Eternal Recurrence

October 3rd, 1976

James Potter has served 66 detentions in his time at Hogwarts so far. Lily Evans has served four. It was not so strange, then, that they had never served one together. They might have been able to keep that streak going, were it not for the boggart. 

Peter had been the one to find it–in rat form, luckily. Boggarts didn’t register animals as much of a target, which meant Peter had scurried across a rattling desk drawer and nearly discounted it. It wasn’t until he brought the others back the next day that they realized what they had stumbled across. 

The four of them together had confused it. They’d been able to force it back into the desk drawer and lock it firmly without having to reveal too much of themselves to each other. 

*** If they had, Remus’s boggart would have been a full moon. 

As it would remain, many years later. Peter would have seen a grim, 

hooded figure, which is what he imagined Voldemort to look like. 

Sirius would have seen the dead bodies of the other marauders, and 

known, somehow, that it was his doing. And James Potter 

would see the very same thing his son will in 1993. ***

Sixteen-year-olds, even ones that have been through as much as these four, do not understand the true nature of fear. And so, they thought it would be exceptionally funny to use the boggart in their own mischief, without pondering the potential ramifications of revealing their classmates’ deepest fears in a public forum.

Perhaps it would have been. But they were, regretfully, unable to see their plans come to fruition given that they had been unable to foresee that anyone would willingly enter the Potions Storeroom at nine o’clock on a Sunday night. They had been unable to foresee Lily Evans. 

She would have readily admitted one of the reasons she liked potions so much was that she happened to be excellent at it. It was the one area where her muggle background hadn’t hindered her. Hardly anyone seemed to brew their own potions at home, so most of her classmates were as much of a novice as she was. It was rather like cooking and chemistry and magic all mixed together–something based on instincts as much as precision. Her instincts were good. 

It had taken longer for her to enjoy reading the complex potions news and periodicals that Professor Slughorn regularly handed off to her and she had begun reading out of politeness. Now, it fascinated her. There were entire forums of Potioneers experimenting and collaborating, trying to create magic that no one had even considered. Lily might have been able to imagine herself doing that if anyone had been willing to work with a muggleborn. But last names meant so much to the wizarding community. It was a wonder they hadn’t all perished from some inbreeding-related accident yet.

Lily Evans was in a bad mood. After days of barely sleeping, she’d finally crashed last night, then woke up so late she’d missed breakfast in the Great Hall. Most of the other Gryffindors had not only already eaten, but had met up for a casual game of quidditch between them–spending the whole afternoon racing around in the blustery October sun. 

Lily had, instead, spent the day finishing her Transfiguration essay and waiting in the library to see if anyone would show up to her Charms tutoring session. They did not. 

Now she was trudging down to the dungeons, her overly heavy bag slung over her shoulder, to check on her extracurricular Potions experimentation. Slughorn had granted her use of both the storeroom and a private classroom, with a vague promise of supervision and guidance. So far, neither of those things had happened.

She wasn’t brewing the Veritaserum she’d talked to Slughorn about. Rather, she had brewed it already and was waiting on his assessment to see if it passed muster. Until then, she’d locked it within a box in the potions storeroom, hoping that would ensure it couldn’t fall into the wrong hands. 

She dumped her bag in the private classroom, then–without looking–she opened the doors to the storeroom with a flick of her wand. When she turned around to face it, she froze.

The room around her began to morph, the dark stone turning to bright, clean white. Each brick becoming padded, every crack of character extinguished into an awful, clinical vacuum. She spun for the door, but it had vanished. The desk was gone, her bag was gone, and she was alone in this horrible padded cell. 

Except she wasn’t alone. A kind-looking nurse stood opposite her, holding a syringe in her hand. 

“Now, Lily,” she said, gently. “You gave me quite a fright there. Are you back with us now?”

“I… What?” Her own voice sounded wrong. 

“I know it all seems very real when you’re there,” the nurse continued, “but we know the truth, don’t we?” She waited, seemingly for Lily to respond. When she didn’t, the nurse sighed. “Magic isn’t real, Lily. This world you’ve created? It’s all in your head. This medicine will help you feel better.” She brandished the syringe like a knife.

Lily, somehow, was still holding her wand. Except, when she looked down, it just looked like a rolled-up piece of paper. The hand holding it was trembling. 

“No,” she said, trying to sound confident. “You’re wrong. It’s real.” 

“It’s time to wake up, Lily.” The nurse stepped closer. 

“No!” Lily shouted, backing up to the wall. She waved the rolled-up paper, and sparks came out of it. “No,” she repeated, quieter, her vision becoming obscured with tears. 

“Wake up, Lily!” The nurse glowered, her pretty face transforming into something monstrous. The room began to grow dark again until darkness was all that she could see, the nurse stretching impossibly, her hair turning to ripped black robes, her face obscured by a hood of black smoke.

She stumbled back, colliding with something warm and solid. As she did so, a familiar voice shouted “ Expecto Patronum! ”

A massive stag made of light erupted from the tip of James Potter’s wand, charging at the Dementor and forcing it back into the trunk it had emerged from. A few moments later, the stag was gone, and James’s arms around her did nothing to stop her from trembling. 

They stood like that for minutes in silence. Lily’s face buried in James’s chest as she forced her breathing to return to normal until she stopped hearing the blood roaring in her ears. James, only slightly less shaken than she was, still clung to his wand in one hand, the other slowly rubbing circles on Lily’s back.

Eventually, they fell apart–the space between them more charged than a lightning storm.

“A Boggart?” Lily asked, having finally put the pieces together.

James nodded, looking at the locked trunk with venom. “I heard you screaming and I… I didn’t know what might have happened.” When Lily said nothing, he added, a little defensively, “I didn’t even know it was you, I swear.”

*** That was a lie. James Potter always knows Lily Evans. 

Her scream will be the last thing he ever hears. ***

“S’fine,” she said, the true embarrassment of the situation sinking in as she wiped her tears away. “I was stupid. I should have realized.” 

James shook his head. “I’ve never seen one take up a room like that before. It would have been hard to break out of it on your own.” 

“I…” She began, swallowing hard. “So you saw everything, then?”

James looked away, and it was as much a confirmation as any. “I’m sorry,” he offered, softly. Then, inexplicably, he reached out, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. Lily stared back at him, as frozen now as she had been when the Boggart had caught her. Except now she was immersed in a different kind of fear. 

“It’s not your fault,” she said, finally breaking the spell. She took a further step back and James’s cheeks darkened. 

“Actually…” He began, too caught up in the moment to think better of it. “Actually, this one might have been.”

It took Lily only a few moments to understand what he was implying. A few moments more, and she was furious.

“Let me get this clear,” she began, through gritted teeth. “You planted a fecking Boggart in the potions storeroom to ambush me when I came by to be working on my potions? As what? A prank? Some thickheaded savior fantasy?” The low fire of the torches around them flared as she grew more and more irate. 

“It wasn’t about you!” James insisted, wisely backing away a step. “Honestly, I thought it would be Snivellus who found it, or some other Slytherin. Boggarts can’t actually hurt anyone, Evans.” 

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. James Potter was good at that. 

“ Flipendo ,” she muttered, and James flew backward, landing hard on the floor. James shouted, mostly in surprise, as she stormed past him. 

“Evans!” He called out, pushing himself to his feet, feeling almost as angry as she did. “What the hell was that for?”

She let out a sound of pure frustration as she spun around again, her wand raised. He instinctively raised his own, and the two were immediately locked in a confrontation neither of them would back down from.

Fortunately or unfortunately, they didn’t have to. 

“Mr Potter! Miss Evans!” Professor Sprout looked aghast as she surveyed the two teenagers, her own wand in her hand. “Of all people! Put your wands away now !” 

“She started it,” James said, mutinously. 

Lily gave him a derisive look. “After he set a Boggart on me, Professor.” 

“I– A Boggart?” Professor Spout asked, then shook her head. “Wands away. I’m taking you both to Professor McGonagall, immediately.” 

After a few more moments of teenage petulance, they complied. And, by the time they returned to Gryffindor Tower more than an hour later, they were due in detention together every Friday until Professor McGonagall believed their lesson had been learned. 

*** McGonagall will give up on that plan in the beginning 

of November. It takes at least six more months for James 

and Lily to consider themselves anything close to friends. ***

Dorcas Meadowes felt absolutely no shame about eavesdropping, especially not on budding Death Eaters like Roman Mulciber. Especially not ones who were openly talking about attacking other students in the Slytherin Common Room.

“Not like it’s that hard,” Mulciber was saying, his low voice mocking. “Anyone can make someone jump off a broomstick, it turns out.”

They were talking about James Potter. She was sure of it. There had been whispers surrounding the Quidditch star’s accident since it had happened. Most people seemed to think he’d suffered some kind of temporary insanity and forgotten years' worth of training–leading him to slip off his broom and fall hundreds of feet to the ground.

Dorcas thought that sounded like bullshit. She may not have known James Potter well, but if that had happened to him, he should be in St. Mungo’s right now, so they could figure out what was going on with his brain. Seeing as he seemed as free as ever to wander around the school, she had to assume something else was going on.

And here was Mulciber, practically confirming it. 

“Well, you’ve always been good at that spell, haven’t you?” Rylan Wilkes chimed in, from where he was smoking a cigarette on the floor nearby. 

Mulciber preened and Dorcas had to resist rolling her eyes from where she listened, ostensibly writing an essay at a table nearby.

“You didn’t even do anything,” Severus Snape bristled. She hadn’t even realized he was there, but she saw him now. Sitting alone in a hulking armchair, not even looking up from the book in his lap. “Doesn’t look like anyone has a scratch on them. Hogwarts is more boring than ever.”

“And you’d do it better?” Mulciber asked, in a haughty drawl.

“Obviously,” Snape retorted, and Dorcas found herself quietly amused by the outrage on the older boy’s face. 

“Please,” he looked at Snape with disdain, “you’re harmless. You had that mudblood following you around for years and never so much as touched a hair on her head. You know about the Halloween job. You expect me to believe you could do something like that?”

“No,” Snape said, with no inflection. “I could do something worse.”

Dorcas felt her blood grow cold. When she looked up from her essay, she noticed Snape’s suspicious eyes on her. She quickly packed up her papers, looking as frightened and harmless as she could manage, and slipped out of the door to the Common Room.

They were planning something, something worse than the attack on James Potter. And if they would have no problem silencing Dorcas along the way.

*** There were very few people Dorcas Meadowes trusted at Hogwarts. 

She believed trust was foolish. Soon she will learn that trust is the very

 act of hope and bravery she’d always aspired to. 

But it will not keep her safe. ***

The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was an Auror program dropout named Ralph Mercer. He was mid-thirties, tanned, mild-mannered, and partially disfigured by a scar stretching across his face and obscuring the vision in his left eye. 

He would not tell the students what caused his injury, no matter how much he wished to prepare them for the world ahead. Some kinds of fear were best left unshared. 

He had come to Hogwarts at the request of the Headmaster to teach the finer points of dueling to a student body that had already far too many confrontations for comfort. Part of him felt it was an error to teach them to be even more competent. More deadly. Would it be his fault when students started to die instead of just injuring each other? Could he live with that?

But he was here. And, so far, he was living with it.

Today, after a month of getting up to speed with their abilities, would be the first time he allowed the sixth-years to duel each other properly. 

“And by properly,” he warned, “I mean carefully. No killing, no maiming, no serious injuries. If it’s something I can’t heal with Episkey, I’m going to be irritated. We’re clear?” 

The teenagers nodded their understanding. God, they were young. 

They made the motions as if they were about to pair off, but he called their attention back. 

“I’m picking your partners, actually,” he said, ignoring their crestfallen expressions. “I’ve been watching your spellwork and I’m going to pair you up in ways that I believe will challenge you. Most of you are, indeed, at the same level when it comes to performing the spells, but dueling is a lot more than just technical knowledge. It’s a dance. A performance. And you’ll learn more when you face an opponent whose style grates against yours.”

He began listing names, hearing either sighs or murmurs of excitement. “Marlene McKinnon and Severus Snape, Mary MacDonald and Remus Lupin, James Potter and Dorcas Meadowes,” an audible groan of disappointment as Potter and Black were separated, but he ignored it, “Sirius Black and Lily Evans.” 

“You will be dueling one at a time, in that order. Your classmates will be watching. After each display, I will examine what was done well and what could be improved upon. You will be required to write a half-page response due next class on your own match. McKinnon, Snape? You’re up.”

Ralph flicked his wand, and a large circular mat appeared on the floor, the group naturally spilling out around it. McKinnon looked determined, while Snape was decidedly uninterested, but both stepped onto the mat, readying themselves. 

“Do we bow, Professor?” Marlene asked, keeping her eyes on the boy’s wand. 

“Death Eaters won’t bow to you,” Ralph shrugged. “Start on my mark. Three, two, one… Begin!”

The match was quick, as he rather expected them all to be. Marlene was fast and powerful, but Severus was almost unnatural in his quick deflections, sending her curses scattering around the room–and several times into the crowd. 

When he did shoot a spell in her direction, it was nonverbal, and one that Ralph did not recognize. He had originally aimed to integrate the different houses in the class in a vain attempt to encourage friendly competition. It was becoming clear to him that some of his students had greatly differing experiences with curses than others. 

Marlene sent a stunning charm his way that he only just dodged in time, and she was flat on the floor in an instant, her legs bound in painful-looking chains. 

“Enough!” Ralph stepped in, waiting for Severus to lower his wand. It took longer than it should have. “First match to Severus Snape.” He muttered the countercurse and helped Marlene to her feet. She limped back to the outside of the circle, looking more frustrated than hurt. 

“Both of you did well. McKinnon, you’re quick and you’re aggressive. That’s good. But, when you face an opponent comfortable deflecting, you need to change your strategy.” He gestured to Snape. “He was letting you tire yourself out without breaking a sweat. Which meant he only needed a second of distraction to send a curse your way. Snape,” Ralph turned, “you’re relying too much on your wand work and not enough on your instincts. You could have won that match sooner if you’d engaged rather than just reacted.”

Both students nodded, glaring at each other. Ralph did his best to ignore it.

“Next group, you’re on.” 

Mary Macdonald and Remus Lupin both did well, even if they were both rather hesitant. He wouldn’t consider either of them natural duelists but thought they could both be taught to defend themselves rather admirably. 

A few more pairs came and went before Dorcas Meadowes entered the mat. She received a cheer from one of the Gryffindors, Lily Evans. Perhaps inter-house unity was not such an impossible idea. James Potter followed, who received far more support from the small bundle of Gryffindors. 

These two were both exceptional for their ages. James had the natural footwork and fluid movement necessary to fight, whereas Dorcas was uncommonly precise in her attacks, hitting tiny blind spots that her opponent would have trouble defending. Their match lasted as long as both of the others combined, and neither showed much sign of slowing. In a strange twist, it was James’s fans that ended the match for him. A deflected hex bounced toward the Gryffindors and he hesitated for just half a second. It was all Dorcas needed. He was locked in a body bind curse a heartbeat later. 

“Well done,” Ralph said and meant it. “That was better than I’d expected from any of you.” He reversed the jinx and James breathed a few deep breaths, both of them clearly exhausted. “You both will need to work on your stamina and variety of spells, but that will come with time. Potter, do you know why you lost?” 

James Potter, who was looking surprisingly cheerful, shrugged. “She hit me first, sir?” 

Ralph Mercer shook his head. “You got distracted. You looked at your friends.” He pointed to the spectators. “In a fight, it’s just you and your opponent. You get distracted, you die. Got it?” 

James nodded, and both left the mat. James was congratulated by the group despite his loss, whereas Dorcas went to stand alone, watching her successors with intensity. 

This would be the last pairing. 

Sirius Black was tall and lithe, his stance that of a practiced duelist. Knowing his last name, there was a good chance he’d grown up watching practice fights like these. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, watching Lily Evans take her place opposite him.

Lily Evans didn’t have any of her opponent’s physical anxiety, but there was a ferocity in her eyes. He’d noticed from their earlier classes that she had a tendency to hold herself back in practice bouts. She’d rather ensure a safe match than a winning one. Ralph hoped this would be the opponent to bring the worst out of her. 

If he’d asked any other professor, they would have surely recommended James Potter for that job. But Sirius Black, with his ill-timed comments and flair for the dramatic, would be a close second. 

“I can go easy on you if you like, Evans,” Sirius offered, smirking.

Lily said nothing. Nor did she respond to Sirius’s slow circling of her, his wand raised. She was extraordinarily still. So far, the only other duelist to display this level of patience had been Severus. 

Sirius, evidently thinking he could get the upper hand with non-verbal magic, shot a beam of red light toward her, which she deflected equally silently. A flicker of surprise showed on his face as he stopped his circling, looking at her, for the first time, as a real opponent. 

That’s when Lily moved. 

She was deathly quick, sending curse after curse at Sirius, who was deflecting them wildly as she moved closer to him. The spectators had the sense to back away from the mat, watching the match with energetic curiosity. 

For a few moments, the onslaught eased, both of their faces covered by a slight sheen of sweat. 

“You sure you don’t want to give in, now, Black?” Lily asked a small piece of her hair was singed and hanging awkwardly. 

“We’re only getting started, right?” Sirius retorted. 

This time, he advanced on her, firing hexes that she deflected, but just barely. The spells were so caught up in each other it was difficult even for Ralph to tell what was being cast. Ropes were flung and cut apart before they reached their targets and several patches of the floor had been transformed to ice. It was on one of those patches that Lily slipped, falling backward hard, her wand slipping out of her hand as Sirius Black stood above her, his wand pointed at her chest. 

“Do you yield, Evans?” He asked, with less smugness than Ralph might have expected. 

He also hadn’t expected the split-second pause from Lily, before she kicked out, fast as an adder, and swept Sirius Black off his feet with her leg. 

He landed beside her but kept his wand gripped tight. She reached for hers, spinning around to hex him again just as Ralph cast a blindingly bright shield charm between the two of them.

“That’s enough,” he said, his voice echoing calmly. “We’re out of time.” 

Both Lily and Sirius looked at each other, taking heaving breaths. The rest of the class looked rather frazzled, although many of them would clearly like to watch the duel go on. 

“I’m declaring this one to be the rare tie. You both fought well and adapted impressively to your opponent’s fighting styles. Sirius, you could cut down on the emotions. Your taunting could get you killed.”

*** It would. ***

“Lily, your wand is the last thing you let go of. When Sirius fell, he kept his, because, to him, his wand is just an extension of his arm. If you drop your wand, you’re dead.”

Lily nodded, gravely. 

“Class dismissed. If you’re injured, come here. Otherwise, I’m expecting those essays at the beginning of class next week.” 

The class filtered out, chattering excitedly, while Ralph set to work repairing the damage done to his room. He was comforted by the fact that most of his students would not be easy targets for those out there who wanted to hurt them.

But he couldn’t close his eyes to just how young they all were. And he knew, as clearly if he had been a Seer like his sister, not all of them would live to be his age, no matter what he did. 

*** Most of them would not. ***

No one would ever be able to say that Frank Longbottom wasn’t brave. He’d faced down his share of hexes and duels during his time at Hogwarts and had managed to do it as Head Boy, getting Outstanding on almost all of his OWLs while preparing to join the Auror department. 

But Frank was about to do one of the bravest things he ever would, at least in his estimation.

“Do you ever think about it?” He asked Alice, who was currently lounging on the sofa next to him, her feet in his lap. 

“Think about what?” She asked the end of a quill in her mouth. 

“Us?”

She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. “What about us?” 

He rolled his eyes, which earned him a gentle nudge of reproach. “We spend all our time together, Alice. We’ve been best friends forever. I would do literally anything you asked of me, and I’m pretty sure you’d do the same.” She nodded her confirmation. “Do you ever think of us as, like… an item?”

“Oh!” She said, her cheeks turning pink. “I mean… Why would I?” 

Those words froze the gleaming kernel of hope that had formed in Frank’s chest that had led him to ask the question, after all these years. Why would she? She was beautiful and remarkable and unstoppable. Why would she think of him like that?

“Right, of course,” he said, quickly, not quite able to meet her eyes. “I just wondered. You know everyone else thinks about it.”

“Right…” She said, slowly, still examining him with that shrewd gaze of hers. “But we don’t care what they think, do we?”

“Never,” he grinned. He almost meant it. 

*** Alice had thought about Frank every day for most of her life. 

She’d most certainly considered what else they could be, beyond

 friends. One day soon, she will be brave enough to risk it. ***

James Potter had thought the career advisory sessions would end in fifth year. After they’d decided what OWLs to take and passed them–in his case, with flying colors. After that, he’d thought he’d be free of the awkward fifteen-minute meeting with McGonagall, discussing what life after Hogwarts would hold. He was, as was often the case, wrong.

“I know you wish to be an Auror, Mr. Potter. And you have the marks for it.” Professor McGonagall said, after pouring them both a cup of tea. “My intention here is to ensure you’re in it for the right reasons.”

“What does that mean?” He asked, more defensively than was really necessary.

“It’s a hard job. It can take a lot out of you. And requires a lot of faith and obedience, at least in the early stages. I don’t want you to work this hard to enter the program only to find it’s not a comfortable fit.”

“You don’t think I can do it?” James hid the hurt in his voice reasonably well, but McGonagall’s opinion mattered more to him than he would have admitted.

“I think you can do anything you set your mind to, Mr. Potter. My question is, what do you want to do? In the simplest form, what do you want?”

“I…” He began, then thought about it. “I want to protect people.” 

She leaned back in her chair, assessing him with that frank look of hers. He took a bite of the biscuit offered to him, his chewing deafening in the extended silence. 

“There may be another option,” she said, finally. “I don’t feel comfortable discussing it until you’re of age, but there are paths beyond the Auror program for those who want to make a difference.”

He waited, but it seemed she was done talking.

“What does that mean for me?”

“Focus on your schoolwork. Stay out of trouble. Don’t get killed.” Her bluntness was refreshing, enough that he cracked a grin. 

“I can definitely do at least two of those things, Professor.”

**

Lily’s meeting with Professor McGonagall had a decidedly less jovial air to it. Not in the least because she still had no solid idea of what she wanted her life to look like once she left Hogwarts. 

“How is the year going for you so far, Miss Evans?” Professor McGonagall asked, as gently as she ever was. 

Lily smiled politely. “It’s grand, as always. I’m ‘specially enjoying Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“That’s good to hear,” McGonagall remarked. “I’m hearing good things from your other professors, and you’re, of course, doing well in Transfiguration.”

Lily just nodded. Professor McGonagall sighed.

“Lily, we have already discussed the Boggart situation. And, while I wish you had not taken the extreme lengths that landed you in detention, I understand your reaction. It is a very hard time, for muggleborns especially.” 

“Is there something you’re wanting me to say, Professor?” It was as close as Lily Evans would ever get to talking back to Professor McGonagall. But it had been a bad week.

“I want to make sure you’re alright. And, if you’re open to it, I want to discuss your life after school.” She leaned back in her chair. “You’re remarkably talented and driven. I find it difficult to believe the world would not be open to you if you wished it. I want to know why you don’t.”

“I…” Lily’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t explain, not with the anger slowly simmering in her gut. That the world was not open to her, because she was muggleborn and half the world wanted to kill her, while the other half wouldn’t hire her because she might endanger them. She could be talented and driven and strong and it would get her nowhere. Hogwarts had become a womb she needed to claw her way out of, no matter how much it frightened her. 

“Honestly, Professor, I just want to survive.”

*** Both Lily and James would fail to achieve their goals. ***