[FanFic] The Seer's Diary: Unexpected Visits (6/37?)
Title: The Seer's Diary: Unexpected Visits (6/37?)
Status: WIP
Word Count: 5073
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Characters/Pairings: Lily/James, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape, Dorcas Meadowes, Alice/Frank, Petunia Evans, and many others
Summary: 1977-Suddenly Lily Evans's world is turned upside-down when she comes across an old journal with a strange connection to the school's past, and stories of the future that just can't be true.
Suddenly, the world began to slow and Lily felt herself stop spinning altogether, Dorcas still grasping her hand tightly.
She looked around, taking her surroundings in. She could see a little church at the end of the square with a graveyard. The few houses around her all looked so cozy, and they didn't seem too big, as Alice's house always had. She felt a smile curling on her lips, thinking that this was the type of neighbourhood she'd want to live in one day.
Dorcas turned to her, brushing her curls off her shoulders out of her face. "Your make-up is running a bit," she said softly.
Lily nodded, running her fingers under her eyes. "Better?"
Dorcas tilted her head, then tucked some of Lily's hair away again and swiping at her shoulders. "There you go."
"Did I really look that awful?" Lily asked darkly, raising an eyebrow at her friend.
"No!" Dorcas replied, blushing. "You just, you know.. you never know who you'll see."
Quickly she turned around, beginning to walk up the square and down a street to a house quite a way down from where they were standing.
"Wait," Lily said, rushing to catch up with her, hitching up her skirt again as she did so. "What do you mean 'you never know who you'll see', Dorcas?"
"Nothing," she shrugged a little too qickly.
"No," Lily pressed on, grabbing Dorcas's wrist as they stopped on the porch of a beautiful white house with a black roof and lit windows. "Who's in there?"
Dorcas didn't look at Lily as she tapped her wand on the door, and there was a sliding of locks on the other side before she turned the doorknob. She pushed the door open as Lily let her hand slip back to her side, suddenly dreading what might lay ahead.
They were met with warm light and the sound of laughter inside, which felt so strange after what chaos had erupted at the wedding so shortly beforehand. Dorcas silently led Lily through a hallway, back into the kitchen, the laughter growing continuously louder.
"Dorcas, sweetie, is that you?" an older woman suddenly called, and Dorcas walked into the kitchen, a woman who was clearly her mother tapping a kettle with her wand so that steam shot out the spout.
"Yes, mum," Dorcas said, walking over to her. "And I brought Lily, I hope that's all right."
The older woman smiled, nodding. "Of course," she said, then looking up Lily. "It's a pleasure to see you, dear. Let me take you to the sitting room, so you can meet some of the neighbourhood."
"Thank you Mrs. Meadowes," Lily responded before Dorcas's mother led them into a large sitting room with a cozy fireplace and several comfortable-looking armchairs and a sofa.
Mrs. Meadowes put the tea tray down on the coffee table, smiling at the tiny group before her. "You all know my daughter, of course," she said, and Dorcas gave a small wave as the women said hello to her. "And this is her friend Lily Evans."
"Hello," Lily said in a tiny voice, trying to take in the faces as Mrs. Meadowes put her hand on her back, now gesturing to the figures.
"This is Glenna Abbott," she said, and a tiny woman with greying blond hair and rosy cheeks waved her hand. "Her nephew is a few years older than you are. And here's Marlene McKinnon," she went on as a much younger figure with dark brown hair smiled at Lily. "She moved down here just a month or two ago when she married her husband Ewan." Mrs. Meadowes then turned Lily the slightest bit to see the other guests she was entertaining. "Here's Bathilda Bagshot, author of A History of Magic," she said and an ancient-looking woman with pure white hair gave a toothy grin. "Then this is Dorea Potter," she continued, as a kind-looking woman with jet black hair nodded at Lily, "and of course you know her son, James."
Immediately he leaned forward so that Lily could, for the first time, see him clearly behind his mother.
"P-Potter?" she spluttered, gaping at the boy with dark hair and glasses who was smirking at her.
"Hey Evans," he said familiarly with a tiny wave of the hand.
"Is this how all of you children speak to each other now?" Mrs. Potter asked her son with a smile. "Honestly, do you all call each other by your surnames?"
"No, Mrs. Potter," Dorcas laughed politely. "It's just Lily and James that are a bit of a special case."
"Unless you don't like the person, anyway," James said to his mother. "Like that git Malfoy, who graduated a few years ago. You'll never catch me saying his first name." He stuck his tongue out and cringed over-dramatically at the thought.
"You mean Abraxas's son?" Mrs. Abbott asked, pouring some more tea. "Yes, well, they're not the most pleasant of people, the kind who like to think that blood and money make them better than everyone else. If his son is anything like him, I can't really blame you for disliking him, James."
"Yeah, well, his son is turning out to be a Death Eater anyway-"
"James," his mother said sharply. "That's a horrible thing to accuse someone of. Do you know for a fact that he is, or are you just saying this because you dislike him?"
"Sirius said that before he ran away, he was visiting his aunt's house and he swore that Malfoy, Bellatrix, and that git of a husband of hers all had Dark Marks," James said solemnly, and it made Lily shiver to think how close the Death Eaters were, and not just what she thought might be of her old best friend.
"I wouldn't put it past them," Dorcas muttered, shaking her head, and an ominous silence fell upon the group.
"Dorcas, love," Mrs. Meadowes said suddenly, breaking the silence, "why don't you take Lily up to your room? She can put all her things down. I'm sure you don't want to sit here gossiping with a bunch of old women, anyway."
Dorcas smiled and nodded, taking Lily's arm and leading her up the stairs, straight into a bedroom at the end of the hall. She dropped her bag onto the bed, signalling that Lily should do the same.
Slipping off her heels at long last, Lily looked up at Dorcas, finally understanding everything-why Dorcas had tried to fix her up before getting back into the house, why James had said her visiting would be considered 'interesting', why Dorcas had always seemed so friendly to James, and even the other way around. "You knew Potter would be here, didn't you?" she asked.
Dorcas shook her head. "I know you'd think that, but I didn't," she said. "I suspected it was possible, he comes by all the time-"
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Lily pressed on.
Dorcas frowned. "Would you have come before if you had known?" she asked her. "I know that this year you two are friends, but that doesn't mean in the past you would have."
"So why not tell me recently?" Lily asked.
"I planned on it, but the opportunity never presented itself," Dorcas sighed. "And it's not like I could have said something before we walked in. 'By the way, Lily, James lives down the street and might be sitting in there.' That would have gone over wonderfully."
Lily frowned at her friend. She knew it made sense, but she still wished that she had known, so that it wasn't a great surprise when she wanted to just curl up in bed and sleep away the rest of the week. Now her mind was racing with the insanity that would ensue while she was there, because she was certain it would. There was always chaos whenever James Potter was around.
"I'm going to go back down and explain things to mum," Dorcas told her softly. "I figure you'll be here for a while, so I just want to fill her in."
Lily nodded solemnly, watching Dorcas walk back out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her with a tiny click.
Lily took a seat on her friend's bed and stared down at her still gloved hands. If she looked really closely at her right knuckles, she could see microscopic bits of blood from when she had punched Sev. It was only a half hour ago, an hour at most, but it seemed like years, and thinking of it all made her feel sick to her stomach. She was furious with herself for being unable to, just once, be normal for her sister.
The door opened again, and Lily raised her head, her stomach giving a funny lurch when she didn't see Dorcas returning, but James. He grinned at her, that funny grin he always seemed to use on her, and it was strange that all of a sudden it made her heart skip a beat. Not that it meant anything, of course, but it just seemed strange that it was happening to her, now, when it was the same look as it had always been.
"Hey Evans," he said, looking her over. "How was the wedding?"
Lily swallowed hard. "I'm sure that duelling Voldemort would have gone better, actually."
James raised his eyebrows. "That bad?"
"Yeah," she said. "That bad."
He took a seat next to her on the bed. "What happened?" he inquired. "Assuming you don't mind my asking, of course."
She shook her head. "I hit Snape."
"Good for you," James smiled, but she glared at him. "Too soon, then?"
"Tuney hates me now more than ever," she whispered, feeling her throat tighten again. "I ruined everything."
"I'm sure you couldn't be more wrong," James said to her. "Wedding's aren't about everything going perfectly, they're about being joined forever to the person you love. I mean, my parents' wedding was a disaster, as I've been told. My mother's brother came and objected to the entire thing because my dad was a 'blood traitor', and they ended up getting into a fist fight until their other brother, my Uncle Marius, broke it up. And my parents still got married, even though my dad's nose and glasses were shattered, and they stayed together until my dad died."
"Your dad died?" she asked him softly.
"Yeah," James said solemnly, nodding. "About a year ago."
"Oh," Lily said in a tiny voice. "I... I never knew."
James shrugged. "I never thought to tell you. We were just becoming friends, and we never really talked about our families, except for you sister, so it never really crossed my mind."
Lily nodded. It made sense. All of it made sense, yet still she wished that things were different, that there weren't so many things she didn't know about her friends. Suddenly it seemed as though she knew nothing at all about the people she had thought she knew so well.
"You look beautiful," James muttered to her, and Lily looked up to see his cheeks an embarrassed rosy colour, sure that her own face was mirroring the exact shade.
"Thanks," she murmured in reply, trying her best not to let sudden shyness win over and stare back down at her hands, instead keeping eye contact with James. He was inching forward and there was a creak of bedsprings as he leaned on his hand, his face getting slowly closer to her own. And even though she wasn't sure why, she felt herself doing the same thing.
Suddenly, the door opened and Lily and James quickly drew back from each other, looking to the entrance where Dorcas was standing.
"Er, sorry," she said, sounding a little unsure of herself. "Did I, er, interrupt something?"
"No." Lily was sure she'd said it, but it came out in James's voice first, and he jumped to his feet. "Tea time's probably just about over by now," he went on, glancing at his watch. "I should go down and wait for my mum anyway. See you later Meadowes, Evans." And with a wave goodbye, he turned, stepped out of the room and was gone.
Hesitantly, Dorcas replaced James by taking his seat next to Lily. "What was that about?" she asked.
Lily felt as though her heart was pounding in her throat, making it hard to swallow and even harder to speak. "Nothing," she said with difficulty. To be honest, she didn't know what that was about. She wasn't even sure it had really happened.
Dorcas continued to look at Lily carefully. "All right," she said, disbelievingly. "Anyway, James was right, everyone's starting to leave, now, and I told my mum you'd be staying here for a while."
Lily nodded, head still spinning, barely taking in her friend's words.
"Would you like me to get you anything? A bite to eat, something to drink?" she asked Lily. "Anything?"
Lily shook her head. "Nah, I just want to go to bed, to be honest."
Dorcas nodded understandingly. "All right. The bathroom's down the hall to the left, so you can change and all that," she said to her. "I'll set up a second bed for you."
Lily grabbed her bag, walking out of the bedroom without another word, turning into the bathroom. She flipped the light switch up, closing the door behind her. She set her things on the toilet, looking at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her hair was falling down now, her eyes still looking a little bloodshot. She finally pulled off her gloves, turning the taps so that cold water poured out of the sink, splashing it onto her face. She pulled the pins out of her hair, letting her red hair fall down her back before putting it into a braid to keep out of the way. Then, at long last, she slipped her dress off, pulling on a t-shirt and shorts. She sighed, hoping that a good night's sleep was what she needed to just feel better.
Picking up her bag again, Lily made her way back to Dorcas's room, where two beds were now placed beside each other. Her friend smiled at her as she entered the room.
"Here you are," she said, smoothing the bedspread. "I'm going to get a little something to eat because I'm starved, but I'll be up soon enough."
Lily nodded. "All right," she said with a forced smile. "Thanks, by the way."
"It's no trouble at all," Dorcas responded, hugging her tightly for a moment. "Sleep tight."
Lily watched as, again, Dorcas walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Crossing the room, Lily flipped off the lights, making her way back to the bed Dorcas had made for her in the moonlight. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, hugging them close to her body and closing her sore eyes, letting sleep overcome her.
When she woke up seven o'clock the next morning, she felt completely unrested, despite sleeping for so long. Try as she might, however, she could not return to sleep, so she resignedly climbed out of bed, quietly making her way to the shower as to not wake up Dorcas.
The house was completely still, even after she was showered and dressed, so Lily decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood, to take it all in because she didn't have the chance the night before in her distraction. Scribbling a note to her friend, Lily put the tiny piece of paper on the kitchen table and made her way out onto the front porch.
The warm summer air greeted her pleasantly, the street just as silent as the inside of the house was. Quickly, Lily descended the steps, looking around her as she walked up the street, back to where she remembered the town square being.
She noticed now a tiny post office with a few people entering and exiting, and a pub which was currently closed. The church she'd seen the night before was holding its morning mass, a few latecomers still making their way through its doors.
Again the graveyard caught Lily's attention, a kissing gate at the front behind the church. Cautiously Lily approached it, pushing the gate open with great care. She made her way through the lines of tombstones before one caught her eye: Kendra Dumbledore.
Lily blinked at the stone. Dumbledore? The death date read seventy-eight years before... Could this have been Dumbledore's mother?
And when her eyes met the next tombstone, again the Dumbledore surname seemed to stand out, this time with the name Ariana preceding it. Looking at her own dates, Lily realised that Ariana was only fourteen at her death, and her heart seemed to break for Dumbledore, to have lost two family members when he was so young himself.
Immediately, Lily was reminded of the family member that she might lose soon, and again she wished she hadn't been so stupid at the wedding. Her mother wanted to see her two daughters get along and be happy one last time, but it seemed impossible.
Suddenly, she felt another body join hers, and looked up to see James, staring at the grave in front of them.
"Seems funny, doesn't it?" he asked her. "To think about Dumbledore as a kid, when he lost his family."
"What happened?" Lily inquired in a hushed voice.
James shrugged. "Miss Bagshot has told me stories, but I'm not sure which are true. She said that Dumbledore told her Kendra died from a backfiring charm, and then Ariana died from some sort of accident, but none of it seems to make sense. Apparently at the funeral, there was a fight and Dumbledore's brother broke his nose, which explains why it's so crooked now. It's just a bit sad to think of, because Dumbledore had nobody after that."
Lily stared at the grave, her heart still breaking for her headmaster. She wished she knew more, but it wasn't any of her business and she didn't feel right asking the man, anyway. Just to think, though, that he had nobody.
Suddenly, she looked at James with realisation. "Is your dad buried here?" she asked him.
He nodded with a small smile, taking her hand and leading her down the rows to a headstone that bore the name Charlus Potter, the dates 1918-1976 right beneath it. She gazed sadly at the grave in front of her.
"He died about this time, one year ago," he said quietly. "I still can't get used to it."
Lily squeezed James's hand comfortingly. "I'm sorry I was never there for you," she told him in a small voice.
"I never expected you to be," he told her with a small smile.
"Will you be there for me?" she found herself asking him, still staring at the words carved into the stone.
He looked at her curiously. "I'm always here for you, you know that."
Lily nodded slowly. After a few minutes of silence, she finally looked up at James and whispered, "My mum is dying."
"I'm so sorry," he whispered to her, now taking her in his arms and holding her tightly, running his hand over her hair. She grabbed the back of his shirt, holding him just as close, as though the both of them might fall apart if she ever let go.
She wasn't sure how long they stood there before they at last parted, but the morning mass was finally letting out and others were entering the graveyard to pay their respects. Simultaneously, she and James seemed to sense it was time to go, and they both made their way out of the graveyard and down the street back out of the town square.
"Do you have any plans for today?" James asked her casually as they walked together.
Lily shrugged. "Not really," she said. "Just spending time away from home."
"Care to go on a visit?" James asked her and they slowed to a stop, near the edge of the small village.
"Where to?" Lily asked.
"Just to my house," he told her.
Lily smiled warmly at James. "Sure," she told him.
She followed close behind James as they made their way down the street. He stopped in front of a large white house, about two blocks away from Dorcas's. It was gorgeous, probably one of the biggest on the street, with a beautiful fence in front.
James tapped the door with his wand, opening it up for Lily, and looked around the front hall wonderously. She walked straight into the living room, finding herself drawn to the large fireplace, above with many magical photographs were placed. Many were old, in black and white, probably of James's parents. She then spotted several of him-at just a year or two old on his first broom, what looked like his first day at school, him holding the Quidditch cup probably just from the previous year, him with Sirius and Remus and Peter, just him and Sirius, and then just Sirius. She suddenly remembered what he'd said about Sirius staying with him for so long, and she smiled at the thought of Mrs. Potter putting up a picture of the boy that might as well have been her second son.
"Mum's out shopping today," he said as he joined her, biting his lip as she stared at all the photos. "Sorry it's-"
"It's beautiful," she marvelled, and he beamed. "Is Sirius here?" she found herself asking.
James frowned. "He was gone this morning, I'm not sure if-"
There was a long crash from upstairs and they both jerked their heads up, staring at the ceiling. Then, there was a slamming of a door, at which James frowned even more. "I guess he's back.."
He turned to the stairs, taking them two at a time, Lily following close behind. James quickly rapped on the second door once they'd made it upstairs, and the two stood out there waiting. There was a small crash from the inside which sounded as though someone was stumbling around, and at last the door opened.
"Merlin's beard!" James yelped upon seeing Sirius, and Lily could understand why. His nose was bleeding profusely, Sirius holding a great wad of tissues to it, and his eye looked puffy and swollen. "What the hell happened?" James asked.
"Dat stoobid git, Moore," Sirius mumbled somewhat-coherently, stepping back to allow Lily and James inside.
"Nathan Moore?" Lily asked him, trying to simultaneously be concerned and take in the surrounding bedroom. It looked nice, and very.. him. There was a great stack of magazines on motorcycles and a bowl full of butterbeer caps on a desk that was being steadied by a small piece of cardboard under one of the legs, and the walls were lined with posters and Gryffindor pennants, scarlet and gold everywhere.
"Yeah, Naden Moore," Sirius told her.
"Here," she mumbled, taking out her wand and pulling his hand away from his bleeding nose. She carefully tapped the end of her wand to his nose and the bleeding stopped. She watched as he carefully pressed it, making sure it was no longer broken.
"Thanks, love," he said with a wink that made her roll her eyes.
"So why did Moore do this to you?" James asked, folding his arms. "He's always been a decent kid to me."
"Well, you know how he's been dating Leanne Hurst, right?" Sirius asked, throwing himself into his chair, propping his legs up on the desk, causing a few magazines to slide off onto the floor.
"Padfoot, you didn't," James said, taking a seat on the bed, Lily taking a seat next to him.
"Hey," Sirius said defensively. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"You snogged Leanne, didn't you?" James sighed.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," Sirius pressed on. "She told me they'd broken up last night, and then she told me she wanted to get coffee with me this morning, and well.."
"You thought that some snogging would cheer her up, did you?" James asked.
"No!" Sirius said. "She came onto me. I think she was using me, mate, because then Moore comes in out of nowhere and starts yelling before he hits me!"
Lily couldn't suppress a smile any longer. "Poor thing," she said, trying not to laugh.
Sirius pulled a face. "It's not funny, Evans," he muttered somewhat angrily, which only made James laugh.
"I thought you were dating Emmeline Vance, anyway," Lily pressed on.
Suddenly Sirius stiffened, and Lily felt her heart flutter strangely as James squeezed her knee. "They broke up," he breathed in her ear.
Sirius was staring out the window now, and Lily looked at him curiously. She knew that he'd dated a dozen girls-at least, she could name a dozen just off the top of her head. She distinctly remembered him even trying to date both Mary Macdonald and Joni Campbell at the same time in the start of their Sixth Year, and the disaster that had caused. (They got over it, of course. Mary had started dating Benjy Fenwick toward the end of Sixth Year, and in one of Alice's letters that winter, she was told that she'd seen Joni and Dirk Creswell snogging outside of Scrivenshaft's.) It was strange, though, to see Sirius reacting like this at just the mention of a girl's name.
Maybe, she thought, he actually felt something more than just infatuation for Emmeline.
A moment later, breaking the awkward silence that had settled, an owl burst through the window and tumbled onto the desk, spilling a few of the bottle caps onto the floor. He shook his feathers off and held out his leg, a small scroll tied to it.
Immediately Sirius grabbed it, unrolling it and groaning as he skimmed it.
"It's her," he said miserably. "Leanne. She wants to meet me tonight." He moaned again in agony.
"Just tell her you've got plans," James shrugged.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Tell her you're not interested," she said. "There's no benefit in leading her on."
Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment. "What could I tell her I'm doing instead? She'd know I'm lying if I said I was visiting my sick mother or some of that bollocks Moony always-I mean-er-"
Suddenly Lily noticed James shaking his head very slightly at his friend, and again Lily rolled her eyes. "Honestly, do you two think I'm completely daft?" she asked. "I figured out what Remus was when I was thirteen."
The two boys simply blinked at her. "Oh," James said blankly. "Well then."
"But the point is," Lily pressed on, "that girls appreciate honesty. Don't let her think she has a chance when she doesn't."
James shifted uncomfortably next to her, and she felt a pang of guilt, wondering how many times she'd done the same thing to James when she felt that he was being particularly annoying. She wasn't even sure she'd ever properly apologised to him since they'd become friends. It was as though there was this tacit agreement that it was in the past and completely done with.
As the hours passed, it occurred to Lily just how strange it was to be spending the day with James and Sirius, something she was definitely not used to. Naturally she'd spent time with the duo in school, but it was completely different to do so outside of Hogwarts. Later in the afternoon they apparated to London to get an early dinner, and Sirius showed them a few of the apartments he'd been considering. Overall, she'd enjoyed herself.
By eight o'clock, Lily had announced she should head back to Dorcas, who she hadn't seen all day. James immediately jumped to walk her back, and Sirius bade the duo goodbye. (He even gave Lily a quick hug which surprised her a bit.)
They walked in silence until they were about halfway there. James was looking at her, and their eyes met as they walked, causing Lily to blush and smile.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" he asked her, their pace almost painfully slow; however, neither of them wanted the trip to end.
She smiled, nodding. "Definitely got my mind off of things," she told him. "Thank you."
They stopped walking and James looked down at her, his eyes shining. He placed his hand on her cheek, and Lily's heart seemed to stop for the hundredth time that day. "Listen, Lily," he breathed, "I... I mean..."
His words, however, seemed to get lost and slowly he leaned in. This is it, she told herself. This was the moment she'd been beating herself up over, the moment she'd wanted so desperately but was afraid would happen simultaneously, the moment she didn't know what to think about when it came down to it. She didn't know, but maybe this... maybe this would be the answer to all of her questions.
But suddenly, everything went wrong, a sickening cold sensation pulsing through her body and she watched as the mist of their breath mixed together in the air, the streetlights all flickering and dying.
"James," she muttered, pulling away. "What-?"
But before he could answer there was a scream ringing out from far down the street, and she whipped around to see dark figures, tall dark hooded figures, and the figure of a girl she thought she recognised, even in the darkness.
And then she heard her own horrified voice call out into the blackness. "Dorcas!"
Status: WIP
Word Count: 5073
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Characters/Pairings: Lily/James, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape, Dorcas Meadowes, Alice/Frank, Petunia Evans, and many others
Summary: 1977-Suddenly Lily Evans's world is turned upside-down when she comes across an old journal with a strange connection to the school's past, and stories of the future that just can't be true.
Suddenly, the world began to slow and Lily felt herself stop spinning altogether, Dorcas still grasping her hand tightly.
She looked around, taking her surroundings in. She could see a little church at the end of the square with a graveyard. The few houses around her all looked so cozy, and they didn't seem too big, as Alice's house always had. She felt a smile curling on her lips, thinking that this was the type of neighbourhood she'd want to live in one day.
Dorcas turned to her, brushing her curls off her shoulders out of her face. "Your make-up is running a bit," she said softly.
Lily nodded, running her fingers under her eyes. "Better?"
Dorcas tilted her head, then tucked some of Lily's hair away again and swiping at her shoulders. "There you go."
"Did I really look that awful?" Lily asked darkly, raising an eyebrow at her friend.
"No!" Dorcas replied, blushing. "You just, you know.. you never know who you'll see."
Quickly she turned around, beginning to walk up the square and down a street to a house quite a way down from where they were standing.
"Wait," Lily said, rushing to catch up with her, hitching up her skirt again as she did so. "What do you mean 'you never know who you'll see', Dorcas?"
"Nothing," she shrugged a little too qickly.
"No," Lily pressed on, grabbing Dorcas's wrist as they stopped on the porch of a beautiful white house with a black roof and lit windows. "Who's in there?"
Dorcas didn't look at Lily as she tapped her wand on the door, and there was a sliding of locks on the other side before she turned the doorknob. She pushed the door open as Lily let her hand slip back to her side, suddenly dreading what might lay ahead.
They were met with warm light and the sound of laughter inside, which felt so strange after what chaos had erupted at the wedding so shortly beforehand. Dorcas silently led Lily through a hallway, back into the kitchen, the laughter growing continuously louder.
"Dorcas, sweetie, is that you?" an older woman suddenly called, and Dorcas walked into the kitchen, a woman who was clearly her mother tapping a kettle with her wand so that steam shot out the spout.
"Yes, mum," Dorcas said, walking over to her. "And I brought Lily, I hope that's all right."
The older woman smiled, nodding. "Of course," she said, then looking up Lily. "It's a pleasure to see you, dear. Let me take you to the sitting room, so you can meet some of the neighbourhood."
"Thank you Mrs. Meadowes," Lily responded before Dorcas's mother led them into a large sitting room with a cozy fireplace and several comfortable-looking armchairs and a sofa.
Mrs. Meadowes put the tea tray down on the coffee table, smiling at the tiny group before her. "You all know my daughter, of course," she said, and Dorcas gave a small wave as the women said hello to her. "And this is her friend Lily Evans."
"Hello," Lily said in a tiny voice, trying to take in the faces as Mrs. Meadowes put her hand on her back, now gesturing to the figures.
"This is Glenna Abbott," she said, and a tiny woman with greying blond hair and rosy cheeks waved her hand. "Her nephew is a few years older than you are. And here's Marlene McKinnon," she went on as a much younger figure with dark brown hair smiled at Lily. "She moved down here just a month or two ago when she married her husband Ewan." Mrs. Meadowes then turned Lily the slightest bit to see the other guests she was entertaining. "Here's Bathilda Bagshot, author of A History of Magic," she said and an ancient-looking woman with pure white hair gave a toothy grin. "Then this is Dorea Potter," she continued, as a kind-looking woman with jet black hair nodded at Lily, "and of course you know her son, James."
Immediately he leaned forward so that Lily could, for the first time, see him clearly behind his mother.
"P-Potter?" she spluttered, gaping at the boy with dark hair and glasses who was smirking at her.
"Hey Evans," he said familiarly with a tiny wave of the hand.
"Is this how all of you children speak to each other now?" Mrs. Potter asked her son with a smile. "Honestly, do you all call each other by your surnames?"
"No, Mrs. Potter," Dorcas laughed politely. "It's just Lily and James that are a bit of a special case."
"Unless you don't like the person, anyway," James said to his mother. "Like that git Malfoy, who graduated a few years ago. You'll never catch me saying his first name." He stuck his tongue out and cringed over-dramatically at the thought.
"You mean Abraxas's son?" Mrs. Abbott asked, pouring some more tea. "Yes, well, they're not the most pleasant of people, the kind who like to think that blood and money make them better than everyone else. If his son is anything like him, I can't really blame you for disliking him, James."
"Yeah, well, his son is turning out to be a Death Eater anyway-"
"James," his mother said sharply. "That's a horrible thing to accuse someone of. Do you know for a fact that he is, or are you just saying this because you dislike him?"
"Sirius said that before he ran away, he was visiting his aunt's house and he swore that Malfoy, Bellatrix, and that git of a husband of hers all had Dark Marks," James said solemnly, and it made Lily shiver to think how close the Death Eaters were, and not just what she thought might be of her old best friend.
"I wouldn't put it past them," Dorcas muttered, shaking her head, and an ominous silence fell upon the group.
"Dorcas, love," Mrs. Meadowes said suddenly, breaking the silence, "why don't you take Lily up to your room? She can put all her things down. I'm sure you don't want to sit here gossiping with a bunch of old women, anyway."
Dorcas smiled and nodded, taking Lily's arm and leading her up the stairs, straight into a bedroom at the end of the hall. She dropped her bag onto the bed, signalling that Lily should do the same.
Slipping off her heels at long last, Lily looked up at Dorcas, finally understanding everything-why Dorcas had tried to fix her up before getting back into the house, why James had said her visiting would be considered 'interesting', why Dorcas had always seemed so friendly to James, and even the other way around. "You knew Potter would be here, didn't you?" she asked.
Dorcas shook her head. "I know you'd think that, but I didn't," she said. "I suspected it was possible, he comes by all the time-"
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Lily pressed on.
Dorcas frowned. "Would you have come before if you had known?" she asked her. "I know that this year you two are friends, but that doesn't mean in the past you would have."
"So why not tell me recently?" Lily asked.
"I planned on it, but the opportunity never presented itself," Dorcas sighed. "And it's not like I could have said something before we walked in. 'By the way, Lily, James lives down the street and might be sitting in there.' That would have gone over wonderfully."
Lily frowned at her friend. She knew it made sense, but she still wished that she had known, so that it wasn't a great surprise when she wanted to just curl up in bed and sleep away the rest of the week. Now her mind was racing with the insanity that would ensue while she was there, because she was certain it would. There was always chaos whenever James Potter was around.
"I'm going to go back down and explain things to mum," Dorcas told her softly. "I figure you'll be here for a while, so I just want to fill her in."
Lily nodded solemnly, watching Dorcas walk back out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her with a tiny click.
Lily took a seat on her friend's bed and stared down at her still gloved hands. If she looked really closely at her right knuckles, she could see microscopic bits of blood from when she had punched Sev. It was only a half hour ago, an hour at most, but it seemed like years, and thinking of it all made her feel sick to her stomach. She was furious with herself for being unable to, just once, be normal for her sister.
The door opened again, and Lily raised her head, her stomach giving a funny lurch when she didn't see Dorcas returning, but James. He grinned at her, that funny grin he always seemed to use on her, and it was strange that all of a sudden it made her heart skip a beat. Not that it meant anything, of course, but it just seemed strange that it was happening to her, now, when it was the same look as it had always been.
"Hey Evans," he said, looking her over. "How was the wedding?"
Lily swallowed hard. "I'm sure that duelling Voldemort would have gone better, actually."
James raised his eyebrows. "That bad?"
"Yeah," she said. "That bad."
He took a seat next to her on the bed. "What happened?" he inquired. "Assuming you don't mind my asking, of course."
She shook her head. "I hit Snape."
"Good for you," James smiled, but she glared at him. "Too soon, then?"
"Tuney hates me now more than ever," she whispered, feeling her throat tighten again. "I ruined everything."
"I'm sure you couldn't be more wrong," James said to her. "Wedding's aren't about everything going perfectly, they're about being joined forever to the person you love. I mean, my parents' wedding was a disaster, as I've been told. My mother's brother came and objected to the entire thing because my dad was a 'blood traitor', and they ended up getting into a fist fight until their other brother, my Uncle Marius, broke it up. And my parents still got married, even though my dad's nose and glasses were shattered, and they stayed together until my dad died."
"Your dad died?" she asked him softly.
"Yeah," James said solemnly, nodding. "About a year ago."
"Oh," Lily said in a tiny voice. "I... I never knew."
James shrugged. "I never thought to tell you. We were just becoming friends, and we never really talked about our families, except for you sister, so it never really crossed my mind."
Lily nodded. It made sense. All of it made sense, yet still she wished that things were different, that there weren't so many things she didn't know about her friends. Suddenly it seemed as though she knew nothing at all about the people she had thought she knew so well.
"You look beautiful," James muttered to her, and Lily looked up to see his cheeks an embarrassed rosy colour, sure that her own face was mirroring the exact shade.
"Thanks," she murmured in reply, trying her best not to let sudden shyness win over and stare back down at her hands, instead keeping eye contact with James. He was inching forward and there was a creak of bedsprings as he leaned on his hand, his face getting slowly closer to her own. And even though she wasn't sure why, she felt herself doing the same thing.
Suddenly, the door opened and Lily and James quickly drew back from each other, looking to the entrance where Dorcas was standing.
"Er, sorry," she said, sounding a little unsure of herself. "Did I, er, interrupt something?"
"No." Lily was sure she'd said it, but it came out in James's voice first, and he jumped to his feet. "Tea time's probably just about over by now," he went on, glancing at his watch. "I should go down and wait for my mum anyway. See you later Meadowes, Evans." And with a wave goodbye, he turned, stepped out of the room and was gone.
Hesitantly, Dorcas replaced James by taking his seat next to Lily. "What was that about?" she asked.
Lily felt as though her heart was pounding in her throat, making it hard to swallow and even harder to speak. "Nothing," she said with difficulty. To be honest, she didn't know what that was about. She wasn't even sure it had really happened.
Dorcas continued to look at Lily carefully. "All right," she said, disbelievingly. "Anyway, James was right, everyone's starting to leave, now, and I told my mum you'd be staying here for a while."
Lily nodded, head still spinning, barely taking in her friend's words.
"Would you like me to get you anything? A bite to eat, something to drink?" she asked Lily. "Anything?"
Lily shook her head. "Nah, I just want to go to bed, to be honest."
Dorcas nodded understandingly. "All right. The bathroom's down the hall to the left, so you can change and all that," she said to her. "I'll set up a second bed for you."
Lily grabbed her bag, walking out of the bedroom without another word, turning into the bathroom. She flipped the light switch up, closing the door behind her. She set her things on the toilet, looking at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her hair was falling down now, her eyes still looking a little bloodshot. She finally pulled off her gloves, turning the taps so that cold water poured out of the sink, splashing it onto her face. She pulled the pins out of her hair, letting her red hair fall down her back before putting it into a braid to keep out of the way. Then, at long last, she slipped her dress off, pulling on a t-shirt and shorts. She sighed, hoping that a good night's sleep was what she needed to just feel better.
Picking up her bag again, Lily made her way back to Dorcas's room, where two beds were now placed beside each other. Her friend smiled at her as she entered the room.
"Here you are," she said, smoothing the bedspread. "I'm going to get a little something to eat because I'm starved, but I'll be up soon enough."
Lily nodded. "All right," she said with a forced smile. "Thanks, by the way."
"It's no trouble at all," Dorcas responded, hugging her tightly for a moment. "Sleep tight."
Lily watched as, again, Dorcas walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Crossing the room, Lily flipped off the lights, making her way back to the bed Dorcas had made for her in the moonlight. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, hugging them close to her body and closing her sore eyes, letting sleep overcome her.
When she woke up seven o'clock the next morning, she felt completely unrested, despite sleeping for so long. Try as she might, however, she could not return to sleep, so she resignedly climbed out of bed, quietly making her way to the shower as to not wake up Dorcas.
The house was completely still, even after she was showered and dressed, so Lily decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood, to take it all in because she didn't have the chance the night before in her distraction. Scribbling a note to her friend, Lily put the tiny piece of paper on the kitchen table and made her way out onto the front porch.
The warm summer air greeted her pleasantly, the street just as silent as the inside of the house was. Quickly, Lily descended the steps, looking around her as she walked up the street, back to where she remembered the town square being.
She noticed now a tiny post office with a few people entering and exiting, and a pub which was currently closed. The church she'd seen the night before was holding its morning mass, a few latecomers still making their way through its doors.
Again the graveyard caught Lily's attention, a kissing gate at the front behind the church. Cautiously Lily approached it, pushing the gate open with great care. She made her way through the lines of tombstones before one caught her eye: Kendra Dumbledore.
Lily blinked at the stone. Dumbledore? The death date read seventy-eight years before... Could this have been Dumbledore's mother?
And when her eyes met the next tombstone, again the Dumbledore surname seemed to stand out, this time with the name Ariana preceding it. Looking at her own dates, Lily realised that Ariana was only fourteen at her death, and her heart seemed to break for Dumbledore, to have lost two family members when he was so young himself.
Immediately, Lily was reminded of the family member that she might lose soon, and again she wished she hadn't been so stupid at the wedding. Her mother wanted to see her two daughters get along and be happy one last time, but it seemed impossible.
Suddenly, she felt another body join hers, and looked up to see James, staring at the grave in front of them.
"Seems funny, doesn't it?" he asked her. "To think about Dumbledore as a kid, when he lost his family."
"What happened?" Lily inquired in a hushed voice.
James shrugged. "Miss Bagshot has told me stories, but I'm not sure which are true. She said that Dumbledore told her Kendra died from a backfiring charm, and then Ariana died from some sort of accident, but none of it seems to make sense. Apparently at the funeral, there was a fight and Dumbledore's brother broke his nose, which explains why it's so crooked now. It's just a bit sad to think of, because Dumbledore had nobody after that."
Lily stared at the grave, her heart still breaking for her headmaster. She wished she knew more, but it wasn't any of her business and she didn't feel right asking the man, anyway. Just to think, though, that he had nobody.
Suddenly, she looked at James with realisation. "Is your dad buried here?" she asked him.
He nodded with a small smile, taking her hand and leading her down the rows to a headstone that bore the name Charlus Potter, the dates 1918-1976 right beneath it. She gazed sadly at the grave in front of her.
"He died about this time, one year ago," he said quietly. "I still can't get used to it."
Lily squeezed James's hand comfortingly. "I'm sorry I was never there for you," she told him in a small voice.
"I never expected you to be," he told her with a small smile.
"Will you be there for me?" she found herself asking him, still staring at the words carved into the stone.
He looked at her curiously. "I'm always here for you, you know that."
Lily nodded slowly. After a few minutes of silence, she finally looked up at James and whispered, "My mum is dying."
"I'm so sorry," he whispered to her, now taking her in his arms and holding her tightly, running his hand over her hair. She grabbed the back of his shirt, holding him just as close, as though the both of them might fall apart if she ever let go.
She wasn't sure how long they stood there before they at last parted, but the morning mass was finally letting out and others were entering the graveyard to pay their respects. Simultaneously, she and James seemed to sense it was time to go, and they both made their way out of the graveyard and down the street back out of the town square.
"Do you have any plans for today?" James asked her casually as they walked together.
Lily shrugged. "Not really," she said. "Just spending time away from home."
"Care to go on a visit?" James asked her and they slowed to a stop, near the edge of the small village.
"Where to?" Lily asked.
"Just to my house," he told her.
Lily smiled warmly at James. "Sure," she told him.
She followed close behind James as they made their way down the street. He stopped in front of a large white house, about two blocks away from Dorcas's. It was gorgeous, probably one of the biggest on the street, with a beautiful fence in front.
James tapped the door with his wand, opening it up for Lily, and looked around the front hall wonderously. She walked straight into the living room, finding herself drawn to the large fireplace, above with many magical photographs were placed. Many were old, in black and white, probably of James's parents. She then spotted several of him-at just a year or two old on his first broom, what looked like his first day at school, him holding the Quidditch cup probably just from the previous year, him with Sirius and Remus and Peter, just him and Sirius, and then just Sirius. She suddenly remembered what he'd said about Sirius staying with him for so long, and she smiled at the thought of Mrs. Potter putting up a picture of the boy that might as well have been her second son.
"Mum's out shopping today," he said as he joined her, biting his lip as she stared at all the photos. "Sorry it's-"
"It's beautiful," she marvelled, and he beamed. "Is Sirius here?" she found herself asking.
James frowned. "He was gone this morning, I'm not sure if-"
There was a long crash from upstairs and they both jerked their heads up, staring at the ceiling. Then, there was a slamming of a door, at which James frowned even more. "I guess he's back.."
He turned to the stairs, taking them two at a time, Lily following close behind. James quickly rapped on the second door once they'd made it upstairs, and the two stood out there waiting. There was a small crash from the inside which sounded as though someone was stumbling around, and at last the door opened.
"Merlin's beard!" James yelped upon seeing Sirius, and Lily could understand why. His nose was bleeding profusely, Sirius holding a great wad of tissues to it, and his eye looked puffy and swollen. "What the hell happened?" James asked.
"Dat stoobid git, Moore," Sirius mumbled somewhat-coherently, stepping back to allow Lily and James inside.
"Nathan Moore?" Lily asked him, trying to simultaneously be concerned and take in the surrounding bedroom. It looked nice, and very.. him. There was a great stack of magazines on motorcycles and a bowl full of butterbeer caps on a desk that was being steadied by a small piece of cardboard under one of the legs, and the walls were lined with posters and Gryffindor pennants, scarlet and gold everywhere.
"Yeah, Naden Moore," Sirius told her.
"Here," she mumbled, taking out her wand and pulling his hand away from his bleeding nose. She carefully tapped the end of her wand to his nose and the bleeding stopped. She watched as he carefully pressed it, making sure it was no longer broken.
"Thanks, love," he said with a wink that made her roll her eyes.
"So why did Moore do this to you?" James asked, folding his arms. "He's always been a decent kid to me."
"Well, you know how he's been dating Leanne Hurst, right?" Sirius asked, throwing himself into his chair, propping his legs up on the desk, causing a few magazines to slide off onto the floor.
"Padfoot, you didn't," James said, taking a seat on the bed, Lily taking a seat next to him.
"Hey," Sirius said defensively. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"You snogged Leanne, didn't you?" James sighed.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," Sirius pressed on. "She told me they'd broken up last night, and then she told me she wanted to get coffee with me this morning, and well.."
"You thought that some snogging would cheer her up, did you?" James asked.
"No!" Sirius said. "She came onto me. I think she was using me, mate, because then Moore comes in out of nowhere and starts yelling before he hits me!"
Lily couldn't suppress a smile any longer. "Poor thing," she said, trying not to laugh.
Sirius pulled a face. "It's not funny, Evans," he muttered somewhat angrily, which only made James laugh.
"I thought you were dating Emmeline Vance, anyway," Lily pressed on.
Suddenly Sirius stiffened, and Lily felt her heart flutter strangely as James squeezed her knee. "They broke up," he breathed in her ear.
Sirius was staring out the window now, and Lily looked at him curiously. She knew that he'd dated a dozen girls-at least, she could name a dozen just off the top of her head. She distinctly remembered him even trying to date both Mary Macdonald and Joni Campbell at the same time in the start of their Sixth Year, and the disaster that had caused. (They got over it, of course. Mary had started dating Benjy Fenwick toward the end of Sixth Year, and in one of Alice's letters that winter, she was told that she'd seen Joni and Dirk Creswell snogging outside of Scrivenshaft's.) It was strange, though, to see Sirius reacting like this at just the mention of a girl's name.
Maybe, she thought, he actually felt something more than just infatuation for Emmeline.
A moment later, breaking the awkward silence that had settled, an owl burst through the window and tumbled onto the desk, spilling a few of the bottle caps onto the floor. He shook his feathers off and held out his leg, a small scroll tied to it.
Immediately Sirius grabbed it, unrolling it and groaning as he skimmed it.
"It's her," he said miserably. "Leanne. She wants to meet me tonight." He moaned again in agony.
"Just tell her you've got plans," James shrugged.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Tell her you're not interested," she said. "There's no benefit in leading her on."
Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment. "What could I tell her I'm doing instead? She'd know I'm lying if I said I was visiting my sick mother or some of that bollocks Moony always-I mean-er-"
Suddenly Lily noticed James shaking his head very slightly at his friend, and again Lily rolled her eyes. "Honestly, do you two think I'm completely daft?" she asked. "I figured out what Remus was when I was thirteen."
The two boys simply blinked at her. "Oh," James said blankly. "Well then."
"But the point is," Lily pressed on, "that girls appreciate honesty. Don't let her think she has a chance when she doesn't."
James shifted uncomfortably next to her, and she felt a pang of guilt, wondering how many times she'd done the same thing to James when she felt that he was being particularly annoying. She wasn't even sure she'd ever properly apologised to him since they'd become friends. It was as though there was this tacit agreement that it was in the past and completely done with.
As the hours passed, it occurred to Lily just how strange it was to be spending the day with James and Sirius, something she was definitely not used to. Naturally she'd spent time with the duo in school, but it was completely different to do so outside of Hogwarts. Later in the afternoon they apparated to London to get an early dinner, and Sirius showed them a few of the apartments he'd been considering. Overall, she'd enjoyed herself.
By eight o'clock, Lily had announced she should head back to Dorcas, who she hadn't seen all day. James immediately jumped to walk her back, and Sirius bade the duo goodbye. (He even gave Lily a quick hug which surprised her a bit.)
They walked in silence until they were about halfway there. James was looking at her, and their eyes met as they walked, causing Lily to blush and smile.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" he asked her, their pace almost painfully slow; however, neither of them wanted the trip to end.
She smiled, nodding. "Definitely got my mind off of things," she told him. "Thank you."
They stopped walking and James looked down at her, his eyes shining. He placed his hand on her cheek, and Lily's heart seemed to stop for the hundredth time that day. "Listen, Lily," he breathed, "I... I mean..."
His words, however, seemed to get lost and slowly he leaned in. This is it, she told herself. This was the moment she'd been beating herself up over, the moment she'd wanted so desperately but was afraid would happen simultaneously, the moment she didn't know what to think about when it came down to it. She didn't know, but maybe this... maybe this would be the answer to all of her questions.
But suddenly, everything went wrong, a sickening cold sensation pulsing through her body and she watched as the mist of their breath mixed together in the air, the streetlights all flickering and dying.
"James," she muttered, pulling away. "What-?"
But before he could answer there was a scream ringing out from far down the street, and she whipped around to see dark figures, tall dark hooded figures, and the figure of a girl she thought she recognised, even in the darkness.
And then she heard her own horrified voice call out into the blackness. "Dorcas!"