Eternal Recurrence

September 2nd, 1976

(later on)

Lily, Marlene, and Mary sat together at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, sharing two copies of the Daily Prophet. Mary had elected not to order her own subscription, preferring to use her funds elsewhere–knowing that both of her dormmates would fill her in if necessary.

Jeremy Altman’s sad gray eyes stared at them from the cover of the newspaper, his face scattered around the tables like autumn leaves that had been sucked of all color. If one chose to flip further into those pages, they would discover that Jeremy Altman was not the only casualty of the day–far from it. Instead, the list of the dead took up a quarter of page sixteen.

Wilfred Johnson

Iain Bell

Eric Armstrong

Alyssa Armstrong

Benjamin Baker

Noah Lawrence

Renee Henderson

Lily did not recognize these names. But she mourned them, nevertheless.

*** When Lily Evan’s death is published in the Prophet, it makes the front page. ***

The rest of the sixth-year Gryffindors joined them as Lily finished her first cup of coffee. James, his arm around Adelaide’s waist, was saying something into her ear and she laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the hall. Lily–if she was ignoring her own personal feelings for the participants–had to admit they made an astonishingly attractive couple. 

Adelaide was objectively stunning. She had dark brown hair and softly tanned skin, big brown eyes framed by unfairly thick lashes. She was French, on her mother’s side. She always had a red tint to her lips in a face otherwise free of makeup, suggesting an air of such effortless ease that it was hard not to envy her. 

She wasn’t as fashionable as Mary or as athletic as Marlene, but it didn’t matter. Nothing much mattered to Adelaide Carpenter, which was probably why she mattered so much to so many people.

James Potter had long since grown out of the speckly, awkward boy he’d been when he’d first begun terrorizing her. His hair remained untamed, but he’d grown into it somehow. Adelaide was running her fingers through it as James noticed Lily’s attention, and gave her an awkward nod.

James Potter and Lily Evans had not spoken since their final blowout argument in the Gryffindor Common Room at the end of last year after he’d hexed Severus in front of everyone. James had, stupidly, thought the ending of her friendship with Severus meant she had warmed up to him, no matter what she’d said about him and the giant squid. 

*** She had not. Not yet. ***

Lily had just lost her best friend thanks, in no small part, to James Potter. And while the logical part of her knew that James had not forced Severus to say that slur, she couldn’t help but feel like the situation could have been avoided if James had figured out a way to be less of a gigantic prick. 

She was, delusionally, convinced that the two of them could survive the next two years of school without having to interact beyond the barest necessity, despite the circumstances that consistently contrived to push them together. 

*** By the end of their seventh year, Lily Evans would love 

James Potter with every fiber of her being. 

They die three years later. ***

James Potter liked Adelaide Carpenter. She was pretty and funny. She was amusingly anti-establishment and found meaning in everything. She was very sexually liberated, which any sixteen-year-old boy would have found intriguing. Their relationship, while new, was making him happy. It didn’t come with the cornucopia of headaches and humiliation that his pursuit of Lily Evans had–and there was some relief in that. 

James still watched as Lily poured her second cup of coffee, leaning over to top up Marlene’s cup without the other girl asking. She was always doing things like that. For reasons he couldn’t understand, it irritated him. 

“Blimey,” Sirius said, pulling him out of his thoughts, “got a full day today, haven’t we?”

James looked down at his own schedule, seeing the Monday workload of Double Charms, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies. Sirius, who was, of course, taking all of the same classes as him, pointed to the following day. 

“But Tuesdays and Thursdays are completely free! Can you imagine? What are they thinking?” He sounded so delighted that it would be hard to burst his bubble. 

“That’s for studying and personal projects,” Marlene corrected him, having no problem bursting anyone’s bubble. “We’ll have a few year-long projects this year, not to mention potions that will take weeks to brew.” She sighed. 

“And that’s why I didn’t take Potions this year,” Adelaide remarked, sipping her orange juice with a casual grace. 

“That and the Acceptable you received in your OWLs,” Marlene quipped. Adelaide gave her a dismissive eye-roll in return. 

“We want to be Aurors,” Sirius explained. “You need Potions for that.” 

“You all want to be Aurors?” Connie McAllister asked, sounding mildly horrified.

Marlene, James, and Sirius looked at each other, shrugging. It seemed like the only worthwhile thing to do. 

“What do you want to do, Adelaide? I mean, after Hogwarts.” James asked, feeling mildly self-conscious that he hadn’t asked before. 

“I’m not sure,” she said, delicately pulling off a piece of her muffin. “I could never work somewhere like the Ministry, though. That kind of place drains your soul.” 

“Adelaide doesn’t like establishments ,” Connie said, with an odd mix of admiration and amusement. 

“Why are you in school, then?” Sirius asked, darkly. “Could have dropped out with just your OWLs.” 

James aimed a kick at Sirius across the table but bumped Lily instead. She looked up from the newspaper in her hands and glared at him. 

“What?” She asked, not even attempting to sound cordial.

The rest of the table looked at her in bemusement.

“He just kicked me!” She said, gesturing to James, and giving him a withering look.

“No, I didn’t!” He argued, unable to think of a cleverer response.

“Catch yourself on!” She snapped, indignantly. “It was definitely you.”

“What, you know the shape of my foot so well you can tell if I kick you?” He scoffed, and she put her coffee down in irritation, spilling a few drops over the edge of the mug. 

“Aye, right, Potter,” she said, getting to her feet. “In fairness, you might be too wee to reach me from that side of the table. I must have been clean imagining things.” She pulled her bag over her shoulder and pushed her hair behind her ears. “See you in Charms.”

She stalked off and Sirius, whose eyes were alight with amusement, grinned. “You were trying to kick me, weren’t you?” 

“I didn’t kick anyone,” James said, properly annoyed and getting to his feet as well. “I’m going to go smoke before class, in case anyone else has any accusations to throw my way?”

The rest of the table was silent as they finished their breakfasts, clearly unwilling to get entwined with a Potter and Evans argument.

As fate would have it, his attempt to avoid Lily Evans was doomed, as he emerged onto the grounds and almost collided with a head of dark red hair and a cloud of something that smelled faintly like cinnamon. 

“Are you following me now?” She asked, before he could even get out a grunt of surprise. 

“I have much better things to do than follow you, Evans,” he said, his voice clipped with anger. “For instance, I could walk off the Astronomy Tower. I could get a lobotomy. I could jam my wand into my own eye socket.” 

“Oh, now, don’t get my hopes up,” she said, creating distance between them. The soft cinnamon smell went with her. “What do you even want?” 

“A cigarette,” he said, pulling one from his bag and lighting it with a non-verbal flick of his want. “And to not have to deal with your shit for a few minutes.” 

“Look, I–” She started, nearly shouting before stopping mid sentence, taking a few steadying breaths. 

“Yes?” He asked, despite himself. 

“We don’t have to be friends, Potter. I’m never going to like you. You’re never going to like me. But,” she shook her head, “for the sake of not blowing up the school, can we just…” She trailed off.

“Ignore each other?” He offered.

She shrugged. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it? I’m tired of you always having it on with me. I want to get through breakfast without being kicked.”

James hid his embarrassment with a long drag of his cigarette. The smoke turned into a miniature dragon that circled around Lily’s head like a halo.

“What do I get out of it?” 

Lily’s startlingly green eyes grew cold. “God, you really are a dickhead, aren’t you?” 

And with that, she walked away, wondering what anyone could possibly see in James Potter. 

James Potter was left standing alone on the grass, wondering if she would always be the first one to leave. 

*** James Potter dies first. ***

Now that they’d completed their OWLs, most of their classes would be primarily practical spellcasting, leaving them to study the theory as homework for the next lesson. Ordinarily, Lily Evans would have enjoyed that. 

Ordinarily, Lily Evans would have partnered with her best friend, Severus Snape, in any class they were both present in. Mary would partner with Marlene, Adelaide with Connie, James with Sirius, and Remus with Peter. The pairings had been comfortably set since their earlier years and were something that Lily had never thought to dislike. Until now. 

Adelaide and Connie were not in Charms. But the rest of them were, including Severus, who clearly had already partnered with a Slytherin named Myles Barnes. She looked around the room at the sea of two-person desks, wondering who her best option would be. 

She started at a jump on her shoulder and turned to see Jack Danes giving her a friendly smile. 

“Want to team up?” 

She nodded, gratefully, and they took one of the last open desks, directly in front of Sirius and James and as far away from Severus as she could manage. 

Jack usually paired up with his mates from Hufflepuff, as far as she could remember. But when she looked around the room, it seemed unusually light on yellow ties. 

“So, what’s the craic, Lily?” He asked as he unpacked his bag, placing a copy of their textbook in between them. 

“Ach, you know,” she shrugged, “haven’t died yet, have I?”

“Aye,” Jack snorted as Professor Flitwick tried to draw their attention to the front. “You’d make a class ghost, though.” 

She flashed him a genuine smile that fell when she felt the light poke of parchment on her shoulder. She turned and saw a small paper airplane backing up to poke her again, Sirius languishing behind her with his wand raised. 

“Oi, Evans. Trying to learn, here. If you’re going to die, you might as well get on with it.” 

She flicked her wand and the paper airplane burst into flames, the ash landing on Sirius’s empty desk in the shape of a middle finger. 

“I am not going to miss you when you’re gone,” he said, not entirely able to smother his laughter. 

*** Sirius Black will mourn the loss of Lily Evans like a missing limb. 

He will give his life protecting her son, just like she did. ***