Fan Fiction
Title: Nice Day for a White Wedding.
Word Count: Around 4,400.
A/N: A bit of swearing but nothing the average teen won't have heard before. I got the idea for this while staring at a model Lilliput Lane church I own. ('In my collection' sounds way too grand! :lol:)
Disclaimer: James and Lily belong to JKR. The chapel belongs to itself, and Cambridge. The model belongs to Lilliput Lane (Enesco). I only own the idea.
Summary: Lily Evans decided that she must have gone quietly insane, and no one had bothered to tell her. If it had been anyone other than Alice Hathaway asking it of her, she’d have told them to ‘get stuffed’.
It was snowing when they reached Cambridge, the gelid flecks settling briefly before being swept into oblivion by the windscreen wipers. The bride-to-be huddled deeper into the fur of her borrowed cloak and watched the dark hedges slide past. Although they had driven through the early hours, she felt alert, un-naturally so. “D’you think they’ll make it in time?” Snow hadn’t been in The Plan.
“Yes.” He added a nod for emphasis.
“Your mother’s going to be furious when she finds the letter.”
His mouth tightened. “She’ll get over it.” He glanced at her, a sideways flick of his eyes that nevertheless warmed her right through. “I’m not waiting to marry you. Not for this Voldemort lunatic and very definitely not for my mother.” He drew a breath. “If she doesn’t like it, she can-”
“Lump it?” the bride interrupted with a grin.
The prospective groom smiled, flexing his hands on the shiny steering wheel. The car eased out of the junction and rumbled onto the main road. “She has some odd expressions, that girl.”
The bride buried her smirk in the artic fox fur. Her fiancée didn’t know the half of it.
*
Lily Evans decided that she must have gone quietly insane, and no one had bothered to tell her. That had to be the reason; madness. There was no logical explanation for why she was, a: racketing along unfamiliar ‘A’ roads in an ancient black ‘Moggy’ Minor at five in the morning, b: trying to map read by wand light and, c: accompanying Potter, of all people.
If it had been anyone other than Alice Hathaway asking it of her, she’d have told them to ‘get stuffed’.
The car slowed - mercifully - as the road was narrow and Potter turned expectantly.
He drove as madly as he flew and Lily was glad she’d declined an early breakfast, opting to gulp down some tea instead. “I can’t tell properly; the map’s too small. Aren’t there any road signs?”
He looked out at the T junction and Lily did the same. The hedge stretched out blankly in the headlights, with no indication which way the road led.
“Obviously we’re meant to know where we’re going.” He checked for oncoming traffic. “When in doubt, go right.” He suited action to words and, as the road was perfectly straight, accelerated hard. Lily felt her tummy turn over in protest but there was no way she was going to ask him to slow down. He’d love that.
*
“Why does it have to be so bloody flat? I can’t pick out any landmarks over these blasted hedges.” Only after the words were out did he self-consciously note the swears and expect a glare.
“Next left.”
“Left? You sure?” It didn't look right, somehow.
The huddled figure on his left turned the wand-illuminated map. “I’m not Peter. I know my right from my left. Turn!” A hand waggled across his line of vision. “There! Quick!”
James negotiated the turn sharply, to the screeching protest of tyres and suspension, and cursed the flat terrain, the Muggles, and absent road signs under his breath.
“It is customary to keep all four wheels in contact with the road most of the time.”
Merlin, how he loved that dry wit. “I was following orders! I was! You said ‘turn, there, quick’, so I did.” He turned his grin on her but it was wasted. She was frowning at the map. Cack. He stood on the brake and the Safety charms reacted, pressing them back in the cushioning leather seats as they came to an abrupt halt.
“Bloody hell fire, Potter! What was that for?”
She had a glare fit to freeze the blood, capable of sobering the most frivolous spirit, and yet James Potter was unabashed. He grinned again, turning on one numb buttock to face the Head Girl. “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
The map, which had shot into the dashboard and thence to the foot well during his emergency stop, jumped to her hand. “No.”
“That sounds defensive.” His grin became a low chuckle, which earned him a smack to the chest.
“You’ll be lost in a minute, if you don’t start this car and get going.” Her tone was tarter than lemon juice as she performed an ungainly manoeuvre composed of pushing her back into the seat, lifting her bottom and grimacing.
“Sorry,” James said, pulling his eyes off her newly prominent chest to stare fixedly through the windscreen. “I should have checked the Cushioning charms before we set off.”
“Hmm. But you were in such a blasted hurry-”
“Any opportunity to be alone with you, Evans.”
Lily responded to his playful comment with a derogatory snort. Suffering Circe! Would he ever be cured of his ‘Foot-in-Mouth’ around this witch? He turned the key in the dashboard and pressed the starter button again; the engine coughed and turned over.
“Will you please drive, before I have to explain to Alice why Frank needs another Best Man.”
James leaned forward over the steering wheel, clouding the windscreen with his breath, engaged first gear and moved off.
If only she wasn’t Head Girl, or Dumbledore hadn’t gone batty and named him Head Boy. Not that it would have made a difference to today. Frank would still have asked him to be Best Man, just as Alice would have asked Lily to be her Bride’s Maid.
He half wished Sirius could have come with them but someone had to stay with Remus through the moon, and since he was ‘only a guest’, Sirius had said he’d Apparate down when Moony was in the hospital wing.
“Oh, and Prongs? Don’t be an ass,” had been his parting shot.
James had done his best. He’d been such a model of wizarding social correctness since they’d left Hogwarts that even his stuffy Aunt Dorea would have approved. He’d introduced her to his parents and remained silent while they conversed with his guest. He smiled; Lily had behaved exactly as she did at school, was interested, articulate and bubbly. Her lively interest in any topic his parents had raised and their obvious approval of her had rekindled feelings he’d convinced himself had died from lack of encouragement.
In the car, he’d tried to keep a pleasant atmosphere between them; had offered intelligent observations on the towns they’d passed through, enquired if she was warm enough and had been, as Remus would put it, ‘stonewalled’ almost every time.
It couldn’t have been clearer that, in her eyes, he was still an arrogant, bullying toe-rag. So why had she travelled down with him from Hogwarts? Pondering this, he almost missed the turn into Prattle’s Lane.
*
By the time they found the inn, huddled into the sparse shelter of a stand of bare-limbed trees, it was snowing. Only small flakes, yet what they lacked in size they made up for in quantity, speckling everything in a thin but unbroken layer.
James parked in the inn’s yard, exited his father’s car and jogged round the bonnet to her side, turning up his collar as he went. Lily didn’t know whether to be charmed or patronised that he opened the door and helped her out.
“It’s skiddy,” he said, supporting her under the elbow as she stood and shivered, looking around. The sky was a sheet of polished pewter while every horizontal surface was acquiring a layer of frosting. Even mundane Muggle Cambridge looked magical.
“So I see.”
“Let’s get you inside. Have a Butterbeer and warm up.”
Lily nodded. Why had she succumbed to this mad idea to travel down with Potter? It had involved him Apparating her Side-Along late last night, solely because of the layered charms surrounding his home, he said. She had walked at his side up to a timber-framed mansion (there was no other word for it) that looked as though the first Queen Elizabeth might have stayed there. She had been introduced to his grandparents, who turned out to be his parents, been treated to a light supper and witty conversation before finally spending a few hours lying knackered but wakeful in a magnificently carved four poster. Mrs Potter had come to rouse her personally when it was time to set off.
Mr Potter had loaned James ‘the car’, and that was how she came to be walking up to a wizarding inn in Cambridge at half past six on a December morning a few days before Christmas. She had to be mad. Or having a very long and realistic nightmare.
She was happy to rest her muscles, aching from clenching in response to his manic driving, in the nearest comfy chair. The clock said it had taken them just over an hour and a half from wherever Potter called home to the centre of Cambridge. Lily was still wary and on guard, half expecting another charm offensive aimed at persuading her to go out with him.
She was also fretting about being Alice’s Bride’s Maid. This was a wizarding ceremony and she was required to do more than walk behind the bride and take her flowers. Professor McGonagall had been very helpful when Lily had explained what she’d wanted. All the charms were well within her capabilities so why was she uneasy?
The barmaid turned out to be as buxom as Madam Rosmerta - was it a requirement for the job? - and determined to flirt outrageously with Potter while pretending she didn’t exist. When it came, Lily started her Butterbeer with relief. Her throat was dry from the cold air as much as from justifying his frequent challenges to her map reading skills.
How could his parents be such lovely, articulate and thoughtful people and produce him? She sighed and tuned out the barmaid’s snorting laughter. She had to stop reacting to Potter as though they were both still fifteen. He was Head Boy and Dumbledore must have seen something in James to justify his choice.
Either that, or he was as nutty as a fruit cake as everyone fondly asserted.
Well, whatever happened, she would act grown-up and behave with decorum. Even if she felt like she was three and playing dressing-up in her mum’s clothes.
*
The logs spat and crackled. Lily found her eyes had closed and sitting quietly here, it was easy to imagine herself back in Gryffindor tower. She rubbed her stiff neck. “What next?”
“A quick stop in the church. It’s just round the corner.”
James sounded equally tired, reminding her that he had done all the driving. She had no real idea of the distance but remembered the streets and little towns flashing by along with an endless succession of ‘A’ roads. Had he slept while at home? Like a baby, probably. Nothing shook his assurance.
She peered through her lashes. His head was resting against the stone fireplace, the ruddy light creating dark shadows in the hollows of his eyes.
“How far did you drive?”
“63 miles,” he answered, without moving. “Frank and Alice choosing the Cambridge chapel made it easy for me to stop off at home beforehand.”
Lily nodded. Alice had said there were only four wizarding chapels left. “Who else is coming?”
“Sirius.”
Lily frowned and set her tankard down. Alice’s family had been murdered in her last year at school and partly accounted for why she was marrying so young. “What about Frank’s mother?”
James rolled his head against the stone to face her. “If she finds the letter in time.”
That was cryptic. Either way, it was going to be a tiny wedding, just the five of them. A click close at hand made her look up. James had set his tankard down and was shrugging his coat on.
“I’ll nip round to the chapel. You can stay here if you like. Keep warm.”
Lily got to her feet. “And be ignored by Miss Congeniality out back? I don’t think so. I’ll come with you.” James’s nods made her want to grab his head and hold it still, before he nodded it off. He was staring at her. It was un-nerving, made her middle tighten. “I wonder if it’s still snowing?”
*
The church was small by modern standards and, to Lily’s surprise, circular. As they approached under the amber street lights, it stood out from the Muggle surroundings, its solidity and incongruity defining it as belonging to an earlier age. Atop the stone structure was a stubby stone tower, also circular, which was pierced at regular intervals by more of the arch-top windows that graced the main building. She caught the fractured glimmer of stained glass before James hurried her across the road, his hand under her elbow. Even at this hour, people were already hurrying along wrapped up against the chill. The snow was petering out and yet the sky was no lighter.
Lily dropped her gaze from the apex of the roof, missing its cross, and took in the heavy stone arch facing her. The narrow double doors it bordered were solidly made, probably of oak, as befitted a church and she felt an un-nerving sense of recognition. There was something hovering at the back of her mind, but it wouldn’t reveal itself and resolve the feeling.
“Two ticks,” James muttered.
He worried the driving glove off his wand hand and laid it on the iron ring, clenching his jaw against the biting cold of it. She heard the latch click echo inside and then he was ushering her through a narrow gap.
“What are we doing?” It seemed natural to whisper, even though this sanctified space was empty of worshippers to disturb. Her eyes struggled to pierce the gloom.
“There’s a couple of things I have to do. Essential charms.”
He moved off into the darkness, leaving the air swirling colder around her. Lily hunched her hands deeper in her pockets and wished she’d thought to pick up her gloves on the way out of her dormitory. How on earth could he see?
‘A couple of things he had to do.’ What a singularly unenlightening reply -and how very typical of him. He probably did it to encourage her to talk to him. Well, she wasn’t falling for it.
The breath of ages past settled around her, the scent of paper, wax and, oddly, the potions dungeon, reinforcing her initial impression of familiarity.
“This chapel is very old, you know.” James’s quiet voice came as clearly as though he was at her elbow; the acoustics must be excellent.
“Oh?” Lily withdrew her hands and groped forwards, hoping she’d feel the wall before she connected with it. Bruises wouldn’t look good on the pictures.
James ‘hmmed’. “Muggle records say it was built around 1130 by the Confraternity of the Holy Sepulchre, and that little is known about this group. They assume a Knights Templar connection.”
Lily paused in her blind inching progress. “By your smug tone, I presume ‘they’ are wrong.” She could imagine his impish grin too easily; he turned it on her often enough.
“Yes. It’s wizarding built. Intending for wizarding marriages and the presentation of babies. There’s a circular nave separated from the ambulatory by eight great, fat-bugger!- Norman pillars.”
Lily cocked her head at the note of pain. “What have done?”
“Two ticks. Let me finish the history lesson first.”
”Potter?” Lily took a full stride forward and sensed the solidity before her fingertips found it. Her hands explored the surface, finding it cold, curved and made of well-dressed stone. One of those Norman pillars he’d just described, in all likelihood.
“The ambulatory has fine vaulting, and is where family and other guests gather to witness the ceremony. Only the bride, groom, best man and bride’s maid stand within the nave. There we go!”
His relieved exclamation coincided with the emergence of about a thousand candles. Lily was forced to screw her eyes tightly against the golden glare. After the eye-pressing chiaroscuro, it hurt.
Blinking, and hoping the after-image of overlapping green circles faded quickly, she found James on his knees at the centre of the nave. She slipped around the ‘great fat pillar’ and hurried over. He was pressing his thumb to his middle finger and frowning at the shiny bead of blood. There was more dotted on the tiles and the inset shiny metal star.
“God, James!”
“Was a bit too enthusiastic with the ritual blade,” he muttered, with a sheepish glance.
“Blood magic?” Lily was aghast. “I thought you hated anything Dark Arts?” She looked around for any kind of knife and found only beautiful patterned mediaeval floor tiles.
“Yeah, well.” James turned away and pushed to his feet. He emanated an air of discomfort. “I do, but blood magic was used differently when this place was first built and tied to the earth. The Tudors and Elizabethans have a lot to answer for.” He slid the tip of his finger between his lips and Lily could imagine him pressing down with tongue and teeth to stop the bleeding. “I knew what I’d have to do as the Best Man, so...” He swallowed.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me see.”
“S’fine. Really.” He straightened, dislodging her hand and whether the movement was inadvertent or intentional she couldn’t decide. It had seemed natural enough. “From the pillar capitals rises a little triforium -” He waved his hand at the smaller arches and their delicate pillars with two-light openings, blank-eyed holes against the light enfolding them. “-above which rises the clerestory, with its stained glass windows - the Muggles don’t see the same ones we do, naturally - and the engaged shafts support the ribbed dome.”
Lily stared up, past the dark windows, into a depiction of a clear night sky, stars sharp as diamonds, and everything fell neatly into place. “Hogwarts!” she breathed. That was why her skin had prickled in recognition - she had sensed the ancient magic and found similarities with the castle in the building style.
She jumped; something had brushed her hand.
James was watching her over the tops of his frames again, eyes bright with amused tolerance. “You didn’t hear me, did you?”
Lily shook her head.
His mouth creased in the slow, lop-sided smile that only appeared when something had amused him and he wasn’t about to share what. She invaded his personal space, grabbing a handful of the sheepskin coat warming his elbows to keep him from evading her. He dropped his head. She felt him shaking.
“What? What is so funny?”
James shook his head, but the ends of his grin reminded her of the Cheshire-cat even more.
Lily jiggled him, finding the tanned coat skin smooth, and soft as butter. “Ah, Potter, don’t make me hex you.”
At this, James laughed silently, swaying on the spot. “In a sacred space? Evans, I swear, I can’t take you anywhere.”
Lily bristled and pushed him away yet a scalding lump leapt to her throat. “You’re assuming I’d go anywhere with you!”
His eyes met hers in a remarkably direct gaze. “You could have Apparated straight here in another hour and still have had ample time to prepare for the formalities yet you chose - you chose - please don’t interrupt me, Evans, it’s one of your more annoying habits - you chose to let me take you Side-Along to Nether Botolph, where, incidentally, you charmed the spots off my father and mother, was given the best guestroom to rest in, which not even Sirius is allowed, and you were probably the only reason I was allowed to have the car. Don’t try telling me now that you won’t go anywhere with me; you just have. That old broom is rolling over and refusing to fly, Evans.”
Lily stared him down, increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze, for reasons she didn’t care to examine. “I came with you,” she said stiffly, “because Alice asked me to. I don’t think she trusts you.”
His stare hardened. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said, in the same soft tone. “Schoolboy pranking is one thing but I wouldn’t do anything to mess up a wizarding ceremony. I was honoured that Frank asked me.”
“You couldn’t speak for five minutes, I know. Remus told me.” She looked deliberately away, and found a metaphor for her emotions in the zig-zag carved pattern decorating the nave’s round-topped arches; always up and down where this young man was concerned.
“Is there anything else you have to do? Wait for the Minister, or whoever?” She was aware her tone was brittle but his summation of her recent choice was un-nerving. If she wasn’t careful, he’d assume she was warming to him, because she wasn’t.
“There is no official. It’s not necessary. Even in a Muggle ceremony, you marry yourselves. The vicar or registrar only turns up to make it legal, or to give the church’s blessing. In a wizarding ceremony, your magic does that. You’ll see.”
He had managed the same tone as before; quiet and yet in command of his temper so that she felt childish and guilty for sniping at him. “I should have come down first thing. Sorry. I’ll wait at the inn for Alice.”
She hurried out of the chapel and vowed not to look over her shoulder. When she did, James was not in sight.
*
“Frank wants to know what you’ve done to his Best Man, Alice asked, plopping herself down in the adjacent armchair. They were upstairs in a predominantly white-plastered room where the timbers showed through black with age. Their robes were hovering nearby. “He says he hasn’t seen James do a better impression of a Gloomy Ass since you shot him down in fifth year.”
Lily stared into the fire, recalling every word with such clarity she might have been viewing it in a Pensieve. The heat in her face had to be from the fire. She drooped back into the cushions, hoping that Alice would let this lie.
Apparently, her friend had other ideas and tapped her on the knee.
“Why d’you do this to yourself? And James? He’s not that bad you know, once you get him-”
“Away from Sirius and Peter, I know.” Lily smiled as they finished the sentence in unison.
Alice shook her head wryly. “At last! It’s sunk in! I’ve only been telling you for two years.”
In the town outside, clocks chimed the half hour. Lily pushed herself reluctantly upright. “Shouldn’t we start getting changed? Half an hour until you become Mrs Longbottom.” Half an hour until I make a prat of myself in front of Potter.
Alice looked as though she saw right through this evasion. “Why d’you always have to fight with him? Why can’t you give way once in while; you know, for the sake of novelty?”
“Because if I once gave way to James, he’d crow and gloat forever more. He imagines he’s in love with me. He isn’t. He’ll get over it.” She glanced at Alice; she was smiling and it annoyed her. “Why don’t you believe me?”
Alice leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees and asking for patience with an upraised hand. “Let me tell you something about the Potters. You’ve met them, yes?”
Lily nodded.
“I’m sure you must have wondered why they only have James, given their age? I mean, you’d expect another sibling at least.”
Lily slid lower in her chair. “Any estimation on the arrival of the point you’re trying to make?”
Far from being irritated, Alice laughed. “That’s another thing that draws him to you, you know - your smart-aleck replies!”
“His parents?” Lily said pointedly.
“His mother is a Walsingham, a very old and respectable family, but her parents objected to an alliance with Montgomery Potter when he approached them, because, despite his excellent pedigree, he worked as a Cursebreaker and was viewed as ‘common’ by those who had ancestral gold in their Gringotts vaults.”
Lily found her interest piqued, despite herself, at the story Alice was relating. She leaned forward. “So how did he end up marrying her, then?”
Alice sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “He had to wait for her first husband to die.”
The words had barely sunk in and Lily was bolt upright, fired up with indignation. “She didn’t have a say? They just married her off to someone else?”
Alice nodded, clearly enjoying the reaction she had provoked. “Of course, by that time, Monty Potter had made a name for himself as a skilled Cursebreaker, quit while he still had all his body parts and travelled extensively. When he returned to England, and the family estate, he took up the study of Alchemy. He worked with professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel, or so the stories go, but that’s hearsay. You could always ask James, I suppose.”
Lily found it unbelievably hard to take in. James’s mother had been so nice and yet years before, her parents had married her off to someone else…
Either Alice was joshing her - unlikely - or it was true. Given some of the attitudes she’d come across at Hogwarts in the last six and a bit years, such behaviour fitted right in, and then something Sirius had said a few weeks ago came back to her, about why some of the students didn’t bother working in class… ‘Most of the pure-bloods are only passing the time here, eyeing each other up and wondering who their families will chose to marry them off to.’
“My God!” she muttered. Wizarding attitudes needed to let in the seventeenth century, never mind the twentieth.
“James might be an arrogant toe-rag at times,” Alice said with a grin as she slid to the edge of her chair. “But if you’re fondly hoping he’ll ‘get over’ this infatuation, I advise you to think again. His father waited several decades to marry Lovage Walsingham because she was the one he wanted. If his son has made his mind up…” She left it hanging but Lily understood. Potters weren’t the sort who gave up easily.
Alice stood up and tapped her with her foot. “Come on, bride’s maid. Get me to the church on time!”
The Conclusion
Word Count: Around 4,400.
A/N: A bit of swearing but nothing the average teen won't have heard before. I got the idea for this while staring at a model Lilliput Lane church I own. ('In my collection' sounds way too grand! :lol:)
Disclaimer: James and Lily belong to JKR. The chapel belongs to itself, and Cambridge. The model belongs to Lilliput Lane (Enesco). I only own the idea.
Summary: Lily Evans decided that she must have gone quietly insane, and no one had bothered to tell her. If it had been anyone other than Alice Hathaway asking it of her, she’d have told them to ‘get stuffed’.
It was snowing when they reached Cambridge, the gelid flecks settling briefly before being swept into oblivion by the windscreen wipers. The bride-to-be huddled deeper into the fur of her borrowed cloak and watched the dark hedges slide past. Although they had driven through the early hours, she felt alert, un-naturally so. “D’you think they’ll make it in time?” Snow hadn’t been in The Plan.
“Yes.” He added a nod for emphasis.
“Your mother’s going to be furious when she finds the letter.”
His mouth tightened. “She’ll get over it.” He glanced at her, a sideways flick of his eyes that nevertheless warmed her right through. “I’m not waiting to marry you. Not for this Voldemort lunatic and very definitely not for my mother.” He drew a breath. “If she doesn’t like it, she can-”
“Lump it?” the bride interrupted with a grin.
The prospective groom smiled, flexing his hands on the shiny steering wheel. The car eased out of the junction and rumbled onto the main road. “She has some odd expressions, that girl.”
The bride buried her smirk in the artic fox fur. Her fiancée didn’t know the half of it.
*
Lily Evans decided that she must have gone quietly insane, and no one had bothered to tell her. That had to be the reason; madness. There was no logical explanation for why she was, a: racketing along unfamiliar ‘A’ roads in an ancient black ‘Moggy’ Minor at five in the morning, b: trying to map read by wand light and, c: accompanying Potter, of all people.
If it had been anyone other than Alice Hathaway asking it of her, she’d have told them to ‘get stuffed’.
The car slowed - mercifully - as the road was narrow and Potter turned expectantly.
He drove as madly as he flew and Lily was glad she’d declined an early breakfast, opting to gulp down some tea instead. “I can’t tell properly; the map’s too small. Aren’t there any road signs?”
He looked out at the T junction and Lily did the same. The hedge stretched out blankly in the headlights, with no indication which way the road led.
“Obviously we’re meant to know where we’re going.” He checked for oncoming traffic. “When in doubt, go right.” He suited action to words and, as the road was perfectly straight, accelerated hard. Lily felt her tummy turn over in protest but there was no way she was going to ask him to slow down. He’d love that.
*
“Why does it have to be so bloody flat? I can’t pick out any landmarks over these blasted hedges.” Only after the words were out did he self-consciously note the swears and expect a glare.
“Next left.”
“Left? You sure?” It didn't look right, somehow.
The huddled figure on his left turned the wand-illuminated map. “I’m not Peter. I know my right from my left. Turn!” A hand waggled across his line of vision. “There! Quick!”
James negotiated the turn sharply, to the screeching protest of tyres and suspension, and cursed the flat terrain, the Muggles, and absent road signs under his breath.
“It is customary to keep all four wheels in contact with the road most of the time.”
Merlin, how he loved that dry wit. “I was following orders! I was! You said ‘turn, there, quick’, so I did.” He turned his grin on her but it was wasted. She was frowning at the map. Cack. He stood on the brake and the Safety charms reacted, pressing them back in the cushioning leather seats as they came to an abrupt halt.
“Bloody hell fire, Potter! What was that for?”
She had a glare fit to freeze the blood, capable of sobering the most frivolous spirit, and yet James Potter was unabashed. He grinned again, turning on one numb buttock to face the Head Girl. “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
The map, which had shot into the dashboard and thence to the foot well during his emergency stop, jumped to her hand. “No.”
“That sounds defensive.” His grin became a low chuckle, which earned him a smack to the chest.
“You’ll be lost in a minute, if you don’t start this car and get going.” Her tone was tarter than lemon juice as she performed an ungainly manoeuvre composed of pushing her back into the seat, lifting her bottom and grimacing.
“Sorry,” James said, pulling his eyes off her newly prominent chest to stare fixedly through the windscreen. “I should have checked the Cushioning charms before we set off.”
“Hmm. But you were in such a blasted hurry-”
“Any opportunity to be alone with you, Evans.”
Lily responded to his playful comment with a derogatory snort. Suffering Circe! Would he ever be cured of his ‘Foot-in-Mouth’ around this witch? He turned the key in the dashboard and pressed the starter button again; the engine coughed and turned over.
“Will you please drive, before I have to explain to Alice why Frank needs another Best Man.”
James leaned forward over the steering wheel, clouding the windscreen with his breath, engaged first gear and moved off.
If only she wasn’t Head Girl, or Dumbledore hadn’t gone batty and named him Head Boy. Not that it would have made a difference to today. Frank would still have asked him to be Best Man, just as Alice would have asked Lily to be her Bride’s Maid.
He half wished Sirius could have come with them but someone had to stay with Remus through the moon, and since he was ‘only a guest’, Sirius had said he’d Apparate down when Moony was in the hospital wing.
“Oh, and Prongs? Don’t be an ass,” had been his parting shot.
James had done his best. He’d been such a model of wizarding social correctness since they’d left Hogwarts that even his stuffy Aunt Dorea would have approved. He’d introduced her to his parents and remained silent while they conversed with his guest. He smiled; Lily had behaved exactly as she did at school, was interested, articulate and bubbly. Her lively interest in any topic his parents had raised and their obvious approval of her had rekindled feelings he’d convinced himself had died from lack of encouragement.
In the car, he’d tried to keep a pleasant atmosphere between them; had offered intelligent observations on the towns they’d passed through, enquired if she was warm enough and had been, as Remus would put it, ‘stonewalled’ almost every time.
It couldn’t have been clearer that, in her eyes, he was still an arrogant, bullying toe-rag. So why had she travelled down with him from Hogwarts? Pondering this, he almost missed the turn into Prattle’s Lane.
*
By the time they found the inn, huddled into the sparse shelter of a stand of bare-limbed trees, it was snowing. Only small flakes, yet what they lacked in size they made up for in quantity, speckling everything in a thin but unbroken layer.
James parked in the inn’s yard, exited his father’s car and jogged round the bonnet to her side, turning up his collar as he went. Lily didn’t know whether to be charmed or patronised that he opened the door and helped her out.
“It’s skiddy,” he said, supporting her under the elbow as she stood and shivered, looking around. The sky was a sheet of polished pewter while every horizontal surface was acquiring a layer of frosting. Even mundane Muggle Cambridge looked magical.
“So I see.”
“Let’s get you inside. Have a Butterbeer and warm up.”
Lily nodded. Why had she succumbed to this mad idea to travel down with Potter? It had involved him Apparating her Side-Along late last night, solely because of the layered charms surrounding his home, he said. She had walked at his side up to a timber-framed mansion (there was no other word for it) that looked as though the first Queen Elizabeth might have stayed there. She had been introduced to his grandparents, who turned out to be his parents, been treated to a light supper and witty conversation before finally spending a few hours lying knackered but wakeful in a magnificently carved four poster. Mrs Potter had come to rouse her personally when it was time to set off.
Mr Potter had loaned James ‘the car’, and that was how she came to be walking up to a wizarding inn in Cambridge at half past six on a December morning a few days before Christmas. She had to be mad. Or having a very long and realistic nightmare.
She was happy to rest her muscles, aching from clenching in response to his manic driving, in the nearest comfy chair. The clock said it had taken them just over an hour and a half from wherever Potter called home to the centre of Cambridge. Lily was still wary and on guard, half expecting another charm offensive aimed at persuading her to go out with him.
She was also fretting about being Alice’s Bride’s Maid. This was a wizarding ceremony and she was required to do more than walk behind the bride and take her flowers. Professor McGonagall had been very helpful when Lily had explained what she’d wanted. All the charms were well within her capabilities so why was she uneasy?
The barmaid turned out to be as buxom as Madam Rosmerta - was it a requirement for the job? - and determined to flirt outrageously with Potter while pretending she didn’t exist. When it came, Lily started her Butterbeer with relief. Her throat was dry from the cold air as much as from justifying his frequent challenges to her map reading skills.
How could his parents be such lovely, articulate and thoughtful people and produce him? She sighed and tuned out the barmaid’s snorting laughter. She had to stop reacting to Potter as though they were both still fifteen. He was Head Boy and Dumbledore must have seen something in James to justify his choice.
Either that, or he was as nutty as a fruit cake as everyone fondly asserted.
Well, whatever happened, she would act grown-up and behave with decorum. Even if she felt like she was three and playing dressing-up in her mum’s clothes.
*
The logs spat and crackled. Lily found her eyes had closed and sitting quietly here, it was easy to imagine herself back in Gryffindor tower. She rubbed her stiff neck. “What next?”
“A quick stop in the church. It’s just round the corner.”
James sounded equally tired, reminding her that he had done all the driving. She had no real idea of the distance but remembered the streets and little towns flashing by along with an endless succession of ‘A’ roads. Had he slept while at home? Like a baby, probably. Nothing shook his assurance.
She peered through her lashes. His head was resting against the stone fireplace, the ruddy light creating dark shadows in the hollows of his eyes.
“How far did you drive?”
“63 miles,” he answered, without moving. “Frank and Alice choosing the Cambridge chapel made it easy for me to stop off at home beforehand.”
Lily nodded. Alice had said there were only four wizarding chapels left. “Who else is coming?”
“Sirius.”
Lily frowned and set her tankard down. Alice’s family had been murdered in her last year at school and partly accounted for why she was marrying so young. “What about Frank’s mother?”
James rolled his head against the stone to face her. “If she finds the letter in time.”
That was cryptic. Either way, it was going to be a tiny wedding, just the five of them. A click close at hand made her look up. James had set his tankard down and was shrugging his coat on.
“I’ll nip round to the chapel. You can stay here if you like. Keep warm.”
Lily got to her feet. “And be ignored by Miss Congeniality out back? I don’t think so. I’ll come with you.” James’s nods made her want to grab his head and hold it still, before he nodded it off. He was staring at her. It was un-nerving, made her middle tighten. “I wonder if it’s still snowing?”
*
The church was small by modern standards and, to Lily’s surprise, circular. As they approached under the amber street lights, it stood out from the Muggle surroundings, its solidity and incongruity defining it as belonging to an earlier age. Atop the stone structure was a stubby stone tower, also circular, which was pierced at regular intervals by more of the arch-top windows that graced the main building. She caught the fractured glimmer of stained glass before James hurried her across the road, his hand under her elbow. Even at this hour, people were already hurrying along wrapped up against the chill. The snow was petering out and yet the sky was no lighter.
Lily dropped her gaze from the apex of the roof, missing its cross, and took in the heavy stone arch facing her. The narrow double doors it bordered were solidly made, probably of oak, as befitted a church and she felt an un-nerving sense of recognition. There was something hovering at the back of her mind, but it wouldn’t reveal itself and resolve the feeling.
“Two ticks,” James muttered.
He worried the driving glove off his wand hand and laid it on the iron ring, clenching his jaw against the biting cold of it. She heard the latch click echo inside and then he was ushering her through a narrow gap.
“What are we doing?” It seemed natural to whisper, even though this sanctified space was empty of worshippers to disturb. Her eyes struggled to pierce the gloom.
“There’s a couple of things I have to do. Essential charms.”
He moved off into the darkness, leaving the air swirling colder around her. Lily hunched her hands deeper in her pockets and wished she’d thought to pick up her gloves on the way out of her dormitory. How on earth could he see?
‘A couple of things he had to do.’ What a singularly unenlightening reply -and how very typical of him. He probably did it to encourage her to talk to him. Well, she wasn’t falling for it.
The breath of ages past settled around her, the scent of paper, wax and, oddly, the potions dungeon, reinforcing her initial impression of familiarity.
“This chapel is very old, you know.” James’s quiet voice came as clearly as though he was at her elbow; the acoustics must be excellent.
“Oh?” Lily withdrew her hands and groped forwards, hoping she’d feel the wall before she connected with it. Bruises wouldn’t look good on the pictures.
James ‘hmmed’. “Muggle records say it was built around 1130 by the Confraternity of the Holy Sepulchre, and that little is known about this group. They assume a Knights Templar connection.”
Lily paused in her blind inching progress. “By your smug tone, I presume ‘they’ are wrong.” She could imagine his impish grin too easily; he turned it on her often enough.
“Yes. It’s wizarding built. Intending for wizarding marriages and the presentation of babies. There’s a circular nave separated from the ambulatory by eight great, fat-bugger!- Norman pillars.”
Lily cocked her head at the note of pain. “What have done?”
“Two ticks. Let me finish the history lesson first.”
”Potter?” Lily took a full stride forward and sensed the solidity before her fingertips found it. Her hands explored the surface, finding it cold, curved and made of well-dressed stone. One of those Norman pillars he’d just described, in all likelihood.
“The ambulatory has fine vaulting, and is where family and other guests gather to witness the ceremony. Only the bride, groom, best man and bride’s maid stand within the nave. There we go!”
His relieved exclamation coincided with the emergence of about a thousand candles. Lily was forced to screw her eyes tightly against the golden glare. After the eye-pressing chiaroscuro, it hurt.
Blinking, and hoping the after-image of overlapping green circles faded quickly, she found James on his knees at the centre of the nave. She slipped around the ‘great fat pillar’ and hurried over. He was pressing his thumb to his middle finger and frowning at the shiny bead of blood. There was more dotted on the tiles and the inset shiny metal star.
“God, James!”
“Was a bit too enthusiastic with the ritual blade,” he muttered, with a sheepish glance.
“Blood magic?” Lily was aghast. “I thought you hated anything Dark Arts?” She looked around for any kind of knife and found only beautiful patterned mediaeval floor tiles.
“Yeah, well.” James turned away and pushed to his feet. He emanated an air of discomfort. “I do, but blood magic was used differently when this place was first built and tied to the earth. The Tudors and Elizabethans have a lot to answer for.” He slid the tip of his finger between his lips and Lily could imagine him pressing down with tongue and teeth to stop the bleeding. “I knew what I’d have to do as the Best Man, so...” He swallowed.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me see.”
“S’fine. Really.” He straightened, dislodging her hand and whether the movement was inadvertent or intentional she couldn’t decide. It had seemed natural enough. “From the pillar capitals rises a little triforium -” He waved his hand at the smaller arches and their delicate pillars with two-light openings, blank-eyed holes against the light enfolding them. “-above which rises the clerestory, with its stained glass windows - the Muggles don’t see the same ones we do, naturally - and the engaged shafts support the ribbed dome.”
Lily stared up, past the dark windows, into a depiction of a clear night sky, stars sharp as diamonds, and everything fell neatly into place. “Hogwarts!” she breathed. That was why her skin had prickled in recognition - she had sensed the ancient magic and found similarities with the castle in the building style.
She jumped; something had brushed her hand.
James was watching her over the tops of his frames again, eyes bright with amused tolerance. “You didn’t hear me, did you?”
Lily shook her head.
His mouth creased in the slow, lop-sided smile that only appeared when something had amused him and he wasn’t about to share what. She invaded his personal space, grabbing a handful of the sheepskin coat warming his elbows to keep him from evading her. He dropped his head. She felt him shaking.
“What? What is so funny?”
James shook his head, but the ends of his grin reminded her of the Cheshire-cat even more.
Lily jiggled him, finding the tanned coat skin smooth, and soft as butter. “Ah, Potter, don’t make me hex you.”
At this, James laughed silently, swaying on the spot. “In a sacred space? Evans, I swear, I can’t take you anywhere.”
Lily bristled and pushed him away yet a scalding lump leapt to her throat. “You’re assuming I’d go anywhere with you!”
His eyes met hers in a remarkably direct gaze. “You could have Apparated straight here in another hour and still have had ample time to prepare for the formalities yet you chose - you chose - please don’t interrupt me, Evans, it’s one of your more annoying habits - you chose to let me take you Side-Along to Nether Botolph, where, incidentally, you charmed the spots off my father and mother, was given the best guestroom to rest in, which not even Sirius is allowed, and you were probably the only reason I was allowed to have the car. Don’t try telling me now that you won’t go anywhere with me; you just have. That old broom is rolling over and refusing to fly, Evans.”
Lily stared him down, increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze, for reasons she didn’t care to examine. “I came with you,” she said stiffly, “because Alice asked me to. I don’t think she trusts you.”
His stare hardened. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said, in the same soft tone. “Schoolboy pranking is one thing but I wouldn’t do anything to mess up a wizarding ceremony. I was honoured that Frank asked me.”
“You couldn’t speak for five minutes, I know. Remus told me.” She looked deliberately away, and found a metaphor for her emotions in the zig-zag carved pattern decorating the nave’s round-topped arches; always up and down where this young man was concerned.
“Is there anything else you have to do? Wait for the Minister, or whoever?” She was aware her tone was brittle but his summation of her recent choice was un-nerving. If she wasn’t careful, he’d assume she was warming to him, because she wasn’t.
“There is no official. It’s not necessary. Even in a Muggle ceremony, you marry yourselves. The vicar or registrar only turns up to make it legal, or to give the church’s blessing. In a wizarding ceremony, your magic does that. You’ll see.”
He had managed the same tone as before; quiet and yet in command of his temper so that she felt childish and guilty for sniping at him. “I should have come down first thing. Sorry. I’ll wait at the inn for Alice.”
She hurried out of the chapel and vowed not to look over her shoulder. When she did, James was not in sight.
*
“Frank wants to know what you’ve done to his Best Man, Alice asked, plopping herself down in the adjacent armchair. They were upstairs in a predominantly white-plastered room where the timbers showed through black with age. Their robes were hovering nearby. “He says he hasn’t seen James do a better impression of a Gloomy Ass since you shot him down in fifth year.”
Lily stared into the fire, recalling every word with such clarity she might have been viewing it in a Pensieve. The heat in her face had to be from the fire. She drooped back into the cushions, hoping that Alice would let this lie.
Apparently, her friend had other ideas and tapped her on the knee.
“Why d’you do this to yourself? And James? He’s not that bad you know, once you get him-”
“Away from Sirius and Peter, I know.” Lily smiled as they finished the sentence in unison.
Alice shook her head wryly. “At last! It’s sunk in! I’ve only been telling you for two years.”
In the town outside, clocks chimed the half hour. Lily pushed herself reluctantly upright. “Shouldn’t we start getting changed? Half an hour until you become Mrs Longbottom.” Half an hour until I make a prat of myself in front of Potter.
Alice looked as though she saw right through this evasion. “Why d’you always have to fight with him? Why can’t you give way once in while; you know, for the sake of novelty?”
“Because if I once gave way to James, he’d crow and gloat forever more. He imagines he’s in love with me. He isn’t. He’ll get over it.” She glanced at Alice; she was smiling and it annoyed her. “Why don’t you believe me?”
Alice leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees and asking for patience with an upraised hand. “Let me tell you something about the Potters. You’ve met them, yes?”
Lily nodded.
“I’m sure you must have wondered why they only have James, given their age? I mean, you’d expect another sibling at least.”
Lily slid lower in her chair. “Any estimation on the arrival of the point you’re trying to make?”
Far from being irritated, Alice laughed. “That’s another thing that draws him to you, you know - your smart-aleck replies!”
“His parents?” Lily said pointedly.
“His mother is a Walsingham, a very old and respectable family, but her parents objected to an alliance with Montgomery Potter when he approached them, because, despite his excellent pedigree, he worked as a Cursebreaker and was viewed as ‘common’ by those who had ancestral gold in their Gringotts vaults.”
Lily found her interest piqued, despite herself, at the story Alice was relating. She leaned forward. “So how did he end up marrying her, then?”
Alice sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “He had to wait for her first husband to die.”
The words had barely sunk in and Lily was bolt upright, fired up with indignation. “She didn’t have a say? They just married her off to someone else?”
Alice nodded, clearly enjoying the reaction she had provoked. “Of course, by that time, Monty Potter had made a name for himself as a skilled Cursebreaker, quit while he still had all his body parts and travelled extensively. When he returned to England, and the family estate, he took up the study of Alchemy. He worked with professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel, or so the stories go, but that’s hearsay. You could always ask James, I suppose.”
Lily found it unbelievably hard to take in. James’s mother had been so nice and yet years before, her parents had married her off to someone else…
Either Alice was joshing her - unlikely - or it was true. Given some of the attitudes she’d come across at Hogwarts in the last six and a bit years, such behaviour fitted right in, and then something Sirius had said a few weeks ago came back to her, about why some of the students didn’t bother working in class… ‘Most of the pure-bloods are only passing the time here, eyeing each other up and wondering who their families will chose to marry them off to.’
“My God!” she muttered. Wizarding attitudes needed to let in the seventeenth century, never mind the twentieth.
“James might be an arrogant toe-rag at times,” Alice said with a grin as she slid to the edge of her chair. “But if you’re fondly hoping he’ll ‘get over’ this infatuation, I advise you to think again. His father waited several decades to marry Lovage Walsingham because she was the one he wanted. If his son has made his mind up…” She left it hanging but Lily understood. Potters weren’t the sort who gave up easily.
Alice stood up and tapped her with her foot. “Come on, bride’s maid. Get me to the church on time!”
The Conclusion