To Ashes

When Lily would later look back on her arrival to the Potter estate, all that would float to the murky surface of her memories was the awe she felt, an overwhelming wave of it that left her standing stock still in the middle of the foyer while James’s parents greeted them. It wasn’t just the grand house that rose around her like a palace, or the sprawling garden, or the art and furnishings that made her feel out of place in a home so fine. It was the ease at which James moved through it all that really knocked her out of place. She’d never belonged anywhere like that. Her first impressions of James’s parents were lost in that awe, which she would later regret. 

The following hours were a blur. They were plied with food and warm drinks, and fussed over by Mrs. Potter before being shuffled off to bed. The girls were all given separate bedrooms - there seemed to be an endless supply of them - but after a sleepless hour spent tossing and turning in the dark they drifted one by one into Lily’s.

They talked a little, but the air around them felt too strange, too alien. They’d been plucked out of place and dropped somewhere new. There was nothing to say after the day they’d had, so they lay huddled in the large bed together in silence and took comfort in the feeling of a warm body next to them.

It could’ve been hours or mere minutes, but eventually Marlene and Mary’s breathing deepened. Lily was still wide awake, staring up at the ceiling. Eventually she sat up and slid gingerly out of the bed, taking great care not to jostle the mattress as she left. She tugged a jumper and her cigarettes from her rucksack and slipped out the door, wincing as it creaked in protest. 

The plush carpet muffled her footsteps as she crept down the hall, aiming for the direction in which James had disappeared at the end of the night. She passed by the rooms given to Peter and Remus (She suspected Remus’s was empty, anyways), hesitated at one door before deciding it was probably the one she’d seen Sirius dragging his bag into. Lily finally came to a stop outside of the final door in the hall. There was nothing to distinguish it as James’s room other than the odd tug in her gut telling her he was inside. She tried not to read too deeply into that.

She shifted from one foot to the other, worrying her lip as she decided if she really wanted to disturb him or not. She nearly turned around to head back to her room, but the thought of a sleepless night staring into the inky darkness kept her standing at his door. As Lily finally  raised her hand to knock, the door flew open fast enough that she leapt back, yelping in surprise. 

A twin yelp came from the mouth of a very startled James, and for a moment they just stood there staring at each other with wide eyes, and it wasn’t until her heart stopped feeling like it was going to beat right out of her chest that Lily opened her mouth.

“Sorry.” She croaked.

“No, no.” He said quickly. “All okay?”

Lily realized after a moment that she was staring at the way his hair was mussed from his pillow. She shook herself slightly. “Yeah, where were you going?”

James raised a brow. “I open my own bedroom door to you just standing there right in front of it, like some weird prowler, and you’re the one questioning me?”

Lily hoped that the dim light would hide the flush pooling in her cheeks. “I couldn’t sleep.” 

James’s smile slipped slightly. “Me either. I was actually going to go see if you were awake.”

She slipped the pack of cigarettes from her pocket and held them up in silent question.

“Brilliant.” He opened the door wider so she could slip inside. It was too dark to get a good look at the room, she could just barely make out heavy drapes and dark, shiny wood furniture that looked expensive. Lily thought she could see the minute movement of quidditch posters on the wall by his bed.

“Should we go to the garden?”

“Oh,” James brightened, padding over to the curtained windows, “no need.” He tugged aside one of the velvet drapes to reveal that what Lily had assumed was a window was, in fact, a door. 

“You have a balcony? Right off your room?” She tried to muffle the incredulity in her voice.

“Yes?” James looked puzzled. “Something wrong?”

“No.” Lily sighed. “Just trying to squash my seething class resentment.” James smiled uncomprehendingly, opening the door for her. She patted his arm as she passed. 

James drew the heavy quilt from his bed around their shoulders as they sank to the floor of the balcony, knees knocking together as they settled into place. The night was cold but clear, the dark velvet of the sky strung with stars that winked gently down at them. They didn’t talk for a long while. 

He liked that about her, that they could just sit comfortably in silence. James had so few moments of calm in his life, he was always rushing from class to quidditch practice to the shrieking shack to the woods on the four legs of the stag and back again, over and over and over. It was so rare not to be attached to Sirius’s hip, or to have Peter trailing after him, or to be decoding Remus’s various winces and grunts of pain. Lily had no expectations of him, and she let him break the silence first.

“I hope they find the bastard. I hope they rot in Azkaban.” James hated how thin his voice sounded against the sky.

“Me too.” Lily whispered.

“Do you think they’ll close the school?”

Lily hesitated. “I don’t know. I think that would be like admitting Dumbledore couldn’t handle it.”

“I-” He stopped himself, took a breath. “I’m so fucking scared.” It was easier when they were alone together, to let the fear unfurl like a ribbon. It didn’t feel shameful to let her see it.

“I know.” She said softly. “I am too.”

It was silly, how five words could lift such a great weight off of his shoulders, Atlas releasing the burden of the earth. “It feels stupid, saying it out loud.”

She shook her head. “Not stupid, never that.”

“I just,” he ran a hand through his hair wearily, “I feel helpless.”

“It’s because we’re just waiting. Waiting to see if the Aurors catch them, waiting to see if they strike again.”

A slight tremble tugged at Lily’s voice, and James felt a spike of guilt for adding to her worry. 

“I’m sorry.”

She blinked up at him, confused. “For?”

“Blathering on about how scared I am.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because I’ve no right to be scared. I’m not a muggleborn.” 

Lily drew her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. She was silent for a moment, staring consideringly up at the crescent moon hanging in the sky, and James found himself thinking about how heavily he depended on whatever she had to say.

“Your home has been invaded.” She said finally. “You’ve every right to be scared.”

“It’s not the same.”

“No,” she agreed, “but you shouldn’t be expected to be completely unaffected.” 

He sighed but didn’t respond. 

Lily glanced down at her now empty pack “We really should quit smoking”

James hesitated, not wanting to admit out loud that the reason he smoked as much as he did was because he treasured their stolen time together. No friends, no classes, just them. His small moments of calm.

One long look from Lily showed that she seemed to read him easily, as she always did, somehow. Something warm glowed in her face for just a breath, a small sun cresting in the dark garden, before it was gone.

“Quitting doesn’t mean stopping.” 

He relaxed, marveling at the feeling of being seen and known. “Alright then.”

Marlene and Mary, neither of them asleep, both popped their heads up as the sound of the door closing marked Lily’s departure. 

“There’s no way they’re not shagging.” Marlene stared at the closed door curiously, as though she could see Lily’s retreating back through the thick wood.

“Not yet.” Mary sounded so sure that Marlene wavered in her own certainty. Mary knew more about these things than she did. Marlene’s experience with men began and ended with Fionn McLaggen and a rather wet kiss after quidditch practice. If that was what men were all like, Marlene wasn’t all that interested. 

“She’d tell us, right?”

Mary snorted. Marlene could feel her shifting in bed, snuggling back under the warm quilt. “Not bloody likely. She’d be too embarrassed that she wasted six years hating the poor sod. Good thing she’s a terrible liar, we’ll know immediately.”

“I’ll bet you five Galleons they snog before the year is over.”

“The school year or calendar year?”

Marlene considered that. “School year.” She said decisively. 

Mary giggled. “I wish they would be that quick. Okay, my guess is next fall. I bet that at the first party back they’ll cave after the first sip of alcohol.”

Marlene laughed softly but then sobered. “This feels mean.” She couldn’t see Mary roll her eyes, but she could feel it. 

“We’ve been watching them try to rip each other’s heads off for six years, we’re due a laugh.”

They were in the middle of fondly recalling all of the times Lily had given James a verbal lashing in public when a floorboard creaked in the hallway. They laid back down and once again pretended to be asleep as they heard Lily pad quietly back into the room.