing his arms and sneering. “She’s lying.”

“Look,” says Meadowes with an air of impatience, “I overheard Regulus Black telling Raleigh Greengrass about it in our common room. We have no other real leads yet. If that isn’t good enough for you, that’s your problem, but I say we plan an ambush like we’ve been talking about.”

“She can’t be trusted! Obviously this is some kind of trap!”

“We know Regulus is in the Death Eaters, so if she isn’t lying, the intel is probably legit,” says Peter slowly with a frown. “And why would she lie and send us off to some gathering that doesn’t exist? Isn’t cornering a gang of Death Eaters exactly what we wanted?”

“It’s not if she warns them we’re coming,” Gideon says, scowling. “Who’s to say we don’t show up there, lose the element of surprise, and get ourselves all blasted to bits?”

“And why the hell would she do that, huh?” says Fabian immediately, rounding on his brother. “Considering the parentage she comes from, Dorcas is considered a bigger blood traitor than any other pureblood in this room, and it doesn’t mean shit that just because she’s a Slytherin—”

Gideon snaps, “Just because she’s a Slytherin means she could get us all killed if her loyalties sway back toward her family and her House!”

But before he can say any more, Lily shouts, “Hey!” and all eyes flick to where she’s sitting cross-legged on top of one of the two-seater desks in the empty classroom they’ve snagged for the meeting. She clears her throat. “Meadowes has never once been seen to say or do anything to suggest that her loyalties are anywhere but with the resistance. I believe her. If you don’t, and you want out of this mission before it goes any further, this is your chance to walk away.”

Everyone stays where they are, even Gideon, who’s scowling even deeper at Fabian and Dorcas.

“For that matter,” speaks up James, “anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable with making an attack against a Death Eater gathering is welcome to leave as well and only come back for the outreach parts of what we do. This is dangerous stuff. We’re talking about making a real, live attack against sworn supporters of Voldemort who will not hesitate to torture and kill you if they get the jump on you. We owe it to you to be up front about what your expectations should be and what the risks are.”

Again, no one leaves. Millie LeProut fidgets a little where she’s slung over a desk in the corner but doesn’t get up.

“Right, then. Meadowes, take it away.”

- two -

“I still don’t like it,” Sirius is saying.

They’re sitting on Remus’s bed in the otherwise deserted dormitory, Peter downstairs in the common room with Emmeline and James off to sneak onto the Quidditch pitch for some therapeutic practice. Remus sighs and hesitantly links their fingers together. When Sirius allows it, he lets out a tiny breath and feels his face heating up. “We already know from last month that the aconite isn’t fatal. Belby changed around the proportions and increased the level of sedatives this time in the hopes that I—”

“Won’t have to go through the agony of being trapped in your own mind watching yourself enacting violence against yourself and others?” Remus shrugs. “I haven’t forgotten what you went through last month, Moony. You’ve already risked your life for Belby’s pet project; you don’t have to risk your sanity again, too.”

“But if there’s a chance that we’re coming up on the end of it…” Remus twists a little so that, instead of sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Sirius against the headboard, he presses his chest against Sirius’s arm and rests his head in the crook of Sirius’s neck. “You don’t know what it’s like to become this uncontrollable thing every month.”

“I thought it was better when you ran round with me and Prongs and Wormy. I thought it wouldn’t be worth it to put yourself through…”

Remus smiles weakly. “But I won’t always have you. No, I mean—when we graduate and leave these grounds behind, where would we run on the full moon? If I’m to live in civilization, and not sequester myself away the way most werewolves do, I’ll go back to locking myself up every month, waking up each morning after bitten and scratched to hell. I can’t—I can’t live like that again. It’s bad enough in the summer months when my parents chain me up, and that’s only three months out of the year. To go through that every month…”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” says Sirius earnestly. “I’ll come round your house every month as Padfoot to keep you company, even if we stay inside. I’ll—”

Smiling into Sirius’s neck, Remus interrupts, “I appreciate the gesture, Padfoot. I do. But this is something that I have to do.”

Sirius pauses. “I still don’t understand,” he says quietly.

“I know you don’t,” says Remus, and he wishes more than anything that he could kiss away the purse to Sirius’s lips, but he doesn’t. Some things, like Belby’s Wolfsbane Potion (as he’s calling it now), he can have, and others he can’t. Sirius is with Marlene now, for real this time, and both of them are Remus’s friends, and—and…

Sirius tilts his head to nuzzle into Remus’s a little, and suddenly his reservations fly right out of his head. Sirius is so close and Remus is tilting his head up to press his forehead right against Sirius’s, his breathing heavy, shaky. Sirius starts to say, “Remus, wha—?” but Remus shakes his head and squeezes his eyes closed and slants his mouth right up against Sirius’s and just holds it there for a long, long second.

For a moment, neither of them moves. Then Remus feels Sirius nip at his lower lip with his teeth, and he squeezes Sirius’s hand that he’s still holding and starts to kiss him in earnest, moving his lips against Sirius’s, no idea what he’s doing, and—

Far too soon, Sirius pulls back, his gaze shifting in a frenzy from one of Remus’s eyes to the other. “Sorry,” Remus whispers, but Sirius doesn’t answer. Neither of them says anything at all for a long time.

- one -

Belby meets Remus in the Shrieking Shack like usual with a flagon of potion under his arm and a grim smile on his face. “Ready?” Belby says with no other preamble, and he holds out the flagon.

Remus is. There are no other words that need speaking; after the half-success of last month, conscious to remember but not in control, Remus has a good feeling about this month’s adjustments. It has to work. It has to.

He takes the flagon and drinks, and then they wait and wait and wait. Finally, it begins with a horrible cracking of his spine and a growing of his fingernails. The transformation is as painful as ever, Remus’s limbs snapping and shrinking into place, but when it’s over—it’s over. He crouches there, on the ground, pawing at the floorboards and wishing he had the speech to tell Belby Thank you, or Your work is done here, but he’ll just have to trust Belby to figure it out.

He inches forward toward Belby, tail wagging through the air behind him, and leans in to lick gratefully at Belby’s fingers; Belby gives a sort of pained wince and allows it for a few seconds before he pulls his hand free. Remus chases his tail in a few happy circles, then settles down to try to sleep.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Belby’s latest version of the Wolfsbane Potion was a success, allowing Remus full lucidity and the ability to sleep through the night in wolf form (CH35). Alice feuded with Sirius over werewolf rights and blood purity’s role in society (CH27). Lily struggled with missing Severus and being afraid of her developing feelings for James (CH26). Dorcas and the sixth year Gryffindors hatched a plan to overtake a group of young Death Eaters at an upcoming gathering (CH35).

xx

May 4th, 1977: Lily Evans

The Gryffindors are shocked and relieved to find Remus joining them in the Great Hall halfway through breakfast. He looks a little peaky, but not nearly as much as usual the day after a full moon, and he’s grinning a little as he swings his legs over the bench and starts loading up his plate with waffles. “It worked!” he says in a hushed voice in response to their inquiring looks. “I slept most of the night!”

“That’s great!” says Peter as Sirius sighs with relief and James thumps Remus on the back with a broad grin.

“Yeah,” Remus says happily, reaching for the syrup. “Madam Pomfrey didn’t know what to make of it. She kept me under observation for a couple of hours after she fetched me from the Shack early this morning, but I think it was mostly because she couldn’t believe that I could possibly be uninjured, after—what usually happens. I’m usually pretty banged up even when we run—uh—even though there’s never anyone around to chase after.”

“So that’s it, just like that?” asks Marlene through a mouthful of cereal. She swallows thickly and continues, “Belby’s not going to cut you off now that he’s got a working formula, is he?”

“He says he’ll keep me in stock until we graduate, as a thank-you for trusting him to experiment on me for all these months. I’m… not ready to deal with imagining what I’m going to do after that. I won’t be able to brew it for myself; the recipe is enormously complicated, and besides, I won’t be able to handle the aconite in it; it’s poisonous to me.”

Lily says, “He’s planning to publish soon, right? Once the recipe is out there, I’m sure I can take over brewing it for you.”

“Thanks, Lily. Really. Thank you all for—for…”

James claps Remus on the back again.

Alice is the only one not smiling, staring pensively at her plate and looking around as if startled when the other Gryffindors start to get up from the table and make their ways to either Transfiguration or, in Mary’s case, the common room. Lily hangs back at the table to wait for Alice to gather up her book bag and then asks, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Sorry, I just…” Lily waits, watching quietly as Alice stands and slings her bag over her shoulder. “All this time, I’ve thought that the laws restricting werewolves’ freedoms were justified because werewolves are a danger to society, whether they want to be or not. But if there’s a potion now that can change all that, is it really fair to—to deny them certain jobs, or to forbid them to be around children, when they can control it?”

“Was it ever fair?” Lily points out. Alice opens her mouth to argue, but Lily interrupts, “I see where you’re coming from, Alice, that registration is meant to protect humans from werewolves that aren’t in control, but how does restricting what werewolves do the other twenty-nine days out of the month protect anybody?”

“It… it…” But Alice seems to be at a loss for words. She frowns and then abruptly starts walking toward the exit doors, Lily right beside her. Alice sighs, then, and says, “I’ve been taught all my life that the world works one way, and I feel like you’re all expecting me to just throw that out the window overnight.”

“Not overnight,” Lily counters. “But, yeah, Sirius wants you to grapple with it, the way I’m sure he had to grapple with it when he first came to Hogwarts and was suddenly exposed to points of view that weren’t his parents’.”

Alice scoffs, “Sirius has never had to grapple with politics in his life. He’s always hated his family, you know that.”

“Hating his family is different from hating the subtleties of a political ideology he never would have thought to challenge. You may be fighting with him over this, but I think you two are more alike than you realize—he just started thinking about these issues earlier than you did.”

Hanging back by the doors between the Great Hall and the entrance hall, Alice chews on her lips and says, “Remind me how this is any of your business again?”

“Alice, we go to boarding school with a close-knit circle of friends. Isn’t interfering in my friends’ business like a rite of passage or something? I’ve been watching you lot do it to each other for the last six years.”

“Guess this means you’re really our friend now, then,” says Alice with a wry smile, and they head out the doors toward Transfiguration together.

The two of them are at the base of the staircase when it happens. “Hello, Lily,” says a familiar, snotty voice, and Lily turns to find Severus standing there looking particularly repentant.

It’s not like Lily doesn’t already see him numerous times a week during lessons and in the Great Hall, but she’s come to expect those awful moments of ignoring each other’s presence; it catches her off guard that Severus would directly approach her out here in the halls with no reason for them to interact with each other, and she’s instantly flooded with a mixture of remorse and anger. You’d think that nearly a year later Lily would be over it, but she’s not over it. She misses her friend. Whatever else happened there, she misses her friend, and she’s pissed that he had to go and mess it all up with his prejudices and his slurs and his unwillingness to see people of her blood status as just people.

And yet—Lily couldn’t keep making excuses for it. She just couldn’t. And a little voice inside her head screams at her that James and Marlene and all of her new friends—for all their flaws, they would never call anyone a Mudblood, and they would never hurt her in the particular oppressive way that Severus did.

So she holds her head high, and she says coldly, “Hello, Severus,” and she marches up the marble staircase, taking Alice’s hand and dragging her alongside her.

All these months, she’s resented having to work beside James in Transfiguration (and in Potions, for that matter), but it’s like her eyes have opened and she doesn’t want to avoid him anymore. So what if kissing James over Christmas made her feel overwhelmed, suddenly in over her head with someone she’d only really been getting to know for a couple of months? Just because James is a new friend doesn’t mean that he can’t be a good one, and again, whatever his shortcomings, he would never do what Severus did: his allegiances would never fall that way. She plunks down next to him at their desk and cheerfully says hello, and his eyes widen a little, but he says hello back and doesn’t seem to want to question Lily’s friendliness. She smiles at him.

Maybe she’s not ready to date James Potter, but she might be finally ready to be his friend again.

xx

Lily’s not going to lie: she’s nervous, very nervous, about the upcoming face-off at the Death Eaters’ meeting.

They meet the night before to go over the plan again. Dorcas has the time and place—just after dusk in a particular clearing in the Scottish countryside, near a graveyard—and they’ll arrive there at least an hour in advance, to be sure that none of the Death Eaters hear the cracks of their Apparition. They’ve decided that it will be best to pick off Voldemort’s followers one by one as they arrive, rather than waiting for the entire group to congregate before attacking: they may lose scare value and impact that way, but it’ll be safer, given that they are underage wizards and will be up against enemies who may not hesitate to attempt the use of Unforgivable Curses against them. The plan is to Stun the Death Eaters, Apparate with them to the Ministry, and use the store of Veritaserum that Lily stole from Professor Slughorn the night before to ensure their confessions.

“And Regulus said that it’s a meeting for new recruits?”

“Primarily. We’re expecting school-aged wizards, maybe some who are a few years out of Hogwarts,” says Dorcas, pinning back her hair and speaking calmly and confidently. “So they probably won’t be any more battle-trained than we are, but they also probably are willing to at least attempt use of the Unforgivable Curses, considering who they’re followers of, so we need to be on our guard.”

“I still don’t like this,” says Gideon, glaring at Dorcas.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to. Like Potter said, you’re welcome to leave.”

Personally, Lily feels like they lucked out, getting Dorcas on board with their movement. They were doing well at educating the student body on their own, but it wasn’t until Dorcas joined up that they really had a purpose or a direction, and it’s because of her intel that they have plans for a first mission at all. Gideon may not trust her, but Lily knows what it’s like to be an outcast from everyone around you the way that Dorcas is within Slytherin House—she believes that Dorcas isn’t leading them on.

Lily just hopes that their plan is sound enough that they aren’t walking into something that’s going to get them killed.

When the group disbands, the Gryffindors head back to their common room together, Lily walking beside James and Mary at the front of the group. It’s late enough that the common room is mostly deserted when they reach it, and although most of them head upstairs to their dormitories, Lily takes a seat by the fire and stares blankly into the dying embers. A few moments later, she feels the couch cushion beside her dip down, and she looks over to find James there joining her. “Hey,” he says, his voice cracking.

“Hey.”

She’s tried to make a point to be friendlier to him the last several days, sitting next to him at mealtimes and joining him to study during free periods. Undoubtedly, the abrupt shift in how she’s been treating him has confused him. “I probably owe you an explanation, huh?” she adds now, and James looks up.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he tries to say, but she raises a hand.

“Yes, I do, just—let me get this out.” He falls silent again, waiting. “After Christmas, I panicked. I did. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to slow things down, but—I cut you out of my life almost entirely, to the extent I could with having as many mutual friends as we do, and taking it that far wasn’t fair to you. If I needed space, I should have asked for it and used it to really work through what I needed to work on. Instead, I’ve just been pushing it down and avoiding you, and that wasn’t right.”

“Lily—”

“James, I… really like you.” She looks away for this part, unable to meet James’s eyes, unwilling to find out what she would find in them. “I do. So much that it scares me. That’s what this was about.”

Very hesitantly, James raises a hand and places it on Lily’s shoulder, squeezing. “I really like you, too,” he says softly, “if you hadn’t noticed.”

Lily chokes out a laugh and places her hand on top of James’s. “I’m not saying this can’t ever go anywhere. Just—give me time, okay? I need to go slow with this.”

James’s lips curl into a smile. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

xx

Lily knows it’s a no-go from the instant that they Apparate into the clearing. She barely has a second to process the swarm of tall, hooded figures encircling them before jets of light begin flying through the air, her friends’ figures starting to crumple to the ground one by one. “Lily,” says Peter frantically—still only sixteen, he’d Side-Along-Apparated here with her—and he tugs on her sleeve. “Lily, we have to go now, it was a trap—”

“We can’t leave just leave them lying here!” she squeals in horror, rushing forward to check the pulse of a collapsed Marlene. Please just be Stunned, please just be Stunned…

Dorcas is still on her feet and flinging curses at whomever she can reach; Lily watches two Death Eaters go down at Dorcas’s hand, and she knows right then that Dorcas didn’t lead them into this trap intentionally. Peter seizes Marlene’s arm in one of his hands and Eddie Bones’s shoulder in the other and Disapparates on the spot—or at least tries to. Lily can see one of his calves still on the ground, gushing blood from where it’s been severed from the rest of his body.

“Oh, no,” she mumbles to herself. “Oh, no…”

Just then, she sees a jet of green light heading for her and narrowly dodges it, flinging a Stunner in the direction from whence it came. Lily Disapparates and reappears in the woods outside the circle of Death Eaters; a few of the nearest ones turn and start hurling spells her way, but she ducks behind a tree and shoots Stunners from around it until the screams of Avada Kedavra pointed toward her stop. Ducking out from behind the cover of the tree, she tries to take stock of who’s left in the clearing. A few others seem to have followed Peter’s example and Disapparated away with fallen bodies in their hands; a few bodies are still on the ground, a few others under cover of the woods like Lily, only Dorcas, James, and Mildred LeProut still fighting from the center of the clearing, and then—

“NO!” she screams as a jet of green light flies out and hits Millie square in the chest. She seems to hang there in ethereal balance for a moment before crumpling entirely to the ground, her short hair plastered to her rat-like face. The scream has drawn Death Eater attention onto Lily, but she doesn’t care; she doesn’t care; a girl is dead because of them, and…

She runs back toward the center of the clearing, counting bodies: there are only four more on the ground, and it’s no good; Peter was right; Disapparating away seems to be their only viable option. Lily seizes Remus’s hand and Peter’s disembodied leg and turns on the spot into the compressing darkness, praying, praying…

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: The Order of the Phoenix’s attempt to ambush a group of young Death Eaters backfired, resulting in at least one casualty (CH36). Dumbledore invited Marlene to join his own group of Voldemort fighters—but not until she came of age and graduated (CH12). Marry plotted to gather intel against purists by going underground as a prostitute (CH33). Emmeline revealed to Sirius that she had blamed him for her parents’ murders at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, leading to a fight between the two of them (CH25).

xx

May 6th, 1977: Peter Pettigrew

They all wind up in the Hospital Wing, Lily carrying Peter’s missing leg with undisguised horror, where Madam Pomfrey un-Splinches Peter amidst the chaos of checking who’s been Stunned, who’s in a Full-Body Bind, and who’s been—been killed. The death toll is at two: Mildred LeProut and Elisabeth Clearwater. Benjy Fenwick is crying silently over Liz’s body, while Marlene seems to feel responsible for Millie and closes her eyes, holds her hands. In retrospect, they’re damn lucky that more of them didn’t die.

Of course it was a trap. Of course it was. Regulus Black wouldn’t go around talking about his Death Eater plans where anyone could overhear him, even if he did feel relatively safe in a common room full of Slytherins; he must have purposely passed information along in earshot of Dorcas, knowing that she would bring it back to the resistance, knowing that that was his shot to set them up and do some real damage. Peter doesn’t know how Sirius can stand being Regulus’s brother, coming from a family like that.

Peter feels less ashamed of immediately turning tail and fleeing the scene when it comes out that that’s what everyone eventually had to do in order to save themselves—well, in order to save everyone except Liz and Millie. Pomfrey is muttering loudly about foolish teenagers throwing themselves headfirst into a war they aren’t ready for as she wakes some of them, counterjinxes others, and insists that still others stay on bed rest and swallow potions for nothing more than shock.

There are fifteen of them in all, not including poor Millie and Liz, and Peter’s never seen the hospital wing this full. Some poor bastard is occupying a lone bed in the corner with fur all over his face, and he keeps ogling the group with interest while doing a very poor job of pretending to be sleeping.

Peter is just watching Madam Pomfrey fuss over a slowly waking Remus when the door swings open and Professor McGonagall pokes her head inside. “Poppy, is everyone more or less settled?”

“More or less,” says Pomfrey with a sad glance at Liz’s and Millie’s bodies, which have been placed on top of beds with the sheets pulled over their heads. “Don’t tell me you’re insisting on talking to them about what happened now?”

“No: Professor Dumbledore is,” says McGonagall, and Peter and Mary exchange a fleeting, terrified look. “Come along, now, up you all get.”

The walk from the Hospital Wing to Dumbledore’s office is dead silent, unbroken until McGonagall clearly says, “Fizzing Whizbee,” to the statue at the base of the headmaster’s tower. She beckons them all up but doesn’t follow them inside. Alice, at the front of the group, knocks timidly on the door to the office, and they all shuffle in single file after hearing Dumbledore tell them to enter in a muffled voice.

There aren’t nearly enough surfaces for everyone to sit, and it feels weird to plop down on the floor of Dumbledore’s office, so they all stand there crowding around each other in the little office, Dumbledore rising to his own feet as well. “My sources received word not long ago,” he says slowly, a sad sort of twinkle in his eyes, “that there was an ambush by a number of fully grown Death Eaters against a group of schoolchildren who thought they were going to—what? Scare some sense into a number of school-aged Death Eater sympathizers?”

“Don’t call us schoolchildren,” says James, and though his voice shakes, he stands quite tall. “Most of us are of age, and all of us are old enough to want to make a difference.”

“That’s enough, Mister Potter,” says Dumbledore, and James rolls his eyes but falls silent. “Miss McKinnon,” he says next, to Peter’s surprise, and all heads whip to Marlene; she looks confused but defiant. “Do you remember a conversation we had in my office at the beginning of this school year, when I told you in confidence about a group I had been putting together of witches and wizards resistant to Voldemort’s regime—a group that I invited you to join only after you completed your schooling?”

Marlene nods; there’s a certain set to her jaw. “We weren’t prepared to wait,” she says simply.

“And now two of your classmates are dead,” finishes Dumbledore wearily. Marlene hangs her head. “In retrospect, I suppose it was foolish of me to expect you all to wait. These are rash times, and Voldemort certainly will not wait to kill you and your families—hasn’t waited, already, for some of you.”

“Please, sir,” says Dorcas, “don’t blame them: blame me. It was my strategy and my information that got Elisabeth and Mildred killed tonight.”

“Noble as it is of you to accept responsibility, Miss Meadowes, I’m not interested in placing blame tonight. You all know what you’ve done—whom you’ve lost—and I trust that all of you will proceed with caution in your actions against the Death Eaters, all the more so if you plan to join me.”

They exchange bewildered looks. Is Dumbledore—? Surely he can’t be…

“You’re inviting us to join your group?” says Marlene frankly.

“I’m sure my fighters would be happy to join forces with the—what is it you’re calling yourselves? The Order of the Phoenix—if you agree to defer to our judgment and not jump into any more situations you’re not prepared for,” says Dumbledore. He’s still smiling, but to Peter, he looks incredibly sad.

“I’m out,” says a voice somewhere behind Peter, and he turns to find Mary looking at the ground and blushing scarlet. “Before tonight, I had plans to—but what are we doing? Tonight proved that we’re in over our heads with this. I’m not a fighter; I’m barely passing Defense as it is. I’d just be liable to get more of us killed.”

“That’s certainly within your choice, Miss Macdonald, and it takes a special kind of bravery to know when to recuse oneself from a high-stakes situation. You may go.”

She nods and departs from the office; Peter can hear her footsteps flying back down the stairs as she descends them.

“For the rest of you,” Dumbledore continues when no one else speaks, “let’s begin.”

xx

The last two Quidditch matches of the season are cancelled, as is the House Cup, out of respect to Elisabeth and Millie. The last few weeks of term pass in a blur to Peter, and it’s hard to believe that he has final exams coming up, that not the whole world has stopped spinning in the wake of this tragedy that is all their fault.

Rumors are flying about what killed the two girls. Everyone seems agreed that Death Eaters did it—Dumbledore, in fact, announces at dinner the next day that they died at the hands of Death Eaters in a tragic confrontation in which they fought bravely—but no one seems to be able to agree on exactly how the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, both from entirely different social ranks, ended up in the same place as a gang of Death Eaters and fifteen other students, mostly those arrogant Gryffindor sixth years. Peter doesn’t care, lets them talk: no amount of gossip will bring back the dead, and he’s not interested in spinning the story to make himself look like anything but the idiot that he is for having thought he could take on Death Eaters and come out on top without any broader sense of organization.

The nine of them start doing everything together—Peter means everything—making it hard to catch any one of them alone for a private conversation. It’s a full week and a half before he’s able to get Emmeline alone, which is especially surprising in light of how much time she’s been spending with Sirius lately.

“I know he’s not interested in me romantically anymore,” she tells him, twirling a lock of stringy hair around and around her finger. “That’s something I have to live with every day. And really, I’ve been an arse to him, blaming him for years for something he didn’t even know happened instead of letting him help me grieve it. But after what happened to Millie and Liz—life is short, you know? I don’t want to waste it on these ridiculous feuds I’ve been creating between myself and everyone around me. And Sirius, by the grace of god, seems willing to forgive me, and I have to take that. If the best I can have with him is friendship, well, that doesn’t have to be such a bad thing, does it? Not if I don’t let it. I can miss what I could have had with him while still being happy for him and Marlene that they’ve found a way to make it work. Merlin knows all of us deserve to be happy however we can be.”

“I think that’s very big of you, Em,” Peter says, and she smiles timidly.

“I’m trying. I am. I just wish I would have tried sooner.”

They part ways, then, outside the library doors: Emmeline goes in to get a head start studying for their Transfiguration final, while Peter doubles back and makes toward the common room where they came from. He’s halfway down the corridor when he feels his feet leave the ground and his back slam into the marble wall behind him. “Hey, Mudblood.”

Great. Amycus Carrow. Exactly what Peter needs right now. “Let me go before I hex you,” he says, more bravely than he feels.

“Look at the little Mudblood making his little threats! So cute.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“Heard about what happened to your little gang of friends in the clearing the other day. Hey, say hello to Mildred LeProut for me, will you?”

Peter can feel a cold sweat breaking across his forehead, and he thrashes to get away from Carrow, but to no avail. “What do you want?” he says again.

“Oh, nothing yet. Just for you to keep me in mind and give me a head start the next time that little rebellion group of yours thinks about making moves against us, yeah? You keep me informed; I keep you safe.”

“And what exactly do I need to be kept safe from?”

“I can think of a few things,” says Carrow, raising a fist and pummeling the wall right next to Peter’s head. He grins cruelly. “Think it over. We won’t use so much information that anyone will suspect the mole is you—we’ll just get our feet wet with it.”

“I’ll never betray my friends. Never,” says Peter, his voice shaking, and he launches himself free of Carrow and takes off running down the corridor.

“Not yet,” Carrow calls after him, and Peter can hear the sneaky smile on his face.

xx

END OF PART FIVE

Chapter Text

2003: Mary Cattermole

Interlude

They’ve made a decent life for themselves, Mary and Reg. She doesn’t get up to many theatrics these days; the Daily Prophet shut down her column on wizarding naturalism to make room for coverage of the war back in ’97. So she stays at home, cooks dinner for Reg, writes to the children when they need help with their Arithmancy. Mary can’t understand it herself, but she’s always had a knack for the subject, even if she did cheat off Marlene until sixth year.

Not often—it’s too hard to do it often—she’ll take tea with Ver, reminisce about the old days. After, they’ll stop at St. Mungo’s together, as Ver insists on weekly visits to the half-mad Gilderoy and always bullies Mary into coming along. As soon as she’s certain it’s not the day that he’ll recall either of them from Hogwarts (within five minutes of most visits), she’ll leave Ver to her flirting—it’s a little sad, Mary thinks, that she never got over him.

She’ll roam the halls for a while, putting it off, until finally she’ll slip into the Longbottoms’ room. Mary never stays for long—it’s too hard to see Frank like this, Alice like this—but she’ll stroke Alice’s thinning hair and pocket the Drooble’s wrappers with a loving smile and an aching heart. Sometimes Alice will squeeze her hand so tightly that Mary thinks she must remember, that she’s hanging on for dear life, but she knows it’s only wishful thinking.

Reg says it aloud one night after one of those visits, curled up beside her in bed. She’s in the foggy warmth between dreams and fatigue, and he traces a hand up her side and says, “We’ve done all right for ourselves, don’t you think?”

And all Mary can see is Alice’s broken smile and Ver’s perpetual simper and the death, every last one: Marlene, James, Lily, Peter (supposedly), Alice (worse), Sirius, Emmeline, Peter (actually), Remus. And she should have told Peter that it didn’t have to be like this, and she should have told Lily and James and Alice and Frank that their baby boys were beautiful, and she should have told Remus to wake up and realize that Tonks was half his age—and she should have kept in touch, and she should have warned them to get out of the Order while they could.

She should have stayed and fought and died alongside them.

“Yeah, we’ve done all right,” Mary says, because she’s made so many mistakes and she doesn’t deserve to be the last one standing. It’s too much glory and not enough worth, Merlin knows she doesn’t have the stomach for the burden of it, and she’d gladly give her life for one of them to live again.

All right, she tells him, since that’s the best she can claim.

Then she realizes—why did it take her so long?—that there’s one little thing she can do.

Mary doesn’t have to pull many strings to find him—just mentioning that Lily and Alice were old friends is enough. She has two stops to make and starts with the first.

“Harry Potter?” she asks when he answers the door, and he nods, a little dumbstruck. “My name is Mary Macdonald—Cattermole, now.”

“I know,” he says, and it’s her turn not to understand. Harry elaborates, “I was at your hearing back in ’98—we made Polyjuice Potion and broke in.”

“You were Albert Runcorn,” she muses—she’s seen him since he became The Boy Who Lived, and she didn’t even know it. Snapping herself out of it, she takes a deep breath—it’s been twenty-two years since she’s revisited her adolescence—and says, “You know, I went to Hogwarts with your mum and dad. Alice too. We were all in the same year in Gryffindor together.”

“Mary Macdonald…” Harry murmurs, and Mary cocks an eyebrow.

“I—yes, that’s my maiden name. Did—?”

“What?” says Harry distantly. “Oh, I think—I think someone might have mentioned you were friends with my mum. Must’ve been Hagrid.”

It can’t have been Hagrid—Mary never knew him well—but she doesn’t push the issue. “But you were mates?” Harry’s saying now. “With my parents, I mean?”

“I… I suppose we were, for a little while, at least,” says Mary. “It was complicated trying to trust people back then, and I was complicated, and everything was so—so codependent. But I think we were. I believed we were, anyway. Maybe in our sixth year, until I quit the Order, and I don’t think they ever forgave me after that, but I still… well, I visit Alice.”

“I thought my parents didn’t join the Order until they’d left Hogwarts. Dumbledore never would have allowed it—”

“And so he wouldn’t have, if we hadn’t been so foolish.” Harry gives her a blank look. “Sit down, Harry. Did anyone—has anyone ever told you that you had a godmother?”

“No,” says Harry, startling.

“Yes. Her name was Marlene McKinnon. I was in love with her for a long time, and she was your mother’s best friend, and mine too.” And Mary starts to talk.

xx

END OF BOOK ONE

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: After the deaths of Elisabeth Clearwater and Millie LeProut toward the end of the Gryffindors' sixth year, Dumbledore's group of vigilantes joined forces with the branch of the Order of the Phoenix founded by the Gryffindors and their friends at Hogwarts, with one notable exception: Mary elected to leave the organization altogether. Remus and Sirius shared a kiss despite Sirius's repaired relationship with Marlene. When Sirius received a hefty inheritance from his Uncle Alphard, he used some of the money to rent a flat with Lily starting during Easter break of sixth year. Alice and Sirius feuded over their conflicting beliefs about werewolves and purity culture.

xx

July 6th, 1977: Sirius Black

Sirius has only been Lily's roommate for two weeks, not counting last Easter break when they first rented the flat, but already their space is beginning to feel like home to him. He figures it's probably because he never really felt welcome in his own home growing up. He'd greatly enjoyed staying with James between the time he ran away from Grimmauld Place and the time he and Lily got this place, but Helene's Manor hadn't felt like home, either: he'd had too much anxiety in the back of his mind about whether he was imposing on Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Hogwarts is Sirius's true home, really, mostly because of the people he shares it with—and that's starting to prove true of his and Lily's flat as well.

The lure of not having any parents around to supervise is making Sirius and Lily's flat the go-to hangout of the summer. Every day for the last two weeks, someone or other from Gryffindor has been over, bringing not a lot of hard news but plenty in the way of gossip. Speculation is particularly high about what their first Order assignment from Dumbledore will look like—though that's not something they can talk about when Mary comes over.

Sirius is still shocked that Mary chose to drop out of the Order rather than to stay in it and join forces with Dumbledore's then-unnamed group of renegades. So much of the legwork in the Order's early days was Mary's doing that Sirius never would have dreamed she would pass on a real opportunity to get involved in the war front, something more organized and concrete than their fumbling in the dark on their own. Then again, Elisabeth Clearwater and Mildred LeProut are dead because of them—Sirius can't blame Mary for being rattled by that, not at all. Hell, Sirius is messed up about it.

They manifest their guilt in different ways. James seems determined to avenge their deaths by throwing himself headfirst into the resistance. Peter won't talk about it at all, directing conversations away from anything related to the war. And Remus… Remus seems to be drifting away from the other Gryffindor seventh years altogether.

Of course, for Sirius, that's hardly a change from the way Remus has been avoiding him ever since they kissed at the end of last term.

They haven't talked about it. Sirius hasn't told anybody else about it. He wishes desperately that he could say he didn't kiss Remus back—that he wouldn't do that to Marlene—but he did, and now Sirius has to live with it.

He lies awake at night replaying it in his head—the way Remus looked at him like he could hardly breathe, the way he pressed together their foreheads and then their lips, the way he moved against Sirius, a dance Sirius hadn't known he wanted to do until it was happening, and it's probably a good thing that Remus is avoiding him because Sirius needs time to process what happened, what he wants—he doesn't know what he wants. He'd never thought about Remus that way, at least not consciously, until it happened, and now that it has…

"Sirius?"

It's Lily, standing in the open doorway to Sirius's room. All he can make out is her silhouette in front of the dim light behind her; the shape of her hair is frizzy and knotted. "Hey," he groans, sitting up.

"I can hear you thinking all the way from my end of the flat. You keep making rustling noises."

"Sorry."

"I don't mind; I just—is there anything I can do to help?"

Sirius sits up properly, running a hand down his face. "Not really, but thank you." She nods and turns to go. "Well, actually—"

"Yes?"

Sirius blushes, grateful that she won't be able to see it in the dark. "I have trouble sleeping in a room alone. I'm so used to hearing all the guys' breathing and James's snoring…"

He can't be sure, but he thinks that Lily smiles. "I know. Me, too. Give me a sec, and I'll bring my bed in here."

"Thanks," says Sirius sheepishly.

She retreats again, and then he hears her cast Wingardium Leviosa and she comes back in with the bed in tow, dropping it gently in the free space between the right side of Sirius's bed and the wall. When Lily climbs into bed, Sirius tries his damndest to think about anything other than Remus's hands, without success.

"Are any of the girls coming over tomorrow?" he asks Lily eventually, when neither of them seems able to fall asleep right away.

"Mary and Marlene are," Lily confirms. "Emmeline—well, you know how Emmeline is—and Alice has been sort of cagey about coming to visit here so far, I don't know."

Sirius's stomach churns. Lily doesn't know it, but the whole reason Emmeline often avoids the group is because of Sirius's family—his cousin Bellatrix killing her parents back in fourth year, not that he knew it until she finally confessed to it in sixth year. Alice, on the other hand, Sirius spares no sympathy for.

Maybe part of the reason he's so angry at Alice is that he used to be just like her—worse than her, even. He wears his estrangement from his family like a badge of pride now, but he saw eye-to-eye with his parents and his brother as a child, because why wouldn't he? But then Andromeda told him all about Slytherin's culture of purebloods first and cutthroat bullying and hazing of dissidents, and whatever Bellatrix said about how honorable it was there, that didn't sound like honor to Sirius. Andromeda said that the Muggle-born witches and wizards are just like purebloods when you get to know them—better, even, since they don't treat anybody badly based on where they come from—and Sirius was dubious, but he wanted to find out for himself whether she was right, and he knew that he would have no way of getting close enough to one to find out if he were in Slytherin.

So he went to Hogwarts and got himself Sorted into Gryffindor. The Hat asked him whether he wanted to be put in Gryffindor or Slytherin, and—well, everyone knows what choice he made. And then, up in the dorms that first night, he met Peter. He wasn't the best at magic or the smartest—and regretfully, this aligned with Sirius's expectations of Muggle-borns—but he was thoughtful and loyal, and he noticed things that nobody else noticed, and Sirius would be lying to say he didn't value Peter just as much as James or Remus or even Emmeline, as close as she and Sirius used to be in those days. Even if Muggle-borns were kind of dumb and kind of weak, that didn't mean Sirius wanted them tortured and killed the way Voldemort's followers had already started doing. Besides, even if Peter wasn't the brightest, Snivellus Snape had this Muggle-born best friend who was brilliant at Potions and Charms, and how could that be possible if his parents were thinking of things the right way?

And then they discovered that Remus was a werewolf. Didn't just discover it—Peter pieced it together all on his own, leaving Sirius and James to feel dumb for not noticing the timing of Remus's stays in the Hospital Wing coinciding with full moons. Sirius knew his mother would have a fit if she found out Sirius was consorting with a werewolf, but it was just one more layer of disapproval on top of the mesh of things Sirius had done since starting at Hogwarts that went against his family's beliefs: if he knew his parents were wrong about everything else, then it wasn't a stretch to think that they were wrong about werewolves being lesser, too.

But Alice—rebelling past the pureblood status quo hasn't been an essential part of her dissociating herself from an erratic and violent family. She has reason to trust the people who told her that half-breeds are subhuman, that the wizarding world isn't designed to put Muggle-borns last, and that those who fail in the world have done so because they have personal shortcomings, not because they haven't been given the extra advantages that purebloods have. And that is exactly what makes people like Alice dangerous—because the world is run by people who have the best intentions in keeping others down—and Sirius doesn't know how to explain to her that the world isn't fair, that oppression is systematic.

"Sirius?"

With a jolt, he realizes that he's zoned out and missed whatever she's been trying to tell him. "Sorry, what?"

"I was just asking which of the boys are coming by tomorrow."

"Oh, uh—James and Peter are."

"No Remus again?" asks Lily, taking the words right out of Sirius's head.

"He's taking what happened to Liz and Millie really hard, I think," Sirius mumbles.

She pauses. "It's more than that, though, isn't it? For days at Hogwarts before—that day, he wasn't really talking to you…"

"I can't tell you about it," says Sirius straightaway, feeling the blood rising in his cheeks. "I just can't."

"Okay. Fair enough. But I'm here if you decide you ever want to talk."

Sirius smiles faintly to himself. "Thanks, Lily." On second thought, he adds, "It's funny where we ended up, isn't it? A little over a year ago, you hated me."

"Don't be ridiculous; I never hated you. I just didn't really like you, either."

"Still." He grins wider. "Bet you never thought we'd be living together, huh?"

There's a short silence, and then Lily says, "About that—thank you again for taking me in. I know you know I can't afford to help with the rent right now, when my parents left their entire inheritance to Tuney and I obviously don't have a job, and—"

"It's no problem, Lily, really."

"Yes, but—I just want you to know that I appreciate it, a lot. You didn't have to do this."

"I wanted to."

He still can't make out her face, but this time, he's positive that she's smiling.

xx

The resounding crack when James Apparates into Sirius's living room is what wakes him up the next morning. "I'm coming, I'm coming," Sirius mutters to himself, adding, "Go back to sleep, Lily. It's probably just James."

"James is here?" Lily sits up and swings her legs over the side of her bed. "I should get up—I should—"

"He'll be fine waiting on you for an hour. You should get your rest; you were up late last night."

"You would only know that if you were up late, too," she huffs, but she compliantly lies back down, passing right the hell out again within seconds.

Sirius grins to himself a little and exits the bedroom to, sure enough, find James sprawled out across the sofa with his glasses askew and his hair all floppy. "Morning, Prongs."

"Ready to get your bike in the air?"

He's referring to the Muggle motorbike that Sirius bought last summer and tried enchanting to fly, illegally at the time since he was underage and performing magic over the break. This year, however, they're seventeen, and he and James agreed that today would be the day they would get it up and running. "Just let me eat some cereal and get changed first."

Sirius and Lily really don't have a lot in the way of food in the kitchen—they'll have to find a grocery store and stock up. He steals Lily's cereal, pours himself a bowl, and drains it, then retreats back to the bedroom to dress. "Just me again," he says when Lily stirs. "I've got James taken care of."

"Okay," she mumbles blearily.

Sirius changes in the bedroom—Lily is basically out anyway, so Sirius figures she's not awake enough to care—and then reemerges to find James looking at him funny. "Lily slept with you last night?"

"We both found it easier to sleep with another person in the room," Sirius shrugs. "I have trouble falling asleep without your loud-ass snores keeping me company."

"You're welcome," says James, grinning.

Grease on their hands and in their hair, they're joined after a while by Peter, who Flooes in around ten. Still sixteen for another two weeks, Peter is the only seventh year Gryffindor who isn't old enough to Apparate; luckily for him, however, he petitioned the Ministry for special permission to hook up his Muggle parents' fireplace to the Floo Network years ago. "Marlene and Mary are inside," Peter tells them, plopping down in the grass within the circle of protective enchantments they've cast against Muggles to prevent any of them from seeing Sirius and James do magic. "Do you guys feel up to getting lunch when you're done here?"

"Depends how long this takes, I guess," says James, grinning, as Sirius flourishes his wand again; the motorbike hovers, trembling, two feet off the ground and then collapses into the grass.

It takes them another hour and a half to get the motorbike properly flying. They crowd back inside, up two flights of steps, and through the door of Sirius and Lily's unit, where they find Lily, Mary, and Marlene stretched out in the living room, chatting. "Hey, ladies," Sirius greets them. Crossing the room to where Marlene is sitting in an armchair, he kisses the top of her head and winds his arms around her shoulders, bending forward and breathing hot in her ear. "Hey, Lena."

"Hi, Sirius." She twists her head around to smile at him, and a rush of guilt floods in when he (again) pictures Remus's face, Remus's hands.

Sirius, Lily, and Peter leave Mary, James, and Marlene behind in the flat to hit up the store, grabbing general essentials as well as soup and sandwiches for lunch today. After they get back and dig into lunch, Sirius pays careful attention to the way James and Peter relate to him and to each other. Sirius is pressed up close to Marlene, so Peter and James don't really touch him, but they certainly touch each other—James has one arm slung over the back of the couch, fingers loosely touching Peter's shoulders, as he eats with his free hand.

Two months ago, Sirius never would have second-guessed the casual way he would touch Remus and Peter and James. Whatever's going on between Sirius and Remus, it seems that James and Peter still think nothing of casual affection between the Marauders, and Sirius is almost positive that both of them are straight. Then again, he had been positive that Remus was straight, too, and now he's not sure of that at all.

Of course, Peter and James have both been sexually involved with girls before, whereas Remus—to Sirius's knowledge, the only person to whom Remus has ever been romantically linked is him. Remus has never asked a girl out, or kissed one, or even talked about one being hot before, and Sirius used to assume that Remus was just private about that stuff, that he didn't have a strong enough desire to complicate his life with romantic entanglements to want to pursue any. What if, this whole time, the real reason has been that Sirius—?

And yet, the more Sirius looks back on his history with Remus, the more he realizes that Remus's feelings for him—there were signs. There were signs, and Sirius just didn't recognize them for what they were because he didn't even consider the possibility that Remus could be attracted to blokes—to Sirius.

There's the fact, for example, that Remus has never called Sirius his brother, even though Sirius, James, and Peter all say it. There's the embarrassed look Remus used to get in his eyes when Sirius would share his Hospital Wing cot after full moons—the way he seemed abashed but pleased when Sirius touched him in public. And—there's Remus's reaction to Sirius's relationship with Marlene.

He wasn't happy with Sirius when he first found out about Sirius and Marlene having sex—Remus had looked totally betrayed when he walked in on them coming out of that broom closet. He'd claimed to be pissed at Sirius for doing something so illegal that it would risk landing him in Azkaban. Was Remus really upset for the reason he gave? Especially in the beginning, Remus was vocal about his disapproval of Sirius and Marlene's relationship—was he really being as judgmental as Sirius thought he was, or was Remus just—jealous?

That's not to mention the one and only time Sirius and Remus have ever talked about the details of Sirius's sex life. When James asked Sirius what sex is like, the whole conversation was gross and awkward and totally platonic—like a brotherly bonding moment. But when Remus asked, it was awkward for an entirely different reason.

Sirius never really allowed himself to consider what that conversation might have meant—not to Remus and certainly not to himself. He thinks of Remus like a brother, he reminds himself. He didn't overthink it after it happened because it couldn't have meant anything.

Could it?

Marlene, Mary, Peter, and James stay until around dinnertime, when they part ways, promising to come back soon. Sirius and Lily finish off the last of the soup for supper, then set about rearranging the furniture in Sirius's bedroom so that Lily's bed isn't crammed so awkwardly in there.

Afterwards, when Lily is reading and Sirius has just gotten out of the shower, an owl flies up to the window of Sirius's bedroom and starts rapping on it with its beak. "Can you get that, Lily?" calls Sirius from the bathroom, wobbling a little as he hops into his pajama bottoms.

"It's for you," she calls back a minute later. "I'll leave it on your bed."

"Thanks," he says gruffly. He emerges from the bathroom and rounds the corner to find a barn owl hooting at Lily from its perch on Sirius's mattress next to a letter addressed Sirius in Remus's tidy handwriting.

Sirius feels like his stomach is dropping clear down and out of his body. He walks to his bed, throws himself on it, and rips open the letter, hoping, hoping…

Padfoot,

I just wanted to apologize for all the weirdness lately. It's my fault, and I shouldn't have started it.

With Wormtail's birthday coming up in a couple of weeks, I was wondering whether you wanted to come with me to Diagon Alley to pick out gifts for him? Say this Friday afternoon?

—Remus

Breathing a sigh of relief, Sirius scrawls out a quick "yes" on the back of the sheaf of parchment and sends it back with the barn owl. So Remus doesn't want to let this thing destroy their friendship—that's good news, really good. Sirius thinks about this coming Friday, though, and his stomach sinks like a stone. Are they going to have to talk about it? Even if they don't, they're going to have to feel out and establish new boundaries for themselves, and Sirius is rather dreading it.

He spends all day Thursday lost in thought, trying to decide how to act around Remus when he sees him tomorrow. Marlene notices, asks Sirius what's wrong; he kisses her cheeks and assures her that it's nothing, feeling like a cow for doing so. Once everyone leaves, Lily reiterates her offer to talk, but Sirius doesn't take her up on it, lying awake for hours after he hears Lily's breaths drop off into a loud rhythm.

The next day, Sirius Apparates inside the Leaky Cauldron and looks around for Remus, whom he finds skulking in a corner, leaning his back against the wall. They make eye contact, and Remus smiles a little. "Hey, Padfoot."

"Hi." It's the first time they've interacted deliberately, rather than incidentally because of shared company, in over two months. Sirius joins Remus by the back door, where they exit to the alley and tap the bricks of the wall ahead of them with their wands.

"Is it just me," says Remus, "or is this place even more boarded up than it was last year?"

Plenty of storefronts have gone out; wanted posters for Death Eaters cover the walls and windows of the boarded buildings. Sirius nods and swallows thickly. He looks at Remus, one of his best friends in the world, and suddenly Sirius knows he can't deny Remus the same intimacy he gives Peter and James, even if he is afraid of Remus taking it the wrong way. Sirius takes Remus's hand in his and squeezes it, hoping against hope that Remus will know his intentions without him having to state them. Remus looks startled but says nothing, simply laces his fingers between Sirius's and squeezes back.

It's a long three hours before they split apart and go their separate ways.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Sixth year ended disastrously, with the Hogwarts Order of the Phoenix (not including defector Mary) joining forces with Dumbledore only after an ambush resulting in Elisabeth Clearwater’s and Millie LeProut’s deaths. At the beginning of the summer, Lily and Sirius moved back into the flat they rented together over Easter break. James and Lily slowly rebuilt their friendship after they kissed during Christmas break and Lily subsequently iced James out. Lily and Alice maintained a quiet rivalry over school marks and Alice’s prefect badge.

xx

July 9th, 1977: Lily Evans

It’s alarming how fast Lily gets used to sharing a room with Sirius. Part of her isn’t surprised—just like Sirius, she’s grown accustomed to hearing her dormmates’ heavy breathing at night and has a hard time sleeping without someone else in the room—but still, she hasn’t known Sirius very well for very long, and she’s a bit taken aback that someone for whom she had so much disdain not so long ago could make her feel so comfortable by now.

Of course, that surprise isn’t new: Lily’s been feeling it for the entirety of the past year about her relationships with all of the Gryffindor seventh years, chief among them James. It’s why, after kissing James at Christmas, she freaked so badly and avoided him for so many months.

She feels like she and James are existing in a sort of limbo where they’re not dating, but not exactly not dating, either. James is awfully physically affectionate toward her every time they see each other, and Lily lets him be; they pair up together more often than not when the other Gryffindors come around to Lily and Sirius’s flat, and Lily isn’t planning on bolting the next time James works up the nerve to kiss her. She still teases him and gives him grief, but she means it in a more playful way than anything, and she thinks James can tell the difference between her snarking now and her snarking a year ago, when she was still getting to know him as someone better than the toerag who made her best friend’s life miserable for five years.

To James’s credit, he doesn’t seem jealous at all that Lily and Sirius are bunking together—a little confused at first, maybe, but perfectly accepting and secure in his relationships with both of them. He comes over to the flat almost every day, sitting on the couch with his arm slung casually around either Lily or one of the other boys, depending on who’s there. She repays him the favor of not acting jealous, knowing that the four boys have a close bond she wouldn’t want to interfere with, one that doesn’t diminish the relationship she herself has with James.

They’re starting to fall into a routine: Sirius wakes up first and entertains James, who always comes over early in the morning; once Lily’s up, she says hello to the boys, feeds Aquarius, and waits in the living room for more Gryffindors to filter in, after which Lily and Sirius head out, sometimes with one or two others in tow, to find something to fix for lunch for everyone once they get back home. After lunch and more socializing, their friends leave one by one, and Sirius and Lily eat leftovers for dinner and spend some quiet time together before bedtime in Sirius’s bedroom (their bedroom, Lily can’t help thinking).

On Saturday, James, Mary, and Emmeline all come over to spend the day at Lily and Sirius’s flat. She’s glad to see Emmeline there—Em has spent the least amount of time with the rest at the flat since summer vacation began, and Lily knows from experience how it feels to be on the outside of the group and doesn’t want that for Emmeline, even knowing that it was Em who chose to distance herself from her friends in fourth year. Em’s been making a real effort to reintegrate into the circle of friends, though, and although Lily hasn’t been able to catch her alone, she hopes she’s been able to convey how happy it makes her to spend more time with Em.

Mary, as always, arrives ready to gossip. “We should be getting our back-to-school letters soon,” she points out while they’re all hanging around the living room, Lily sitting on the floor in between James’s legs, leaning against the couch. “Who are we thinking will get Head Boy and Girl this year?”

“Remus or Frank Longbottom for Head Boy,” says James. “My money’s on Remus, personally.”

“Of course it is,” says Lily, rolling her eyes fondly. “What about Belby? His paper on his Wolfsbane Potion was published in The Practical Potioneer last month; that’s got to count for something. He’s getting more famous by the minute in potions circles. And he’s, you know, decent for a Slytherin.”

“‘Decent for a Slytherin?’” Mary echoes. “You talk like you weren’t best friends with one of them for, like, five years.”

“Eight, technically, if you count the time before we went to Hogwarts,” says Lily quietly. James reaches down and gives her shoulders a squeeze: Severus is still a sore spot, probably always will be.

“Whatever. Alice for Head Girl, obviously,” continues Mary.

Lily cringes on the inside: the wound from Alice making prefect over her still smarts a little, and it’ll be no different if Alice makes Head Girl as well. “It’s not that obvious,” Sirius is arguing now. “Bones and Davies would both make good choices, too.”

“So would Lily,” James points out, and Lily’s heart gives a grateful little flutter. “A lot of people were surprised when she didn’t make prefect in fifth year.”

“Another obvious choice would have been Elisaabeth,” Emmeline says softly, “but…”

There’s a long and rather awkward pause. Lily knows everyone is thinking about the Order of the Phoenix joining forces with Dumbledore’s group, wondering what tasks Dumbledore will assign to them now that they’ve joined up, but with Mary out of the picture, Lily doesn’t want to bring it up. “I know what you’re all thinking,” Mary finally says, though, to break the silence. “You can acknowledge the existence of the resistance in front of me; I’m not going to crack up if I hear about it.”

“I’m just wondering what kinds of missions he would even trust us with,” says James eventually. “I was shocked he invited us into the fold instead of punishing the hell out of us for what happened. Liz, Millie—they were all our fault. We didn’t exactly prove ourselves to be capable of doing much good.”

Emmeline says, “I think he just thought we would do less damage under his direction than if he continued to leave us to our own devices like he had done.”

“In a way, you were smart to get out, Mare,” says Sirius shortly. “We were so reckless… still are, really.”

“Smart or cowardly, take your pick,” Mary mutters, turning pink.

Lily feels a rush of sympathy for Mary, who got out—Mary, who deliberately ostracized herself from the most important dynamic within her friend group because she recognized that she was in over her head. She doesn’t know how to voice the sentiment without embarrassing everyone, Mary most of all, however, so she keeps it to herself and just shoots Mary a compassionate smile.

Mary and Em leave after lunch, but James stays behind, cozying up to Lily on the couch while Sirius kicks back his recliner and tucks a blanket around himself. “Dude, it’s July,” James points out, laughing.

“Yeah, and Lily blasts Cooling Charms so strong that I think I’m going to freeze to death,” Sirius retorts without missing a beat. “Not all of us have the benefit of sharing body heat like you’re climbing Everest together.”

Lily and James both blush; Lily stammers something about not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable. “Relax,” says Sirius, grinning. “I’m not uncomfortable, unless you count having to constantly live surrounded by you two’s unresolved sexual tension.”

“We do not have—!” says Lily hotly, while James coughs and extricates his arm from around her, sliding a couple inches away from her on the couch.

But it’s a lie, and they all know it. James stays late into the evening, and when Sirius hops into the bathroom for a quick shower, James turns to face Lily and takes her hands in his hands, twisting his lips self-consciously. “Lily,” he says quietly with a shaky voice, “I really, really like you.”

“I really, really like you, too, James,” she says with a soft smile.

“No, I mean…” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “Are you going to freak out and space on me again if I… if I…”

Lily tugs gently on his hands, pulling him in closer; she places his hands around her neck, then puts her hands around his neck. “I’m not going to freak out. I promise.”

“Because it’s okay if you are—I just don’t want to do anything to jeopardize being your friend. If that means we never act on this thing between us, I can live with th—”

“James,” she interrupts, and he cuts off and looks at her warily. “I’m going to kiss you now. You’re not going to freak out, are you?”

His eyes widen, and he laughs nervously. “No,” he says. “No.”

She leans in, and it’s—weird. Good, and it reminds her of the time they did this last Christmas, still a fond memory even though it used to make her nervous, but neither of them has much practice at this, and it’s a little clumsy and fumbling. Lily slides a hand up into James’s messy-as-all-hell hair and tugs, and he groans into her mouth and moves his hands down her torso to her waist, her hips—into her robes and under the blouse she’s wearing underneath, pressing the calloused pads of his fingers to the smooth skin of her stomach—

Lily clambers into his lap and feels herself gyrate downward; James sucks in a quick breath and then wrenches his mouth away from hers, breathing heavily. “We—hey, hey, hey—we should slow down. We haven’t talked about this, and Sirius could come back any second, and—”

“Right. Yes. Right.” Lily buries her face in James’s neck and breathes in the smell of forest and ink.

She’s still sitting in his lap wrapped up in him when Sirius comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and calls, “Right on! About time!” Lily blushes furiously but kisses James on the cheek nonetheless, smiling at him.

It seems that everyone knows within the week that Lily Evans and James Potter are (finally!) dating. The Gryffindor seventh years finding out quickly was inevitable—they’re spending all their downtime at Lily and Sirius’s flat—but when Lily goes to Diagon Alley with the other girls the following Friday to go gift shopping for Peter, it seems like everyone from Hogwarts that they run into comes up to her to congratulate her. “I might have sent a few owls,” Mary admits, blushing, after the third person to approach them.

After all of her drama last year, it seems that Mary is finally back to normal—or back to the new normal, at least. She’s still gossipy as ever, but she’s cut most of the “likes” from her vocabulary, colored her hair a soft brown, and stopped talking about Reginald Cattermole—stopped talking about her own love life at all, in fact. “Any news to report about your own boy friends, Mare?” Lily asks, but Mary just shakes her head and smiles.

On Marlene’s recommendation, they duck into Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, where Lily picks out a small selection of Dr. Filibuster’s Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks to give to Peter. It takes them all about an hour to browse the shelves and each pick out a gift; by the time they’ve rung up their purchases, it’s going on three o’clock. “Anyone want to come over to our flat?” Lily asks, and the girls agree cheerfully.

Back at the flat, Sirius is sitting in the living room with James, who gets up and greets Lily with a quick peck on the lips and a gentle smile. They haven’t talked yet about how far things progressed between them the day they got together, but Lily’s in no rush—she’s happy to take things slow for the moment while they’re still getting used to this thing between them materializing in a real way.

For now, she’s just happy for herself and James to be together, no drama, all soft touches and smiles.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: After reflecting on a confusing kiss he shared with Remus, Sirius decided not to deny Remus the intimacy he had always shared with his fellow Marauders. Peter’s seventeenth birthday approached. Remus’s parents, not knowing the truth about the Marauders being Animagi and running in the woods with Moony, allowed them to keep Remus company on several summertime full moons. With Remus as his test subject, Damocles Belby developed and perfected the recipe for the Wolfsbane Potion to allow werewolves to keep their minds while transforming.

xx

July 22nd, 1977: Remus Lupin

For the millionth time today, Remus finds himself wishing he had never kissed Sirius Black.

It’s Peter’s birthday, and they’re celebrating it at Lily and Sirius’s flat—the first time all nine of them have been together under one roof at once since getting off the train at King’s Cross. Lily and James are cozied up at one end of the couch together, which surprises no one, but what does surprise Remus is that Sirius is sitting by him instead of by Marlene, interlocking their fingers and resting his head on Remus’s shoulder. Remus, quite frankly, has no idea what to make of it. That Sirius would be so bold with Remus right in front of his girlfriend—it must be because Sirius doesn’t think anything of having this kind of intimacy with Remus, because he’s so secure in his straightness that he sees no reason Marlene should feel uncomfortable with him being affectionate toward another bloke. Right?

Except—Remus kissed him. Remus kissed him, and it was wonderful, and Sirius kissed back for a good twenty, thirty seconds before pushing Remus away. He didn’t even push Remus away, per se—Sirius pulled his mouth away first, yes, but then he sat there just looking at Remus for the longest time, something undecipherable in his eyes, until the door burst open and Remus and Sirius flew apart before Peter could put together what was going on.

To be honest, Remus doesn’t even understand what was going on, not really. He admitted to himself a while ago that the feelings he has for Sirius aren’t entirely platonic, but he always thought of himself as being straight, even would notice girls and think they were pretty. Only—just because a girl is pretty doesn’t mean that Remus is attracted to her, does it? No girl Remus has ever known has made him feel the way he does around Sirius—fluttery and warm and wholly (if he can admit it) unsatisfied.

Does that make him gay? He’s certainly pondered that question a hell of a lot since the kiss, but he can’t remember ever feeling this way around any bloke besides Sirius, and there would need to be more of a pattern for his feelings to count as gay, wouldn’t there? Is there a word for being attracted to your male best friend and no one else?

He has no idea what to make of any of it, and yes, he was avoiding Sirius because of it. At first it definitely felt like Sirius was avoiding him, too, but ever since Remus so stupidly invited Sirius to go to Diagon Alley with him the other week, Sirius has been all smiles and easy affection, holding Remus’s hand and wrapping his arms around him even in front of all the others. Hell, Remus spent so much time convincing himself that taking Sirius out wasn’t a date, only for Sirius to basically—treat it like a date, with the way he kept touching Remus the whole while. And Remus has no idea what to think.

Sirius has to know how Remus feels about him—Remus as good as confessed his feelings for him by kissing him last term. So why is Sirius acting like touching Remus in that way means nothing to either of them?

Peter is sitting on the floor by the fireplace, ripping open his packages and blushing and thanking everyone in turn for the birthday gifts. He opens Remus’s Dungbombs and grins. “I’ve been wanting to try these since they came out with them last year,” he says. “Thanks, Remus.”

“No problem,” Remus tries to say, but his voice is hoarse and cracks. He tries again. “No problem.”

The Marauders stay later than everyone else, Lily joining them in the living room and sitting in James’s lap on the sofa. Peter realizes Remus’s worst fear by asking, “So you two have made up after whatever it was you were fighting about, huh?” and pointing at Remus and Sirius, who are sitting together at the other end of the couch.

“Yeah, something like that,” says Sirius nonchalantly, but Peter dragging it out into the open like that must make him feel self-conscious, too, because he lets go of Remus’s hand and scoots an inch or two further away from him.

“So, uh, the full moon is coming up next weekend,” Remus says hastily—the first thing that comes to mind he can use to change the subject. “This will be the first time that I break it to my parents that someone’s invented the Wolfsbane Potion and I’ve been taking it, since they were out of town for the last one. Thank you again for coming over for it, by the way; it means a lot to me,” he babbles.

“Of course, Remus,” says James soothingly, seeming to sense Remus’s anxiety and misattribute it to the prospect of talking to his parents. “And I’m sure your mum and dad will be thrilled that there’s a potion out there you can take that will make your symptoms go away.”

“I’m telling them that last month was the first time I tried it, since Belby only just published it a month ago,” Remus says. “They’d have a conniption if they knew I agreed to take it untested when he was first developing it. They still might have a conniption knowing that I took it without telling them.”

“It’ll be okay, Remus,” says Sirius, his voice low in Remus’s ear.

For best effects, Belby suggested taking the potion every night for a week leading up to the full moon, since last month Remus did feel his control starting to slip toward the end of the night. After he extricates himself from Sirius and waves goodbye to Lily and the other Marauders, Remus Disapparates and rematerializes in his own living room, where his parents are lounging in armchairs side by side. “Evening, Remus,” says Mum, while Dad inclines his head and smiles.

“Hey, Mum. Hi, Dad.”

“Peter have a good birthday, then?” asks Mum.

“Yeah, I think so. He seemed good. I think it just makes him happy having everyone together to be there with him, you know?”

Mum nods, smiling. “It’s getting late; I think I’ll head up to bed pretty soon here.”

“Me, too, Mum. I just—uh—I just have to take my potion first.”

Dad frowns. “What potion?”

Remus reaches into the canvas bag on his shoulder and pulls out the complimentary copy of The Practical Potioneer, Vol. 16, No. 23 that Belby sent him in the mail last month. It’s already fairly battered, with the first page of Belby’s paper dog-eared. “The Wolfsbane Potion. It’s new. It lets you keep your mind when you make werewolf transformations…”

He trails off at his parents’ reactions. Dad looks like he might cry, whereas Mum is already starting to turn red with anger. “And when exactly did you find time to brew an illicit, dubious potion that claims to do what no one has been able to do for centuries?”

“It’s not illicit; it just doesn’t have Ministry approval yet. And Lily brewed it for me,” Remus fibs. “She gave me some to try last month… when you were in Ireland…”

“You mean to say you’ve already taken this drug without telling us what you were up to?”

“But I’m fine! I’m fine. James and Peter and Sirius came over to chain me up, like they promised they would when I told them you were going out of town, and they stayed up the whole night with me after I took it. They would have noticed and taken me to St. Mungo’s if there were any reason to believe I was in any medical danger.”

“Your mother’s right, Remus,” says Dad quietly. “If you were going to take an unapproved potion like this for the first time, you should have done it with supervision from adults, not from your teenage schoolmates. Your mum and I have placed enormous trust in you by allowing you to transform in the presence of your mates instead of us to begin with, and you violated that trust by doing this without our knowledge or approval.”

“Violated—” For the first time, Remus starts getting angry, raising his voice ever so slightly. “I’m of age, Dad! I’m seventeen! And it’s not exactly like you or any other adults are keeping a close eye on me when I transform at school nine months out of the year—”

“Maybe we should be, if your judgment is going to be so compromised!” shouts Mum.

“My judgment is not compromised. It’s my body. You don’t know how it feels to have this disability; you have no idea what I went through every month before taking the Wolfsbane Potion, and if I want to risk injury—or, hell, risk death—because I think it’s worth it to escape from that hell—”

“We have no idea what you go through? Your conscious mind shuts off during the transformation, Remus!” says Mum now. “You wake up with no memories of it. We’re the ones who have to watch our child suffering and know that there’s nothing we can do to—”

“But there is something you can do to help. You can let me take this potion and trust me that it will work out all right.”

“It’s not about trust!” says Mum.

“Dad just said it’s about trust! The trust you have in me to let me and my friends handle it—”

“We never should have let them stay with you instead of us,” Mum insists. “You’re all too young. You shouldn’t have even told them about your condition—”

“I told you, they figured it out on their own! I didn’t tell anyone anything. But clearly I was wrong to ever have tried to keep it from them in the first place. You know, when I told my mates about the Wolfsbane Potion, they were skeptical, but they didn’t try and stop me from taking it because they trust me.”

“Remus—”

But Remus is stomping up the stairs and into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him with a satisfying bang. More than anything, he wishes he could talk to Sirius about what just happened—Apparate back to he and Lily’s flat, or, hell, even just put it in a letter in the owl post—but every time he thinks about Sirius, he feels weird and shuddery and guilty, and Remus doubts that talking to Sirius right now would be a comfort. Instead, he pulls out a sheaf of parchment and starts composing a note to Peter.

It’s short, when he finishes it: Mum and Dad took the news really badly. I wish I could be with you right now instead of with them. He sneaks into his parents’ bedroom to borrow their owl and then hauls himself back into his room, flinging himself on the bed and punching the pillow.

Peter’s reply comes half an hour later. Meet me at my house tomorrow. We’ll go out and do something, just you and me. Sound good?

Thank you, Remus writes back, and then he settles in for a fitful sleep—but not before he reaches into his trunk for the potion Belby gave him and swallows the night’s dose.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Peter celebrated his seventeenth birthday. After Remus kissed him, Sirius reacted by trying to regain normalcy by amping up his platonic affectionateness around Remus, who in turn withdrew. Emmeline and Sirius had a years-long falling-out over Sirius’s cousin Bellatrix (unbeknownst to him) killing Emmeline’s parents, with Emmeline trying and failing to reconnect with Sirius once she no longer blamed him. Remus fought with his parents over his taking the newly developed Wolfsbane Potion without their knowledge or permission. Alecto Carrow threatened Peter in an attempt to blackmail him into sharing information about the Order of the Phoenix.

xx

July 23rd, 1977: Peter Pettigrew

All in all, it was a good birthday, Peter thinks—he got lots of cool stuff and, more importantly, got to spend the whole day long with all eight of his closest friends (and how many people can even count themselves lucky enough to have eight best friends?). He just wishes he knew the right thing to say to Remus—it sucks that his parents are none too happy about him taking the Wolfsbane Potion, and it also sucks that there’s been whatever weirdness this is between Remus and Sirius as of late. Even though Sirius and Remus seem more or less to be back to normal, Peter thinks that Sirius is—it’s almost to say that Sirius is overacting the part of Remus’s normal friend who doesn’t have any weirdness with him. All four Marauders are generally casually affectionate with each other, but Sirius has almost been too affectionate with Remus in particular now that he’s not avoiding him anymore, which in turn seems to be making Remus nervous.

Remus seems anxious and subdued when he arrives at Peter’s house the following morning. He says hello to Peter’s parents, and they spend a good ten minutes standing in the kitchen, Mum and Dad asking Remus how he’s been, how his family is doing, whether he’s excited to go into his last year of schooling at Hogwarts. For most of the summer, Remus has been pointedly avoiding Sirius and Lily’s flat, and so has been spending an awful lot of time at Peter’s house instead, so it’s not like they didn’t just see him to catch up a few days ago, but Mum and Dad are both pretty chatty and, Peter assumes, must feel close to Remus after how much they’ve seen of him on holidays over the last six years.

Peter Side-Along-Apparates with Remus to Diagon Alley—he may finally be of age now, but his next opportunity to get his Apparition license won’t be for another month. They hang out in Gambol and Japes for a while, giving each other noogies and messing with the merchandise, and then hit up The Leaky Cauldron for Peter’s first legal Firewhiskey.

“It’s too bad Padfoot and Prongs aren’t here for this,” Peter remarks casually. “They’d have liked to be there. We were there to celebrate with them when they came of age.”

Remus, who went stiff at the first mention of Sirius, says tightly, “I didn’t want to be around Padfoot and Prongs today. Just you.”

“Is this about whatever you and Padfoot were fighting over at the end of last term?” asks Peter. When Remus doesn’t answer, he takes his silence to mean yes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay. But I’m here if you change your mind.”

“Thanks, Wormy.” Remus squeezes an arm around Peter’s shoulders and ruffles his hair with his free hand. “You’re a good friend.”

xx

He’s in Flourish and Blotts when the thing that he’s been dreading happens again, as he’s clenching his booklist so hard that it crumples and staring up into the eyes of Alecto Carrow.

“Not so brave when your little friends aren’t around, are you?” she sneers. Peter doesn’t allow himself the luxury of looking around frantically for Remus. Peter already knows that Remus is over in the Current Events section looking up news on the war, and that’s clear across to the other side of the store. Besides, he doesn’t want to give the impression that he needs to lean on Remus to take care of him, that he can’t fight his own battles.

“I’m plenty brave,” he says instead, and he sets his jaw and locks eyes on hers.

“Sure you are. For now. When I’m through with you, your friends won’t even recognize the snivelly little bastard you’ll become. You’ll be a traitor, and a coward, and they’ll hate you for it.”

“You’re confident,” says Peter, his voice trembling. “Hold onto that while it lasts, because you won’t be for long. You’ll see. You can’t hurt me, not directly and not through my friends.”

Carrow smirks. “174 Grove Road.”

“What?”

“Don’t you recognize it? That’s the address for Samantha Macdonald. It would be a shame for the house to have a gas leak and then catch on fire while she’s at work and her daughter is at home, now, wouldn’t it?”

Peter’s stomach sinks like a stone. “You’re threatening Mary’s mum?”

“Your words, not mine,” says Carrow with a wink.

“You can’t,” he blurts out. “You’re not going to get away with blackmailing me. I’ll tell Dumbledore. I’ll—”

“Go ahead. Tell him. If they lock me up—and that’s assuming that anyone in the Ministry is willing to take your word against mine—Macdonald and the rest of your bratty friends will all be dead within the day. This thing is bigger than just me, you know.”

“I know,” Peter spits. “It’s you and your Death Eater cronies. That’s what you want to become, isn’t it?”

Again, she says, “Your words,” and then she pauses and adds, “We might be inclined to let the filthy Muggles live if you gave me a name.”

Peter’s first thought is that’s all? but he doesn’t press his luck. “A name,” he repeats dubiously.

“We got glimpses of your moronic band of rebels during the attack you tried to stage last May, but unfortunately for us, most of our elders don’t spend their time studying up on the faces of Hogwarts students. Just give me one name of one of your conspirators, and I’ll drop the whole thing, I promise. You can trust me.”

He looks blankly into her conniving face and says, “I’ll never trust you.”

Still, he calls Mary up at her mum’s place the second that he makes plans with Remus for tomorrow, says goodbye, and gets home. “What are you up to tomorrow?”

“Not much, just hanging out at home. Mum wants me to clean the bathrooms for her,” says Mary, and Peter can hear her scowl through the phone.

“Come over. First thing, as soon as you wake up. Remus will be here, too. We’ll make a day of it.”

“Um, okay?”

“Good,” says Peter, and he hangs up the phone.

Carrow’s stunt in Diagon Alley took him by surprise: he’d thought he’d be safe until he went back to Hogwarts, not that anybody would track him down over the summer with details and plans at the ready for how they were going to hurt Peter’s loved ones. Choosing Mary as the one to threaten was a surprise as well, although the more Peter thinks about it, the more he realizes that it shouldn’t have been. She may be out of the Order now, but she was just as big a part of it as Peter at the ambush, and her parents are both Muggles to boot. Of course she’d be a target.

Remus is already here by the time Mary arrives the next morning. “I’m really glad you’re here,” Peter says quietly while Mary is giving him a quick one-armed hug.

“Why the urgency? You sounded so serious when you called,” she responds. She’s grinning; Peter isn’t.

“No reason,” he says. He hopes she and Remus can’t hear the tremble in his voice. “So where are we off to? Sirius and Lily’s?”

“I was thinking we could go to Hogsmeade,” Remus says quickly.

Mary raises an eyebrow. “That bad, huh?”

“Can we please not talk about it?”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Peter assures him with a sad smile, and he takes Remus’s hand and braces himself for Apparition.

He feels like he’s on tenterhooks all day, and his uneasiness, if anything, only grows as they pass from shop to shop to The Three Broomsticks for a late lunch. He keeps Mary within eyeshot at all times, only letting her slip away when she needs to use the loo at Zonko’s, and even then, he keeps anxiously glancing at the restroom door, barely listening to a word Remus is saying.

It takes him a moment to realize that Remus has stopped talking and is giving him a side-eye. “What?” says Peter, and he tries to sound defensive, but it just comes out an anxious squeak.

“What’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird ever since yesterday afternoon.”

“I’m fine,” says Peter, too quickly. “Everything’s fine.”

But everything is not fine. He can feel it in his gut, in his bones, in his voice box as he wishes Remus and Mary a good rest of their night and collapses into his bed back home. The minutes tick by, and the phone doesn’t ring, and nobody Apparates or Flooes into his house with bad news, but still, Peter can’t let his guard down.

He shouldn’t have let Mary go home tonight. He should have convinced her to stay the night, bought her some time to figure out what to do. He should have frickin’ reported Carrow the second he got home from Diagon Alley yesterday, but who’s Peter going to tell? He doesn’t exactly have a direct line to Dumbledore, and he’s never been to the Ministry of Magic to know where it is or how to get there. And even if he did tell someone, what if Carrow stuck to her word and had more than just Mary killed to retaliate?

He doesn’t sleep much that night. The next morning, Remus comes over again, clearly intent on hiding out from Sirius at Peter’s house for as long as Peter will let him, and Peter puts his foot down and says, “We’re going to Lily and Sirius’s flat. You can’t avoid him forever, Moony.” That, and Sirius and Lily’s place is probably the best place to be if he wants to keep tabs on Mary.

Mary isn’t there when they Apparate in, but she arrives an hour later looking a little bedraggled. “Hey, guys. Hi, Peter,” she says as Peter beelines over to her.

“How are you doing, Mare? How was your night?”

“Well, you know, the house caught on fire yesterday while we were out,” she says, sounding stressed, and Peter’s stomach just about drops down to his feet.

“You’re kidding,” says James.

“I wish,” says Mary. “Apparently there was a gas leak or something? The fire marshals couldn’t figure out what set off the fire, though—nobody was home at the time, so it’s not like someone turned on a burner or something—Mum was at work, and I was out, too, so no one got hurt, but we’re still stuck staying in a hotel while Mum sorts through the insurance and tries to decide whether to rebuild the house or buy a new one—”

Peter’s head is swimming. He barely notices as Remus claims the free armchair instead of the space next to Sirius on the couch. (Was that deliberate? Of course it was deliberate, Peter tells himself. He wonders whether Remus and Sirius are actually fooling anyone into thinking that things are back to normal between them.)

He tries to focus on the fact that Mary is okay, that no one actually got hurt, but he can’t help feeling wholly and entirely responsible for everything, and he knows that he should, that he deserves this guilt. The day passes in a blur, like the next, and the next, but Mary keeps showing up every day no worse for wear, and Peter keeps wondering when the other shoe is going to drop.

On Thursday, Peter allows Remus to tag along on his plans to see Emmeline, who doesn’t seem to mind the added company. “It’s hard,” she tells them when Peter asks how she’s doing. “I alienated myself from everyone for so long, you know? And I don’t think I’m ever going to be as close to Sirius as I used to be, and I miss that a lot—I miss him. Everyone’s been welcoming, but—it’s hard to be around him and know I’m not his best friend anymore, or, you know, his best friend not including the blokes.”

“Hang in there,” Peter advises, giving her hand a little squeeze.

Remus asks, “Have you tried talking to Sirius about how you feel and what you want? It might at least help you clear the air and help you figure out where to go next with him.”

“God, no,” says Emmeline with an anxious laugh. “The last time we really talked one-on-one, we had that blowout fight about everything, and I keep feeling like I’m walking on eggshells, like it’s going to go back to that. No, I’d much rather leave everything unspoken just to have a little peace where he’s concerned.”

Peter is surprised that Em is so frank about her relationships with Sirius and the other Gryffindor seventh years in front of Remus—as far as he knows, Peter is the only person Em’s ever really confided in about this—but he’s glad to see her doing it, if it could bring her closer to Remus and help her bridge the gap between herself and one more member of their friend group. “You should both come with me to Sirius and Lily’s flat tomorrow,” Peter says; Emmeline agrees shyly, and so does Remus, after a long pause and some obvious deliberation.

On Saturday night, Peter, Sirius, and James don’t accompany Remus at the full moon, leaving him to transform in the care of his parents. They’ve only ever joined Remus a couple of times for his transformation during the summer, when his parents were out of town and believed that the Marauders were chaining their son up, not cavorting with him in the nearby woods. Peter knows that Remus hugely prefers joining up with the Marauders to being locked up by his parents, but no one can know that they’ve illegally become Animagi, especially not parents who would probably be terrified for the safety of others around Remus if they knew that he was roaming the grounds every month at the full moon at Hogwarts.

In a lot of ways, it was reckless of them to become Animagi in order to help Remus with his transformations, Peter reflects, but he thinks it was worth it. Even now that Remus doesn’t really need them anymore, now that he has the Wolfsbane Potion to help him keep his mind during the transformations, it was worth it for Remus to have some company to help keep him from hurting himself or anyone else for the couple of years that they were able to do that for him.

The next morning, Peter kisses his parents goodbye and Flooes to the Lupins’ house, where Remus is locked in his bedroom and only lets Peter in when he ascertains that his parents aren’t coming in with him. “They still chained me up,” he says shortly, flopping back down again on his bed, “because they didn’t trust that the potion would work without seeing it for themselves, so I didn’t get a lot of sleep—too uncomfortable.”

“I’m sorry,” says Peter, squeezing Remus’s knee.

“You know, they used to be impressed that you and Prongs and Padfoot were willing to stay with me during transformations so that they could still go away for trips and things? They used to think you were all such great mates for sticking by me and supporting me in spite of my condition. But it’s like they’ve decided you’re all negligent for allowing me to take the Wolfsbane Potion—allowing me! Like taking it makes me a reckless teenager, and not interfering makes you all reckless teenagers, too. Like I need to be—like I need to be monitored.”

“They’re just scared for you,” Peter says quietly. “Fear makes people try to control the people they love. I’m not saying they’re right; I’m just saying.”

“I know,” says Remus, and he sounds very, very old in that moment. “I just wish I could make them listen to me.”

Peter pats Remus’s knee again and sighs. “After the next month, you’ve got Christmas and Easter breaks, and then you can move out, at least. It won’t change them, but it will give you the privacy to better make your own decisions.”

Remus seems to sag down deeper into the mattress. “I’m really afraid for what’s going to happen to me when we graduate,” he confesses. “There’s so much anti-werewolf legislation that makes it almost impossible to get a job… I already had to register as one when I turned seventeen, and any employer can check with the Ministry and see my status as one. I’m lucky that word about me hasn’t spread at Hogwarts yet, but with Belby’s paper on the Wolfsbane Potion coming out, people might start to figure out that I was his test subject, and…”

“Breathe,” Peter advises. Remus slumps over further in his seat. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, yeah? It’s going to be okay, Moony. I promise. All of us are here to help carry you if you need it. Prongs is, like, a gazillionaire; I’m sure he can help finance you if you need it once he comes into his inheritance when we graduate. Or Padfoot would let you crash with him—he’s already letting Lily stay there for free.”

Remus smiles weakly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Peter hesitates, then asks, “What’s the deal with you and Padfoot lately, anyway? I know you were avoiding each other for a while, and then you seemed okay for a bit, but now it seems like you—well—I feel like you’ve been hiding out at my place so you can avoid him.”

Remus colors. “I’m sorry, Wormtail. I didn’t mean to make you feel like—like a replacement.”

“No, it’s okay, it’s just… is everything all right?”

There’s a pause, and then Remus answers, “Has Padfoot seemed like he’s been—I don’t know—affectionate ever since we made up?”

“I guess. I mean, we’re all pretty affectionate with each other, compared to most blokes.”

“Yeah, but has he seemed extra affectionate?”

Peter mulls it over. “Maybe, yeah. I guess I noticed it, but I just assumed he was happy to have you back as a friend. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” says Remus a little too quickly, and Peter suspects that there’s more—a lot more—to the story than Remus is letting on.

When he gets home, there’s a letter sitting on his bed tied to the leg of a barn owl. Peter’s heart is beating in double time as he opens it.

One name, it says.

Almost automatically, like he couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to, he fetches a quill and scribbles on the back, Gideon Prewett.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Alice spent most of sixth year dating Dirk Cresswell from the year below, but their relationship ground to a halt when Dirk disapproved of Alice joining the Order of the Phoenix and declined her invitation to join it with her. Alice grappled with the discrepancies between her progressive friends' beliefs about werewolves and blood purity and those of her subtly purist parents. Damocles Belby published his Wolfsbane Potion recipe in The Practical Potioneer. The Gryffindors speculated about who would be named Heads of Hogwarts this year, with Alice considered a frontrunner for Head Girl.

Revised version uploaded 11 January 2022.

xx

July 31st, 1977: Alice Abbott

Alice still doesn't understand why she got invited to the latest unofficial summer Quidditch scrimmage. It's not like she plays, or like she's demonstrated any interest at all in Quidditch in her last six years at Hogwarts, or like they're even short on people and needed a quick stand-in or something. No, Alice is relegated to the sidelines with Remus and Peter, snacking on crisps while they watch the players toss around a watermelon and whack apples at each other, and she voices what everyone's thinking by asking them, "How did I end up here again?"

"James asked you to come, didn't he? Probably wanted someone to show off for," Peter sniggers.

"I know he asked me," says Alice, "but why me? None of the other girls are here."

"I think he said something about Dirk Cresswell wanting you to come," Remus answers.

This catches Alice by surprise. She turns her eyes up to the sky again, searching Dirk out, and finally lands on him where he's hovering high above the others, eyes peeled for the faux Snitch in the air somewhere. After they dated casually all last year, things ground to an awkward halt after Alice invited him to join the Order of the Phoenix and Dirk declined, saying he thought it best to leave the Dark wizard hunting to the authorities. Then, of course, came the disastrous ambush that left Millie and Elisabeth dead, and Alice spent the rest of the year in a protected bubble with the rest of the Gryffindors without much more than a "hello" to Dirk when she passed him in the library or the corridors.

But when the match is over, Dirk locks eyes with her and gives a big wave and runs up to her to say hello. "I'm glad you could make it! I was really hoping to see you soon," he tells her, beaming.

"It's good to see you, too. Nice Seeking up there," she says, for lack of anything better to say.

"Oh! Thanks. You don't play at all, do you?"

"Not unless you count breaking my ankle as a little kid on my toy broomstick," she says. He cackles.

They get to chatting, and it surprises Alice how easy it still is to stand there talking to Dirk once again for five, ten, twenty minutes, even as some of the other players start to Disapparate or head back into the McCormacks' house to Floo out of the fireplace. They finally reach a lull in the conversation, and Alice looks around to take stock of who's still here: they're two of the only ones left, besides Sirius, Peter, a couple of Ravenclaws, and, of course, Meghan. "Well, I better go," she tells Dirk a little awkwardly. "I'm Apparating Peter back home, and I don't want to keep him waiting."

"Listen," says Dirk nonchalantly, "it was really great catching up with you, Alice. Would you want to do it again sometime? Maybe over dinner sometime before we go back to Hogwarts?"

"I… I mean, I have to ask," she says, the words bursting out of her of their own accord, "what changed? I thought you and I were, well, over, and then after everything that went down in May… I thought it was a dealbreaker for you."

He shrugs, but his eyes belie his lack of confidence. "Honestly, I thought so, too… but I know there's more to you than one mistake. I know it. And you're done being reckless, aren't you? I mean, after all that happened?"

She thinks about the look on Dumbledore's face when he asked the Order to join forces with his group, like he was resigning himself to it to placate them and keep them out of worse trouble. She thinks about the shape of Elisabeth's corpse under Madam Pomfrey's sheets. "I'm done," she says, and it's only half a lie because there's no way Dumbledore will allow them to get themselves into any real danger, is there? "But, I mean—I'm still going into the Auror program after I graduate. There's still going to be risk if you associate with me."

"It's different if you're a qualified authority," says Dirk. "You'll be trained, you'll be…"

"I won't be safe. Aurors are never safe."

"It takes a lot of bravery to fight, and I respect that. I just want you to—to not do anything rash."

Alice smiles weakly. "No more rashness. I promise."

Dirk twists his lips self-consciously and then says, "Oh, screw it," and pulls her into a tight hug. Alice laughs and pats him on the back and tries to pretend like she thinks this is going to work.

xx

She's at Lily and Sirius's flat the next day when they get the news. Alice, Lily, Sirius, James, and Marlene are sitting in the living room when two sleek black owls bearing letters tied to their legs arrive at the nearest window and start rapping on it with their beaks. "Oh, those must be from Hogwarts," says Sirius as Lily pecks James on the lips, crosses to the window, opens it, and starts untying the letter attached to the owl that starts hopping in place on the windowsill in front of her.

Sirius rips open his letter and starts scanning it quickly. "Not too many new books this time—Goshawk's Standard Book of Spells, Grade Seven, and a new one for Defense. Wonder who our new professor is going to be?"

"Oh!" Lily yelps, and Alice sees a flash of gold as something falls out of her letter and hits the ground.

Alice's mind races as Lily stoops to pick it up. What dropped from Lily's letter has to be a badge. Either it's a prefect's badge, because Alice has been named Head Girl and needs a replacement named, or it's…

But Lily can't possibly have been named Head Girl, could she? Alice gets higher marks than Lily does, and up until recently, Lily was just an oddball with a Slytherin best friend who was rumored to be dabbling with him in the Dark Arts. Alice is the one who has the social skills and the diplomacy for the Head Girl job, not Lily.

And yet—

Lily's eyes dart back and forth between the badge and the letter for a long moment until James breaks the silence and asks, "What is it, Lily?"

She looks up, though she avoids meeting Alice's eyes. "I'm, um—I've been named Head Girl."

James gets up to kiss her while a chorus of congratulations rings out into the room. Alice feels like her stomach is going to drop right through her abdomen and out of her body. "That's wonderful, Lily, congratulations," she says, and her voice is quite steady.

Lily looks at Alice, then, and her eyes are wide and—pleading? Surprised? Alice can't tell. "Thank you," Lily answers quietly, and then her eyes flick away again, and she laughs as James engulfs her in a big bear hug.

Alice needs to get out of here. It'll be obvious why she's gone if Alice gets out of here. Why did Dumbledore name Lily Head Girl instead of her?

Alice doesn't generally consider herself to be a very jealous person, but then again, Alice usually doesn't find herself in the position of losing something to her competition. She always gets the best marks out of everyone in her friend group, edging Lily out year after year; Dumbledore chose her for prefect over Lily, and hasn't she proven that she deserved it, that she's done a great job of it for the past two years?

Dumbledore must like that she's been willing to be friends with Slytherins, says a tiny voice in the back of Alice's mind. But no, that can't be it, either: if anything, that reasoning should have made Lily a prefect back in fifth year, not made her Head Girl today, now that she's no longer friends with Severus and has instead enmeshed herself in the social circle of her own house and year.

Wracking her brains, Alice can't think of a single reason that Dumbledore should choose Lily over her for Head Girl. Alice wonders whether that says the most about Lily, about Dumbledore, or about Alice.

She white-knuckles it through another two hours that involve more discussion of Lily's Headship and speculation about who's been named Head Boy. James seems determined to keep saying over and over that he knew she had it in her, how glad he is that Dumbledore knows it too, and that Lily was always the obvious choice of Head Girl. He may feel that way, but it strikes Alice as more than a little insensitive to keep repeating it right in front of Alice, when one could easily make the same case about her instead of Lily.

When she can't stand it any longer, Alice says she needs to be getting back home to her parents, and she Disapparates after making plans to pick up her books in Diagon Alley with the others next week. Upon arriving at home, Alice finds a letter with her name on it sitting at her table-place in the kitchen. "An owl arrived for you, dear," says Mum. Her voice is wavering with excitement, and Alice knows that she's expecting Alice to make Head Girl, just like Alice thought, too.

"Thanks, Mum," she says, and she tears it open and scans the booklist quickly, trying not to dwell on the lack of a badge. She can see her mother watching Alice out the corner of her eye, probably looking for a badge that isn't there.

The thing about Mum and Dad—they always say they're proud of Alice. They've been calling her their brilliant baby girl for as long as she can remember, and they never pass up a chance to brag about her to their friends and hers alike (to her eternal humiliation, in the case of the latter). But that's just it: the way they've always done it is so, well, showy. It's not like she doesn't think they appreciate her, but sometimes, she wonders to what extent they think of her success—her prefect's badge, her high marks, the first sign of magic she showed at age four months—as their own trophies, to be paraded in the world as if to say, look who we raised—look how well we've done.

And she genuinely doesn't know whether the praise would keep coming if she stopped performing—if she failed to live up to that pressure. Honestly, she could see it going either way, but she doesn't think either way would be good. Would they lecture her on what a disappointment she is? Or would they avoid a confrontation with her while desperately trying to frame her as being better than she actually is to others in public?

She's never had to find out before because she's never actually slipped up before. She's been in the race for valedictorian since first year; she made prefect; she started an Auror internship as a sixth year; and, perhaps most importantly to Mum and Dad, everybody at Hogwarts name-drops her in casual conversation as the smart Gryffindor in her year. She knows Lily views her as competition, but to be completely honest, she's never reciprocated—Alice has always seen Lily as beneath her, at least in terms of academic and career achievement.

But suddenly, Lily is a challenge—a threat—and the worst part is, they're supposed to be friends. How many times has Alice congratulated herself on having been kind to Lily when she was an outcast? And now that Lily's on the inside—now that she spends real time with Alice and trusts Alice—the second that Lily gets picked for something over Alice, all Alice cares about are her wounded pride and her parents' reactions.

"Alice, dear? Was there anything interesting in your letter?"

Alice's attention snaps back to Mum. "I—no. Just my booklist."

"But we were expecting… you've done such great work as a prefect these last two years, haven't you?" Mum is maintaining very careful control over her voice; the excitement is entirely gone from it.

"It's fine. My friend Lily made Head Girl, and I'm happy for her. She works hard, Mum—she deserves it."

She's lying through her teeth, but suddenly, she's seized with a desire to stick up for Lily—and, in doing so, sort of stick up for herself, too. She doesn't want to make excuses for herself—she doesn't owe Mum any. So what if Alice isn't Head Girl? Isn't she just as deserving of love and pride now, without a Head Girl's badge, as she was yesterday?

Mum looks ready to argue, and Alice knows that the first thing out of Mum's mouth is going to be something that crushes her. She doesn't want to hear it. She may be a Gryffindor, but she's a coward, apparently, who can't face her parents' disapproval.

So she changes the subject to the first thing she can think of to avoid having to answer any more questions. "Did you hear about the paper in The Practical Potioneer about the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion?" Alice asks quickly.

"Oh, no, I'm rubbish at potions, you know that," Mum says with a laugh. "Why? What's it about?"

"It's been making a lot of waves," says Alice. "It was created by a bloke in my year at Hogwarts, in Slytherin. He's claiming that werewolves who take the potion will be able to keep their human minds when they transform at the full moon."

Mum sniffs, "That sounds like a load of tosh. Keep their human minds? It can't be done."

"Actually, the paper says that his test subject—"

"This student had a test subject? At Hogwarts? Goodness, that doesn't mean Dumbledore's been letting werewolves into the school, does it? That's so dangerous—the risks are unimaginable—"

Alice chooses not to mention that she knows the werewolf in question and that he hasn't infected or hurt anyone in the six years he's been at Hogwarts. "But with this potion," she presses, "don't you think it's a great thing for werewolves? If they can keep control when they transform, doesn't that give them a shot at a normal life the rest of the month, too?"

"A normal life? Honey, there's no such thing as a normal life for werewolves. Goodness, what are they teaching you up at that school?"

Alice shrugs. "Oh, by the way, I should mention that I might be out late on Tuesday. I have a dinner date."

"A dinner date?" echoes Mum. "With that Cresswell boy again?"

"Yeah. Dirk. He's a sixth year; he plays Seeker for Ravenclaw, remember?"

Mom purses her lips. "We don't know any other Cresswells."

"Yeah, he's Muggle-born," says Alice casually.

It surprises her, therefore, when Mum doesn't respond right away, and when Alice finally looks over at her, Mum's got her lips pursed and has set down the spoon she was using to stir the noodles that she's got on the stovetop. "Don't you want to be with someone who's from the same background as you are? Can a Muggle-born ever really understand the lifestyle you're from?"

"He's lived at a boarding school for wizards for the last five years, Mum; I think he's figured out how our 'lifestyle' works."

"Yes, well, he'll always have one foot in the Muggle world, and that's dangerous," Mum argues. "The International Statute of Secrecy exists for a reason. These people would burn all of us at the stake if they knew we exist."

"But… but it's the pureblood supremacists who are killing Muggles and Muggle-borns, not the other way around."

"But just because a few bad wizards are acting out of prejudice doesn't mean we all are."

What Alice wants to say is, Yet you don't want me dating a Muggle-born, and you can't give me a straight answer why! But Alice is Alice, and she holds her tongue for the sake of keeping the peace, even though she's starting to think that her mother has more prejudices than she believes she does.

Ever since last year—ever since that day at the bar with Sirius and Mary and Remus—she keeps noticing it in Mum and Dad whenever she talks to or hears from them. She never thought she lived in a society with systematic pureblood supremacy at its heart; she'd thought the same thing Mum's saying now, that Wizarding Britain is troubled by a few rotten apples and nothing more. But—just listen to Mum now. It's not just the Death Eaters committing senseless murders who are the problem: it's every last person like Mum who's ever tried to keep people like Alice away from people like Dirk—to strip werewolves like Remus of their ability to provide for themselves or participate in society in a meaningful way.

The more she's thought about it, the more she hasn't been able to justify any of the legislation against werewolves. She knows Remus: he's talented and thoughtful and kind, and at a minimum, he deserves to have friends, to have ambitions, to make a paycheck that he can use to live comfortably. Sure, he shouldn't ever pick up a job where he works the night shift, but as long as he clocks out before sunset on full moons and takes his Wolfsbane Potion one week out of every month, Alice can't think of any reason why Remus shouldn't be permitted—

Not be permitted: that implies that Remus answers to somebody else, that he's got to prove his worth, and Alice knows that Remus has worth. No: there's no reason why Remus shouldn't have the right to live like—well—like a human being. He may be a werewolf, but he's a human first—he's got human emotions and desires and heartache and, perhaps most importantly of all, dignity.

The thought that Mum would just as soon strip him of that dignity if she knew what Remus is—that Mum would forbid Alice from dating Dirk if she could help it—makes Alice feel sick. "I'll be up in my room," she says abruptly. "I want to write Remus a letter."

xx

Alice doesn't know whom to confide in about her feelings about Lily's promotion to Head Girl. Marlene is too close to Lily, Mary would probably spread word of what Alice said to the rest of the school, and Emmeline, though she's genuinely been trying to reintegrate into the group, just isn't close enough to Alice for her to feel comfortable approaching her about it.

So she ends up talking to Peter and Remus about it when they're both at Peter's house a couple of days later. She knows Remus better, of the two, but also knows that Peter can be trusted not to blab Alice's secret feelings to anyone else. "I'm just… okay, I'm jealous," Alice admits, fiddling with her robes. "But is that so wrong of me to feel that way? It feels like I've spent the last six years proving that I'm more deserving than she is, only to have it thrown back in my face in my final year at Hogwarts."

"Dumbledore must have had his reasons," says Peter gently. "Maybe he saw something in her that he wanted to bring out by naming her Head Girl. You know he made James Head Boy?"

"What?" says Alice, so stunned that she momentarily forgets what she's upset about. "James is Head Boy?"

"I know. We were all surprised, James most of all," says Remus with a little smile.

Abruptly, Alice realizes that this puts Remus in the same position that she herself is in, and she feels a rush of sympathy for him. "I'm sorry you didn't get it, Remus. I know you were considered one of the favorites for the position."

"Oh, that's all right," says Remus, waving his hand in the air as if to swipe the problem away. "I didn't exactly exercise much control over my friends as a prefect. And James does have the charisma to make a great leader, if only he were to apply himself in the right direction."

"But Lily? She's not charismatic; she…"

But that's not quite true, is it? Lily can be quite charming, and loyal, and sweet (when she's not being cheeky to get a rise out of others—usually James), and Alice ought not to be too competitive to recognize that. Didn't she say all last year that she was proud of how inclusive she always was to Lily, even before Lily dropped Snape and got popular? Is Alice really so shallow to go back on her principles just because Lily got a Head Girl badge and Alice didn't?

"I'm a terrible mate," she says, burying her face in her hands. "I'm being so selfish. Why can't I just feel happy for her like a normal person?"

"You're allowed to feel the way you feel," says Peter. "You know, if I were Lily, right now I would probably be feeling self-conscious about where my relationship stood with you. Maybe it would do you both some good to spend some time together, remember why you're friends and not just competitors."

"You're right," says Alice miserably. "You're right. I should stop by her flat tomorrow, spend some time with her."

But she already knows she's not going to reach out. Alice tries to be a good friend—she's probably the best member of her friend group at reaching out consistently to others over breaks and such—but she never really feels like she manages to connect with anybody, not on the level that her friends all connect with each other. She's not just frustrated with Lily for beating her—she's frustrated with herself for managing to feel in this moment like Lily is just a competitor, because it's just a reflection of how much Alice feels like she's on the outside. Reminding herself what that feels like by hanging around Lily deliberately just feels like a recipe for disappointment.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius and Lily moved in together again for the summer before seventh year. James and Lily finally started dating.

Revised version uploaded 11 January 2022.

xx

August 4th, 1977: James Potter

James has wanted Lily for so many years that, now that they’re together, he feels like he can barely function for happiness. He knows the extent to which he’s been kissing and cuddling with her in front of the others is excessive, but he doesn’t care. Lily Evans is his girlfriend, and James doesn’t care what anybody thinks of it, so long as he gets to be with her. 

He’d been so afraid that Lily would freak out and create distance between them if they did anything physical again, and James had been ready to resign himself to a lifetime of being just friends with her. If all he could have were friendship with flirty banter, he would have taken it happily. But it turns out that he can have more, and all he can process is joy joy joy.

He loves that Lily and Sirius are rooming together in their own flat, because it means that when James comes over every day, he gets to see his best friend and his girlfriend (his girlfriend!) all at once, the whole day long. He’s so happy that he’s not even jealous that Sirius and Lily are sharing a bedroom. The one problem this poses, of course, is that neither James and Lily, nor Sirius and Marlene, have any privacy from each other for physical intimacy. For James and Lily, this isn’t a huge deal, since it’s not like they’ve done much more than peck on the lips (with one notable exception), but James imagines that Sirius is going a little stir crazy without having had sex with Marlene all summer long.

Truth be told, James is more than a little apprehensive to go any further than brief kisses with Lily. She iced him out for months after that one time they kissed during sixth year, and while by some miracle she doesn’t seem to be having any kind of crisis of conscience this time, James is still nervous that they’ll go too far and it’ll be too much for her to handle. He’s so, so happy just to hold her and kiss her and while away his days in her company, and he doesn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize the miracle he already has.

He’s alone with her when Sirius is in the shower one night when he tilts her chin up until she looks him in the eye. “I’m really, really glad that we’re together now.”

“Me, too.”

“Sure you aren’t going to leave me for Snape?” says James.

He’s joking, but Lily’s wearing a pensive look and a frown. “You know, I always suspected that he had feelings for me,” she says. “Severus, I mean. The way he looked at me sometimes… the way he talked about you fancying me…”

“Did you fancy him back?” asks James, terrified to learn the answer.

“No,” she says, and James holds in a huge sigh of relief. “The way I felt about him was strong—he was my only real friend for years—but it wasn’t like that.”

“Right.”

“I do miss him,” Lily admits. “You don’t stop caring just because you’re supposed to about someone who was your best mate for eight years. But I want to move on with my life, not stay stuck in regret over someone who… who…”

James starts to say, “You don’t have to—”

“No—it’s okay. This is just something that I live with, that’s all,” she says with a shrug and a small smile.

When James Apparates back home, he finds his dad alone in the main living room, reading the Daily Prophet and looking anxious. “More bad news about Voldemort?” James asks darkly, the remnants of his smile dropping from his lips.

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Dad sighs. “No, actually, it’s—it’s your mother.”

“Mum? What about Mum?”

“You know that spattergroit case she worked at the hospital last week?” James nods. “Well, your mum started to break out in purple pustules today. They—they think she’s been infected.”

Everything seems to freeze as James tries and fails to process the news. “But—but Healers treat spattergroit cases all the time. Mum can’t have—”

“Not all the time. Spattergroit is highly contagious, you know that,” Dad says quietly. “It’s good they caught it early, but James, we want you to stay at one of your friends’ houses for the rest of the summer, while Mum is in treatment. We don’t want you catching this from her.”

“And what about you?” Dad’s silence tells James everything he needs to know. “You’re just going to stay here and get yourself infected?”

“There are precautions I can take,” says Dad. “Face masks and protective charms—”

“Like the precautions Mum took treating the patient who gave this to her in the first place?” says James hotly.

Dad clicks his tongue. “She’s going to need a caregiver, and I took an oath to protect her in sickness and health. I’ll be fine. But for your safety—”

“I want to talk to Mum,” says James immediately. “Where is she? Your room?”

“Honey, you can’t. If Mum passes this on to you—”

“I want to see my mother!”

“No, James. I know it’s hard, but we’ve decided, and it’s what both of us want for you.”

In this moment, James feels like a damn idiot. He’s been spending every day of his summer vacation at Sirius and Lily’s flat when he could have been spending valuable time with his mother—now she’s sick and he’s supposed to just stay away and not see her, and who can even say how much longer she has, assuming she makes it through this? Mum has to make it through this. She just has to. James’s mum with the sparkling smile and teasing laugh and affectionate embrace—she just has to be okay. If she’s not—if Dad gets infected, too—

“Fine,” James mutters. “Fine. Just—just let me pack my trunk. I’ll go back and stay at Sirius’s; I’m sure he and Lily won’t mind.”

“Jamie…”

Dad hasn’t called him that in years. James doesn’t know why he’s saying it now—whether he thinks it will appeal to James’s sympathy or whether he’s slipped into something more intimate because of how scared Dad is—but all it really does is make James feel uncomfortable and scared.

It’s serious, if Dad is calling him “Jamie” again. It’s serious, and James has barely been home all summer. Why has he spent every day camped out at Lily and Sirius’s flat? It’s not like he doesn’t already see them all day every day at Hogwarts. His parents only get to see James for two and a half months in the summers, two weeks at Christmas, and a week at Easter. They must miss him when he’s away. And instead of spending time with them—including them in his life in a meaningful way—he ditches them every day of every break to see more of the people who get to keep him full-time.

He knows why he does it, of course: he feels aimless whenever he goes a week or a day or an hour without being in at least one of his friends’ company. It’s that thing that all the Gryffindor seventh years know but have only ever discussed on rare occasion: they can’t function without each other. They’ve gotten comfortable giving into how good it feels to have eight other people’s constant companionship, and it’s easier to keep drowning themselves in each other’s lives and thoughts and drama than it is to confront how restless and lonely they feel if they try to be their own separate people.

All this time, he shouldn’t just have been allowing them back into his life: he should have been asking them how they managed to let go of him so that he could learn to do the same with his friends. James can’t cope without his friends, and his friends can’t cope without James, and yet his parents, who never see him, have allowed him to live his own life completely away from them without complaint. And all this time, how has he repaid them? They don’t just provide for him; they dote on him. Every time he sees them, the conversation is all about him—what’s going on in his classes and in his friend group and on the Quidditch team and with his giant crush on Lily. When was the last time he took the initiative to sit down for a few hours with him without them having to ask, to work themselves around his schedule? When was the last time he even asked Mum or Dad how their day was going? He can’t remember, and he’s horrified with himself for it.

And now that he’s run out of time—now that he can’t see his mum or dad, maybe not ever again if this goes the way James suspects it’s going to go—they’re thrusting him back into the hands of the friends he’s so stupidly clung to for all these years, and they’re doing it to protect him, as if he’s the one who deserves safety, as if he’s…

He’s staring at his dad, and his dad’s staring back at him, and even though all James wants is to have more time with him, he can’t think of a single meaningful thing to say. How does he admit to Dad how badly he’s failed? All this time, Mum and Dad wanted to give James freedom—independence—and he’s squandered it, because instead of learning what they wanted to teach him, he’s affixed himself to people who fed into James’s own addictions.

That’s what this is, isn’t it? He’s an addict—but now that he knows it, he still doesn’t think he can stop. He’s going to go to Sirius and Lily’s flat, and he’s going to confide in them about how lost he feels without his parents, and he’s going to cling to them for the kind of support he doesn’t know how to give himself. He’s going to spend every remaining moment of the summer holiday in their company, and the worst part is, he’s going to need it—he’s going to live for it—because he’s not going to know how to live without it.

“I have to go,” he whispers.

“But—”

“Daddy…”

He only has the one word for it, but from the look in Dad’s eyes, James thinks that Dad has understood everything James means to say. He flees the room and sprints for the nearest staircase.

In a daze, he tosses clothes and books into his trunk from where he’s strewn them across his bedroom for the last month and a half. James’s brain seems to be running at triple speed. All he can think about is Mum and how he’d much rather stay at her bedside every day than go back to Sirius’s or, hell, to Hogwarts a month from now.

It seems to take seconds for James to pack everything, and he straightens up, clutching his trunk in one hand and his owl in the other. He knows he should go back downstairs and say goodbye to his father before Disapparating—that he’ll regret it if he doesn’t—but if he goes down there, James doesn’t think he’ll have the strength to leave at all. He turns on the spot, concentrating hard on Lily and Sirius’s flat.

They’re both in the living room when James gets there; Sirius creases his eyebrows together in confusion. “James? Lily said you were heading back home for the night.”

“I was. My mum, uh—she’s been infected with spattergroit. She and Dad wanted me to find somewhere else to stay the rest of the summer, since it’s so contagious.”

“Oh, James, I’m so sorry,” says Sirius at the same time as Lily asks, “Spatter-what?”

“Spattergroit. Basically, you come down with a load of boils on your face, and then you die,” says James in clipped tones, pretending he’s reciting definitions to study for an exam and not that his mum—that—

“Of course you can stay here,” Sirius says now as Lily frowns and twists her lip and takes James’s hand in hers. “You can bunk with me if, Lily, you don’t…”

“Thanks,” says James quietly.

Lily looks back and forth from Sirius to James and back again a few times before Sirius’s statement seems to click. “Oh! No, it’s okay, James can stay in my bed.” James smiles weakly and sets Walsh’s cage on top of the mantle, opening it.

James can’t think of a less romantic way to start sleeping (literally) with Lily. They climb into bed, and Sirius turns out the lights and gets into his own bed, and then James feels Lily scoot up to face his backside and wrap her arms around him—one under his neck, the other over his waist. He covers one of her hands with his own and tries to steady his breathing into a slow rhythm, to lull himself to sleep, but he stays awake for a long time, for hours after Lily’s own breathing drops off and Sirius starts to snore.

It seems unbelievable that just hours ago James was over-the-moon delighted about dating Lily without another care in the world. He loves his best mate and his girlfriend, but right now, he would give this flat up just for the knowledge that his mum was going to be okay.

He hates himself, even more so because holding Lily so close and listening to her and Sirius breathe is having the exact effect he knew it would: he feels calmer, steadier, somehow more whole. Without them, all he is are fragments.

xx

END OF PART SIX

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: When she first discovered she was magical, Mary lost her relationship with her Catholic father, who decided she was a sinner and abandoned the Macdonald family. Sixth year was difficult for Mary, who struggled with her image as a superficial gossip and endured a breakup with Hufflepuff boyfriend Reginald Cattermole in the midst of a sexuality crisis. Although she realized that she was gay and had feelings for Marlene, Mary kept this secret from everyone but Remus. Mary expressed to Marlene an intention to become a prostitute in order to gain intel from purebloods, but she abandoned this plan after the deaths of Elisabeth Clearwater and Millie LeProut and pulled out of the Order, causing tension between her and the other Gryffindors.

Revised version uploaded 11 January 2022.

xx

September 1st, 1977: Mary Macdonald

The drive to King’s Cross, like always, is strained. After the initial, awkward answering of questions whenever Mary first returns home for breaks, they typically avoid the subject of Mary’s life at Hogwarts altogether until it’s time to go back, at which point Mum asks the usual questions: Is Mary still enjoying Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy? How is her boyfriend of the year? Is she looking forward to living with Marlene again?

That last one always hurts for reasons Mum doesn’t understand, considering that Mary hasn’t told her about Lily (forgive Mary for saying this) snatching Marlene out from under Mary—and she certainly hasn’t told Mum that she’s in love with Marlene. You’d think Mum would have an easier time accepting that Mary’s a lesbian than she did accepting that Mary’s a witch, but then again—it’s not like Mary really ever tells her mum anything meaningful anymore. Not like she used to before she turned eleven. So how would she know how Mum would rank Mary’s transgressions on her grand scale of Catholic morality?

Mary genuinely doesn’t know how Mum feels about her anymore. They don’t talk anymore, and it makes Mary feel like Mum doesn’t care what’s going on in her world—but Mum did stand up for her to Dad, and she’s never given Mary any inkling that she regrets that decision, even if Dad did leave them both because of it. But—it doesn’t make any sense to Mary that Mum wouldn’t resent her for driving their family apart. Before the divorce—before Mary’s Hogwarts letter—she’d thought she and her parents would be inseparable forever, and she couldn’t even imagine a world where her dad wasn’t her best friend. And now…

“So you and Lily have gotten close this past year, haven’t you? You sure spent a lot of time at her and Sirius’s flat this summer.”

“Sure we have,” says Mary idly. “We’re all, like, the best of friends now that she’s done away with Snape.”

“And Snape—that’s the boy who was rude to you about coming from a non-magical family?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re okay with taking Lily in when she was perfectly fine with being friends with someone like—that?”

It gives Mary a little rush of satisfaction to hear Mum down-talk Lily, even if it’s only implied—but the satisfaction is followed right up by shame. She knows she’s not being very charitable. Lily lost her best friend’s friendship and her parents’ lives all in one summer, and it’s not Lily’s fault that Marlene picked her over Mary, not when Lily so desperately needed friendship from somebody, anybody, in the castle and didn’t exactly have a lot of offers. Besides, Lily is Mary’s friend, too: Mary knows Lily doesn’t need to be kind and thoughtful and always offer to help Mary study for Defense Against the Dark Arts outside of class, but she is, and she does, and it would be horrible of Mary not to appreciate that about her.

“Lily’s not like that, Mum. Her parents are Muggles, too. Snape was just… like, they were friends before Hogwarts, before she saw him in any situations where it came up, and it took her a long time to realize what was happening.”

“I just don’t want you surrounding yourself with anybody who’s going to mistreat you, Mary. After your father…”

Mary bites her tongue, even though she has a million questions. Mum never talks about Dad. This might be the first time Mary’s heard Mum bring Dad up in years.

“You just don’t need that kind of energy in your life. You’ve come so far, darling. Hogwarts has been so good for you—you’ve grown into yourself so much, and you’re so much more willing to open up to others now that you’ve been going there for six years—and I don’t want anybody making you feel like you don’t belong there.”

Instantly, Mary feels twin surges of regret: one for ever having doubted how her mother feels about her, the other for never having told Mum about the existence of the war, let alone Mary’s own part in it. She’d been so afraid that Mum would pull her out of Hogwarts and back into a Muggle life if she knew the kind of danger Mary was in that she just—never brought it up. Sure, it’s not like the Muggles are exactly safe, either—the Death Eaters target them just as much as they target Muggle-borns. But when Death Eaters are picking people to murder, there’s a much smaller pool of Muggle-borns to choose from than there are Muggles, and Mary’s odds of getting targeted have got to be exponentially higher as long as she’s living a witch’s life—especially when Mary has placed a target on her back from her involvement in Liz and Millie’s deaths.

Sometimes, Mary doesn’t even know why she’s doing it—staying in Hogwarts, practicing her magic, surrounding herself with people who call her Mudblood and would just as soon see her tortured and killed. It’s not like she’s any good at spells, and it’s not like she doesn’t feel overpoweringly guilty every minute of every day for being a witch—the thing her father said made her a monster who was as good as dead to him. Her life would probably be a lot simpler if she just—went back to Muggle school, tried to get caught up on the years of education she’s missed, or maybe started up a career as a gardener or something somewhere.

When they get to the station and she crosses through Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, Mary steps onto the Hogwarts Express with every intention of spending the train ride with Veronica Smethley and the Hufflepuffs. Mary hasn’t seen any of them since the end of last term; it should be good to catch up with some of her oldest friends, and anyway, she’s tired of the way the Gryffindors suddenly hush their conversations when Mary walks into a room, like she’s too fragile to handle hearing about how the war effort is going just because she backed out of it.

Mary isn’t fragile, thanks. Mary just saw the damage that she and her friends inflicted on the lives of others when they tried to get involved—saw what happened to Elisabeth, to Millie—and didn’t want any part in causing further destruction, even supervised by Dumbledore and his group of rebels (whom the Gryffindors are now referring to collectively with themselves and the others as the Order of the Phoenix). Just because she doesn’t want to selfishly throw herself into an effort that’s going to get others killed doesn’t mean that she isn’t still concerned about the Death Eaters’ rise to power or interested in hearing about what Dumbledore is doing to stop them.

And it’s not that Mary doesn’t understand the temptation, because she does. She really does. She’d been ready to throw away everything that meant anything to her—her self-respect, her virginity, her personal safety—to try and go undercover and get the Order some answers that could help them fight the fight, hadn’t she? But that was before two people died—before she realized how much destruction she could cause by playing with fire.

Sometimes, she thinks back on that stupid, stupid impulse she’d come so close to acting on and just—has no idea what she was thinking. This is Mary. She’s so full of Catholic guilt that she can barely get out of bed in the mornings, and she’d thought she was going to become a prostitute?

But when she really looks herself in the mirror, she knows why she wanted it.

Because she’d thought she could regain control over her life. Because she’d thought she could live the life she wasn’t supposed to live—a sexual life, a magical life—and since she’d be doing it to save lives, she’d be able to tell herself that it was justified. Because she’d thought she wouldn’t have to carry this shame around if only she were doing it for a noble reason. Because maybe that way she’d feel a little less sick to her stomach every time she would picture Marlene in bed with her—every time, maybe a few years from now, she would sleep with whatever man she ended up marrying while knowing that he deserved somebody who really loved him in a way she just—couldn’t, no matter how badly she would want to.

She already hates herself for all of it, and now, on top of that, she has to deal with the way the Gryffindors keep looking at her—like she’s going to snap at the slightest mention of the war, and even more than that, like she’s still the same gossipy busybody she was a year ago. Yes, she’s still interested in the social dramas playing out around her—yes, she told a few people when Lily and James got together, which honestly was going to become public knowledge soon anyway—but Mary knows now that there are things in life more important than gossip, like loyalty, like trying to make a meaningful difference in a world ruled by fear. That she’s learned so much about life this past year and none of the other Gryffindors can see it—well, it makes her mad. Really mad.

But not mad enough to give you the courage to tell them off for it, says a small, quiet voice in the back of Mary’s head, and she knows it’s true: she’s had every opportunity to speak up against the way the other Gryffindors have been treating her, and she hasn’t done so. Maybe Mary’s just too tired of it all to gear herself up for a big confrontation. Maybe part of her thinks that they’re right about her—that she really can’t handle anything more meaningful than gossip.

She waves hello to Marlene and Emmeline, who are saving a compartment for the other Gryffindors, and hauls her two enormous luggage bags behind her in search of Ver and the others. Finally, near the back of the train, she hears a familiar voice—Davy Gudgeon’s. “She should be here with us,” he says in his nasally voice. “Finishing her seventh year with us. Graduating. It’s not right.”

Mary stops short, realizing that he’s talking about Elisabeth, and she backs up a pace and presses herself to the wall of the compartment beside theirs, where she won’t be seen. “Benjy won’t talk about her at all,” says a huskier voice that Mary identifies as Amos Diggory’s. “He was there with her, fought with her, knows exactly what happened, and he’s just bottling up all that grief like he can shove it down and not deal with the fact that he lost his girlfriend and it’s his own damn fault. His and Meadowes’s and the Gryffindors’.”

“Mary won’t talk about it, either,” pipes up Ver, sounding entirely too self-satisfied for Mary’s liking. “She owled a bit but dodged all my attempts to hang out this summer, like she’s ashamed of herself or something, and she should be. Liz is dead because of them. That LeProut girl is dead because of them. And she and Benjy are both just pretending like it didn’t happen, like Liz never existed, never got murdered—”

People are jostling Mary, squeezing past her in both directions down the corridor, but she’s frozen against the wall, riveted in a horrified sort of way. I need to get out of here, she thinks in a panic, and she swings her bags around and sets off in the direction she came from.

She doesn’t want to sit with the other Gryffindor seventh years, doesn’t want to be the odd one out again—be the reason that nobody in the room talks about the war or the deaths or anything real—but where else is she going to go? Mary doubles back and finds Em and Marlene’s compartment again, where they’ve been joined by Peter and Sirius. “Thought you were catching up with the Hufflepuffs today,” says Marlene.

“Yeah, well,” says Mary, and something in her voice must tell Marlene to drop it, because she does. “Just us today?”

“James and Lily are up front with the prefects,” says Peter. “They should be back with Remus and Alice after all of them are done patrolling.”

Mary settles back against the compartment window and lets the conversation flood over her. She feels like the odd one out here, between Sirius and Marlene being together and Peter and Emmeline still being close even though they’re no longer dating or whatever it was that they used to be doing, but at least they’re not telling each other that Elisabeth and Millie’s deaths are Mary’s faults and that she ought to be ashamed of herself for them—even if it’s true, even if she knows it’s true. If Mary is responsible, then they all are—for their naivety, for believing they could actually lay siege to Death Eaters without facing any consequences for their actions—and at least with them she’s not singled out.

When they exit the compartment after a long day on the train, she feels like everyone is staring at them, like a hush falls over the night and everyone stops talking just to watch them with judgment in their eyes whenever they pass. Mary remembers how one year ago today she probably made Lily feel the exact same way with her gossiping, and she feels like she’s going to be sick.

“Whoa. That’s new,” says Sirius, pointing to the horseless carriages.

Mary follows his line of vision only to see that the carriages aren’t horseless, not anymore: they’re being pulled by these birdlike and reptilian creatures with thin skins hanging off of their bones and dark, beady eyes. “I know what this is,” says Mary—not excitedly, exactly, because it’s not a good thing that they can see the thestrals, but it’s rare that Mary is the one who knows the answers when it comes to magic. “They’re thestrals. They’re only visible to—to people who have seen and understood death.”

“Well, shit,” mutters Marlene.

The carriage ride is a long one; everyone’s eyes keep darting up to the thestral carrying the cart. When they finally get to the castle, Mary holds her head high like she’s not affected by any of this all the way into the Great Hall.

Scanning the High Table, Mary counts off the professors she recognizes, looking for the one she doesn’t, and finds it in a thin middle-aged woman with greying hair. Her baggy, dark blue robes look like they’re swallowing her alive as she listens raptly to whatever Professor McGonagall is saying, resting her chin in her hand and drumming her fingers against one sunken cheek. “Anybody recognize the new Defense professor? She’s sitting between McGonagall and Sprout.”

Mary is met with a chorus of nos, except from Lily, who at first doesn’t answer and then says, “I… wait a minute, I think I saw her last year once, she’s—”

But whatever Lily is going to say gets cut off by Dumbledore rising to his feet and raising his arms until the chatter in the Hall falls silent and all eyes are peeled to the front of the room. “Welcome all to another year at Hogwarts! Let us begin by bringing in our first years, whom I’m sure are anxious to be Sorted…”

The surprise comes when Marlene’s youngest sibling, Meredith, gets Sorted into Slytherin. Marlene claps just as hard as the Slytherin table, just as hard as all the rest of her siblings, but she looks shocked. “I never would have guessed!”

According to Lily during the feast, the new professor is Rosalind Antigone Bungs, one of the rather higher-ups whom Lily recognized from her internship at the Ministry’s Department of International Magical Cooperation. “I wonder what she’s doing teaching Defense?” Remus wonders aloud. “International Magical Cooperation isn’t exactly a department known for its use of defensive magic.”

Mary feels like Bungs is staring at the nine of them, and simultaneously like Dumbledore and the rest of the professors are avoiding looking at them. She’s sure all of them know by now that the nine seventh year Gryffindors were all among those interrogated by the Ministry of Magic about Millie and Elisabeth’s deaths at the end of last term, and she doesn’t really care to relive the judgment that passed across the Aurors’ eyes that day. They all made it out of what happened without any kind of criminal record, but Mary wonders how much of her life she’s going to spend trying to exceed the expectations of those who would (rightly) assume that she’s a naive child fooling around in matters that don’t concern her.

Up in the dormitory, Mary feels painfully awkward being around the other girls. Even though she’s just spent the whole summer spending time with them and the boys at Sirius and Lily’s flat, there’s still been an invisible divide between her and them—everyone else who stayed in the Order—and it feels even more pronounced now that they’re all back at school, knowing that Dumbledore will probably contact them soon about joining up with his fighters.

September first fell on a Thursday this year, which means they all have to wait a full week before their first Defense lesson with Bungs. In the meantime, Mary spends most of her time hanging with Em and Peter and wondering if Reg thinks less of her now just like everybody else does. The Gryffindors seem to Mary to be splintering—her tagging along with Peter and Em; James, Lily, Marlene, and Sirius doing everything as a foursome, like their lives have become one big double date; and Alice and Remus together avoiding Lily and Sirius, respectively, in Mary’s opinion. She knows what Alice’s deal with Lily is but can only guess at what’s causing the rift between Remus and Sirius. The only thing she can think of is what Remus admitted to her after she got drunk at The Basilisk and kissed that veela woman, that sometimes he thinks he might have romantic feelings for Sirius, but Mary can’t imagine what’s changed between then and now to make Remus want to avoid Sirius like this: Sirius is with Marlene; it’s not like anything could have happened between the two of them.

Could it?

For her part, Mary has told no one but Remus about her feelings for Marlene, which have unfortunately not flagged over the summer. They so totally haven’t flagged that she’s desperate to renew her relationship with Reg, as if to prove to herself and everybody else that she likes blokes (look, here’s one now). But Reg seems to be avoiding Mary as much as the rest of the school outside her narrow Gryffindor-seventh world is, and she’s stuck constantly catching her eyes lingering on Marlene and pulling them away alongside her courage.

By the time she manages to track Reg down, it’s already Wednesday night, and Mary is burnt out from a long morning in the greenhouse and hours upon hours studying in the afternoon. She’s just leaving the Great Hall after dinner when she literally, physically bumps into him, saying “oh!” and then telling Peter and Emmeline that she’ll catch up with them later tonight.

They size each other up for a long moment, Reg twisting his lips and looking torn as anything, and then he says, “I’ve really missed you all summer. All year, more like.”

And there comes the familiar twist of Mary’s heart, a little bit of love mixed with a little bit of guilt, because she really does like this boy, thinks she could spend forever sharing I-love-yous and how-was-your-days at the end of the evening with him, but that’s all she wants from him, and she’s leading him to believe she wants so much more. “I miss you, too,” she says. “Can we start over?”

“Yes,” says Reg, “yes,” and it’s exactly what she’s been asking for and exactly not what she wants.

He deserves better than her—she knows that. He deserves somebody who’s not a sick freak, somebody who’s capable of reciprocating his love, and that’s never going to be Mary. But—remember that thing Mary said about not being charitable? Yeah. If she’s not a good enough person to give Lily the empathy she deserves, then she’s certainly not strong enough to stay away from Reg, not when he’s offering her the cover she needs to live her life like it’s not completely centered on Marlene McKinnon.

When her parents talked to Mary about homosexuality back when she was a kid, before everything went to hell, they hadn’t just said it was a sin: they’d said that gay relationships were destined to fail because they were inherently incapable of being healthy. Were they right? Is Mary only ever going to have a functional relationship if it’s with a man? Because, yeah, confessing her feelings to Marlene would only end badly when Marlene is straight as a ruler—but she can’t imagine taking advantage of Reg this way ever being the right thing.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius and Marlene started officially dating, despite their rocky history, as did Lily and James several months later. Mary felt left out when Marlene, who had always been her best friend and with whom she was secretly in love, formed a close bond with Lily. When his mother came down with a contagious case of spattergroit, James moved in with Lily and Sirius for the second half of the summer. With Mary and Marlene on the outs, Remus avoiding Sirius, and Alice jealous of Lily for becoming Head Girl, the Gryffindors splintered into distinct groups when they got to Hogwarts for seventh year: Lily and Marlene with James and Sirius, Peter and Emmeline with Mary, and Alice with Remus.

Revised version uploaded 14 January 2022.

xx

September 8th, 1977: Marlene McKinnon

It’s weird, being a part of the quartet that is herself, Sirius, Lily, and James. A year ago, this clique would have been the most popular one in the school, between James and Sirius’s Quidditch fame and Marlene’s perceived coolness at the height of the Gryffindor then-sixth year girls. And spending all her time with her boyfriend, her best friend, and her boyfriend’s best friend, who also is Marlene’s close friend? She ought to feel so complete, happy, wanted.

But—

For one thing, Mary was supposed to be Marlene’s best friend, for most of their lives, and now she feels like they barely speak outside of mealtimes and the two classes a week they share together. Mary’s always off now with—not even with the Hufflepuffs, which honestly would have bothered Marlene less, but with Pete and Em, who are starting to feel just as alien. So are Remus and Alice, to be honest. Marlene knows that the group has always veered way over the line of codependency, especially last year—appreciated it at times like Liz and Millie’s deaths when she had eight other people who understood, and appreciated it a lot less at times like when her best friends in the world would try to get in between herself and Sirius, before they were properly together—but at least then they didn’t have this weird us-versus-them-versus-them dynamic that makes her feel a little sick to her stomach.

Of course, until last year, there was always an us-versus-Lily factor in the Gryffindors’ relationships, as Lily always sided with Snape when he pitted himself against the rest of the group. Even last year, while Lily was integrating nicely into the gang, there was the business of Emmeline avoiding everyone but Peter, and the tensions between everyone were so strong that they came to a head during that out-of-control duel in Andromeda’s class that landed them all in detention together. Still, Marlene can’t help feeling like they achieved something admirable, even enviable, during the long days after Dumbledore invited them into the Order of the Phoenix—like they were a united front against all the forces that could try to shatter them—and now, that front is gone, and they’re fragmenting.

She misses Mary. Not everything about Mary—the gossip, or the drama, or the oversharing—but she misses the familiarity of Mary’s chattiness, her loyalty, the way she was a menace to anybody who tried to get in the way of Marlene’s happiness. It’s not to say that she would trade Lily for Mary—she loves Lily, too, just as much—but Marlene doesn’t understand why she can’t have them both, why they’re fracturing and she has to choose.

And it feels like the choice isn’t even hers, like she’s been buoyed over to Lily and Sirius and James out of expectation, when really, she’s on the outs with even them. Not that they would ever mistreat her—she doesn’t mean that. But Sirius and Lily live together now, like actually paying rent on a flat together-together, and James spent a month staying in that flat with them while his mum suffered from spattergroit at home, and Marlene didn’t. She was over at the flat nearly every day of the summer, but she didn’t have the simple intimacy of skirting around each other’s boundaries for meals and showers and sleep.

No: instead, she was spending every night navigating the hell that was her dynamic with Mum and Neil and her siblings. It’s not like they don’t love each other or even like the McKinnons don’t treat Marlene like she’s a part of their family. Sure, she’s always felt an invisible divide between herself and her siblings, knowing that they’re really only her half-siblings—but she’s used to that, at least, and it didn’t bother her so much once she started to truly feel secure in her relationships with the other Gryffindors, like she had her own found family who had picked her. The trouble came this summer, when she started to feel like she was on the outside of that found family with Sirius, Lily, and James—and when her siblings stopped seeing her as big sister Marlene and started seeing her as some kind of…

It’s not like they don’t know that Marlene was there when Liz and Millie died. She hasn’t confirmed it—they haven’t even asked her about it—but the whole school knows that the seventh year Gryffindors were somehow involved in whatever happened, even if none of them seem to have leaked word to any of the adults (besides the ones who already know—Dumbledore and McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey). Marlene’s siblings haven’t told Mum or Neil about Marlene’s involvement—she doesn’t think they have, anyway, since Mum and Neil haven’t acted strangely around her or tried to ask her anything about the deaths—but she overheard Mike and Matt gossiping about her at least once a week all summer, and at one point in June, she even eavesdropped on Maggie filling in Meredith, who hadn’t started at Hogwarts yet, about the rumors.

That last one hurt—because the last time Maggie spread any rumors, it was about how Lily and Marlene spent the second half of the previous summer, and she circulated them to the entire school. Sure, Maggie had had her reasons at the time—she’d said she’d been sick of Marlene keeping secret all the things that were hurting her, that she’d wanted to see Marlene grow—but it still had felt like an invasion of privacy, and so did Maggie clueing in Meredith about Marlene’s quite literally fatal mistakes. Besides, it’s not like Maggie was telling Meredith to go easy on Marlene or to try and look out for her—she’d come down quite squarely on Liz and Millie’s side, just like how the rest of the school seems to think that all of this is Marlene and her friends’ fault, like Liz and Millie weren’t just as deep in it as they were (and still are).

Now that they’re all back at Hogwarts, Marlene’s basically just been dodging her siblings every time she sees any of them. It happens again the morning of her first Defense lesson of the trimester: she passes Meredith in a corridor, and when Mer smiles brightly at her, Marlene just twists her lips and ducks her head and keeps walking. Behind her, she can hear one of Mer’s little Slytherin friends asking, “That’s your sister, right? The one who helped get those girls murdered?”

She doesn’t wait to hear what Mer says back, allowing Lily to grab Marlene by the elbow and hurry her along. “Don’t listen to them. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

But the problem is that they do know what they’re talking about—or, at least, they have suspicions that are dead on. And it’s so stupid because they’re first year Slytherins—it’s not like they have any social overlap whatsoever for Marlene to care what they think of her. But—Marlene was on the outs with her siblings all summer, and she feels like she was on the outs with Lily and Sirius and James for the whole second half of it, and just for a while, she wishes she could feel like she isn’t alone.

Not fitting in seems like such a stupid thing to be worried about, given that there are two girls dead because of them and a war raging outside the castle in which they can’t seem to make a difference. Four months later, Dumbledore still hasn’t contacted any of them about meeting with the Order, and it seems like the only thing they’ve contributed is the black stain of their misstep last May that cost Millie and Elisabeth their lives.

So Marlene is—not excited, exactly, but definitely anxious to begin Defense lessons a week into the term. It’s the only class that all nine Gryffindors share together, but even as they walk down to the classroom together, Marlene is flanked by Sirius, James, and Lily and is barely able to get a word in to Mary or any of the others. How did they get to be so segmented like this?

Bungs is already in the classroom when they stride in five minutes early and take their seats, Marlene automatically sitting next to Lily. She sets her wand and her textbook on the desk, crosses her legs, and waits, watching Bungs out of the corner of one eye and Lily, who is twirling her wand around and around her fingers, out the other.

She turns a little in her seat so that she can look over her shoulder behind her. Sirius is sitting with James, Alice with Remus, Peter with Emmeline, and Mary is left alone at a desk toward the back of the classroom, skimming the textbook’s introduction and looking rather glum. Marlene feels a surge of guilt, a familiar feeling at this point, but before she can really stew in it, Bungs calls their attention to the front of the classroom.

“Welcome to seventh year Defense Against the Dark Arts,” she says severely in a low-pitched, raspy voice. “My name is Rosalind Antigone Bungs, and I will be your Defense professor for this year only, after which I’ll be returning to my post as the Deputy Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation at the British Ministry of Magic. Before I became Deputy Head of the department, my research was about Gellert Grindelwald’s rise to power and the French Ministry’s attempts to infiltrate and convert members of the Alliance away from Grindelwald’s side. This work included both breaking the Imperius Curse set upon some followers and convincing others to see the lies in the ideological premise of creating a better, safer world for wizardkind that Grindelwald had promised them. Get out your quills, write this down…”

It’s the most unusual Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that Marlene has ever had, and she’s had some unusual Defense lessons, between now seven different professors of the class in her time at Hogwarts. Bungs lectures for an hour and a half on the Imperius Curse, including ways to recognize its tells and ways that the French government intercepted it after it had been cast by followers of Grindelwald in the 1940s. “I want a meter on the Imperius Curse by class time next week,” she says raptly at the end of class. “Next lesson, we’ll begin on susceptibility to the Imperius Curse and strategies for overthrowing it after it has been cast on you.”

“She’s not going to actually cast it on us, is she?” Marlene mutters to Lily, who shrugs, her morning-frizzy hair obscuring her face as she tucks her parchment and quill back into her bag.

“It’s fascinating, the idea of taking a historical-political angle to Defense the Dark Arts,” Lily says avidly that night as they’re working in the common room on their Imperius Curse essays. “The Prophet has said that the Death Eaters have been using the Imperius Curse on people already; maybe this will help us learn how to fight it off, or better, how to recognize it being used on people and figure out a way to free them. That’s what Bungs’s research was all about, right? Partly, anyway?”

“Too bad information on her research is proving basically impossible to find,” says James, gesturing at the enormous stacks of books they had hauled with them to the common room out of the library; they’ve pored over half of them already while only coming up with a few centimeters’ worth of information relevant to today’s lecture.

“All the more reason someone should be teaching it,” Lily argues, smiling faintly.

Sirius adds, “Wonder if this has any relevance to what Dumbledore’s going to have us doing in the Order.”

Marlene looks over her shoulder at Mary, who is in the opposite corner of the common room laughing with Emmeline at something Peter said. “Hey,” says James. “Don’t worry about Mary, all right? She made the choice she needed to make for her, and she knows we’re good with it.”

“Does she, though?” Marlene says. “She’s obviously noticed that we all avoid talking about the war in front of her anymore.”

“Yeah, but this—this splitting up that’s happened, that’s not just about Mary. No one can make Alice want to be around Lily or Remus want to be around Sirius,” says James fairly. Lily twists her lips, while Sirius rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “Peter and Em have had a weird, isolated thing going on ever since last year. Mary’s just…”

Feeling like a third wheel, probably, in Marlene’s opinion, but she doesn’t say so. She casts one more look over to Mary, who accidentally catches her eye. Marlene smiles weakly; Mary quickly looks away.

“You’re just happy because Lily finally said she would go out with you,” Marlene mutters, not really intending for James to hear her, but he does and looks embarrassed by it, rubbing a hand down his face and looking away.

An hour later, after she kisses Sirius goodnight and climbs the stairs to the dormitory two at a time, she finds it deserted except for Mary, who’s sitting on her four-poster working on what looks like their latest essay for Charms. “Hey,” says Marlene, and Mary spins around with a surprised rise of the eyebrows and one corner of her mouth twitching. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah, we can talk,” Mary mumbles.

“Thanks,” says Marlene, totally unsure of what to say now that she actually has Mary alone for the first time in what feels like forever. “Listen—” she starts to say at the same time as Mary says, “Lena, I—”

They both stop talking abruptly, and then Marlene grins and Mary smiles sheepishly and tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear. “You first,” says Marlene after a pause.

“I’m not going to say I’m not jealous because I am—I’m jealous. Really jealous. Of you and Lily, and of—of you and Sirius.” Mary looks like it’s taking a lot for her to admit this, which frankly seems sort of dumb to Marlene, who had already figured that this must be the case. “And I’m pissed at you for ignoring me, but—but just because I’m pissed doesn’t mean I don’t want to be close to you anymore.”

“I don’t know how this thing where we all avoid each other started,” Marlene admits. “I really don’t. I felt so connected to everyone in the wake of everything that happened at the end of last year, and then over the summer Remus started drifting away, and then Alice started drifting away, and then James moved in with Lily and Sirius, and I…”

“He’s your boyfriend, and she’s your best friend,” says Mary dully. “I know.”

“Yeah, but you’re my best friend, too. You’re always going to be my best friend, too,” Marlene insists, although she can tell that Mary doesn’t believe her. “I don’t care if Lily is around or if you’re not in the Order—I’m always going to love you, okay?”

But from the look on Mary’s face, Marlene has said the exact wrong thing, and she can’t for the life of her understand why.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: The Hogwarts Order of the Phoenix combined with Dumbledore’s vigilantes into one group, but without Mary, who opted to drop out of the Order and in doing so created distance between herself and the other Gryffindors. Upon returning to Hogwarts for their seventh year, the Gryffindors splintered into cliques, with Emmeline spending time primarily with best friend Peter and with Mary, who’s been avoiding Marlene and Lily.

xx

September 9th, 1977: Emmeline Vance

Call her a bitch, call her a snob, but Emmeline is getting really sick of Mary tagging along with her and Peter everywhere they go. She knows Mary and Peter have always gotten on well—Peter has told Emmeline about some of the heart-to-hearts that he and Mary have shared, and Emmeline knows for a fact that it’s Mary whom Peter turned to for advice about Emmeline after they kissed last year—and Mary is Emmeline’s friend, she is, but Mary is no longer the subdued little girl Emmeline befriended in the Great Hall on their first night at Hogwarts back in first year, and Emmeline, too, is no longer the girl whose parents were alive, who was so outgoing and cheerful and full of life instead of spite. She’s trying to move on, she is—to forgive Sirius and leave the past in the past—but she’s been trying so hard to fit back into her long-lost circle of friends, and she just doesn’t feel like the same person who first befriended them anymore.

It’s exhausting, trying to make herself into something she’s just not anymore, and she feels like Peter is one of the only people who really understands what she’s going through and is making a parallel effort to like her for who she is now, not who she used to be. Mary—Emmeline feels like Mary doesn’t get it, and that makes it equally exhausting trying to spend all of her time with Mary around instead of just with Peter. And Emmeline means all of her time—it’s like Mary is glued to her side, forever and always waiting at the ready to snatch away any private moment Emmeline could possibly get with Peter.

But as much as Emmeline doesn’t want Mary around, she feels sorry for her: Mary, the only one who left the Order and accepted, for better or for worse, that she was in over her head meddling in a war she wasn’t prepared for. And when the eight of them first receive an owl carrying a letter and a Portkey from Dumbledore at breakfast on Friday, inviting them to an Order meeting on Saturday evening, Emmeline feels a surge of pity for Mary, who sits there eating her sausage and doesn’t make a sound.

On Saturday at a quarter to seven, Emmeline and Peter bid goodbye to Mary and head to an empty classroom on the first floor to meet the other seventh years for the Order meeting—they’d all agreed that they should use the Portkey somewhere away from prying eyes, where their disappearance won’t be questioned. Alice has the Portkey, a Muggle one-pound note with a thick black streak in one corner, and the eight of them crowd themselves into a tight circle, each putting a finger or two on the note. Emmeline’s hand brushes up against at least three others, and her shoulders are wedged tightly between Peter’s and Sirius’s. She tries not to think too hard about Sirius’s body heat as they wait: fifty-seven, fifth-eight, fifty-nine…

Finally, the Portkey sends them spinning in a thousand directions, and Emmeline feels herself land in a small, bright room crowded with people, a few of whom she recognizes—Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid. The Prewett twins are already here, along with Edgar Bones and Dorcas Meadowes. Marlene is hugging and saying hello to a middle-aged man that Emmeline distantly recognizes as Marlene’s uncle. “Frank’s on his way,” says Eddie after he greets them, “but Benjy’s not coming. He’s in, and everything, but I—I think today was too hard, after losing Liz.”

Emmeline can feel hot shame bubbling in her gut as she sits there, everyone avoiding everyone else’s eyes, thinking about the people they lost because of them last spring. God—they thought they could make a difference, and two people died because of it, because of what they did. She looks around: James and Lily are chatting animatedly about the meeting, as if they’ve got no shame at all, and Emmeline wonders, not for the first time, how Dumbledore chose those two as his Head Boy and Girl.

Dumbledore calls the meeting to order, starting by welcoming the flurry of new members and acknowledging the group’s new combined name as the Order of the Phoenix. He quickly passes leadership over to a magical-eyed, wild-looking Auror named Moody, who launches into a report on the Ministry’s efforts to capture and kill Death Eaters during raids. He’s five minutes in when James interrupts with a frown, “Isn’t anybody pushing back against the mandate that Aurors use Unforgivable Curses against suspects, or that suspects be imprisoned in Azkaban without standing trial?”

Moody halts his speech and scowls. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, these kids, aren’t they?” he says, more to himself than to anyone else, but before James can retort, he says, “Yeah, there’s a faction in the Ministry that opposes the changes. I’m part of it. But old Barty isn’t changing his stance, or the law, anytime soon, and it’s slow going, trying to convince Aurors and others in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to rely on spells like Petrificus Totalus when up against Dark wizards who would kill them, and you, given half the chance—and who are aiming to kill during battle. There’s a whole culture pervading the Ministry—Aurors who would practice the Cruciatus Curse on each other in preparation for battle—it takes real hatred to get the full effect, you know—”

Dorcas and Fabian are muttering to each other, as are Marlene and Lily. “You talk almost like you understand where they’re coming from,” says James now.

“I do understand where they’re coming from. Are you telling me that you wouldn’t have used Crucio or Avada Kedavra on those sons of bitches you were up against last May if it could have saved your friends from dying? It’s not the right way of doing things, but people are getting desperate.”

After Moody concludes his report, a Squib named Arabella Figg discusses what’s happening to the Muggles and what, in turn, the Muggles have been assuming is happening—and then come assignments. Emmeline can see most of her peers straightening up in their chairs.

None of them are put on duty for active battle, though that hardly comes as a surprise, after how badly they screwed up with Liz and Millie. Last year’s Hogwarts graduates—Dorcas, Fabian, and Gideon—are tasked with going door-to-door in at-risk Muggle neighborhoods casting protective enchantments, while McGonagall asks Eddie and Frank (and, in absentia, Benjy) to join the Gryffindor seventh years in the educational missives they had been putting out last year, to inform the student body about the war effort and the problems inherent to blood purity politics.

“From now on, I’ll be your liaison,” Dorcas tells them at the very end, just before Dumbledore wraps things up. “It’ll be easier for me to get onto the grounds through Hogsmeade and meet with you in the castle than it would be to Portkey you over to us every time we meet. I’ll send one of you an owl when I have the next meeting date and time.”

“There’s a secret passageway to Hogsmeade behind a mirror on the fourth floor,” says James, lowering his voice so that it’s hard to hear over the side conversations that have sprouted up all around them. “I reckon it’s definitely big enough to hold meetings inside of, too.”

“I know the one,” says Dorcas. “Hang in there, all of you. I’ll see you soon.”

All in all, it could have been a worse first meeting. When the girls get back up to their dormitory, Alice says sleepily as she’s pulling on her nightgown, “Even if we’re just doing what we’ve already been doing, at least they’re not stopping us. At least they’re letting us help and including us in what’s going on out there.”

“You’re going to wake Mary,” Marlene whispers pointedly, indicating Mary’s four-poster, whose curtains are already drawn with her inside. Emmeline wonders whether Marlene noticed that Mary’s “snoring” stopped the second that Alice started talking.

Starting tomorrow, she’ll be nicer to Mary, Emmeline vows. Or, at least, she’ll try. She’ll be nicer, she’ll be more social, she’ll be inclusive to others the way that Peter was inclusive to her when she needed it last year—starting tomorrow.

But it’s so hard to motivate herself to act friendly to others when she feels like this on the inside. All Emmeline ever thinks about is what she’s lost—her parents, her relationship with Sirius, her closeness to her fellow Gryffindor girls—and what she’s taken away from others, too, like the families of Millie LeProut and Elisabeth Clearwater.

Sometimes she thinks she could just drown in the grief. What’s the point of fighting this war when she’s proven herself incompetent to stop the enemies? Why bother mending her friendships with Sirius and the other Gryffindors when she’s made sure that she’s the least important member of her friend group to everyone else in it?

Tomorrow will be better, she tells herself firmly. She’ll be better, and things will be better, and she’ll feel better, too, because she has to—

—because if not, she doesn’t know how much longer she can take it.

Even though it’s been months since the ambush, Emmeline still feels like everybody’s staring at her, whispering about her, everywhere she goes. A small boy at the Hufflepuff table actually points at her and Peter with a shocked look on his face while they’re walking into the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning. “I wish they’d just accept what happened already,” she mutters. “It happened. We messed up. There’s no need to keep treating us like pariahs.”

“To be fair, two people did die,” says Peter as they grab a space next to Remus, who is sitting alone at the Gryffindor table. “The people who loved them aren’t going to just get over that just because the summer’s over.”

“Yeah, but do you ever notice how most of the people doing the gossiping aren’t the people who cared about Elisabeth and Millie? The Venn diagram of those two groups of people is two circles.”

Peter snorts. “Morning, Remus.”

“Morning.” Remus looks tired, though not as tired as he always looks leading up to a full moon.

“Where’s Alice?” asks Emmeline.

“She was going to meet Dirk Cresswell for breakfast,” says Remus after a pause, once he’s swallowed his mouthful of oatmeal.

“They’re really jumping in with both feet lately, aren’t they?” mentions Mary, who’s just slipped into the seat next to Emmeline. Internally, Emmeline heaves a sigh, but she smiles at Mary and scoots down the bench a little to make room.

Peter shrugs. “Personally, I think it’s nice that she’s got someone besides us in her life who cares about her. Everyone could use that, you know?”

After breakfast, Mary offers to accompany Remus to the library, which leaves Peter and Emmeline to grab their books from the Gryffindors’ tower and head outside, where they can sprawl in the grass under the beech tree and study with the warm summer breeze on their faces. It’s N.E.W.T. year, which means more intense mountains of homework than they had even in fifth year preparing for their O.W.L.s, and even one week into the trimester, Emmeline can feel herself starting to fall behind the rest of the class in all her subjects. She wishes she had a better justification for why she can’t get her head on straight and concentrate like a normal person, but despite anything she may have said to Peter, she’s not over what happened in that clearing with the Death Eaters, and she can’t stop seeing motionless bodies and flashes of green light every time she closes her eyes.

An hour later, she hasn’t made half as much progress on her Transfiguration essay as has Peter, who is almost finished. “Give it to me,” he tells her, stretching out a hand, and she gratefully sets down her quill and passes Peter the parchment she’s been working on.

“Have you given any thought to what we might want to do to keep up education about the war?” Peter asks when he’s a few paragraphs into Emmeline’s essay, biting his lips. “You know, for the Order?”

“A little,” says Emmeline, even though it’s all she’s been able to think about for the last day. “I was thinking we might want to do something more personal than just more pranks, you know? Something less—less theatrical and more serious. If we keep hiding behind secrecy and anonymity, we’re sending other people the message that they shouldn’t be talking about these things in public, when really, we ought to be talking about the war and pureblood supremacy in public as much as we can.”

“So what are you suggesting? That we—because we can’t just go up to the High Table and make speeches in the Great Hall about this.”

Shrugging, she says, “I was thinking we might want to found a student org—you know, we could advertise it on the bulletins in the common rooms and meet… somewhere. Get permission to use an empty classroom or something. But we could start each meeting with a news overview and then, you know, have discussion topics or something, encourage people to share their experiences. It might really open people’s eyes to what Muggle-borns go through every day, and it’d be all above board.”

“That could work,” Peter muses, setting down Emmeline’s essay with a sigh. “I can run it by the boys in our dormitory tonight, if you tell the girls?”

Her job will be harder than his, since she shares a dormitory with Mary and she doesn’t want to rub Mary’s face in the idea any more than will have to happen if and when they publicly advertise the new organization, but she nods anyway. If nothing else, trying to track down Alice, Lily, and Marlene all individually will give her a task that she can focus on when she feels like she’s suffocating.

She finishes the essay with Peter’s help, and then they practice Transfiguring each other into dogs and back. (Peter is much more successful in his attempts than Emmeline is—she can’t seem to give him more than a tail and floppy ears.) She can’t help but think that Elisabeth would have been much better at it than Emmeline is—Elisabeth was always at the top of the class, right up there with Alice.

She’s starting to think that she’s never going to move on, that she’s always going to be stuck on these people she killed, this crime she did. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe she doesn’t deserve closure.

Emmeline knows she ought to be more excited about her student org idea, but she’s… just not. Honestly, she can’t remember the last time that she got excited about anything, that anything was enough to crack through the shell of despair and regret that has become a constant, nonstop fixture in her mind. She wonders how much more of this she can take before she snaps, before enough is enough and she—well—does something drastic.

Frankly, “doing something drastic” is looking more and more appealing the more time goes by.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Rumors flew around the castle about the Gryffindors' involvement in Elisabeth and Millie's deaths. Following the first combined Order of the Phoenix meeting, Emmeline suggested continuing to educate Hogwarts students by forming a student organization to talk about issues surrounding purity and the war. After Sirius and Remus kissed, Sirius tried sort out his complicated feelings for Remus. When Sirius attempted to get back to normal—including being physically affectionate with Remus like always—Remus responded by avoiding him. James's mother contracted spattergroit, leading James to realize that he'd been pushing his parents away in favor of his codependent relationships with the other Gryffindors.

Revised version uploaded 14 January 2022. The revision references events from the prequel fic, Legacy, but it's not necessary to read Legacy to understand this chapter.

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September 12th, 1977: Sirius Black

The days leading up to the first meeting of the group's new student organization are strained, to say the least. Whispers continue to follow Sirius wherever he goes, and while he's heard that there's a lot of interest among the student body in attending, he suspects that plenty of those people are only interested because they want to hear about exactly what went down at the ambush last May.

It frustrates Sirius a little that those involved who aren't Gryffindor seventh years—Frank Longbottom, Edgar Bones, even Dorcas Meadowes and the Prewetts before the three of them graduated—have largely escaped association with Sirius's cohort and avoided the brunt of the rumors. He knows that the Gryffindor seventh years were widely rumored to have been behind the unity pranks last year that led up to that day in the clearing, so when Dumbledore announced that Liz and Millie's murders were the result of a run-in with Death Eaters, the student body quickly associated Sirius's class with whatever tussle they imagined must have happened. Still, a large part of Sirius wishes that people would, frankly, shut the hell up about matters they don't understand. He does feel bad for Benjy Fenwick, though: his girlfriend was one of the ones killed, and a different sort of whispers has been tailing him, too, all over the castle.

Trying to plan the itinerary for the first meeting of War Stories, as they're calling the org, turns out to be a bit of a nightmare. For one thing, including Eddie, Frank, and Benjy in the planning means finding a time that works for eleven people and that they can do without drawing too much of Mary's attention to their absence. They end up holing up after dinner and James's subsequent Quidditch tryouts on Monday in the passageway behind the mirror that they gave to Dorcas for Order liaison meetings. (James finds himself holding tryouts without Sirius there to maintain his position as Beater on the Gryffindor team this year. While James is Captain this year and has been throwing himself into Quidditch practice to distract from what's going on with his parents, Sirius, for his part, finds himself unable to muster up any interest in Quidditch games when they have much, much bigger problems to worry about.)

So there they are, in the cavern behind the mirror on the fourth floor, carefully putting together what the hell they're going to say to what could prove to be a massive audience about the deaths and the war without outing anyone as a member of the underground resistance that is the Order. "We should open with a moment of silence," Benjy pushes, "for Liz and Millie."

Sirius and James exchange a look. "Are you sure that's the best idea? It's not that we shouldn't memorialize them, but do we really want to draw attention to—?"

"So? We all know that everyone's already going to be thinking about them. We owe it to them to honor them—acknowledge their sacrifices. Isn't this organization supposed to be all about encouraging people to understand why deaths like theirs keep happening?"

"I'm not saying this has been easy on you, Ben—you've had it the worst out of all of us—but the rumors haven't extended to you nearly as much as they have to us. With all due respect, you don't know what it's been like."

"'With all due'—are you kidding me? You want to gloss over the most meaningful deaths this school has seen in modern history because you're sick of people gossiping about you?"

"It's not like that," says Marlene quietly. "People talking about us—we can handle that. But—this org is all about encouraging people to go out there and make a difference after they graduate, and we're never going to accomplish that if we let it devolve into people making accusations against us that we keep dodging."

"But they're already making those accusations. We can't run from them."

"Benjy's right," says Lily quietly. "It would be remiss of us to try and cover up the significance of their deaths just because it's going to be uncomfortable. It's already uncomfortable. Whether we like it or not, the rumors are out there—at least if we address them head on, we can try to control the narrative."

"And we won't look like we're trying to hide something," Emmeline adds.

"But we are trying to hide something. We got two people killed, remember?" Peter points out. "Vigilantism is completely illegal. If the Ministry gets word of our involvement… if it spirals beyond just Hogwarts rumors…"

"It's going to spiral anyway if we don't do what Lily said and control the conversation," says Remus.

There's a long pause, and then James says, "All right. So—we give Millie and Liz a moment of silence, and we memorialize them, and we hope to hell that we don't have to deflect too many questions before we move onto our main agenda, which is…?"

"Asking everybody to check their privilege," says Lily promptly. "We'll talk about some of the most common forms of prejudice Muggle-borns face, and then we'll open the floor up so people can share stories about how wizarding purism has affected them in their everyday lives."

When they've planned what they can, they squeeze back out through the mirror and set off for their respective common rooms. Since they're going the same direction, Sirius falls in line with Remus and tries to start up a conversation, any conversation, with him, but Remus just looks at the ground they're walking across and yeahs and uh-huhs his way through Sirius's very one-sided efforts.

Remus scurries up into the boys' dorm as soon as they reach the common room, and Sirius decides that he has had it with skirting around the point with him. "Give me some time alone with Remus, okay?" he says to James and Peter, and then he kisses Marlene goodnight and heads up the stairs to the dormitory.

Remus gives a start when Sirius pulls the door shut behind him. "Hi," says Remus quietly, and then he looks back at his books, until Sirius throws himself onto Remus's bed and sends them flying everywhere.

"We need to talk, dude," says Sirius when Remus indignantly starts to protest. "Tell me what I need to do to go back to the way things were."

There's a long pause as Remus tips his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. "I don't know if we can," he says finally.

"Okay," says Sirius, even though nothing about this is okay, "then tell me what I need to do so we can move forward. I hate not talking to you, Moony. I hate it."

"I don't understand you," says Remus after another pause. "You obviously have feelings for Marlene and not… well. But you keep touching me."

"But we used to touch like that all the time. I still touch Wormy and Prongs like that all the time, and so do you."

"Yes, but with them, I don't… you have to know that things are different between us now that you know about—about me. I'm not trying to throw a hissy fit; I just… it's like you're throwing it in my face." Sirius reaches up to brush Remus's cheek with his thumb, but Remus flinches away from the contact.

"So, what? You never want me to touch you again? Because I can do that, if that's what you need," says Sirius, even though he feels a sharp pang of loss at the thought of it.

"Of course I don't want that," Remus says, "but yeah. Yeah, I think maybe that's better."

"If we do this, will you come back to me? Because I can't stand never seeing you—or Wormtail, for that matter. Prongs needs us, dealing with what he's dealing with with his parents, and—I need you. If you're going to stay gone, then I don't know… I just don't know."

And he means every word of it. He's gone without Remus for months now, and as much as he's been telling himself that Marlene and James and Lily are enough, he feels like he can't breathe without knowing that the other Marauders—all of them—have his back. It doesn't gross him out if Remus has feelings for him—Sirius just wants to do what he needs to do to get his mate back.

He realizes that he hasn't actually told this to Remus yet, so he slowly adds, "It's okay with me if—if you feel the way you feel. That doesn't bother me. I just want you in my life."

Remus lets out a shuddering breath. "I've missed you. A lot," he admits.

"I've missed you, too. Let's never leave each other alone again, all right?"

Remus looks like he's about to tell Sirius that he can't promise that, and Sirius braces himself for rejection, but instead Remus says quietly, "All right."

He's overjoyed to have Remus back in his life, who has been missing from being there in a meaningful way for entirely too long. Sirius hopes sincerely that Remus doesn't feel like he needs space to figure Sirius out, or at least that if he ever felt that way, that he's sorted it out and is happy to be friends again as of late. Remus keeps him grounded; he reins Sirius in when his pranks get too cruel or his jokes too hurtful, and he welcomes the opportunity to connect without ever asking for it or even believing he deserves it, even though Sirius knows that Remus deserves everything there is to give him. Remus is a much better person than Sirius is, but Sirius is better because of him, and he'd do anything for him, too.

But—can Sirius really say that that's true when he won't love Remus back the way he thinks Remus loves him?

He tries for just a few moments to imagine being in that kind of a relationship with Remus. Sure, he could be happy coming home to Remus every night—having him as a steady presence for Sirius to come home to and take with him when he leaves. But could he be happy with the physical relationship that would come with it?

Sirius allows himself to think back to the one time they kissed, sitting there on Remus's bed with Remus's lips on his, biting his lip a little, touching his hip with his hand. It was nice, sure. Just as nice as kissing Marlene is. But could he—?

He squeezes his eyes closed and spectacularly fails to block the mental images that come with that train of thought. It makes him feel sort of dirty and gross inside, but is that because he's grossed out, or because he's ashamed that he's not grossed out? Sirius can't tell.

And if he’s being completely honest with himself—this isn’t the first time he’s ever thought about Remus’s body in a sexual way. It may have been fleeting—Sirius may have pushed it out of his mind—but there was a day in fourth year, after he started sleeping with Marlene, when he talked to Remus about sex, about what she liked and what he, Sirius, liked, too. Remus had been totally enthralled; Sirius’s heart had raced; he’d assumed Remus was just turned on thinking about girls like that, but he realizes now that Remus was probably turned on thinking about Sirius. And Sirius—after James and Peter interrupted their conversation, there had been a moment when Sirius pictured whether Remus, later that night, would fantasize about that very conversation, and—he hadn’t felt disgusted by it. He hadn’t felt disgusted by it at all.

It doesn't matter, he reminds himself: he's with Marlene now, and after all the bullshit they had to go through to get here, Sirius doesn't want to risk doing anything that could jeopardize his relationship with her. He doesn't need to have all the rest of it figured out—whether or not Sirius could ever have romantic feelings for Remus is a nonissue. He has Remus back as a friend, and that's the most Sirius could hope to ask for.

He can hardly believe his luck when Remus makes a beeline for him at breakfast the following morning. "Here," says Sirius, scooting to make room for Remus on his left, and he fights the urge to clap Remus on the shoulder when he sits down and reaches for the oatmeal.

"Where are Alice and Mary?" asks James after swallowing a mouthful of cereal. "Alice is going to be late to Transfiguration if she gets here much later."

"Mary was running a few minutes later than me when I left the dorms," says Lily. "Don't know about Alice, though—she'd already left; I didn't see her leave."

"Probably sitting with Dirk again," Marlene says.

Sirius cranes his neck to take a look at the Ravenclaw table. He doesn't see Alice there, but then, it's hard to make anybody out from that far away with the way students are jammed in. He makes eye contact with Dana Madley, who immediately covers her mouth with her hand and starts whispering to Charlotte Fawcett, and he throws up his hands and snaps, "I can't. I'm going to grab something from the kitchens before class."

"Sirius—"

"I can't take the way people keep looking at us. I can't take it."

But James doesn't accept this, following Sirius all the way out of the Great Hall and along the walk to the kitchens. "You're not alone, Padfoot. You're not the only one going through this. We're all dealing with rumors, and—"

"It's not just about the rumors. You know it's not. It's about—they're dead, Prongs, and I…"

"You think any of us don't know that? You think I don't know that? I was in the Hospital Wing when Liz died in that cot right in front of me, and now my parents…"

Shit. Of course James is pissed at him for not holding it together in the face of all the gossip: after all, it shouldn't be James's responsibility to take care of Sirius right now, not when he's coping with what he's coping with. And yet—Sirius didn't ask James to put his own problems on pause to pull Sirius together. If that's what James is trying to do—

"Can we be real with each other for a second?"

James narrows his eyes, but his tone is casual when he says, "Shoot."

"You're my brother, and I love you," says Sirius, "but—I don't need you to be there for me right now. I need to be there for you right now. We need to get our priorities straight—both of us."

James twists his lips. "I appreciate that, but—"

"No buts. I mean it."

"But," he insists, "I don't… I just—if I'm busy planning War Stories and taking care of you and everyone else, then I don't have to…"

And doesn't Sirius know that exact feeling? Isn't that exactly how he and Marlene started back in fourth year—because burying his feelings about Emmeline and Regulus and all of it underneath another person was the only way he could think to cope? "I'll make you a deal. I'll try harder not to get riled up about the rumors if you try to—give yourself a little breathing room. Sound fair?"

He's expecting James to perk up a little, maybe flash Sirius a sheepish smile—but he doesn't. "That's the whole problem," he whispers instead. "I wasted all my time with them, Padfoot. My mum's probably going to die of this—and my dad's probably going to catch it from her and die, too—and for the last six-plus years of my life, I've been blowing them off for the Gryffindors, and for what? Because I feel like I'm nothing without you all. Because I feel like I can't breathe when I'm not around you.

"I should be taking this as a wake-up call. I should be taking some distance and working on myself. I've known it since Dad told me Mum was sick—and what did I spend the whole summer doing? Hiding out with you and Lily. Doing what felt good when I knew it was wrong just because I didn't want to deal."

"So… what?" says Sirius slowly, processing this. "Are you saying you want me and Lily to leave you alone a little?"

"God, no," James breathes. "Maybe you should—no, I know you should—but I don't know how I would survive if either of you backed off. I just…"

Sirius hasn't got a clue what to say—because if he's being totally honest with himself, when he thinks about James and Remus and Marlene, he feels the exact same way. Instead, he pulls James into a rough hug and just—holds on.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Alice got back together with Dirk Cresswell, with whom she had quarreled when he declined her invitation to join the Order and did not want her involved in it. Back at Hogwarts, Alice started spending most of her time with Remus, despite Alice’s previous disagreement with Sirius in which she did not believe that the discrimination against werewolves was unfair. Alice struggled to connect on a deeper level with her friends, feeling like their interactions were mostly surface-level.

James’s mum contracted spattegroit, and his dad opted to stay home and care for her despite the high risk of catching it from her. The Order of the Phoenix members still at Hogwarts formed and began to advertise a new student organization that they called War Stories. With Mary out of the Order, she was not involved in the creation of the org.

Revised version uploaded 19 January 2022.

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September 17th, 1977: Alice Abbott

Spending all her time with Remus during the first week of term was confusing, to say the least. Sure, she saw him and the other Gryffindor seventh years plenty often over the summer, but she’d sort of started dodging all of them when Lily was named Head Girl, and anyway, she’s just spent the last couple months getting an earful from her parents about how Wizarding Britain isn’t corrupt and werewolves are subhuman. They haven’t really talked about Remus being a werewolf since Alice found out last winter, despite how many hours she’s spent since then working one-on-one with him on their studies. After her parents’ bad reaction to finding out about the Wolfsbane Potion, she kind of wants to sit Remus down and ask him a bunch of questions about anti-werewolf legislation, but she’s been too afraid of making things even more awkward to actually do it.

That’s the thing about Remus—actually, that’s the thing about all of Alice’s best friends. She loves them, supports them, would do anything for them—but when it comes time to really talk to them about anything that matters, she just… clams up and can’t. Even when she tries, it always feels like there’s this divide between her and them that she can’t breach.

And if there’s one thing Alice does when she’s dealing with something unpleasant, she avoids it. So she’s been spending most of the last few days with Dirk Cresswell, which has been—yeah, she likes him, but it’s been a little disconcerting to go from going on the occasional date to being around him from dawn ’til dusk. Worse, Dirk and Frank Longbottom are pretty good friends, which means seeing a lot of Frank’s girlfriend, Dana Madley. Alice has always kind of thought of Madley as being vapid and rude, and she tries to be nice for the sake of keeping the peace, but sometimes she just gets impatient with the way Madley just—hangs off of Frank like a fifth limb and talks over anybody who tries to get a word in edgewise.

She gets a rare moment alone with Frank outside the ladies’ room while Madley powders her nose in there and Dirk is off in the library working on a Charms essay that he’s got due on Monday. “How’re you doing, Alice?” Frank asks with a little half-smile on his face.

“Oh, just fine,” says Alice dismissively, but Frank adds—

“You just seem quieter than usual lately, that’s all. And I’m sort of wondering if—if you’ve been spending all this time with us because you’re avoiding the other Gryffindors for some reason?”

“Oh, it’s fine. I mean, things with Lily are a little—”

She breaks off as Madley emerges from the bathroom and simpers, “Frank, honey, did you still want to go outside to work on that Defense essay?”

“Uh, yeah, of course. Coming, Alice?”

“Oh, no, I…” says Alice, suddenly feeling like she doesn’t belong with the two of them here without Dirk around. “I should be getting back to my common room. But I’ll see you at the meeting tonight, right?”

“We’ll be there,” says Madley.

“Dirk’s coming, too?”

“Yes. Yes, he’ll be there,” Alice says. Given that Dirk is Muggle-born, Alice expects that he’d be interested even if Alice weren’t going, unlike her suspicion that Madley is only going for Frank.

War Stories’ first meeting is at eight o’clock tonight, and Alice couldn’t be more anxious. She’s positive that opening with a direct mention of Liz and Millie will immediately open the door to questions that they aren’t prepared to answer, but what are they supposed to do? Ignore the elephant in the room? And what if no one comes forward to share their experiences when prompted? Alice knows that Peter and Lily have been working on preparing stories to read out if needed, but what if they’re the only ones who do?

Contrary to what she tells Frank and Madley, Alice doesn’t go to the Gryffindor common room, instead doubling back and finding Dirk in the library. He grins at her when he sees her, this big smile lighting up his whole face like she’s just made his day, and Alice feels the twinge of guilt she always feels when Dirk pays her a compliment. Sure, she likes him well enough, but she’s not entirely sure to what degree she’s been spending time with him just to avoid feeling left alone entirely by her fellow Gryffindors.

Peter didn’t spend all his time with Siobhan when they were dating, Alice reminds herself. He found a way to balance having friends with having a girlfriend. Of course, this is the same Peter who proceeded to get dumped by Siobhan when she found out that he and Emmeline had kissed…

“You ready to do this thing tonight?” says Dirk, bringing Alice back to reality.

“Yeah, it should be interested to hear what everyone has to say,” says Alice.

The words are perfectly polite, but Alice still feels strained thin on the inside. They’re presenting themselves like War Stories is all James and Lily’s idea: it sends a good message showing the Head Boy and Girl united; Lily can share her experiences as a Muggle-born witch, and James can relate to other purebloods who might initially be skeptical of the extent of wizarding purism in Wizarding Britain. But Dirk knows that Alice and the other Gryffindor seventh years were all involved in the educational campaign last year and the ambush, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that this is all of their brainchild, either. There’s nothing dangerous about the discussion that they have planned for tonight, but Dirk probably thinks it’s a slippery slope from here to more reckless behavior, and Alice can’t blame him: she and the others are all planning on doing more with the resistance once they get out of Hogwarts.

She works on her Arithmancy homework while Dirk pokes at Charms. Eventually, he finishes the essay and starts on his Transfiguration homework—practicing Conjuring Spells—and Alice allows herself to get sidetracked helping him with his wand movements and giggling at the mice without tails or with wooden little legs that Dirk generates.

“I swear I was getting this better when we did this in class,” Dirk wheezes after Vanishing his latest attempt.

“You’ll be fine. You just need to focus.”

“It’s pretty hard to focus when I’m around you,” Dirk admits.

It looks like this was a slip of the tongue that Dirk hadn’t intended to say, because he claps a hand over his mouth and looks at Alice with wide eyes. She’s once again slammed with the feeling that she doesn’t deserve this boy, this beautiful boy who loves her more than she can give back, and that’s when it occurs to her: instead of fixating on how she doesn’t care for Dirk enough, maybe she can solve all her problems by putting her energy into treating him the way he treats her.

She reaches up to pull Dirk’s hand away from his mouth, and they sit there with their hands entwined on top of the table, Alice tracing the lines on his palm with her thumb. “You’re not helping,” says Dirk with a weak laugh.

“Probably not,” agrees Alice, and she leans in and kisses him.

She’s kissed Dirk before, but it was always fleeting things, little pecks on the lips that didn’t last more than a second. She’s never really kissed anybody before, so she doesn’t really know what she’s doing as she moves her lips back and forth, but Dirk doesn’t seem to mind. He groans a little in the back of his throat and scoots his chair toward hers, pressing their thighs together side-by-side, a hand moving up to cradle her cheek. It feels good, better than Alice would have thought it would feel, and she’s just starting to think she’s getting the hang of it when—

“Honestly! The things people try to get away with! Out of my library, now! OUT!”

xx

They’d originally planned to reserve a classroom to meet in, but as word buzzed around the castle about War Stories and they heard more and more about people interested in coming, they ended up talking to Professor McGonagall about using the Great Hall. It’s not jam-packed when Alice and Dirk walk in, but it’s maybe at twenty-percent capacity, which is still pretty impressive and big enough that it’s hard to hear much of anything over the chatter.

Alice tugs on Dirk’s hand and leads him over to the Gryffindor table, where they grab seats next to Remus and Marlene. They’ve been sitting there for maybe five minutes, Alice holding Dirk’s hand under the table, when she hears James yell from the end of the table, “Oi!” and then give a searing whistle.

Talk from all sides dies down at once. “Thanks everyone for coming to our first meeting,” says James, a little quieter now that he has everyone’s attention. He stands up, as does Lily. “I’m James Potter, and this is Lily Evans. For those of you who don’t know us, we’re in Gryffindor, and we’re Head Boy and Girl this year.”

“Since this is a meeting for people with concerns about the war, and it’s the war that took these girls’ lives last year, we thought we could start with a moment of silence for Elisabeth Clearwater from Hufflepuff and Mildred LeProut from Ravenclaw,” Lily adds. “You all know Liz as Captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and Millie as our Quidditch commentator at official meets. This year, Liz would have been a seventh year, and Millie would have been a fifth year. Even if you didn’t know them personally, their memories will live on at this school as brave warriors who stood up to evil and were taken from us too soon, and one of the reasons we’re gathered here today is to fight together for a world where what happened to Millie and Liz will never happen again. Please take the next moment to reflect on their lives and their legacy.”

To everyone’s credit, they do wait a while before anyone interrupts. It’s not until James wraps up the minute and starts to introduce the next activity that somebody says, “You’re really not going to talk about what happened to them? You’re really going to try to save your own arses on this one?”

Alice recognizes the voice: it belongs to John Dawlish, a sixth year Hufflepuff prefect whom Alice knows from prefect meetings. Truth be told, Alice is a little surprised to see him here, at a meeting about Muggle-borns’ rights. He’s always been so—well—politically correct all the time; he’s not someone she would think of as being outspoken on behalf of anybody.

And then, unexpectedly, Benjy speaks up. Alice hadn’t thought he was planning on saying anything. “Elisabeth was my girlfriend,” he says in a loud but broken voice. “I was in the Hospital Wing with her when Madam Pomfrey pronounced her dead. She was acting on bad information leaked to her and others on purpose, and she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to expose themselves as targets to anybody whose word might get back to Death Eaters in some misdirected attempt to honor her.”

“Like it’s any more honorable to frame her death like an accident when it was clearly the fault of—”

“You’re right,” Benjy interrupts, sounding tired. “No one here is going to argue that her death, or Millie’s for that matter, was an accident. It was murder, and we run the risk of following it up with more murders the more we point fingers.”

“But you’re lying!” breaks in someone at the Ravenclaw table that Alice doesn’t know. “You know what really happened, and you’re covering your arse, and you aren’t just going to get away with it!”

“Anybody who is only here because they care about spreading rumors and interfering in other people’s business is free to leave,” Lily interrupts with a frown. “We’re here to talk about the realities of living with prejudice against the Muggle-borns that Millie and Liz were fighting on behalf of when they were killed. If you care about having that conversation, then stay with us.”

There’s a long pause, and then Dawlish mutters something Alice can’t quite catch, swings his legs over the bench he’s sitting on, and marches out of the Hall. Half a dozen others follow him out, including (Alice cringes) Greta Catchlove and Pol Patil. The silence is ringing in Alice’s ears by the time Lily says, “Well, with that, I think it’s about time we get the conversation going. James, did you want to get us started?”

James nods, sliding a hand through his hair. “All right, now, I want everybody to come over here to the Gryffindor table. There’s no need for us to stand divided today. Is there room?—can we fit everyone?”

Slowly, the students sitting at the other tables make their way over to the Gryffindor table and grab seats.

“Great. Now, I want everyone to stand up right where they’re sitting. Excellent. So I made this list today,” continues James, pulling out a sheaf of parchment and waving it for a second. “I have here a list of statements that may or may not apply to you. The first time I read out a statement that has never been true of you and your life, I want you to sit down. Are we ready? Yeah? All right. First statement is, I have never lied about my blood status to others.”

Lily is the first to sit down, followed hesitantly by about a third of the people at the table. James goes on, “I have never been called an insult based on my blood purity.” A few more people sit. “I have never worried about being denied a job, position, or role important to me because of my blood purity.” More follow.

“I have never been asked to speak on behalf of everyone of my blood status. I have never heard people of my blood purity spoken about as a voting bloc in Ministry elections. I have never had to ask for more information about a past wizarding event that someone brings up in conversation. I have never been told that I am smart or good or worthy ‘for someone of my blood status.’”

James keeps going for something like twenty more items, and by the end of it, a good half of the room has sat down—has been sitting down since at least the second or third statement. “So the purpose of this exercise,” says James, “has been to highlight for those of us who are pureblood or half-blood some of the challenges that we don’t have to face because of our blood status. Lily was going to kick off a discussion about the exercise—everyone can sit down, by the way—”

All in all, the whole thing goes much more successfully than Alice predicted, even with the skirmish that lost them a few people at the beginning. Even Alice has to admit that Lily does a great job mediating the discussion, then facilitating the opportunity for people of all blood statuses to share their experiences. And what they talked about—she knows rationally that these problems and experiences Muggle-borns face aren’t new, but she keeps wondering, have there really been all these prejudices all along? And if there have been, how did Alice miss them?

Is this what Dumbledore saw in Lily that led him to choose her for Head Girl? Alice will probably never know, but she still catches up with Lily when they get back to the dorm and says, “You did a really great job leading things back there.”

“Thanks,” says Lily, smiling a little.

“So everything went well?” Mary asks. She’s in her pajamas, writing in a journal and petting Aquarius, who is curled up next to where she’s sitting cross-legged on her bed.

“It went great,” says Alice. “You should come to the next one! We’re doing another one in about a month.”

“Yeah, maybe,” says Mary, shrugging it off.

Alice thinks she should probably push the issue, but can’t bring herself to do so. It’s just like with Remus: as much as Alice may want to forge that connection, when it comes down to it, she can’t—or maybe doesn’t know how. How is it so easy for her friends to get so wrapped up in each other—to feel like they’re parts of a messy, loving, complicated whole? Because no matter how many owls Alice sends or lunch dates she makes, she still—

—Feels like she’s on the outside sometimes. (A lot of the time, if she’s being honest with herself.) Even though she knows that’s at least partly a good thing, that her friends veer too far in the direction of codependency—

—It’s not like Alice has entirely escaped that, either. After all, she was right there with them trying to barge in on Marlene and Sirius’s trysts before they started properly dating, wasn’t she? Alice has spent her fair share of time interfering in ongoings she had no business interfering in; it’s not like her inability to connect with people has protected her from getting sucked into their drama, from feeling too emotionally invested in it.

Is Alice just—broken? Was she born broken, or was she made this way by her upbringing? After all, it’s not like her parents took her on tons of playdates when she was growing up, and when they talked to her about other kids her age, it was never to encourage relationships: they treated every one of her peers like a potential rival, somebody over whom Alice needed to prove academic superiority. Just look at the way Alice has been viewing Lily: ever since she got the badge and became a viable adversary, that’s all she’s really been to Alice, no matter how hard Alice has tried to convince Lily and herself and everyone else that this isn’t the case.

She can’t sleep—she’s too wound up and fretful—and around half past one in the morning, she finally gives up on trying, puts on her slippers, and pads down to the common room. At this hour, it’s nearly deserted, except for a few third years intent on their game of Exploding Snap—and James, who’s sitting in an armchair with a sort of dead look in his eyes.

“Hey,” she says quietly. He smiles when he looks up, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and she feels entirely like she’s intruding.

“Hey.”

“Everything okay? You’re usually not down here this late.”

“I, uh… I heard from my dad earlier today. He’s caught spattergroit, too, you know, from my mum.”

Alice’s heart clenches. “Oh, James, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. I know I don’t… I know you and I aren’t… but if you ever want to talk about it, um, I’m here.”

It feels like an empty platitude, and she expects he’s probably taking it as such. His next smile looks even more forced than the last.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Emmeline returned to avoiding everyone but Peter after unsuccessfully trying to reintegrate herself into her friend group. Blackmailed by Alecto Carrow, Peter took his first step toward betraying the Order by giving her the name of one of its members.

Revised version uploaded 19 January 2022.

xx

September 18th, 1977: Peter Pettigrew

All the time now, Peter feels like he’s being pulled in different directions. On the one hand, the other Marauders need him more than he’s been there for them lately, especially James, whose mum and now dad are both living with spattergroit and probably have death sentences on their heads. Peter wants to spend as much time as he can holding James up and being there for him, whether as a good distraction or as someone James can confide in.

But Emmeline is back to hanging around Peter and not really anybody else, if she can help it, and as much as Peter wishes it were as simple as asking her to give him some space to be with the boys—or even to join Peter in spending time with them—he’s worried about Em’s motivations for isolating herself to this extent. She stayed away from others out of bitterness for a long time, but Peter thinks this is different. This—phase, if you want to call it that, goes beyond Em blaming others for anything. Peter knows she’s gotten to a place where she no longer holds Sirius responsible for her parents’ deaths and wants, if not to reconcile with him and the other Gryffindors, at least to make amends and live peaceably with them. Using Peter to hide from them doesn’t feel like an angry statement; it feels like an—act of desperation, or something.

That morning, after he meets Emmeline in the common room and they once again eat breakfast alone together, he decides enough is enough. He doesn’t want to embarrass her by bringing the issue up in public, so he suggests that they head outside to work on homework, and then takes her aside under a broad oak tree on the lake away from anyone else who might be able to overhear them. Emmeline is just flipping open her Ancient Runes textbook when Peter grabs both of her hands with his own.

The textbook slips off Em’s lap onto the ground, and she looks over at him with a wild look in her eyes. “What?” she asks, just a little too fast to sound like everything is normal, and he wonders whether she can guess what he’s about to say.

“You’ve been avoiding everybody again,” he says. He figures that stating an observation is probably a better way to lead into this conversation than making any accusations about her intentions.

“No, I’m not. I’m talking to you.”

“But not anybody else. I’m worried about you, Em. You were trying so hard, and then you just—stopped.”

Emmeline doesn’t say anything, and in the interest of not driving her away and leaving her with no one, Peter doesn’t push it. They don’t talk about it all through homework on the lake, or lunch, or Peter’s very bad guitar playing in the Gryffindor common room, and he thinks that’s the end of it until, just before they’re getting ready to go to dinner, Em puts a hand on his strumming hand and clears her throat. “I, um… I guess I just don’t feel like myself lately,” she says.

It takes Peter a second to place what she’s talking about, and when he does, he startles a little. “What’s different, then?” he asks.

Emmeline shrugs. “There just doesn’t seem like any point in doing anything anymore. There’s no point talking to the others because I drove them all away already, and there’s no point focusing on school when being in the Order is probably going to get us all killed in a few years’ time. I can’t do my reading or writing anymore because—I don’t know, it’s like the color is gone from everything. I’m showing up for classes and working on homework because I’m supposed to be, and it gives me something to do besides sit around and be bored, but—I just don’t want to be here. For any of it.”

“Okay,” says Peter slowly, processing. “Okay, so first of all, can I just give you a hug?”

She laughs a little, and he realizes that it’s the first time he’s heard Emmeline laugh in a while now. He sets the guitar at his feet, turns to her, and sweeps her up into a hug, rubbing her back in little circles. She doesn’t squeeze back at first, but does eventually.

When he lets go, he fixes his face into what he hopes is a supportive sort of frown. “First of all,” he repeats, “nobody is gone. If Lily Evans, who had an active animosity going with every member of this house before she and Snape stopped being friends, could end up best friends with Marlene and on good terms with everyone in this house and year within a few months, then I don’t see why anybody shouldn’t be capable of leaving the past in the past and moving on.”

“This is different than what happened with Lily,” Em argues. “Lily is—she’s funny and charming and—she knows how to make people like her when she wants them to.”

“And you don’t?”

“I’m just not that happy, friendly person anymore. I don’t know how to… how to break back in. And I don’t even know if I want to. I mean, I don’t enjoy talking to people anymore. I don’t enjoy anything. At all.”

Peter gives her a long, searching look. He’s known for a pretty long while now that Emmeline feels disconnected from other people, but he hadn’t realized that that disconnection extends to what sounds like every aspect of her life. Fleetingly, he thinks about being eight years old, getting off the school bus and coming home to find his dad slumped on the ground in a pool of red. Dad made it through, got patched up at the hospital and started taking a pill every day that kept his energy up and his mood lifted, and Peter doesn’t even want to think what would have happened to Dad if the doctors hadn’t intervened. Is that what’s going to happen to Emmeline? Is he going to come through the portrait hole of Gryffindor Tower one day to find her lying—?

“Can you promise me something?” he asks.

“What?” she says, sounding wary.

“If you start feeling like you want to hurt yourself, don’t do it. Come find me instead. Or if you can’t find me, find someone.”

“But why would I—?”

“Just promise me, okay?”

Em looks down again. She’s twiddling her thumbs and breathing shallowly. “Okay.”

Peter clasps her shoulder and gives her a bracing smile. “What can I do to help you start feeling better?”

She doesn’t answer right away, pausing for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “I don’t know if there’s anything. I think I’m just—I think it’s all ruined.”

“Nothing’s ruined,” says Peter, but he can tell that she doesn’t believe him. “I know it’s hard to think about the future.” Alecto Carrow’s face pops into his head at that moment, and he pushes it away. He’ll deal with the consequences when they come, he tells himself. “But do you want to remember how to appreciate your life, or do you want to feel like there’s no point to anything?”

“But there is no point to anything.”

“Look, if you’re here anyway, don’t you want to not feel badly about it?” he says, getting maybe a little exasperated—not with Emmeline, but with himself, for not seeming to be able to get through to her. “Wouldn’t it be better for everyone for you to feel like you—like your life has a purpose?”

“Does it, though?”

“It could,” says Peter fairly. “What we’re doing with the Order matters. Even if we do all get ourselves killed in a few years, the difference we make in the meantime isn’t for nothing. And our relationships—you matter to me, and I know you matter to everyone else, too. They wouldn’t want to see you suffering.”

Emmeline just shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”

“I know so,” he insists.

“Thanks,” she mutters, twisting one corner of her mouth. “Hey, is everything okay with you? Is there anything you, I don’t know, wanted to talk about?”

Again, he thinks about Carrow, about the name he gave her in that moment of weakness, and he can’t tell whether it would cause more damage to fess up—if that’s just going to get his friends killed. “Everything’s fine with me,” he assures her, his stomach churning. “I’m just worried about you.”

Carrow hasn’t bothered him once ever since he sent back that owl with Gideon’s name. He had figured that Gideon is of age and out of Hogwarts now and is tough enough to be able to defend himself if some Death Eater wannabe comes after him. Peter hasn’t heard anything about Gideon being attacked—he was there at their last Order meeting and seemed totally normal—and Peter is hoping that he can just forget about the whole thing and move forward, but that’s probably overly optimistic of him when he can’t seem to keep the thing with Carrow out of his thoughts.

Increasingly, Peter is starting to feel like no matter what he does, he can’t save everybody he wants to save, whether that’s Emmeline or Gideon or any of the other Order members whose secrecy he’s trying to protect. He plucks off-key at his guitar and tries to forget.

xx

Peter begins to find that it’s easier to take his mind off of his own problems if he throws himself into solving Emmeline’s. On Monday, he makes a point of seating them with Lily and Marlene at breakfast, and when Emmeline gets out of Charms, Peter is waiting for her outside the classroom door, ready to steer her toward Mary to work together on their homework for Defense. They lose track of each other after lunch—Peter has Care of Magical Creatures without her, and when he gets done, he can’t seem to find her anywhere—but she joins him for dinner with Alice, Remus, and Sirius, and then comes up to the boys’ dormitory with him afterwards.

James and Remus stay downstairs in the common room, so it’s just the two of them and Sirius upstairs. James obviously forgot to turn off his WWN before dinner, so there’s quiet rock music playing in the background as Peter pats the space beside him so that Emmeline can join him on his bed.

Emmeline is sitting ramrod straight against the headboard, clearly not at ease with Sirius there in the room with them. Peter sort of wants to rub her back and make it better, but he’s positive that she would just be embarrassed by the public contact, so he stops himself. Sirius starts to say, “I could go to the library—? I just wanted some quiet to work on this blasted Muggle Studies essay.”

“No, quiet is good,” says Em softly. “I’ve got Ancient Runes stuff to do.”

It’s amazing how hard it can be to sit with someone you have painful history with, even if you’re not expected to say anything. Peter’s not in that position, sitting here with Sirius and Em, but he knows that Emmeline feels that way about Sirius, and he wishes he could do something—anything—to lighten that burden.

So he takes it upon himself to get everybody else away from Emmeline and tell them—well, he’s not totally sure what to say. He doesn’t want to share details about her private life that she shared with him in confidence, but how else can he explain why she needs them? “Em’s having a hard time right now,” he ends up telling everybody in sequence. “I would really appreciate it if you could just, you know, talk to her—do your best to make her feel included.”

“Why? What’s going on with her?” asks Mary when Peter is able to get her and Alice alone. She doesn’t sound skeptical or sarcastic, just earnest.

“She’s just struggling with some things, and I think it’s not helping feeling like she’s totally isolated herself from all of her friends.”

Mary nods, tucking a piece of brown hair behind her ear. “I mean, I’m happy to have her around, but she’s going to know something’s up if we try to pour sugar down her throat, you know?”

“We can still make a point of inviting her places,” Alice reasons. “I don’t think anybody wants Emmeline to feel like she has to be alone.”

If Peter’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t want to be alone, either—afraid of what will happen the next time he puts himself in a position to be cornered by Carrow. Will he have to give away more names? Spoil missions that his future self will be tasked with? Should he have stood his ground and told somebody instead?

Is it too late?

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Before sixth year, Lily's parents died in a car crash, and Lily discovered that they'd cut her out of their will. James's parents fell ill with spattergroit. Peter worried about Emmeline. Marlene concealed her true parentage from the world: her father, Muggle-born Caradoc Dearborn, conceived her out of wedlock, and her mother subsequently married pureblood Neil McKinnon and passed him off as Marlene's father instead.

Revised version uploaded 19 January 2022.

xx

September 23rd, 1977: Lily Evans

It's like half of Lily's friends are concealing their suffering from the rest of the world. Alice acts like everything is fine, but Lily has definitely noticed her hiding out with Dirk Cresswell and avoiding the other Gryffindors more than she ever did in sixth year. Mary has to realize that she's being shut out from her friends by virtue of quitting the Order, and from what Peter tells Lily, Emmeline isn't having an easy time of anything, either. Meanwhile, James is throwing himself into War Stories, Quidditch, and being Head Boy, but he can't seem to distract himself from the reality that he's probably going to lose both of his parents to spattergroit.

Sure, he acts in public like everything's fine, and Lily would almost believe it if she couldn't see what James has been like behind closed doors, when it's just them or when they're with any of the boys. He zones out when Lily is talking with a look in his eyes so distant and so afraid that she just wants to—shake him. Kiss him. Ask him what he's thinking and not leave him alone until he gives her a proper answer.

She does none of these things, of course. It's partly because she's not used to seeing this side of James; she never realized before what a discrepancy there can be between how James acts in the world and how James really feels, and she certainly doesn't know how to deal with the part of James that isn't infinitely jovial and patient, collected and confident. Lily thought she'd seen a lot of sides to him before—the bully, the tease, the flirt, the defender, the lover—but this worried, insecure shell of him isn't anything she's ever seen or knows how to handle.

And—it's also because she's not entirely sure how to be there for him without making it all about her. The thought of James's parents dying of spattergroit inextricably brings up thoughts about what happened when Lily's own parents died—when James was so solid and caring and there for her for the first few days, until she freaked out and got scared and shut him out. More than anything, she wants to do for James what he tried to do for her. She wants to be there for him the way he had wanted to be there for her to make it up to him, to show him that she's not going to bail again the second things get complicated for one of them. Sure, she's got good intentions, but—she's a little afraid that, if she tells him any of this, he'll use it to refocus the conversation on how she's doing and entirely shut her out from taking care of him.

And—it's not even that she couldn't use someone to talk to about her parents' deaths, because she probably could. For all the moping and avoiding she did in the months after the car crash, Lily feels like she still hasn't fully processed what happened—like she just buried it underneath her growing friendships with Marlene and the other Gryffindors. In an instant, she lost both of her parents and her whole inheritance, because they gave it all to Petunia. She hates to even act like her money troubles are on par with her parents' deaths, but—it made her second guess every interaction she ever had with either of them, whether they ever loved her at all. How could Dad, her one ally at home, have let Mum do this to her? Even Mum—she'd always favored Petunia, sure, but Lily hadn't ever dreamed that Mum could hate her enough to cut Lily out of the will.

She sort of wishes that she and James—hell, that everybody—would just admit their pain to each other so that they could at least get some support from each other, but on the other hand, Lily knows that some struggles don't get better by voicing them aloud during every conversation you have. Take what happened in May—what they did to Liz and Millie. None of the Gryffindors talk about them anymore, because what's the point? They all still have that same weight on their chests day in and day out, and anyway, they probably deserve to focus on guilt for their part in what happened to them.

But Millie and Elisabeth hang like a cloud over every conversation Lily has, just there below the surface, reminding her that her and her friends' stupidity has a body count no matter how hard she tries to live out her life like a normal person. She doesn't know how Benjy can stand to stay in the Order, even now that it's under Dumbledore's leadership. She doesn't know how Benjy can stand to look any of the Gryffindor seventh years in the eye.

Increasingly, Lily feels like she has nothing to say to people day in and day out as they go about their daily lives. What even is there to talk about? They can't change the past. The only really noteworthy things going on in their lives are War Stories and the Order, but there's only so much that anyone can say about them before conversation runs dry. In some ways, she thinks it's a good thing that they have N.E.W.T.s coming up next year, because there's plenty of homework for Lily to bury herself in to avoid filling the silences.

She's in Potions on Friday morning, trying to reverse the damage Marlene has just done to their batch of Veritaserum, when Slughorn saunters over to invite her to the first Slub Club party of the year. Lily doesn't mind Slughorn that much—she's not fond of his "talented witch for a Muggle-born" comments, but he's harmless and is always trying to help her out—but he wishes he wouldn't do this in class in front of other people whom he's not inviting: namely, in this case, Marlene.

"Want to be my plus-one?" Lily asks her the moment Slughorn is out of earshot.

"I thought you'd be going with James," says Marlene, raising an eyebrow.

"Nah, I expect he and Sirius are taking Peter and Remus again. I'll see James there," says Lily. "What do you think? Want to go and get stuffed on appetizers with me?"

Marlene takes a moment to consider and then shakes her head. "Too many Slytherins for my tastes," she says. "But you should ask Emmeline—I know Peter's been worried about her—or maybe Mary, she's probably been feeling sort of left out lately."

"Have you talked to Mary much lately? I know you two were always close."

"Not a whole lot," Marlene admits. "Maybe you should take Emmeline so that Mary and I can have a girls' night in the dorm. Alice will be gone at the party, too, right?"

xx

Although she's narrowing her eyes a bit suspiciously when Lily asks her to the party, Emmeline nods hesitantly and agrees, "All right, yeah, I can do that. Uh, thanks for asking."

"Awesome," says Lily with a smile. They're in the common room, off sitting in armchairs in the corner with the other girls, while Peter is playing guitar (very badly) for the boys at the other end of the room. "It starts at seven, so we can go up to the dormitory to get changed after dinner and then head straight over."

"Get changed?"

"Oh—people usually wear dress robes to these things," says Lily quickly. "Do you have a pair upstairs at all?"

"I don't," Em admits.

Marlene smirks and says, "That's okay. Just sneak out and go to Gladrags this weekend. I can take you, if that offends Lily's Head Girl sensibilities too much."

After a pause, Lily mutters, "I heard nothing." Everyone laughs except for Alice, who purses her lips but says nothing.

Lily ends up going along with them anyway, so she, Marlene, and Emmeline meet up in the Great Hall at the end of breakfast and then head for the mirror-and-passage on the fourth floor. Marlene keeps up a steady stream of chatter as they cross the halls and then make their way down the passageway toward Hogsmeade. Lily is grateful for it, because if it were left to her, they'd be walking the whole way in awkward silence. Emmeline doesn't say much, but Lily squeezes her hand and smile at her, hoping that that, at least, will make her feel welcome.

But she suspects it's not enough. When they hit up Gladrags, the smile playing at Em's lips is small and wry as Marlene and Lily comment on each pair of robes she tries on, and while the tailor is busy fixing the hemlines with pins, Emmeline snatches up a discarded Daily Prophet left behind by another customer and flips from page to page.

"Anything worth mentioning?" Lily eventually asks, just wanting to say something to bring Em back to them.

"More deaths," she says, like that's normal or something, which Lily supposes (after a moment's thought) it probably is, if she's being honest with herself. "Two families, both with children. Plus an Auror has gone missing."

"Anyone we know?" Marlene asks absently.

"Probably not," says Em. "The families were all Muggles, and the Auror is a Muggle-born guy. Caradoc Dearborn?"

Shit. Lily looks hastily at Marlene, who is turning pale, her mouth hanging open. "Doc?" Marlene croaks. Her voice sounds like it hasn't been used in years.

"Wait, you…?"

"Doc is Marlene's uncle. The one she said hello to at the Order meeting this month?" explains Lily.

Doc isn't Marlene's uncle, of course—Doc is Marlene's father. Not that Emmeline knows this.

Emmeline puts down the Prophet and turns to watch as Marlene mumbles, "I—I've got to get out of here," and positively runs out of the shop.

Lily exchanges a look with Em, who is full of pins, half-hemmed, and hasn't paid for her robes yet. "You go after her," says Emmeline.

"Yeah? Are you sure?"

"I know they way back from here," Em says, "and she needs you more than I do."

"Uh… right. Okay," says Lily haltingly. "Thanks, Em."

Lily runs out of the shop and hurtles toward Madam Puddifoot's, where concealed in the men's bathroom is a brick that opens up, Leaky Cauldron-style, into the passageway that leads back to Hogwarts the way they came. She doesn't see Marlene in the body of the café, so she ducks into the back hallway, looks around fervently, and quickly slips through the door to the restroom.

Marlene's still in there, tucking away her wand as the bricks along the back wall pop out and rearrange into a doorway. The depths beyond it are filled with mossy stones all the way around. She spins around to look at Lily, dropping her shoulders when she sees who it is. Her cheeks are wet.

"Oh…" says Lily, unsure of what else she could possibly tell Marlene to comfort her, but once again, Lily finds that Marlene is perfectly able to fill the silence all on her own.

"How dare he!"

"Doc?" says Lily, raising her eyebrows.

"Dumbledore!" Marlene thunders. "Either Doc went missing on Auror duties, in which case Dumbledore would have noticed Doc not showing up for Order business, or he went missing as a direct result of his work for the Order. Either way, Dumbledore must have known he had disappeared! He knew! And he didn't even bother to tell me? He let me find out from a newspaper, Lily! A goddamn newspaper left behind on the ground that my mate picked up at random!"

A wizard who looks like he's maybe in his thirties pushes open the bathroom door and then stands there in the doorway staring at them. "Go on, then!" Marlene shrieks. "Carry on like everything's normal! What does it matter that one Mudblood has gone missing?"

"Come on, Marlene," says Lily firmly. She steps up to Marlene, clasps a hand on Marlene's brown forearm, and steers her into the opening in the wall and along the mossy passageway.

Marlene keeps up a steady stream of expletives the whole long walk back down the passage and back to the opening inside the castle. "God damn him… should have known I'd be the last to know… I just cannot believe Dumbledore…"

"You're not going to chase Dumbledore down over this, are you?" says Lily cautiously. She doesn't want to minimize Marlene's anger or make out like she doesn't deserve to feel it, but at the same time, she thinks Marlene might just wind herself up even more if she confronts the headmaster and inevitably doesn't get a satisfactory answer from him.

"And let him get away with it? What do you think? What would you do?"

"I just don't think that anything Dumbledore says or does is going to do anything to make you feel less… you know, afraid. Or sad."

"I'm not sad," spits Marlene. "Or scared." But Lily thinks that Marlene might not realize how wrong she is.

She knows Marlene needs to not be alone right now, so she accompanies her to the gargoyle statue on the third floor. In front of the gargoyle, Marlene pauses. "You don't happen to know the password to get in right now, do you?" she asks. Only a little of the fire has faded from her voice.

"No," says Lily, shrugging a little. They stand there watching the gargoyle for a long minute, and then Marlene kicks it at its base, hard enough that she seizes one foot in pain and hops up and down on the other one, cursing.

They end up sitting down next to the statue; Marlene has fallen quiet, and no longer swearing up and down at Dumbledore, she looks sickly and afraid. They wait for ten, twenty, thirty minutes, sitting there in silence together, and Lily has half a mind to pull out her textbooks and start doing homework, but holds back, not wanting to do anything that Marlene might interpret as Lily not being wholly on her side.

Lily wonders whether Doc went missing acting in his capacity as an Auror or as a member of the Order. She wonders whether it makes a difference.

Finally, the gargoyle leaps lightly to the side, pushing Lily and Marlene out of its way, and Lily looks up to see Dumbledore standing on the bottom step looking surprised. "Miss McKinnon, Miss Evans," he says in a high pitch. "How can I help you?"

"Doc is missing. What do you think I want?" Marlene demands.

"Ah," says Dumbledore. It looks like it only sets Marlene off more to see that Dumbledore knows exactly why she's so pissed off. "Perhaps you should come into my office for a few moments."

"Yeah, perhaps we should," says Marlene sullenly.

Lily isn't sure whether she's supposed to join her or not, but Marlene gives her a quizzical look when she gets to her feet, so Lily gets up, too. They ascend the circular staircase in silence. Once in the headmaster's office, Dumbledore waves his wand so that two squashy armchairs appear in front of his desk, but Marlene doesn't sit down, instead folding her arms over the back of one of the chairs and leaning forward onto it.

"You knew," says Marlene when Dumbledore doesn't speak again. It's not a question.

"I did," Dumbledore agrees. "To be entirely honest, I didn't realize you two were close enough that you would need to be immediately informed. I noticed you talking at the last Order meeting, but I assumed your relation was a distant one. Clearly, I was wrong."

Lily and Marlene exchange a look. Surely Dumbledore knows that Doc is Marlene's father… doesn't he?

Then again, how would he know? The only people who know are Marlene's immediate family—Doc, her mother, her stepfather, and her siblings. Lily would have thought that Dumbledore would have found out by nature of being in the Order with Doc, but if Doc kept it under wraps even from Dumbledore, how could he?

Marlene calls him her uncle in public to explain their visits, but even that relation doesn't hold up under scrutiny by adults who know their parents' generation better than their classmates do. Doc is single, which means that he didn't marry into either side of Marlene's family. Doc and Marlene's stepfather, Neil, don't share a last name, so most people wouldn't think that they could be brothers. And Doc is white as a sheet, while Marlene's mum is of black and Indian descent, so they probably wouldn't be siblings, either.

And then Marlene gives Lily a shock when she says with her head high, "Doc and I aren't distant cousins. Doc is my father."

To Dumbledore's credit, he doesn't look surprised. "I see," he says quietly, and then there's a big pause again. "I will keep your secret, of course," he adds finally. "And I will ensure that you are one of the first to know when we recover him safely."

"So he was captured on Order business?"

Dumbledore nods. "I'm afraid I can't share the details of the mission he was on with you—"

"Why not? Huh? We're in the Order, too. We gave it its name—we're mobilizing dozens of students to pro-Muggle activism—"

"And I commend the job you're all doing," says Dumbledore patiently, "but you must understand that there are limitations on what I can and can't share with you. You may be a part of the Order—an integral part of it, might I add—but you are still, first and foremost, a minor and a student at this school, and it is my responsibility as your headmaster to protect you from the aspects of the Order that could threaten your safety."

Marlene scowls. "So what you're saying," she presses, "is that you only teamed up your group of fighters with ours so that you could control how much or little we get involved in the war."

"To be fair," Lily says before she can help herself, "look what happened when we took things into our own hands."

Marlene shoots her a glare—a withering, betrayed glare—and spins on her heel and makes to leave the room. Lily and Dumbledore watch her for a long second, then look awkwardly at each other, and Lily inclines her head and tags after Marlene out of the room.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: With Damocles Belby’s newly developed Wolfsbane Potion, Remus was able to keep his mind during his last several werewolf transformations. Remus and Sirius attempted to be friends again after kissing and then avoiding each other for months. The Gryffindors made preparations for the latest Slug Club party.

xx

September 27th, 1977: Remus Lupin

His first full moon up at school for the year is on Tuesday night, and he still hasn’t gotten used to the way it feels to actually be in control and able to remember what happens when he’s Moony. He has distant memories of roaming the grounds with Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs before Belby and the Wolfsbane Potion came into his life—just flashes here and there of running with creatures who kept him a little calmer, a little freer. But on Wolfsbane, Remus remembers everything—remembers the way it felt to run free with Prongs, balance Wormtail on his back, chase Padfoot in endless circles around and around the forest.

Padfoot. Remus sighs. By the time dawn breaks, when Remus is back inside the Shack waiting for Madam Pomfrey to collect him, he feels closer to Sirius than he has in months, even without either of them speaking a word—even just from running the grounds together and playing in the mud. There’s something primal and elemental about the relationship Remus has with his friends when he’s the wolf and they’re Animagi, something that Remus didn’t realize must have been there all along, ever since they started transforming with him. It makes his relationships to the three of them feel—different—when he changes back.

Have they always felt this way about running with Moony? Has this been a real part of the Marauders for all these months without Remus ever realizing?

He keeps sneaking glances at the three of them the whole next day, trying to orient himself to this new side to his relationships that he never knew he had. He’s discharged quickly from the Hospital Wing, for the first time after a full moon: Madam Pomfrey expresses so much distrust and disbelief at this injury-free condition that he admits to having access to the new potion through Belby, and while she scolds him for taking it without being under her direction, she declares him free to go after a short examination. So he heads up to the common room, studies with Sirius while James and Peter are stuck in Herbology, and tries not to be obvious about his staring.

Eventually, he accidentally makes eye contact, and Sirius says, “Dude, what?”

“Sorry,” says Remus quickly. “Just—I was just thinking about last night.”

Sirius softens a little. “Bet it’s weird to keep all your memories all of a sudden.”

“Yeah. Listen—thank you.”

“For what?”

“For becoming Padfoot. For me.”

Sirius shrugs it off. Remus doubts that Sirius—or James or Peter, for that matter—will ever understand the depths of Remus’s gratitude, but that’s okay. He just needs to suck it up and stop pushing Sirius away and show him.

xx

The morning after, he gets a letter from his parents during owl post. It’s very short and very generic, just asking how he’s doing, but Remus isn’t stupid: the full moon was two days ago, and they want to know how it went, now that he’s on the Wolfsbane Potion.

They hadn’t prevented him from taking the potion over the summer after he told them about it—Mum and Dad had enough respect for his privacy not to go through his things looking for it to confiscate it—but they kept him chained up, even in August after they’d seen how docile and harmless he was on the potion in July. Obviously, they want to know how it went on Wolfsbane this time around—whether he lost control, whether Madam Pomfrey still kept him locked in the Shrieking Shack.

Obviously, he was not locked in the Shrieking Shack—he hasn’t stayed in the Shack after she’s dropped him off there in over a year—but Madam Pomfrey doesn’t need to know that, and neither do Mum and Dad. He thinks about how it felt to run with Prongs and Wormtail and Padfoot, and Remus feels a rush of adrenaline and warmth. Then he thinks about all the nights they ran together that he can’t remember, and he feels—

They were reckless, is the thing. Remus appreciates all the time and effort and risk his friends put into becoming Animagi for him—of course he does. Even when they started joining him on full moons, they told him he was usually combative for a while before he calmed down enough that they could coax him through the passageway and into the Forest—but after the first hour or so, he’d stop fighting them and relax, and he could see the effects of it every morning after when he had so few scars and wounds compared to years prior.

But now that he’s got some distance from the part of himself that used to take over on full moons, he thinks about how foolhardy they were to bring him out of the Shack when his mind wasn’t his own—how idiotic and naive Remus was to let them—and feels horrified. What if they’d stumbled across Hagrid or Kettleburn or, god forbid, another student out there in the woods, and he’d lost control? Dumbledore went out on a limb for him when he admitted Remus to Hogwarts, and he totally betrayed that trust.

His parents are right, but not for the reasons they think. Remus has been a fool, but not because he’s been taking the Wolfsbane Potion: because of the way he spent every full moon before taking his potion, after his friends became Animagi. He feels afraid, but not because he doubts the potion’s efficacy: because he thinks about what could have happened all those nights he wasn’t on the potion, and he can’t breathe.

xx

It’s not a date date, Remus keeps reminding himself leading up to six o’clock on Saturday night. He’s going to the Slug Club party as Sirius’s mate—as his mate and nothing more—and he’ll do well to remember that instead of getting carried away imagining what it might have been like if things were different. Remus owns one set of dress robes—a periwinkle pair that’s already a little short by his ankles, even though he only just bought them last year—and he puts them on carefully inside the curtains of his four-poster before folding up his day robes and opening the curtains.

James and Peter have already headed down, so it’s just Sirius waiting there, sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing deep red robes and fiddling with his wand. “Ready?” he asks Remus, looking up.

“Yeah,” says Remus. He tucks his wand in his pocket and follows Sirius out of the room and down the winding staircase.

Sirius keeps up a steady stream of conversation the whole walk over to Slughorn’s office. For his part, Remus feels like he’s forgotten how to act normal around Sirius: it’s like they haven’t had a normal conversation since before that horrible kiss that ruined their relationship, or that at least feels like it ruined it. For the millionth time, he finds himself wishing that he never kissed Sirius, so that they could be now like they were before instead of this awful, awkward, strained version of themselves that he doesn’t know how to break out of.

He thinks the difference is—well, he’s not in denial anymore, for one thing. Before, he was able to pass off the way Sirius made him feel as being just a normal artifact of their friendship—wanting to be near and spend time with one of his best friends in the world. Now, he’s kissed Sirius, and he liked it, and he wants to do it again, and that—that is the thing he can’t ignore, the think that makes him confront his emotions the way he wishes he didn’t have to.

They’ve barely passed the threshold into Slughorn’s office before the Potions master lights on them and tracks them down. “Sirius, my boy!” he declares with a broad grin. “So glad you could make it! Here, have you met—?”

“Pardon us, Professor,” says Sirius quickly, and he takes Remus’s hand and leads him onto the dance floor.

“Denied,” Remus mutters before he can help himself. Sirius barks out a laugh.

It’s a fast-paced number, thankfully, so Remus and Sirius don’t have to get too close. Still, Remus watches Sirius robot, twist, and shimmy up to him and doesn’t want the song to ever stop—wants to freeze time right here so he can dance with Sirius without a care forever.

But the song, of course, comes to a close eventually and melts into a much slower number. Sirius stops dancing, quirks an eyebrow, and holds out one of his hands. A question—an invitation.

Against his better judgment, Remus takes it.

This is fine, he tells himself as he puts a hand on Sirius’s hip and another on his shoulder. They used to do this all the time, and they both still do this all the time with James and Peter. It doesn’t have to mean anything that Remus doesn’t want it to, not about what Sirius feels and definitely not about what he feels.

Sirius is pretty good at ballroom dancing, having been taught it from a young age in the Blacks’ home, but Remus is not, so they fall into a simple box step without any frills. Sirius is steering, because of course he is. Remus tries not to trip over Sirius’s feet and looks anywhere but at his face.

“You okay?” Sirius mutters after about a minute of this. “Because we don’t have to…”

“It’s fine,” says Remus quickly. “Everything’s fine.” They only just got back to some semblance of normal, and the last thing Remus wants to do is lose that again. As hard as it’s been to be around Sirius feeling embarrassed and rejected all the time, avoiding him for all that time was so much worse than this, and Remus can’t go back. He just can’t.

They fall out of step and end up standing there with their hands on each other, just staring, until Sirius cracks first (to Remus’s surprise). “I’m going to go find Prongs and Wormy,” he says abruptly near the end of the song, and he lets go, and Remus lets him.

Remus meanders off the floor and back into the crowd, watching Sirius dodge Slughorn again and disappear between throngs of wizards. He figures he’ll give Sirius his space if he needs it—Remus could probably use some space himself, if he’s being entirely honest with himself—so he mills off in the other direction keeping his eyes peeled for anybody he might recognize. Eventually, he catches sight of Alice with Dirk Cresswell and beelines for them, one hand waving through the air.

Alice spots Remus first and waves back enthusiastically before tugging on Dirk’s sleeve and pointing. “Hey, Remus,” she says when Remus reaches them. “Have you tried the shrimp? It’s amazing.”

“No, actually, I just got here with Sirius a few minutes ago. He’s off… somewhere.”

Remus isn’t sure what to say to Dirk, whom he’s never had much reason to interact with before. “It’s wild how many famous people Slughorn knows,” Dirk says, sparing Remus the trouble of coming up with a conversation topic. “Free Quidditch tickets whenever he wants to three different British teams’ games! And I had no idea that Belby had formulated a potion for restraining werewolves during the full moon.”

Remus wouldn’t say that the Wolfsbane Potion restrains him—more like it gives him his mind back—but he’s not here to split hairs about anything that might get him figured out as a werewolf himself. “Yeah, I’ve had Potions class with Belby for the last six years, and he’s always been talented at it. Arsehole of a person, though.”

Dirk snorts, and Alice hides her smile behind her hands.

Remus is just starting to drop his guard when someone taps him on the shoulder and he spins around to find Sirius standing there looking ashen. “I’m going to head out for the night,” he says. “Just wanted to let you know before I go.”

“Are you sure? We’ve been here for, like, half an hour.”

“You should stay and enjoy the party,” Sirius says, and something about his voice sounds—off.

Remus watches him retreat for a moment and then, making up his mind, tells the others, “I’ll catch up with you later.” He chases after Sirius then, tracking him down a ways down the corridor outside of the office. “Hey!” he calls, and Sirius doesn’t immediately react. “Padfoot!”

Sirius turns around at that and finally stops walking away. Remus catches up and almost grabs Sirius’s hand, but thinks better of it. “Is something wrong?” he asks Sirius. “Is it—did I do something wrong?”

“No!” Sirius exclaims, and then repeats more quietly, “No. Don’t ever apologize to me or anyone for being who you are.”

“Okay,” Remus says slowly, “then what…?”

Sirius half-smiles. “I’m a hypocrite.”

“Why?”

“Remember when I didn’t want you to take any space?” Remus nods dumbly. “Well, maybe I need to take some space.”

“Oh,” says Remus.

He knows he should say more than that. Something intelligent. Something insightful and accepting and patient, no matter what’s going on with Sirius. But all Remus can do is stand there and shift his weight from foot to foot, totally hanging off of every word Sirius says.

“It’s just—this can’t happen. I can’t allow myself to…” Sirius shakes his head and lowers his chin. “I’m not available, Moony. I don’t have room here to try and figure things out.”

“I’m not asking you to,” says Remus haltingly.

“I know! I know. I just—maybe I wish I could. Maybe, if I could, I would.”

Remus doesn’t speak, doesn’t creep closer, doesn’t even move another centimeter for fear of spooking Sirius and destroying this fragile, broken moment between them. Sirius looks like he’s a razor’s edge away from bolting, but he doesn’t, just keeps staring at Remus and looking—

—beautiful. He looks beautiful, Remus thinks, and then hates himself for it.

“You should get back to the party,” Sirius adds finally. “I’ll see you back at the dormitory.”

“Sirius—”

“Get back to the party, Remus,” says Sirius, and he spins on his heel and takes off at a run.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Mary and Marlene attempted to make up and made plans for a girls' night together during a Slug Club party. Remus kissed Sirius several months after Sirius and Marlene tried to work through their baggage and be a proper couple. Marlene's father, Auror Caradoc Dearborn, went missing on Order business.

xx

October 1st, 1977: Marlene McKinnon

Marlene feels apprehensive going into girls' night with Mary when everybody else is away at Slughorn's party. They haven't spent much time at all together in months now, but especially since coming back to Hogwarts, with Marlene sticking mostly by Lily. She hasn't been deliberately trying to ice Mary out or anything. Really, she hasn't! But she's—you know—gotten into the habit of being Lily's best friend, and somewhere along the line, Lily maybe became Marlene's best friend, too. That, and it's just easier to avoid Mary than it is to confront the fact that Mary quit the Order and Marlene doesn't know what the hell to say to her anymore.

But this is Mary, who was shy as a mouse at eleven years old when Marlene took her under her wing, who made Marlene feel like she belonged with her when she didn't belong anywhere, who never shared Marlene's secrets even though she had made a reputation for herself as a gossip. Mary was there for Marlene even through Mary's tomboy phase and her ditzy phase and her angsty phase, and she'll probably still be there, ready for Marlene to lean on her, for the rest of Marlene's life. At least, Marlene hopes she will be.

So when Lily and Emmeline head down for the party, and Alice takes off to meet Dirk outside Ravenclaw Tower, Marlene tosses Mary a grin as she unbuckles her trunk and reaches around inside of it. "What first?" she asks. "Nails or facials?"

"Let's go with nails," says Mary. "Here, I'll do you first. What colors have you got?"

She's got red, blue, or orange for solids, or purple or red with glitter. "Do this one," she tells Mary, handing her the purple one.

"Nice," says Mary appreciatively. She plucks the glass bottle out of Marlene's hand, uncaps it, and starts running long strokes of color with the wand across Marlene's nails.

"So how have you been?" Marlene says when they're three nails in and still haven't said anything to each other.

"Oh, you know," says Mary, but Marlene doesn't really know—that's the whole point. "Classes are fine. Things with Reg are going well. We're not dating again—not yet, at least—but I think it's going in that direction."

"And that's still what you want?" asks Marlene, because Mary hasn't talked about Cattermole in forever and it's not like Marlene would know the difference.

"He's a nice bloke," says Mary, "and I think a real relationship with him would be very stable." She didn't really answer Marlene's question, but Marlene doesn't push it, figures that if Mary doesn't want to confront that, then it's not up to Marlene to belabor the point. "What about you? Any news about your dad?"

They haven't really talked one-on-one about Doc's disappearance up until now. She told the rest of her dormitory the night she found out he'd gone missing, but Alice and Emmeline think Doc is her uncle, so they didn't really get the full impact of what Doc being missing meant to Marlene. Mary knows, of course, and Marlene has felt Mary's eyes on her all week, but Mary never brought it up after that, so neither did she.

"Nothing yet," says Marlene, trying to sound less affected than she really is by this. "It's been a whole week now—more than a week, considering that I found out a couple days late. I keep reading the Prophet, waiting to see his name in black, or expecting Dumbledore to call me out of class so he can tell me…"

"He's gonna be okay," Mary says gently. "I'm sure he is." It's a lie—in this world, no one's safety is guaranteed—but Marlene still feels her stomach do a little hopeful flip, and that's more than she can say she's felt all week.

"Listen, I'm really sorry that I…" Marlene falters. "I'm just really sorry. For everything."

Mary finishes Marlene's fingernails and grabs one bare foot to coat her toenails in polish. "I'm sorry too," she says, and she sounds like she means it.

As she sits there on Marlene's bed painting her nails, Mary looks like she's struggling with something. Marlene sort of wants to ask her if she's okay and if there's anything she can do to help, but honestly, Marlene is a little afraid of what Mary's answer would be. Would she call Marlene out on not being there for her? Would she make the (very valid) point that Marlene's replaced her with Lily?

And then it hits Marlene that the reason she's afraid Mary will use Mary's love as a weapon is because Marlene has done that exact same thing with Sirius—or at least, she used to, before things were good with him and before they were monogamous. She'd sleep with him whenever he wanted to, because she had no self-control or self-respect, but then berate the shit out of him for seeming unaffected and totally disloyal while he was off kissing other girls and living his life as if Marlene weren't an important part of it. Look how much she loves him: look how terrible a person it makes him not to respect her love.

What if Marlene was an important part of Sirius's life—if he loved her but just didn't have the tools, or think he had the tools, to be a stable presence in her life? What if Sirius loved Marlene but had his reasons that he couldn't be with her full-time, just like Marlene loves Mary but hides behind her friendship with Lily because it's easier than the alternative? It doesn't mean that it was right, or that their relationship was healthy, or even that Marlene should have stayed, but maybe she shouldn't have assumed that Sirius wasn't doing right by her because he didn't give a damn.

Her first impulse, when this occurs to her, is to track Lily down and tell her. Then Mary sets down Marlene's foot and says, "Grab the orange one for me," and Marlene feels like a sack of shit.

When did Mary stop being the person Marlene turns to for support? What did Mary ever do to deserve Marlene shutting her out of her life?

Marlene picks up the orange polish and starts in on Mary's nails, but her hands are shaking, and the lines come out jagged. "Everything okay?" asks Mary because she has no idea.

"Totally fine," says Marlene. Mary either doesn't question it or doesn't want to probe, because she accepts this at face value, blowing on her fingernails once Marlene finishes with them.

She doesn't tell Mary her revelation about Sirius. How can she, when it's based on her own feelings about Mary? But as they finish their nails, exfoliate and then paint clay masks onto their faces, and do each other's makeup, Marlene does what she can to make it up to Mary—asks about Reg, commiserates with her about their upcoming N.E.W.T.s. "Hey, I noticed you've gotten back into journaling," she mentions as Mary is doing her eyeshadow—a dramatic dark blue color. They don't share blush or foundation or concealer since their skin tones are so different, but they raid each other's collections for eyes and lips. "How's that going?"

"Well, it's not really journaling," Mary hedges.

"Gossip logging?"

"Not really that, either. I've been—I've been writing. Like, stories."

"Like fiction stories!" Mary nods shyly. "Mare, that's amazing. Can I read them?"

"Maybe—maybe not yet," says Mary. "I'm not very good at it yet."

"So? Pett isn't very good at guitar yet, but that doesn't stop him from playing in front of the entire Gryffindor common room."

"Yeah, well, maybe Peter doesn't care what anybody else thinks of him, but—"

"Mare, do you really think I would think any less of you if I read your work and it sucked? Not that I think it's going to suck, but…"

Mary purses her lips. "It's just sort of, like—personal, that's all. But—thank you for, you know, being supportive."

"Yeah, of course," says Marlene.

Mary finishes with Marlene's mascara and pronounces her look complete. "Too bad we're not going out anyplace," says Marlene with a smile. "We look fantastic."

"Yeah we do," repeats Mary. "At least our nails will last a few days."

"So what next?" asks Marlene.

There's a moment of horror where neither of them says anything and Marlene is afraid to learn that her friendship with Mary no longer extends past the effort it takes to get ready for the day, but then Mary says, "I scrounged a few editions of Witch Weekly off of Ver if you want to read those?"

"Yes, please. How is Veronica? You haven't talked much about the Hufflepuffs lately—aside from Reg, anyway."

"Oh, they're fine. They're, you know, gossiping a lot about the end of last year, with Elisabeth and Millie. Makes it kind of hard to spend too much time with them."

"Ah, I'm sorry," says Marlene, and she means it. She knows Veronica Smethley and her friends have been important to Mary for most of their time at Hogwarts, and Marlene had been hoping that Mary was finding some solace in them, now that she's broken with the rest of the Gryffindors and quit the Order. "I wish you had—I wish—"

"I know," says Mary. Marlene thinks Mary might know what Marlene means, and this both worries and relieves her. "I just wish you lot would stop handling me with kid gloves, you know? We made a mistake that got two people killed. I didn't want to be a part of that anymore, and you all did. That doesn't mean I can't handle the fact that the Order exists, or, like, that I'm going to fall apart the next time you mention it in front of me."

"We're not handling you with kid gloves," Marlene protests, but Mary raises an eyebrow, and even Marlene has to admit to herself that this isn't true. "Okay, maybe a little."

"Maybe a lot," says Mary, but she's smiling a little, so Marlene doesn't think she's too pissed off.

Marlene smiles back and says, "Look, I'm really sorry. I just haven't wanted to—push you, or make you feel left out."

"Trust me," says Mary, "you're doing a better job making me feel left out by tiptoeing around me than you would if you just talked about stuff in front of me. I know there are some things you probably aren't allowed to say, but I just—I may not want to be in the Order, but I still care about the war. Both of my parents are Muggles, remember?"

"Yeah, I know." Marlene sighs. "Do you ever feel like we're more divided than ever, the nine of us? We were so close to each other in May when everything was falling apart around us, and then the summer happened, and now…"

"I get that," says Mary quietly.

"Anyway, I just mean it's not just you on the outs with anybody. None of us are really doing that great of a job being best mates lately. The point I'm trying to make is that it's our fault, not yours."

Mary smiles weakly. "Start fresh?"

"Yeah," Marlene agrees. "Yeah, we can do that. I've missed you, you know."

Mary bows her head, and Marlene can't read her expression when she raises it again. "I've missed you, too," Mary admits softly.

xx

They stay up in the dormitory through the evening, reading Witch Weekly and bickering over nothing, until Marlene starts getting sleepy and declares that she needs to find a bathroom to clean up before she can go to sleep. She heads down the spiral staircase and is almost to the portrait hole when she sights Sirius in an armchair near the back side of the Fat Lady's portrait, looking winded.

"Shouldn't you be at the party still?" Marlene asks him, draping her arms around him from the side. "These things usually run late, don't they?"

"Got into a tiff with Remus," says Sirius.

"Over what?" asks Marlene. She leans down to peck him on the lips, but he doesn't tilt up toward her, so after an awkward pause she pulls back and just stands there looking down at where he's sitting.

"Nothing. It was nothing," says Sirius, but something about the strained sound of his voice stops her cold.

Old annoyance creeps up on her, and she says, "You and Remus have been on the outs for months now. You really can't just tell me what's going on between you two?"

"Why does everything that happens to me have to be a huge conversation?"

"Sirius, I'm your girlfriend. We're supposed to tell each other this stuff. I'm supposed to help you deal with this stuff."

"Why can't you accept that I need to deal with this one myself?"

"Because I want to know what's going on in your world! I mean, really, how bad could this thing with Remus be that you don't want me to know about it? What could possibly happen between the two of you to make me hate you?"

"Because he—" Sirius seems to realize how loud their voices have gotten, and he stands up, grabs Marlene by the hand, and leads her through the portrait hole. There's no one on the other side of the wall, but he still keeps his voice low, furtively glancing around them as if to check that no one is coming. "He kissed me, okay? Remus kissed me."

Whatever Marlene was expecting, it wasn't that. She can feel her hands and arms slowly starting to go numb as she stares at him for a long moment without speaking, processing. Remus? Kiss Sirius?

There must be some mistake, she tells herself. As his entire past track record of dating goes, Sirius has never given any indication that he could be the slightest bit interested in men. And Remus—

Well, Remus has never shown any interest in anyone, isn't that true? So it's possible that the reason for this is that he's only ever been attracted to men he felt he couldn't date or who wouldn't have reciprocated. It's even possible that all the jokes the boys make about being gay together—all the touching Remus and Sirius sometimes do in public—means something romantic to Remus.

But Sirius wouldn't return those feelings. He doesn't. Does he?

"Did you kiss him back?" Marlene asks, and she can't believe that she's having this conversation with Sirius right now.

"Well—I mean, yes, but—only for a few seconds! It all happened so fast, I didn't have time to think."

"You shouldn't have needed time to realize what was happening and stop it. God, Sirius, I thought we were past the point of you fooling around with other people on me—"

"I haven't been! I swear. It only ever happened the one time, and he's been avoiding me for the better part of months now because he's trying to deal with knowing that nothing's ever going to happen."

"It's not, right?" Marlene asks, feeling pathetic.

"Of course it's not. I made a promise that I was done seeing other people. I wouldn't do that to you."

"But—you don't feel the same way about him, do you?"

"It wouldn't matter if I did," Sirius insists. "I didn't pick him. I picked you. I even told him today that I need some time away from him because of all this."

"Why? Because you need to get over him? Because you love him?"

Sirius sighs, sounding put-upon, and it just makes Marlene angrier. "See, this is exactly why I didn't want to tell you what was going on," he says. "I just knew you would twist it into something it isn't."

"Twist it into—I'm not twisting anything! You're the one who can't give me a straight answer if you love him or not! I should have known something like this would happen eventually—I should have known you'd never change—"

"As if," says Sirius, scowling. "I have jumped through every hoop you've put in front of me trying to prove I'm not that person anymore. It's not my fault that you're too insecure to believe me. God, I thought we were past this."

"Yeah," says Marlene hotly. "Yeah, I thought we were, too. I really thought we were."

She stalks off away from Sirius and the Fat Lady; he calls after her, "Really? We can't talk about this like adults?" but she ignores it, clutching her bag of toiletries to her chest.

Remus kissed Sirius. He kissed him, months ago, and Sirius never told her until now. Marlene has no idea what to make of that, and she knows she'd better stop talking to Sirius about it before she says something she regrets.

Is she being insecure? Maybe so, but Marlene thinks she has a damned good reason to be, considering how messed up everything was for the two years before they started dating properly. She thought she was working through her feelings about it, that she was moving past what happened, that her relationship with Sirius now wasn't going to be affected by what happened before, but—looks like she was wrong. It looks a lot like Marlene is never going to be capable of trusting Sirius the instant that anything goes wrong.

She's in such a state that she doesn't see Professor McGonagall coming until Marlene nearly bowls her over. "I'm so sorry, Professor," she says hastily. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, just fine, just—keep an eye out next time." Marlene laughs and nods a bit frantically. "I was actually just heading to Gryffindor Tower to get you. It's about your uncle."

"My uncle?" All the breath seems to zoom out of Marlene's body.

"He's back," says McGonagall, and Marlene feels like she's going to collapse right there in the corridor. "He's with Dumbledore, and he wants to see you."

Everything suddenly seems more manageable than it did before, even her problems with Sirius. "Can I see him? Can we go right now?"

"Yes, of course," says McGonagall. "Come with me."

The walk to Dumbledore's office is probably the longest walk of Marlene's life. It's all she can do to keep pace with McGonagall and not start sprinting the rest of the way there. Doc is back. Doc is safe. Nothing else matters.

When the stone gargoyle steps aside, Marlene takes the stairs two at a time and positively pounds down Dumbledore's door. When he lets her in, she pushes right past him, walks right up to where Doc is sitting on top of the desk with a coy smile on his face, and engulfs him in a bear hug.

"Where were you?" she demands, her voice muffled by his robes.

"I can't go into detail," Doc says, sounding much more amused than Marlene thinks he should, "but let's just say there's one more innocent person out there who's been freed of the Imperius Curse. I had to go in deep, but I'm back now."

"You better be," mutters Marlene. "I was so worried. Don't you ever, ever do that to me ever again."

Dumbledore and McGonagall are talking behind her, but Marlene doesn't care enough to pay attention. She folds herself into her father and, before she knows what's happening, feels herself starting to sob.

xx

END OF PART SEVEN

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius and Remus tried to be friends again at Sirius's urging until a confused Sirius decided he needed space. When he told Marlene about his kiss with Remus, she reacted badly. James's mother, then father, both contracted spattergroit, which is usually fatal. James worried that he’d lost precious time with his parents by being too wrapped up in the Gryffindors. Sirius quit Quidditch. Dorcas filled the position of the Hogwarts students' Order of the Phoenix liaison.

xx

October 26th, 1977: James Potter

For not the first time in the last couple of years, James feels like his Hogwarts family has been ripped in two, only this time, it's him and Sirius against Peter and Remus. Not that Remus and Sirius seem mad at each other, mind you—but something has driven a wedge between them, as they're avoiding each other as much as possible. Sure, they still say hello to each other when one of them walks into the room, exchange pleasantries like "pass the butter" and "you need to add more hellebore leaves," but James can feel the tension every time they're together, the force that's driving them to avoid any unnecessary conversation and bolt away from each other as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Oddly, neither Sirius nor Remus appears to be on good terms with Marlene, either. When her uncle came back from the Order mission that left him out of contact with the rest of the wizarding world, Marlene took a week off from school to spend time with him, and when she came back, she rebuffed any attempt either Remus or Sirius made to be friendly to her. James has no idea why any of this is happening. He's asked Sirius, and he's even asked Remus on the rare occasions that James has been able to get to him away from Sirius, and neither of them will talk about what exactly happened that put the three of them at odds.

James hates it—hates seeing the people he loves most tearing each other apart—but he's at least getting used to the new status quo until he gets Dorcas's owl in the mail about their first Order meeting with her. He's sitting in the Great Hall with Sirius, Lily, and Alice at the time and tells them, "Can you lot track down the rest of our house and year to let them know? I'll tell Eddie and Benjy and Frank. And Peter, I guess, since I have Herbology with him next period."

Finding them will easy: he's got Herbology with Peter and Benjy that morning, Ancient Runes with Frank in the afternoon, and Quidditch practice with Eddie that night. Plus, shirking the responsibility of spreading the news to Marlene or Remus helps keep James out of a battle that he doesn't have the knowledge or the desire to fight.

In some ways, James sort of wishes that he were throwing himself in the middle of this thing with Remus and Sirius and Marlene. Then at least he'd have something to take his mind off of the thing he keeps jumping to every damn minute of every day, and that's his parents.

James still can't wrap his head around his dad's insistence on staying home to take care of Mum until he caught sick from her himself. It's bad enough that Mum is mortally ill and there's a good chance she'll die from this within the year—he has to lose Dad, too? It's not fair, and it's not smart, but nobody listened to James, and now Dad's caught spattegroit and it's only a matter of time before he passes on right along with Mum.

It doesn't matter that James has been attending boarding school for the last six years—he is nowhere near emotionally prepared to lose his parents. He feels like no matter how long the illness drags out and how long he has to prepare himself for that loss, when it happens, it's going to blindside him.

He's not ready.

He hasn't really been talking about it to anyone—even Lily and Sirius, who are both with him much more than anyone else is these days. He's tried to hide his fear and anger and paranoia from them, but judging by the looks Lily keeps giving him and the questions Sirius keeps raising, James has been failing miserably in this attempt.

"Are you okay, Prongs?" Peter says under his breath at the beginning of Herbology. James nods slightly, pretending to be listening to Professor Sprout, when really he's replaying the last letter he got from his mum over and over again in his head.

He feels like a faker, putting on a confident front at War Stories and prefects' meetings and Quidditch practices when, in reality, he's barely hanging on. For the umpteenth time, he finds himself wondering what it was that Dumbledore saw in him to name James Head Boy. He's trying to live up to the pressure, and he thinks on the outside he might be succeeding, but he also thinks that he's a hair's breadth away from watching it all unravel when the gig is up and he can't compartmentalize any longer.

"So listen," he says to Peter and Benjy when they're letting loose on their pots of Devil's Snare. He probably should have listened closer to Sprout's lecture on them, but it's too late for that now. "I got a letter from Dorcas this morning, and she wants us to all meet at the spot we talked about this Saturday night at seven. Is that good for you two?"

"Yep," says Peter, just as Benjy is saying, "Works for me. It's not like I have an overstuffed social calendar at the moment."

James feels like all of the Gryffindors have been tiptoeing around Benjy ever since Elisabeth died. He doesn't seem to blame them (or Dorcas, whose intel they had been operating on) for what happened, but James for one certainly feels weird talking about Order business to Benjy when Elisabeth should have been there at his side for every interaction Benjy has with him.

He meets up with Lily after class in the library, where he starts doing research for the essay Sprout set them. He takes a brief break for lunch, watches Lily positively destroy Sirius at wizard's chess for over an hour, and then he and Lily set off for Ancient Runes.

Ancient Runes is one of James's only opportunities lately to talk to Remus, because they've both got this subject and Sirius hasn't. Remus isn't there yet when James and Lily get to the classroom, but Frank is, and James waves him over when he sights on him.

"We heard from Dorcas," he says. "She set the next meeting date for this Saturday at seven. Is that cool with you?"

James is expecting Frank to say yes, so he's a little surprised when Frank rubs the back of his neck and says, "Shit. That's supposed to be date night. It's fine; I'll see if Dana can do Friday instead, but…"

"But what?" asks James.

"It's just—I think Dana's getting suspicious of me always disappearing for Order business," Frank admits. "Not that we've had much Order business this year so far, but it started when we were all meeting up all the time at the end of last year. I hate lying to her, but—I don't think she'd approve if she knew what I was really doing. She thinks we should be doing what we can in this world to stay safe and protect each other, not march out onto the front lines. And without knowing what I'm really doing, I think she thinks—I don't know. I don't think she thinks I'm cheating on her, but whatever she thinks can't be good, and she keeps demanding answers."

"I'm sorry, mate," says James, because he doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't know Dana Madley well, apart from that one excursion he had with her in a broom closet in fifth year, but he sees what Frank means about Dana not being the type that Frank should be comfortable confiding in about the Order.

Without Sirius still on the Gryffindor team, Quidditch practice always leaves James feeling oddly lonely. He never had a single practice or game without Sirius there with him before this year. After the team talks strategy and James takes a moment to tell Edgar about the Order meeting, he kicks off from the ground and immediately feels twice as light. Thank god he can still take solace in flying.

Practice passes in what feels like the blink of an eye, and James hangs back afterward, tells everybody he wants to blow off some steam flying on his own. But after they vacate the pitch, he puts his broom back in the broomshed, heads into the Forbidden Forest, and with a furtive look around him, transforms into Prongs.

As Prongs, nothing can touch him. He canters around the forest passing the occasional centaur or thestral, at one point even a unicorn—a young one that's all coltish legs and gold. Out here, nothing can hurt Prongs, not his friends' unraveling relationships—not even the spattergroit afflicting his parents.

But as time wears on, the magic of Animagus transformation fades, and Prongs gets hungry and cold and wet, too, as it starts to rain. All good things, right? So he transforms back and takes off at a sprint for the castle.

Inside, he takes a hot, hot shower and then tracks down Lily in the common room. "Where were you?" she asks. "The others got back an hour ago. Eddie said you wanted to get more practice in, but I've been sitting right by the window—" she taps it "—and I didn't see you in the sky at all."

"I know, yeah. I was—I was the stag," he says, lowering his voice.

Lily frowns. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that ever since we started doing human Transfiguration with McGonagall. You'd have thought you boys would all have mastered it, since you do it on each other every month, but none of you have mastered it yet. More than that, Transfigured humans don't have the capacity to change themselves back since they can't carry a wand. All three of you are obviously getting yourselves to Remus and back on your own, so why—?"

"Uh, yeah, about that. I didn't want to tell you back then because, well, I didn't know how you would react to any of this stuff, but—we're not using human Transfiguration. We're—the three of us became Animagi to help Remus."

"Animagi? But that's an incredibly complex form of magic, much more so than human Transfiguration."

"It took us a few years and a lot of failed attempts, but we got there in the end."

"And doesn't it require a complex certification process?"

"We sort of skipped over that," says James sheepishly.

"James Potter! Out comes the truth over a year later," says Lily, but she sounds teasing, not mad, and James grins a little.

"Listen, I'm going to head up to bed," he tells her. "Tomorrow will be a late night with the full moon and everything, so I want to get to sleep early.”

Twisting her lips, Lily says, “Already? It’s barely nine.”

James hesitates. He knows he’s been sort of closed off lately, and Lily hasn’t done anything to deserve that, but…

“You can’t make them better by torturing yourself,” she says, but she says it gently.

“I know. It’s—it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just—can’t stop thinking about them. And—it hurts to talk about it.”

“You’re going to be thinking about it just as much even if you don’t confide in anyone,” she reminds him, “and I don’t… want you to be alone with this. You—” Lily pauses, swallowing, and looks like she’s warring with herself. “You were there for me after my parents died—or tried to be, anyway, before I messed it all up.”

“You didn’t—”

“No, really, it’s okay. I was doing my best, but I still messed it up. I just… know that I lost months with you that I could have had if I hadn’t freaked out on you, and I don’t—want you to be alone like I was.”

And everything James has been fighting inside himself—his desperation to keep his parents alive, his loathing of himself for squandering the time he could have had with them—just—

“But I shouldn’t be leaning on you so much. I shouldn’t be leaning on any of you so much.”

She puts a tentative hand on his cheek. “You need your friends if you’re going to get through—”

“No, you don’t understand,” he says. He turns his face away; her hand drops limply into her lap. “I’ve been so sucked up into the other Gryffindors that I just—cut my parents out, somewhere along the way. I don’t know what’s so wrong with me that I don’t know how to be my own person. I didn’t learn it from my parents. They let me go without any trouble—let me as good as abandon them every…”

But he realizes suddenly that maybe he’s got it all wrong—maybe he did learn it from his parents after all. His blood runs cold. Mum and Dad—they—

“James, what is it?”

He whispers, “Is that why Dad insisted on caring for Mum himself, even knowing he probably was going to get infected—because he didn’t want to live without her? They gave me my own space to grow up, but—are they the same way with each other that I am with all of you? Is that why I’m so…?”

Lily’s face crumples. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone can answer that except maybe the two of them.”

The common room is packed, and they’re surrounded by people, but James hardly notices. He feels like he’s alone in a room with Lily, the white noise around them cranked all the way down. “You know what I’m talking about, do you?” he breathes. “The way the nine of us…?”

She bows her head. “I… yes. I don’t think about it often, but—yes.”

“But you used to be free of it. You didn’t let us sucker you in until you and Snape…”

“Nobody suckered me into anything,” she says firmly. “And—before I was that way with all of you, I was that way with him. I haven’t been free since I was nine years old.”

He looks between Lily’s eyes, searching for—something. Something he knows she can’t give him. All she can give him is herself, and he’s already taken too much of her—that’s the whole problem. “I should go,” he mutters. “Long day tomorrow.”

“James—”

He gets back up from his chair, but he lingers, watching her. “Yeah?”

“The answer isn’t—shutting everyone out. Maybe we go too far in the other direction, but—there’s got to be a balance.”

“Yeah,” he says again. He kisses the top of her head and bolts.

But when he gets up to his dormitory and changes into his pajamas, he doesn't go to sleep. Remus is the only other one up there already, and although the lights are off, James can tell from his breathing that he's awake. In light of everything James has just realized, he just wants to… turn it off. Focus on someone’s else’s problems, for a change—drown in them, if he can—even if he hates himself for it. "Moony?"

"Yeah?" Remus sounds tired and hoarse, and James finds himself wondering whether Remus still gets anxiety before the full moon like he used to before the advent of the Wolfsbane Potion.

"What's going on with you and Padfoot that's so bad you both won't talk about it?"

Remus doesn't answer for a long time, and James thinks he's choosing to ignore him, so it surprises James when Remus finally says, "You'll think less of me if I tell you."

"What? No way," James insists. "Look, Padfoot sent Snape down into the Shrieking Shack after you when you were a werewolf, and I still eventually forgave him. I doubt that whatever it is that happened could be any worse than that."

He can almost see Remus smiling wryly in the dark. Almost. "Promise you won't judge?" he says, and his voice sounds weak and flimsy.

"Promise," says James firmly.

There's a long pause, and he's starting to think that Remus isn't going to tell him what's up after all, when Remus finally breaks the silence. "I love Padfoot."

"Of course. He loves you, too, you know," says James automatically.

"No, you're not hearing me, Prongs. I love him."

"You—" And the pieces click together. James's argument dies in his throat. "Oh. Oh."

"Yeah. I might have—oh, god, this is so embarrassing."

"No," says James hastily. He's still a little floored, but the biggest thing he wants is for Remus to feel safe around him, even if it means James has to be uncomfortable. "So he—what? Found out?"

"I kissed him last May," Remus admits. The words are coming faster now. "It was an accident, mostly. And he kept saying he was okay with it and just wanted to get back to normal, but I couldn't go back, you know? So I avoided him. And then we kind of came to an agreement, and made up, and went to the Slug Club party, but—but then he wanted space, and I have no idea where that leaves us. I don't know what he bloody feels for me anymore, Prongs. I really don't."

"But he didn't—I mean, he and Marlene aren't speaking right now, either. He didn't—?"

"Since she's not speaking to me either, I'm guessing that she found out and reacted badly, but he didn't leave her for me—nothing like that."

James's heart is beating double time. He doesn't know why he's so worked about other people's business that doesn't even directly affect him, but—well—he's never known anybody gay before. Is that what Remus is? He's never demonstrated an attraction to women before, but James never thought he was gay. And what about Sirius, who's only ever dated women?

"Look, Remus," he says as he tries to clamp down on his thoughts. "This is a lot to process—"

"I'm sorry—"

"—But I'm glad you told me. Really, I am. And whatever this means about—you, or him, or the two of you together—I just hope you work it out so that you can both be happy, whatever that looks like. Marlene too."

Remus smiles in the dark—he can see it now that his eyes have adjusted. "Thanks, Prongs. We'll just… I don't know. See if he shows up at the full moon tomorrow."

"Does he know it's tomorrow?"

"I'm sure he does. He's only been tracking it every month since first year. But, listen, this might be our last full moon outdoors."

"What? Why?"

"The Wolfsbane Potion," says Remus. "Pomfrey wants me to go to the Shack again this time in case last month was a one-off, but after this, she'll probably just have me transform in the Hospital Wing. Why bother going all the way through the secret passageway in there if I have control of myself the whole time?"

James frowns. "I'm glad, at least, that before our last time together out in the forest, you'll have had a couple of opportunities to experience it as yourself and remember it afterward. It's been a privilege to get to transform with you all these years."

"Oh, don't you go making me blush," says Remus under his breath. James snorts.

This is the same Remus as before he said anything about having feelings for Sirius, James tells himself as he climbs under the bedcovers and waits for sleep to come. Same old Remus. Nothing to get worked up about.

Then why does James suddenly feel differently about him?

The next morning after breakfast is Defense Against the Dark Arts, where James partners Sirius and immediately lays into him about that night's full moon. "Moony says it's going to be his last one in the Shack—after this, she's monitoring him from the Hospital Wing. You have to come. Who knows how long it'll be before we have the opportunity to run together again?"

"He probably doesn't even want me there," says Sirius moodily, rubbing his bum as he stands up—James's Impediment Jinx hit him hard. "And I don't think that nuzzling each other in animal form is going to do our relationship any favors. Everything's all screwed up, Prongs."

"Yeah, I know. He filled me in last night."

"He did?"

"I'm not going to pretend I understand what you're both going through," says James slowly, "but I know that he still needs you, and I think that you need him, too."

"It's not a good idea, man. It'll just confuse things further."

"But you'll regret it if you don't. Last chance, remember?"

James sincerely doesn't know whether Sirius is going to come or not, so when they're up in the dormitory that night and Remus has been gone for about half an hour, James carefully says to Sirius and Peter, "Well, it's about that time," and just waits.

"Yep," says Peter predictably, and then they both look at Sirius, who gives a helpless little shrug of his shoulders.

"Let's go, then," says Sirius, and as proud as James is of him, Sirius sounds defeated and miserable.

They follow their usual routine: they head out of the castle under the Invisibility Cloak, Peter immobilizes the Whomping Willow when he's in his rat form, and then they sneak through the passageway, stowing the Cloak and their clothes in one of the Shack's bedrooms, and James and Sirius transform.

Back before the Wolfsbane Potion, Moony had to be coaxed back through the tunnel that would open up into the Hogwarts grounds, but now, he leads the way up and out of the Shack. Prongs still hasn't gotten used to what it's like for Moony to be himself and in control of his mind when he transforms every month, but Prongs hopes that Moony always has access to the Wolfsbane Potion, that he never has to see Moony go through that pain again.

It takes a while—like, a while—to get through the passageway and back out of Hogsmeade. When they finally do—Wormtail squeezing out first so he can once again freeze the Willow until the other three are clear of it—they stand there pawing at the ground awkwardly for a moment before Moony bows his head and Wormtail clambers up to come to rest on Moony's back, digging his paws into the dark fur. Moony brushes past Prongs and then parks himself face-to-face with Padfoot.

Very slowly, Padfoot reaches out with one paw, retracts it, and then extends it again until it's covering one of Moony's own paws. Moony steps to the side so that he can swipe himself across the length of Padfoot's body, Wormtail hopping from Moony's back onto Padfoot's.

In the morning, Remus and Sirius aren't speaking again. All James can think about is the tenderness with which they looked at each other the whole night before, and he wonders, how could two people who care about each other that deeply stay apart?

Of course, you could say the same of Sirius and Marlene, or, once upon a time, Sirius and James. Sometimes, how much you love each other isn't a predictor for whom you'll actually want to be near.

Sometimes—and James thinks this might be the case here—you stay away because you love each other too much to be healthy.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Back in sixth year, Emmeline attempted to mend her relationship with Sirius after two years of cutting him out, avoiding the Gryffindors, and gravitating toward Maggie McKinnon, but he turned Emmeline away when she misunderstood his intentions as still being romantic. Peter told the other Gryffindors that Emmeline has been struggling with depression.

Dorcas Meadowes took on the role of the Hogwarts students' Order liaison, but the only mission the Order delegated to them thus far was continuing to educate the rest of the student body about discrimination and the war. Emmeline suggested, and the rest of the Hogwarts Order initiated under Lily and James's leadership, creating a student organization, War Stories, to carry out this mission.

xx

October 28th, 1977: Emmeline Vance

Increasingly, it's hard for Emmeline to care about pretty much anything in her life, and that includes the Order and War Stories. Even with a meeting with Dorcas coming up the next night, Emmeline can't even focus on that. Can't focus on anything these days, really, except for the black pit where her chest used to be that hovers over all of her days.

Peter's the only one who really knows what's going on, so it catches Emmeline completely off guard when Sirius comes up to her in the common room and says, "Can we talk?"

Thinking about it, they haven't really had a one-on-one conversation since the disastrous day that Emmeline admitted to him that his cousin killed her parents. Not that Emmeline thinks he's still angry about the way that conversation played out, when Emmeline misinterpreted his signals and thought they might be able to go back to the romantic relationship they were on the verge of having in fourth year—but she had just kind of assumed that Sirius realized that he doesn't still feel much of anything for Emmeline anymore and wasn't interested to forge a new path with her as friends.

Still a little taken aback, she follows him to the other end of the common room, where they grab a couple of abandoned armchairs. Sirius looks like he's debating with himself what he wants to tell her, but eventually he makes up his mind and says, "Peter told me that you've been having a hard time lately. You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, but I just wanted to, well, let you know that I'm sorry, and—I'm here."

Emmeline looks away. "I can't believe him," she mutters. "He told everybody, didn't he?"

Sirius hesitates and then says, "Last month. Look, don't be mad at him, okay? He's just looking out for you."

She doesn't dare say it out loud, but she wonders what took Sirius all of a month to approach her, knowing how bad she's been feeling. "It's my business," she protests, "and you can't help anyway. There's nothing anybody can do. I don't even know what the root problem is."

"Sometimes there doesn't need to be a problem," Sirius says gently. "Sometimes, things just suck. Have you thought about—uh—talking to Madam Pomfrey?"

"Madam Pomfrey?" says Emmeline, baffled for a moment. "I'm not sick."

"In Muggle Studies, they tell us that Muggles have doctors who can talk to them and prescribe medication for, you know, mood stuff. It's one thing if your environment is causing your depression, but if it's just depression coming out of nowhere—"

"Who says I'm depressed?" she says defensively.

"You avoid everybody but Peter and any conversation where people expect you to participate. Peter says you don't have the motivation to study or make plans for the Order or anything. And you just said yourself that you don't know what the problem is."

"I mean, I know—we killed two people, Sirius. How do you expect me to react to that?"

"I'm not saying that what you're feeling doesn't make sense," says Sirius carefully. "I'm just saying you don't have to feel it alone, and there might be a way to feel—well—better."

"Sirius, we're not supposed to feel better about what happened. It's like I'm the only one—it's like everyone else forgot. Everyone's just going on with their lives like…"

Sirius presses his lips together and doesn't respond for a moment. Finally, he says, "Trust me, no one forgot. No one did. But you're supposed to deal with it and heal and—and make it a part of you, not let it overpower everything else that you're made of."

"Millie and Elisabeth don't get to heal," Emmeline argues. "If they can't, then we shouldn't, either."

Sirius sighs. "Look, Em—do you want me to be there for you or not?"

"What does that even mean, though?"

"For someone to—check up on you, and listen when you want to talk about it, and not leave."

"Really? Because you let me go in fourth year, and you left in sixth year when I tried to make things right."

"Emmeline," says Sirius, and Emmeline can tell that she's testing his patience but can't seem to stop herself, "I can't change the past, but I'm here now, and I'm trying, okay? I'm trying."

I know, Emmeline sort of wants to say, but it's been a long three years since she decided to abandon all of her friends in the wake of her parents' deaths, and sometimes she doesn't know how to stop. She feels like she's going to cry, but she manages to hold it in. "How did we get here, Sirius? What happened to fourth year when everything was so simple?"

"I don't know," Sirius admits. "But I want to help. Will you let me do that?"

"How do I trust you?"

He lets out a whooshing breath. "What did I do to make everyone think they can't trust me? Look, whatever happened between us happened. It's over now."

"Not for me," says Emmeline shakily.

Sirius stands up, walks right up to the edge of Emmeline's armchair, and grabs her hands in his. "I'm going to go," he says, "but I'll be back. I'll keep coming back, if you want me to."

She spends the next twenty minutes berating herself in her head for not just backing down and accepting Sirius's goodwill, and she probably would have kept on going the rest of the night if Peter didn't eventually come up to her and grab the chair that Sirius vacated. "You make it very hard for me to help you," he says seriously.

"I know. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Years of trauma, probably," says Peter, but he sounds like he's holding in a smile.

Emmeline feels a swell of love and appreciation for this easygoing, unruffled boy who never pushes anybody and always makes do with how others treat him. "Never change, Peter, okay?" she says, and Peter smiles.

xx

The Order meeting goes, well, fine, but it's nothing to write home about. The eleven of them all slip past the mirror and crowd into the mouth of the passageway behind it, and Dorcas emerges from the other end five minutes later, hair plastered to her face and sweat collecting under the armpits of her black robes. "Thanks for meeting me here," she tells them. She looks infinitely older than she did when she was in school with them just a few months ago—older and tireder and wiser.

"How's everything with you?" James asks. "How's Fabian?"

"I'm fine. He's fine. Gideon still hates him for dating me, but you know," says Dorcas, brushing it off with a laugh. "Makes Order meetings more interesting, having the three of us all there together."

"And the Order is doing well?" Marlene presses.

"Oh, we're just fine. We had that scare with Doc Dearborn last month, but he's back from it, and he's fine. We're doing a lot to work on recruitment, which isn't going well, but we're also making a big push to identify people potentially leaking information to Voldemort and determining whether they're Death Eaters in training or just Imperiused. We've even managed to get a couple of formerly-Imperiused people to keep reporting back to them and then bring the information they collect from Death Eaters to us, which has been immensely helpful—although we unfortunately can't use all of the information our double agents provide us; we don't want to compromise their safety."

Emmeline is sure that the Order is doing more dangerous work than just what Dorcas is sharing with them, but she doesn't care enough to press the point. There's scattered talk about Order business for a few minutes, and then Dorcas asks, "But what about you lot? How's everything going at Hogwarts?"

"It's—well, it's going," says Benjy.

"To be fair, War Stories is going really well—that's the student org we founded to try to spread awareness throughout the student body," Alice says.

"Love it," says Dorcas, nodding. "What sorts of topics have you covered?"

Lily says, "James and I have been heading it up, and we've mostly covered pureblood privilege—you know, pointing out ways that purebloods are treated better in society and hardships Muggle-borns face that purebloods probably aren't even aware of. We've done some exercises reading out statements and examples, and we've also had a lot of conversations about examples from the lives of people in the audience. I think it's been successful so far at accomplishing what we've attempted with it."

"That's great, Lily, and good job all of you who've been contributing to that. Is there any support you need from the Order carrying this org out? Any information we could provide to give you points to talk about?"

"It would be good to have more concrete stuff on the Ministry," says James. "You know, actual laws that are in place to hold up pureblood supremacy as an institution."

"I can do that for you, yeah. In the meantime, I know of a few reference books in the Hogwarts library that should help you find more of what you're looking for…"

They pass some time talking about book recommendations and pureblood-favoring employment practices that are standard at the Ministry and common in wizarding businesses. Eventually, Sirius says, "Besides War Stories, is there more that we can be doing over here to improve things? You know, conversation only gets you so far if the only people who are listening are the people who already agree with you."

"That's very true," says Dorcas, "and yes, there are a couple of things the Order suggested, firstly—promoting inter-house unity, especially between Slytherin House and the others. I know—believe me, I know—but if we don't reach out to them, we run a much higher risk that they'll congregate exclusively and spread supremacist ideals among all of them. I'll let you all take some time over the next few weeks to think about how you want to implement that, and I'll check back in in about a month or so. If you're stuck, we can brainstorm together, but take some time and see what you come up with, yeah?"

Dorcas leaves shortly after that, citing Order business she needs to get back to. "Does anybody else feel like the rest of the Order is having Dorcas handle us with kid gloves?" asks Eddie with a frown once they're all back out from behind the mirror.

She doesn't say so, but privately, Emmeline agrees. Dorcas and the others are obviously busy with tasks that will actually make a difference, as opposed to what the Hogwarts students are doing on the ground, which is a fat lot of busywork that probably won't make an actual impact. Where Emmeline and Eddie differ is that Emmeline can see exactly why Dumbledore and Dorcas have slapped them with nothing substantial, and she can't say she disagrees with their judgment.

Best to restrain the enthusiasm of the kids who got Millie LeProut and Elisabeth Clearwater killed.

xx

Whispers follow the Gryffindors as they make their way back from the passageway to the common room. They’ve split up into a few groups so as not to attract attention to what they’ve just come from doing; Emmeline finds herself walking back to Gryffindor Tower the long way around with Peter, Remus, and Alice, the three of whom are discussing McGonagall’s latest essay assignment (Remus and Alice animatedly, Peter worriedly). Emmeline keeps her eyes aimed at her feet and tries not to pick out any of the words anybody around them is saying as they stare.

And then—someone is saying her name, but it’s not one of the Gryffindors, and it’s not a whisper, either.

She looks up.

“Margaret?”

She hasn’t really talked to Margaret McKinnon in—almost a year, probably. Ever since she started hanging out with Peter so much, she realizes with a guilty jolt. It’s not like Emmeline forgot about her, but—maybe she sort of forgot about her.

Peter, Alice, and Remus hang back awkwardly while Margaret and Emmeline stare at each other. One of Margaret’s Ravenclaw friends tugs her on her shoulder to get her attention and mutters, “We’ll meet you back in the common room.”

“It’s okay,” Emmeline says to Peter in an undertone, her eyes still trained on Margaret. “I’ll see you later tonight.”

There are plenty of foul things Margaret could say about Emmeline shutting out of her life and probably being a murderer by extension, but Margaret just ducks her head and says, “Come walk with me.”

They fall into step in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower, far enough behind Margaret’s friends that Emmeline can’t quite make out their conversation. “I’ve hardly seen you in months,” says Margaret—always straight to the point, she is.

“Not since before the summer,” says Emmeline, although it’s been longer than that.

“Not since before Millie and the Hufflepuff girl died.”

Shit, that’s right—Millie and Margaret were in the same year together in Ravenclaw. They would have been roommates, Emmeline realizes. “I’m sorry for your loss. Were you and Millie…?”

“Friends? Nah. Millie was always really sincere and sweet, so we didn’t really get along.”

Emmeline barks out a laugh. Margaret isn’t a particularly nice person, and Emmeline hasn’t been one in a long time (if she ever was)—it was one of the reasons they got along so well when Emmeline was busy blaming Sirius and avoiding all her fellow Gryffindors.

“Didn’t deserve to die, though,” Margaret continues, and Emmeline’s laughter dies in her throat. “But I’m sure you’ve given that more thought than almost any of us.”

“There’s nothing I can say to you that would explain her death,” says Emmeline, feeling sort of panicky and flushed.

“Please. Like you and your lot weren’t there—like you’re not all responsible.”

“That’s not what I—I can’t justify it, Margaret. It was senseless, and it was unfair, and it was for nothing, okay? Nothing I could or couldn’t say about whatever you think I know—”

“But you do know,” snaps Margaret. “You know, I expected this from Marlene—we’ve never been close—but you…”

Another pang of guilt stabs Emmeline.

“You know what, though? It was naive of me to think you’d ever trust me with that kind of knowledge. It’s not like we’re friends anymore, right? What business would you have letting me in when you’ve indoctrinated yourself back into their fold?”

“It’s not that simple,” Emmeline breathes. “They’re not what you think they are, and I shouldn’t have shut them out in the first place.”

“Hey, I get it,” says Margaret, spreading her arms wide. “You can only have them if you don’t have anybody else, right? They don’t leave any room in your life for other people.”

“But—Marlene is your sister. She’s one of them, and you talk about her like she’s—”

“Untouchable?” Emmeline freezes. “And whose fault is that?”

And Emmeline—doesn’t have an answer. Is it Margaret’s fault or Marlene’s—Margaret’s fault or Emmeline’s?

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Mary attempted to renew her friendships with Veronica Smethley and the other Hufflepuffs on the Hogwarts Express, but caught them gossiping about her instead. The Gryffindors’ relationships with Mary grew strained due to her leaving the Order. Mary and Reg got back together.

xx

October 29th, 1977: Mary Macdonald

Mary is alone in the dormitory for all of ten minutes before she gets bored. It’s not like she even feels like she fits in with the other Gryffindor seventh years anymore—but there’s something to be said for having people around to talk to her and keep her company, even if what they’re saying is all superficial. And people only ever say superficial things to Mary nowadays, which is a fat laugh since she likes to think she’s become a lot less shallow over the last year—but at least that’s better than being met with silence and locked doors, the way she is tonight, when everyone else is off saving the wizarding world and Mary is here, and stuck, and miserable.

She has plans with Ver halfway after the meeting with Dorcas is supposed to start, at least, so at a quarter to eight, she puts her Care of Magical Creatures essay back into her bag and steps out of Gryffindor Tower. Her friendships with the Hufflepuffs are a weird thing these days. Mary knows they talk about her when she’s not there—caught them doing so on the Hogwarts Express—but the Gryffindors probably talk about her, too, about how she’s weak and fragile and can’t handle the slightest hint of danger, so it’s not like she has many options of people to talk to who aren’t going to turn right around and gossip about her when she leaves.

Well, Reg probably wouldn’t speak ill of her behind her back. She feels a surge of affection for—he’s not her boyfriend, but he’s something, anyway.

That isn’t to say that she’s over Marlene, or even that she’s fully processed or understands how she feels about her, but maybe it’s a good thing that she has someone else to put her attention on. Maybe that will be the trick to getting out from underneath her feelings for her best friend.

Ever since they had girls’ night last month, Marlene has been friendlier to Mary, waving her over at mealtimes and inviting her to work in the library with Lily and James every night. It’s going well, but it’s also going not so well, if that makes any sense. She’s glad to have her best friend back, certainly, but being with Marlene also means sharing Marlene with Lily, and Mary’s jealousy has been spiking off the charts. She tries to bury it, knowing it’s not Lily’s fault, knowing Mary isn’t entitled to Marlene any more than Lily is—but it’s hard to quiet the siren in her head that blares red every time Marlene laughs at one of Lily’s jokes.

It’s funny that Mary is more jealous of Lily than she is of Sirius—Marlene still loves Sirius in a way she’s never loved Lily or Mary. Maybe it’s because what Marlene and Lily have together is something that Mary sees as attainable—as what Marlene and Mary used to have before it was stolen from her. She knows Marlene will never love Mary like she loves Sirius, and Mary, well, has gotten used to that, at least. At least she can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

She meets up with Ver in the Entrance Hall, and they set off for a walk around the grounds. They can’t really go into each other's common rooms, and they’re much too loud for the library, so Mary and Ver’s friendship is based largely on walking together through the castle and sitting together by the lake. It’s no wonder that most students end up congregating toward their housemates—Mary can tell you all about the last six years of inconvenience trying to make friends with the Hufflepuffs in her year.

“How’s everybody?” says Mary, because it’s been a while since she last caught up with them all. “How are Greta and Gilderoy?”

“Greta’s good. She and Patil broke up last week, but they stayed together way longer than anybody would have predicted when they first started dating last year, so, you know, props. Gilly still won’t go out with me, but I think he’s over McKinnon by now, at least.”

“That’s for the best,” says Mary, sidestepping a tree stump. “She was never going to give him the time of day.”

“I’d ask you how the Gryffindors are,” Ver adds slyly, “but you said you’ve been drifting apart from them ever since the summer, didn’t you?

Ver says it very chill and casual, but Mary immediately feels her skin crawl at Ver’s words. Yeah, she admitted that to the Hufflepuffs, but she hadn’t expected Ver to throw it back in her face like that. “Yeah, that’s true,” she finally says, “but I just thought our friendship was still strong enough that Marlene and I, at least, would still be close. I guess it’s not, though.”

“Well, have you told her what’s going on with you?” says Ver.

That stops Mary still. “There’s not a lot going on with me.”

This, of course, is a lie—Mary has been totally consumed lately by her lesbian identity crisis and her decision to let all of her friends leave her behind in the dust of the war with the Death Eaters. That’s not nothing—but how is Mary supposed to talk to Marlene about it? She doesn’t want to make Marlene feel weirdly guilty for being a part of the Order when Mary isn’t, and she definitely isn’t anywhere near comfortable admitting to anyone, let alone Marlene, the way she feels about her.

“Sometimes it’s not about competing to see who has the biggest secrets to share,” says Ver. “Sometimes you just need to put yourself out there and see if people bite back.”

“When did you get so wise?” says Mary, half snarkily but half seriously.

“What is going on with you, anyway?” Ver presses.

“Oh, you know,” Mary says. She wants to confide in Ver about feeling responsible for Liz and Millie’s deaths, but she’s categorically avoided owning up to her involvement in their deaths even when Ver and the other Hufflepuffs have pressed her about it, and she doesn’t want to dangle it in front of Ver’s face when she’s not willing to share the Order with her. “I feel like everyone’s staring at me all the time,” she says instead, tucking her hands inside her robe pockets. “And I feel like everybody’s always going to see me as the gossip that I was in fifth year instead of as, you know, a real live breathing person.”

“See? You can tell McKinnon that, can’t you?”

“Maybe. Yes. Probably,” says Mary with a grin.

“Hey, do you feel like McKinnon is one of those people treating you like you’re not a—what was it—a real live breathing person?”

Mary shrugs. “Sometimes.”

“Do you feel like I treat you like that?”

She’s surprised to hear this coming from Ver, who isn’t exactly Mary’s kindest or most accepting friend in the world. “Maybe? Not when you’re talking to me, but—well—I know you lot talk about me when I’m not there. I heard you, you know, on the train, and—other times.”

Ver cringes. “You—yeah. You weren’t supposed to be there for that.”

“Obviously. Look, I know you have questions. You and Elisabeth shared a dorm. Of course you want to know, and if you think I was there… but there are just—some things that I can’t talk about.”

“But you were there, weren’t you?” Mary doesn’t answer, but by the look on Ver’s face, Ver has all the confirmation that she needs. “Elisabeth was the best of us, you know? I know I’m not—not loyal or hardworking enough to really belong in Hufflepuff, but Elisabeth was. I used to hate her for that, because seeing her was like looking into a mirror and seeing who I wanted to be, but wasn’t good enough to be.”

“Ver—”

“No, just let me say this,” says Ver urgently. “I’m just saying, whatever it was that happened to her, she didn’t deserve it. And can you blame me for wanting answers? So, yes, I’m a terrible, awful gossip, and I want to know everybody’s business, but—Elisabeth deserves justice, and part of that is letting people know who or what to blame. The same goes for that Millie girl, even if I don’t know her.”

“I know it doesn’t help you when I say I can’t tell you,” says Mary. “But can you believe me when I say that the reason why I can’t say what happened to Liz is, like—something that could be used to hurt more people if word gets out about it?”

“So you’re saying you were involved.”

“No, I’m saying I—know too much. Enough to know that I can’t tell anyone anything, and neither can you, all right? Please, Ver. This is the one time I’ve ever asked you to keep anything to yourself, and I know you’ve said a lot about me over the years.”

“But that’s not fair. This isn’t the same as the time I spilled the beans that you had a crush on Davy Gudgeon.”

“Right, and I didn’t even get pissed at you for sharing that because it didn’t matter. Not like this does.”

Ver gives Mary a long, considering look, and then her shoulders sort of droop and her back slumps. “All right, Mare. But I’ll have you know I don’t agree with this.”

“I’m not asking you to understand,” says Mary. “I’m just asking you to trust me.”

Ver sighs. “I trust you,” she says, sounding defeated. “And I’ll tell the others to knock off spreading rumors.”

“Thank you. Like, seriously, Ver, thank you.”

Mary’s in no rush to get back to Gryffindor Tower. She walks Ver back to the Hufflepuff common room, and when they bump into Reg and Gilderoy outside, the four of them end up all breaking into an empty classroom where they can loudly commiserate over Sprout’s latest essay. They plop down on the floor; Ver is hanging off of Gilderoy like usual and keeps touching his elbow and brushing hair out of his eyes, while Reg scoots close up next to Mary and blushes a little when he slowly and carefully nudges her hip with his weak hand.

She shifts closer to him and lays her head on his shoulder, hating herself. The worst part is that there’s a significant piece of Mary that feels good about using Reg like this—the piece of her that thinks she’s doing the right thing by concentrating her affections on a boy. Like it’s the good, proper, moral thing to do. Like she’s atoning. But how can dating Reg be atonement when she doesn’t love him the way he thinks she does? How can it be moral when she’s lying to his face?

It’s not like it’s even working: she still loves Marlene, wants Marlene, and no amount of time she could spend cuddling up to Reg is going to change that or take Mary’s mind off of the girl she really loves. Besides, even if Mary could pray herself straight, she’s still going to hell for being a witch as long as she stays in the wizarding world. Even if she shunned this life, she’s probably given herself over to it for long enough that she’s damned anyway.

Gilderoy gets up to go first, and Ver makes up an excuse to follow him out, leaving Mary and Reg sitting curled up on the ground together, alone in the room. “You seem different this year,” Reg tells her after a long moment of silence, and Mary is just starting to formulate a defense for herself in her head when he adds, “It’s like you’re more mature—like you know who you are and what your priorities are, and you don’t need other people to help you cover up your insecurities.”

Mary actually snorts at this. “Are you sure about that? Because I feel more lost than ever these days.” It’s more than she’s ever really admitted to him, which makes sense: Reg has always been very stable, but for obvious reasons, she hasn’t actually confided in him very much about—anything, ever.

“Because of Liz?” he asks now. “Or because you’re feeling unsteady without the Gryffindors with you constantly?”

“But I am still with them constantly,” she says, dodging his first question.

“Yeah, but you’re—not so sucked into their lives anymore. I’m not going to ask you about Liz—” Mary feels a rush of gratitude mingled with guilt “—and I wouldn’t expect you to do what Evans used to do and make yourself an outcast in your own house, but I think you’re doing the right thing by creating some distance. You need to take care of yourself, Mare, and you’re doing a great job of that.”

“But—I still need them,” she says very quietly. “If I were strong…”

“Mary, you are strong. You’re the strongest person I know.”

And Reg is so, so wrong about her, but she doesn’t have the heart—or maybe the courage—to correct him.

Chapter Text

Previously in the Darklyverse: Things exploded between Sirius and Marlene when he admitted to her that he and Remus kissed. The Gryffindors cofounded a student organization, War Stories, to talk about issues related to blood prejudice and the war. Marlene hid her true blood status.

xx

October 30th, 1977: Marlene McKinnon

Constantly, Marlene feels like everybody is staring at her. It’s not what she thinks it is, of course: miraculously, the truth about why she and Sirius fell apart hasn't leaked out to the rest of the student body yet, so she knows the malice and judgment she’s seeing in everybody's eyes as she walks down the corridor is about Liz and Millie, not about Sirius. Given that she's stopped speaking to Remus as well, Marlene would have thought it would be easy for anybody to figure out what was happening, but apparently the idea of two boys being in love is too radical for anybody to even fathom.

Are they in love, or are their feelings for each other as confused as Marlene's understanding of them? She doesn't know, and she's not sure if she even wants to know. She keeps picturing different versions of Sirius and Remus kissing in her mind, and she thinks that if she got a more accurate idea of what actually happened, it would hurt far more than her own speculation already does.

She's not even avoiding Sirius and Remus out of anger. Well—she is to an extent, but mostly she just feels humiliated that Sirius could cheat on her, and not even with a girl, but with a boy. What did Marlene ever do to deserve that kind of shame?

It's like she can't get her mind off of it. Sitting with Mary at breakfast in the Great Hall, she looks down the table to where Remus is sitting with Alice and Sirius is off with Peter and Emmeline, and she feels a fresh wave of horror pass through her. At least Sirius and Remus aren't together—yet, a little voice inside her head whispers, but she shakes that off, unwilling to consider the possibility that Sirius could leave her for Remus.