Oh deer!
Lily finds Marlene’s address in the yellow pages and apparates to her house just outside of London right after lunch. The boys are outside playing quidditch, and Lily is having testosterone overload. Plus, Marlene is a half-blood, so she can ditch the wizarding world for a while too.
“Hi!” Marlene says when she opens the door, pulling Lily into a tight hug. “Haven’t seen you in a minute. Where’ve you been?”
“Boy, have I got a story for you,” Lily says, straightening out Marlene’s top.
Marlene pours two glasses of lemonade and takes them into her bedroom, where she puts on a Fleetwood Mac record and sits on her bed. Lily takes a seat in her desk chair and sips her lemonade before launching into the story unprompted.
Unlike telling James or Remus or Mr. Potter what happened, Marlene gets it. Daughters. Women. Girls. She knows what it's like to fight with sisters, to fight with her mum. She understands the pressure, the weight in her chest, the tightness that feels like the fear of never being good enough. The expectations to live up to. Made up. To be a girl, you have to be the best. You just do.
“I’ve been obsessed with this idea of womanhood recently,” Marlene says, after the story is said and done, after Lily has had her cry. “We’re brought up differently, yet we’re expected to be the same. There’s this poem I like by Anne Bradstreet, it’s actually a prologue to one of her poetry collections. She says that women are a ‘sweet consort from broken strings’. We are… we’re not given the same opportunities, we are not treated the same. We are given a broken violin, and we’re still expected to be the best violinists ever.” Marlene crosses her hands in her lap. “Lily, you were given a shitty violin. Here’s what we don’t realize: you don’t have to make a beautiful song. You don’t have to be perfect. You can be yourself, and you are enough.”
Lily swipes a tear right out of her eye and nods.
“It’s not our job to make ourselves worthy of love. It’s everyone else's job to love us as we are.”
Lily sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly, calming heart rate. Marlene gets it. Marlene always gets it.
“I think… I think there’s a reason that women are constantly compared to nature. It’s unpredictable, it’s dangerous, it’s deadly, it’s beautiful,” Marlene says. “And you, Lily? You’re as close to nature as a human gets.”
“You’ll make me cry all over again,” Lily says, voice thick.
“I want you to know these things though, okay?” Marlene moves across the room and kneels in front of Lily, taking both of her hands. “I love you. I love you with all my heart.”
“I love you too,” Lily says, lifting Marlene’s hands to kiss them. “Thank you for making me feel better.”
“Thank you for being you.”
Lily wraps her arms around Marlene’s neck and hugs her tight. Women and nature and love and might. Lily is finally defining womanhood. She will figure it out. She won’t try to be enough because she already is.
Strength pulses out of Marlene and into Lily’s soul.
Here is where her journey begins.
~
The day before Remus has to go home to prepare for the moon, Peter comes to the Potter’s because it’s a weekend. In the morning, before it gets too hot, they walk down to the river to swim. Lily actually has a swimming costume with her this time, so she wades in the surprisingly warm water along with the boys.
“The rocks feel weird on my feet.” Lily says. “They’re slimy.”
“It’s ‘cuz they’re fishy.” Remus is already on the other side of the creek, at the shallow end where it’s easy to catch fish. “Fishy, fishy, fishy.”
“Oi, Evans!” Sirius shouts, jumping on her shoulders and forcing her underwater.
It’s warm, yet still cold on her face, and she comes up spluttering, bun sliding down her head. “You piece of shit! I wasn’t gonna get my hair wet!”
Sirius laughs loudly, head thrown back.
Lily splashes him, then he stares at her, affronted. She splashes him again.
“Was that necessary?”
“Yeah, yeah. I think it was.”
He lunges at her, but she dives out of the way, straight into James. He catches her, and she thinks she’s safe, but it’s only for a moment before James is shoving her underwater. While down, she kicks him in the shins. She takes advantage of that moment of weakness and dunks James’ head underwater.
“I’ve got you Prongs!” Sirius comes up behind Lily and grabs her by the waist to throw her away. He saves James from under the water.
They both turn on Lily.
“Oh no,” she says, giggling, eyes squinting and hair-tie lost. “Oh no.”
“I think Evans needs a taste of her own medicine,” Sirius says to James.
Remus and Peter have stopped fishing, instead watching the fight go down.
“No,” Lily giggles.
“I agree, Mr. Padfoot,” James says. “She’s getting too cocky.”
“Excellent point, Mr. Prongs.”
At that moment, Lily tries to swim away, but James catches her by the ankle and drags her in. She thrashes in his grip, but he’s got a firm arm around her. Her back is to his chest. He takes her underwater once. She can’t get away, though she’s not trying very hard.
“Let me go!” She cries out.
“Nope!” James dunks her again.
Next, he takes her by the waist and lifts her out of the water. Literally picks her up.
“James! James! Put me down!” She shouts, kicking. The other boys are absolutely dying of laughter. “You fucking prick! Put me down!”
“If you say so,” James says.
He throws her. She spends a solid few seconds in the air before splashing into the water. Unlike Sirius’ throw, this has strength behind it, this was…
Kind of sexy.
Wait.
When Lily comes out of the water, James and Sirius are beginning to spar each other, so she assumes she’s off the hook. James’ hands linger on her waist, her arm around her stomach, his voice in her ear.
Tired, Lily hoists herself onto the shallow part of the creek with Remus and Peter.
“All your thrashing scared the goddamn fish off,” Remus says. “Ain’t no fish coming by.”
“Sorry,” Lily says, grinning, not sorry at all.
Later, they head back up to the house for lunch, then dry out on a screened in porch, talking about their summer homework, not actually doing it. The summer homework stays firmly in their trunks until the week before school starts. For Sirius, it’s in his trunk until the time it's due.
“The letters came early this year, didn’t they,” Peter says. “I already got mine.”
“Prongs got his.” Sirius wiggles his eyebrows, and James throws a piece of crust at him.
“Why? What was in it?” Lily asks.
“Oh, you know, just a–”
“Sirius,” James cuts him off. “Shut up.”
“He’s Head Boy,” Remus says boredly.
“Moony!” James exclaims.
He shrugs. “Lily deserves to know.”
“Yeah, I do!” She says. “What did you think? That I wouldn’t find out? I’m Head Girl.”
“Well done, swot,” Sirius says.
“Yeah, congrats,” Peter agrees.
Lily looks at James. “You can’t call me a swot anymore.”
“Says who.”
“Says Dumbledore!”
“I’m afraid the ginger is correct,” Sirius grimaces as the words come out of his mouth. “Prongs, you are officially a swot. Moony, you have now renounced your swot status.”
“Yay,” Remus says sarcastically, knowing he never truly was a swot. In his two years of being a Prefect, Lily thinks that he only performed his duties thrice. He also regularly hexed people he didn’t like for no other reason than existing. His knuckles are permanently scarred from the fights he gets into.
“Don’t give me shit for it,” James says to Lily. “I’ve already received enough from this lot.”
“Why would I give you shit?” She replies. “This’ll be fun. At least my partner won’t be some stinky dipshit from Ravenclaw.”
“Fuck the Ravenclaws,” Peter says quietly.
Remus snorts.
~
Lily sits in her bed. The Potter’s bed. This room that is not her own, this room that feels more like home than she ever felt with her family. Maybe Hogwarts could compare, but can a school ever be a home? It’s the people, it’s her girls, it’s her boys. That’s the home.
This is a home.
She’s reading. Remus lent her a book, one of his favorites, Fallen Angels by Ernest Hemingway. It’s weird in the way that most Hemingway is, just slightly unnerving under the surface. Remus usually prefers Poe.
She’s been reading it all night, she’s almost done; it’s a short book. Anything to distract herself from her own mind.
Half past eleven, there’s a knock on the door. Remus and Sirius are doing whatever they do behind closed doors, and James usually goes to bed early because he wakes up with the sun.
“Come in,” Lily says, expecting either Mrs. or Mr. Potter.
James opens the door, sweatpants and t-shirt, cut on his cheek. It’s cleaned now, disinfected. At this point, he’s almost as scarred as Remus, focused on protecting his friends’ honor rather than self-preservation. He keeps his hand on the door knob, “I can go.”
“No, it’s okay.” Lily dog-ears her page. Both she and Remus believe that books should be loved in physical ways, covered in highlighter and pencil, dog-eared and cracked. “Come sit.”
“I actually…” He steps in, just barely, hand still on the door. “I should go.”
“It’s fine, James, really.” Lily throws her covers off and slips out of bed, drawing her arms around herself. Every once in a while, James gets this strange air around him. Remus calls it a ‘fit’. He gets himself worked up about things, and can’t drop them until they’re solved. It would be called an anxiety disorder if wizards cared about that sort of thing. “What’s up?”
“I just.” He scratches the back of his head, glancing around the room, looking everywhere except Lily. “I don’t want to be alone. Not right now. I can’t bother the lovers and my mum and dad are…”
“Hey,” she says softly, striding forward to take his hand. “You’re okay, yeah? Let’s go downstairs. Do you want any tea?”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“You couldn’t bother me if you tried.”
“Yes, I could.”
Lily rolls her eyes, leading him out of the room. The hallways are silent. She catches a whiff of the silencing charm that seems to perpetually linger around Remus’ door, then goes down the stairs. James keeps his hand in hers, not pulling away, but it’s limp, allowing her to pull away at any time, thinking that she’d want to.
“I want you to tell me what’s bothering you,” Lily says, passing through the living room, into the kitchen. “There’s clearly something.”
“Yeah, there is,” James admits. He lightly shakes his hand, signaling that Lily should let go. She does, and James grabs two mugs from the cupboard. “I don’t know if I should tell you about it though. I just couldn’t sleep, and I hate being alone. I always hate the summers when I get like this.”
Lily hoists herself onto the counter. “Why?”
“Because,” he pats his waistband for his wand, but comes up short. Tea the manual way, then. “Because at Hogwarts, in the dorms, I’m never alone. We live in such close proximity, the lads and I. Remus has a sixth sense when it comes to me, and he will get me to talk about it. Sirius is always there to crawl into bed with me. Peter distracts me with games or quidditch. They just know because we’re so close together. Here, we’re all so far away.”
He speaks as he makes tea, filling the kettle with water, grabbing herbal tea bags from a cabinet, sugar from the tray. “I’m scared of what it’s gonna be like when we leave school. I don’t like having my own room.”
“Maybe Peter’ll move in with you.”
James gives her a disbelieving look, ripping the paper cover over a teabag with his teeth. “Fat chance.”
Lily laughs. “Is that what’s bugging you? The future?”
“In a way, yes.” He straightens the condiments and spices on the counter for something to do. His hands are shaking. “Also the past. Regrets and things.”
“You have regrets?”
“Everyone has regrets.”
“You don’t seem like the type of person to regret,” Lily says. “You’re strong and you’re a leader. You do things and you don’t look back. You experience love so strongly that it consumes you.”
“That’s just it, I think,” he says, voice going soft. “I get blinded. I get selfish. I regret that.”
“Any specific event?”
He looks up from his spices and condiments, right at Lily, the first time he’s looked at her tonight. “I regret how I handled you.”
Lily gulps. “What do you mean?”
“The public displays, the constant demands, the way I took control of your life. I didn’t listen to you. I wasn’t fair to you.”
“You were young.”
“I was stupid.” It’s either a trick of the light or he’s tearing up. He blinks. “I am stupid. I thought I was entitled to you, and I’m not.”
“It’s–”
“Don’t tell me it’s okay, because it’s not.” He slides a teacup towards Lily, but won’t look at her. “Let me apologize.”
“I forgive you, James. I forgave you a long time ago.”
“Thank you.” He gulps.
Lily sips her tea. Ginger. James used to grab her hair and make fun of the color, probably because he didn’t know what else to do around her. The typical teasing that boys do when they have crushes. It reminded Lily of Anne of Green Gables, but she always pitied Anne; never wanted to be her. Although, she imagined the day she got to smash her slate on James’ head.
“I wanted to let you know that I’m done with all that shit now, okay?” He says, finally looking at her. “No more asking you out, no more making you feel bad for not liking me back, none of it. It may have taken me six years, but I think I’m over it. I’m over you, in the kindest way possible.”
“I’m glad,” Lily says, a shot to her heart. Anne and Gilbert got together in the end. Does she not get to be with James?
Get to be with James?
Is this what she anticipated afterall? Not James getting over her and going off to marry some other girl, but her finally returning his feelings? James is releasing her. He’s letting her go.
Lily doesn’t want him to.
“Hug for old times sake?” James says, grinning. He looks lighter. It’s been weighing on him.
Lily nods, throat thick. James puts down his tea cup and walks to stand to the side of her. Lily leans down and wraps her arms around him, cheek on the top of his head. He smells like soap and ginger tea and the Potter’s. He is a boy who is made of love, and Lily is a girl who was made without it. It could never work.
Lily repeats that to herself. It could never work. It would never work.
She’d ruin him.
~
It’s the day before the full moon, and their little group of five have joined in Remus’ tiny bedroom in his cottage in Wales. They’re dizzy and breathless from the apparation trip, but it could never amount to Remus’ pain. It gets older with age, the transformations. Werewolves usually don’t live very long. James insists that its due to hunting and suicides. Remus is under the impression that he’ll be dead by thirty. Sirius doesn’t talk about it.
Remus is ridden with a vicious fever, giving him chills and sweats, nightmares and palpitations. He draws further into himself as the Wolf comes outward. His patience is paper thin. He picks a fight with anyone and everyone. Four out of the five people he’s gotten into physical fights with were just a week before the full moon, and he won every single one.
James, Lily, and Peter come and go from his bedroom, bringing him food and checking on him, mostly just chilling and watching the telly while they wait for the sun to set. Sirius hasn’t left Remus’ bedside all day. He refuses.
“It’s obvious sometimes, don’t you think?” James says, feet up on the Lupin’s ottoman, gnawing on an entire cucumber. The Lupins are an ingredient-only household. “Sirius and Remus.”
Lily nods. Her feet are drawn to her chest. She and James are on opposite sides of the couch, and she feels dirty, this realization making her question every word that has ever spat out of her mouth.
“I just wish…” James continues, mouth full. “I wish they would trust us. I’d be okay with it. I am okay with it.”
“So am I,” Peter says. “One of the birds in chess club is a lesbian. None of us care much.”
Lily nods again. Since two nights ago, her words have been failing her. Her mind is on overdrive. She likes James. Does she like James? Lily Potter. Mrs. Lily Potter. Does she? Does she?
“I might confront it about them before the summer is over,” James says. “See what they say. I know I’m right.”
“Half the school knows you’re right,” Peter says, kicking out his legs. “Maybe we should start dropping hints. Say, like, we’re okay with queers in a regular context.”
“In what context are we ever talking about queers?”
“I dunno? Bowie?”
“Bowie’s not queer,” Lily interjects.
“You don’t know that.” James kicks her in the knee. He would’ve never dared for a simple touch like that before. It was all intentional. Hand holding. The occasional hug. Now, he’s kicking her like she’s one of the boys. Like she’s Sirius. She stares at her knee, where James’ foot touched.
“What about Freddie Mercury?” Peter says. “I feel like Remus uses the word ‘queer’ to describe Freddie Mercury at least twice a week.”
“He talks about Freddie Mercury too much,” James says under his breath.
“You talk about Carly Simon too much.”
“She’s hot!”
“It’s girl music!”
Lily kicks Peter in the head, he’s sitting on the floor in front of her.
“Hey!” He scoots away, hand on his head.
“There’s nothing wrong with girl music.”
“Yeah!” James echoes in solidarity. “Besides, Peter likes ABBA.”
“I do not!” He shoots up.
“Tell that to the cassettes in your trunk.”
“Why were you looking in my trunk?!”
“I was folding your socks!”
“Stop that! It’s weird!”
James is about to say something else when the stairs creak, and Remus becomes visible, Sirius holding him up. They immediately go silent, holding a kind of silent vigil.
“Seven,” Remus says weakly, shoving Sirius off him as soon as he gets down the stairs. He can barely hold himself up, but he regards receiving help as the worst possible thing. “Seven o’clock.”
“Oh shit, right.” James checks his watch and hops up. “Right. We’ll go down now, yeah? Are you hungry?”
“I feel like I’m going to projectile vomit.”
“Okay!” James says cheerily. “Okay, we’ll just–”
“James,” Sirius interrupts. He jerks his head to the side, towards Lily,
“Oh.” He looks at her. “I’ll take you home.”
“What? Aren’t you going home too?” She says.
James rubs his face. “I’m staying.”
“Then I’ll stay too.”
“You can’t,” he says. “Lily. You can’t.”
“And why can you? Is it ‘cuz you’re a boy?”
“No! Godric…”
Remus pushes through the two, heat literally radiating off him. He’s sweaty and tired and he’s about to stay up all night, bones cracking out of place, expanding and shrinking. “Lily, just fuck off.”
“What!?”
“Get him to the cellar,” James tells Sirius. He then grabs Lily by the arm and drags her outside. The sun is low on the horizon, about to turn over to the moon.
“James, let–let go!” She says, struggling against him.
“Stop struggling,” he says, basically emotionless.
“No, fuck–”
“You’ll splinch.”
“What?”
“I’m taking you home no matter what.”
“Why are you staying?”
“I can’t tell you!” He says, frustration audible in his voice. Lily gets difficult sometimes. She can’t help it. She doesn’t know what’s going on.
James wraps his arms around Lily and disapparates. A crack and a land, right in the garden of the Potter Manor. Lily falls over and vomits onto the ground. She didn’t splinch, but apparation from Wales to Godric’s Hollow is never good on her stomach, nonetheless when she’s struggling.
“Do not go back to the Lupin’s,” James tells Lily. He kneels in front of her, just shy of where the vomit is, and takes one of her hands. “Do you hear me? Do not go back.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m some type of child.”
“I need to be sure that you understand me.” He looks into her eyes. Brown on green. “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. Go to Marlene’s or Mary’s or something, but do not go to the Lupin’s. It’s not safe for you.”
“But it’s safe for you?”
“I’ll explain later.” He drops her hand, takes a step back, and disapparates.
Lily vomits again.
~
When James comes back sometime in the afternoon the next day, Lily is furious with him. Peter had to go home, and Sirius is still with Remus, apparently refusing to leave his side.
Lily won’t speak with James. She contemplates going home home for a few hours, but decides not to. Mr. and Mrs. Potter are out on missions sent out by the Order of the Phoenix. James is on edge. Lily is on edge. The entire world feels like it’s on edge.
Other than James saying hello and stating where the others are, he has not spoken to Lily, and she has not spoken to him. She doesn’t know how Remus is doing, if the horrible moons have returned, the ones where he tears himself to shreds. Sometime during fifth year, The Wolf matured and he was left with fewer injuries following the transformation, but it still affects him occasionally.
Lily grabs her wand from her room, used to not using it over the summer, and marches out to the back garden. James is nowhere to be found. She reaches a spot without wards and braces herself, apparating to the Lupin’s.
When she gets there, she holds her ground and fights off nausea to walk right up to the front door of the cottage. A storm is brewing in the distance, clouds building overhead. It’ll reach Godric’s Hollow by the evening.
Lily walks right up to the door and knocks, ferocity carrying her to the threshold.
Mrs. Lupin answers. She’s frail, short hair. Her last round of chemo was last month. Breast cancer.
“Hi,” Lily composes herself. “How’s Remus?”
“He’s just fine,” Mrs. Lupin whispers, the way people do when a baby is sleeping. She opens the door to let her in. “Tired and sore, but the boys stitched him up this morning. That James is good with healing charms.”
“Yeah. Can I go see him?”
“Of course, sweetheart. It was so nice of you to come by.” She leads Lily through the house. It’s homey. It creaks. There’s pictures on the wall. Mrs. Lupin is like that, warm and kind, a bit creaky. “Sirius is with him right now. I keep trying to send him home, but he won’t go.”
“Sirius is like that,” Lily says.
“Like what?”
“Loyal.”
Mrs. Lupin nods. They climb the stairs, and Mrs. Lupin shows Lily to Remus’ room even though she knows where it is. She knocks on the door softly, then opens it.
Lily peers in. Remus is asleep. Sirius is lying beside him, though he quickly rolls off the bed when Lily enters.
“Hey,” she says, voice soft.
“Hi,” Sirius says. He blushes, trying and failing to act casual.
“Is he okay?” Lily asks.
Sirius nods. “Yeah. He’s fine.”
“I just, I only thought… you wouldn’t leave, so I thought that something was wrong.”
“Nah, nah.” He itches the back of his neck. “If something was really wrong, then James would be here trying to find a solution.”
The mention of his name reminds Lily of why she was angry. It doesn’t seem very important anymore, not when the moon has just passed. “You’re right.”
“You know what?” Sirius says. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“A walk?”
“A walk.”
Lily shrugs, taking one last look at Remus, completely out on his bed. His chest rises and falls, sun partially on his face. He doesn’t so much as stir. While he’s asleep, nothing hurts.
She follows Sirius out of the house. They tell Mrs. Lupin what they’re doing before leaving, but she’s spacing out and doesn’t hear them. According to Remus, that’s normal. She just zones out sometimes.
The storm hasn’t reached them yet, but they both know it’s a matter of minutes before the rain begins to fall, so they stay close to the house. The skies are quickly darkening and thunder rumbles.
“Did James get home okay?” Sirius asks, looking at the sky, clouds building up, up, up.
“Yeah,” Lily replies. “I haven’t spoken to him, though.”
“You’re mad at him?”
“I guess.”
Sirius sighs, looking back down to Lily. “He’s so… he’s so righteous sometimes. But you know what, Lily? I’m not. I’ll tell you why you couldn’t stay.”
“You will?”
He nods. “I don’t… I don’t want to keep it from you anymore. Not when you’re living with us, and James is still feeling the way he is–”
“No.” Lily cuts him off.
“What?”
“James doesn’t feel the same anymore. He told me himself.”
“Oh. Well. That’s news to me.” He bumps his elbow into Lily’s, grinning a bit. “But whatever James says, goes, right?”
Lily shrugs.
“Anyway, we’re all animaguses.”
Lily coughs. “What?!”
“Yeah.”
She blinks hard, brain whirring behind her eyes, hardly able to comprehend what she’s being told. Animaguses at seventeen, though it took Mcgonagall years to become one, though you aren’t allowed to start trying until you’re seventeen.
“No,” she says. “No way. You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not,” Sirius says. “We became animaguses in fifth year.”
“Fifth year?” Lily whispers, air knocked out of her. “Sirius, that’s illegal. You could go to Azkaban. You’ve gotta walk me through the thought process of this.”
“Fine,” Sirius says, “but not here.” He takes Lily’s elbow and leads her to the back garden that backs up to the forest, the cellar where Remus transforms in the middle. Lily swears she feels a drop of rain on her forehead.
They sit down in the grass. Lily picks at it. “What’s your form?”
“A dog,” Sirius says. “A big, black dog. The Wolf likes me best. I think it’s ‘cuz I’m a canine too. James is a stag. Once he fully matured, he got beautiful. Peter’s a rat. We’re not reading too much into that.”
Lily watches the clouds. The highest layer moves slow, but the lower, wispy layer, is fast.
“We got the idea in third year. That’s when Remus’ transformations really started getting bad. Puberty and all. We took James’ invisibility cloak to the restricted section of the library and looked up books on werewolves. There’s no solution. There’s nothing that helps, though some guy is developing a potion that he calls Wolfsbane.” Sirius picks a big clump of grass and begins sorting through it. “We found out that the Wolf is less likely to self-harm when there’s other animals or wolves around, so we decided to become animaguses. Stole a book, copied down the directions. Two years later, in fifth year, Peter got it. A few weeks later, I got it. A month after me, James managed it. Remus didn’t want us to go to the shack with him, but we did anyway.”
“And it helps?”
“Immensely. We’re his… we’re his pack, in a way. He doesn’t try to hurt us anymore. The Wolf is much more… amicable when we’re around.”
A light drizzle begins to fall. Sirius throws his grass away and grabs a new clump. “You know that you can’t tell anyone.”
“I know.”
“Not Marlene, not Mary, not Dorcas. We trust you and we trust them, but we can’t risk anything. Not with Remus’ life on the line.”
Lily tears a piece of grass in half.
“He thinks that, if he was left up to it, by himself, he’d be dead by now.”
“Oh.”
Sirius nods. The drizzle turns into light rain. Thunder gets closer. They sit in the grass, rain splattering on their faces, their legs, their arms. It’s itchy.
“Why wouldn’t James tell me?” Lily sighs. There’s a pile of grass on her socks, green, broken. She needs to smoke. She needs her girls. “Does he not think I’m trustworthy?”
“He does,” Sirius says. “He does, always, he knows you and he loves you–”
“--but–”
“Don’t argue with me on this.” There’s intention in Sirius’ voice, a strange moment where he’s not sarcastic, not joking around. Not many people get to know this side of him. It feels like an honor. “He loves you. I love you. None of us throw those words around lightly.”
“James loves everybody.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Sirius lays down and closes his eyes. Raindrops dampen his t-shirt, the grass stains on the bottom. “He loves often. He loves with his whole heart. That is who James is. He loves his friends, not everybody.”
“I’ve never told anybody that I love them,” Lily says quietly. She thinks she might be crying. “Not even my family. Sometimes, I tried to, but then I couldn’t.”
“Love is a hard word.”
“But I did. I loved my dad, and I love my stupid mum and my stupid sister. I have never told them that. It feels like something they can hold against me.”
Sirius sits up, cross-legged, facing Lily. He takes one of her hands and kisses the palm. “Lily, do you love me?”
“Of course I do.”
Lighting flashes. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight. Thunder rumbles.
“Say it to me, then. Practice.”
Lily rubs her face, then turns to Sirius. He’s such a flawed being, but he’s good. Inside out, he tries so hard to be good. Gentle lover, gentle boy. She loves him, she does. She loves him so much sometimes it makes her bones ache.
“I love you,” Sirius tells her, holding both her hands. “Lily, I love you.”
She swallows. If this is what saying I love you feels like, then she’ll have a conniption when she loses her virginity. “Sirius.”
He squeezes her hands.
“I love you.”
Sirius smiles.
“I love you so much.”
Sirius hugs her, wrapping his arms tightly around her torso, tucking his chin on her shoulder. It’s not like a James hug, where every touch is electrified, where Lily feels like she’ll explode when she’s in his grasp, but it’s not like a Marlene hug either. This is Sirius. This is a boy who was raised so badly that he turned good.
“I love you,” Lily whispers, the words flowing out of her easily now that they’ve been spoken into existence. Sirius will never betray her, she knows this in her heart. “I love you, my boy, I love you.”
“Oi!”
Lily jumps, falling back and looking up at the house. Remus is standing on the top step, hood pulled over his head, one arm on the railing to keep him steady.
“Why are you downstairs?” Sirius says, wiping his hands on his trousers as he stands up.
“Why are you in my grass while it’s storming?”
Lily lays down and laughs. The rain hits her face and she lets it. A woman of nature, the will of a Mother, a girl who finally told somebody that she loves them. Lightning flashes. One… two… three… four… five. Thunder crashes.
“Hey dipshit!” Remus shouts. “Get inside or I will literally come get you!”
Lily rolls over, still giggling. She shouts, “Remus, I love you!”
“Thank you, I love you too!” He smiles briefly, forgetting that he’s supposed to be angry. “Now get inside, you absolute fuck!”
“Coming!” Lily stands up and runs inside, all muddy knees and muddy shoes. She kisses Remus’ cheek, then hugs him tightly.
“Goddamnit, Lily, you’re all wet,” he grumbles.
“I love you,” she says into his chest.
“Are you okay?” He asks.
“Never better.” Lily lets him go and watches his confused face. Mind muddled from the moon, unable to comprehend Lily’s good mood.
Good. Let her remain a mystery.
~
When Lily gets back to the Potter house with Sirius in tow, she’s completely soaked. Mr. and Mrs. Potter are home, working on dinner together that smells of delicious spices and smokey meat.
“Brought him back,” Lily says, holding Sirius’ hand up like a trophy.
“You’ve got to stop coming back dripping,” Mrs. Potter says, smiling. “Monty, cast them with a drying charm, won’t you?”
“‘Course, darling,” he says absentmindedly, flicking his wand at the both of them, making them completely dry. “How’s Remus today?”
“The usual,” Sirius says, leaning against the counter. “It wasn’t a bad moon, but it certainly wasn’t a good one. He had… he had some moments.”
“Try this.” Mrs. Potter puts a spoon to Sirius’ lips, and he obediently eats the contents of the spoon.
“More salt,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s great.”
“Perfect. Dinner is almost ready, so you can go get James. He’s knackered today.”
Sirius pushes off the counter, but Lily stops him. “I’ll get him.”
She looks at Sirius, and he nods, understanding. They need a moment alone. Just a moment so that Lily can apologize.
Up the stairs, down the hall, past the plaques. Remus’ name is still written on his even when he isn’t staying like he’s a true member of the family.
James’ door is closed, and Lily knocks.
No reply.
She knocks again. “James?”
No reply.
Carefully, she cracks open the door and peeks inside. The room is darkened, the curtains drawn, and James is a ball under his covers, this blue quilt. She steps in the room and leaves the door open. The floors creak under her feet, James doesn’t stir.
“James?” She whispers.
He’s out.
She sits on his bed and rubs his shoulder, looking at his mop of black hair, his glasses-less face. He’s so calm like this, a rare moment where he’s still. Lily traces the slope of his nose with her eyes, his tall nose bridge, the way it comes to a tip. He has a strong jaw fluffed up with stubble, dark on his upper lip and jaw. Big eyes, big lips. Even when Lily hated James, she knew he was attractive. Somehow, that made her hate him more.
“James,” Lily shakes him.
He makes a humming sound, stirring slightly.
“Wake up,” she says. “Dinner’s ready.”
He rolls onto his back and opens his swollen eyes, looking at Lily through his eyelashes. “Well, isn’t this just a dream,” he says cheekily.
Lily rolls her eyes. “Your mum told me to come get you.”
“Thanks for coming.” He sits up, grunting a bit, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “How’s Remus?”
“Just fine.”
James looks at Lily for a moment, as if he’s studying her in the same way she was studying him just a moment ago. Red hair, freckled cheeks, just a little bit sunburnt.
“Sirius told me,” Lily spat out. “About you and him and… Peter.”
“Oh dear,” James says.
Lily covers her mouth with her hand and lets out a disgusting bark of a laugh, so loud that it makes James jump. A break of tension. She can’t be angry with James for long. Not anymore.
“Jesus Christ, James,” she laughs. “You can’t just pull that out of your arse.”
“I forget you haven’t heard that joke before.” He laughs along with her, light giggling, a glorious sound, warm and husky. “I take it you’re not angry anymore?”
“Of course I’m not angry,” she says, calming down. “I wanted to apologize for acting like a dick. I didn’t know what was going on. I had no right to yell at you like that.”
“Yes, you did. You had every right. You didn’t know.”
“I’m just…” Lily trails off, distracted by James’ hair. It’s long in the summer, falling over his forehead and into his eyes. “I’m so quick to shout sometimes. I want you to know that I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” James says. “I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
“It’s incredible, everything you do for Remus.”
“He’s my friend.” James shrugs casually, as if becoming an animagus at fifteen is a normal reaction to having a werewolf as a friend, risking jail, risking everything. Lily doesn’t know if she would’ve done it if she was given the chance. She doesn’t think she could give that much of herself to someone else.
“We’ve all got to support each other, right?” He continues, “There’s a war on, and everyone’s dying, but at least we have each other. Let’s always have each other, okay?”
“Okay,” Lily agrees softly. She wants to hold James’ hand. She wants to kiss him on his neck. She wants to be held by him, for him to kiss her forehead and tell her everything will be okay.
“Dinner?” James throws his legs off the bed and stands. “It smells good.”
“Yeah.” Lily stands up as well, running a hand through her frizzy hair, in a daze. “It does.”