Abusive!James/ Lily, Potter Marriage, Snape; Liberacorpus
A/N: None of the characters is mine, though this interpretation of them certainly is. Canon-compliant in terms of facts: if anybody sees anything I overlooked please, PLEASE tell me so I can change it. I’m just borrowing JKR’s setting to tell a story about a relationship that Smallpotato (marianros) asked for…. (It’s her fault, hers, hers. This didn’t come from my perverted imagination at all. Really not.)
Warnings: Anyone who LIKES the Marauders-or who is squeamish about domestic abuse-shouldn’t read this.
Ships: Abusive!James/Lily, Severus/Lily
Liberacorpus!
Liberacorpus
June 1981
“Levicorpus doesn’t really hurt,” Severus had told her.
It must be true. James would never use anything that really hurt her. He was so careful that way, no matter how angry she had made him.
Lily hadn’t meant to slop their beers when she Depulsoed them from the kitchen. But carelessness was inexcusable; she knew James’s standards.
It was just so… embarrassing. It would be nothing if James let her wear jeans. But he liked her to dress “like a proper witch”, which meant nothing but underwear under her robes. Thank Merlin his family had been modern enough to wear underwear! At least she had stopped breastfeeding and was back to a normal bra.
She didn’t struggle or try to hold up her robes. She had been trained that it would just get worse if she did. She dangled passively, waiting for James to decide she’d been punished enough.
In a way, she was glad her robes covered her face; that meant she didn’t have to see theirs.
If only he hadn’t punished her right in front of Wormtail.
Sure enough, Wormy started giggling. “Nice legs, James. I always figured you must have done well for yourself in that department. You always were a leg man.”
Lily hated the way Wormtail giggled; she hated the thought that he was staring at her body. She could feel her bare flesh prickling with mortification.
Prongs laughed. “Oh, Evans has her points. But she needs to be more careful with her wand. Now, my wand she handles well enough. Right, Evans?”
Lily hung silently. Prongs raised his voice a little. “That was a question, Evans. You like handling my wand, don’t you? Tell Wormy!”
“Yes, James,” she answered woodenly.
“Good girl,” he replied, his voice deeper. Lily spilled to the ground in a tangle of robes, and he told her, “Now clean up this mess, Lily. I want to drink the beer, not wear it.”
“Yes, James,” she answered. “Um-my wand is in the kitchen.”
“Well, get it then,” he said. “And straighten yourself up a little. The windswept look is my style, not yours.” He grinned at her; she straightened in relief. It was over, then, for now, as long as she didn’t do anything else wrong.
*
October 1975
Severus had discovered the Room of Requirement their second year; he and Lily had used it for private meetings ever since. Usually they went over their Potions homework. Their version of the Room varied a little from visit to visit, but it always included an overstuffed bookcase, a couple of overstuffed, squashy chairs that looked suspiciously like the ones in the Evans sitting room, a well-illuminated table for writing at, and a tea service with ginger nuts among other goodies. In winter there was a cozy fireplace, in warm weather an open window, though it looked onto no view on the Hogwarts grounds. Sometimes there was a potions lab, and Severus spent their time experimenting. Usually they worked together, but occasionally they just read. Silently, companionably, unlike anything Lily found among her Gryffindor friends.
Sometimes they fought.
At the beginning of this year a sofa had appeared, though Lily couldn’t imagine why it should be required. It was squashy like the chairs. Severus had shied like a startled horse the first time he saw it. He still refused to sit on it, establishing himself firmly instead in a squashy chair. Lily sometimes curled on the sofa to read, since it was comfortable. Once she had stretched and looked over to find Severus staring at her; he had hunched into his chair and turned red.
But they weren’t working on potions today, or reading. The ceiling was higher than usual.
“That’s it,” Severus urged her. “Your wand again, so. That’s right, you’ve got it. The incantation should be done nonverbally: it’s ‘Levicorpus’. And the counter is the same movement, but flicked upwards instead, and the incantation is ‘liberacorpus.’ Got that, Lily?” He grinned at her.
“But what does it do, Sev?”
“You’ll see in a minute, Lily. Just give me a sec to prepare.” He pointed his wand at himself and muttered a word or two. “Okay, give it a try.”
“Levicorpus!” she thought, brandishing her wand. There was a flash of light, and Severus was upside down in mid air before her. His charm must have been to keep his robes from obeying gravity; they looked like a statue’s robes, turned upside down like that. Lily giggled, and Sev’s grin widened. He crossed one leg casually over the other and pillowed his head in his hands. His hair, unlike his robes, was hanging down. His face looked very different with all its planes exposed and wrong side up to boot. But the half-secretive, half-smug expression that he wore when he pulled something off was the same as ever.
Lily giggled again. “Clever, Severus. But what’s the point?”
“The point is to put someone temporarily out of action without having to hurt them. Levicorpus doesn’t really hurt them, but being yanked off your feet without warning will disorient anyone. With any luck they might drop their wand, but even if they keep it they’ll have their robes in their face and tangling their arms. One of the situations where Muggle clothing would be more practical. I’ve finally got something those bastards won’t expect!”
Lily looked at Severus hanging calmly in the air. Her brow creased as she visualized an unprepared victim-flailing, frightened, robes over their head. Exposed if they didn’t wear Muggle gear under their robes like she did.
Lily said slowly, “It might not hurt exactly but… it’s cruel, Sev. It’s-humiliating.”
He gestured with his own wand and landed lightly beside her. “Oh, what’s a little humiliation, Lily? I need an edge with those bastards always after me. Something secret I can use.”
She chewed her lip. “I don’t know, Sev, it just seems… well, cruel, like I said. Besides, don’t expect to keep it a secret, not if you’re talking about using it on the Marauders. You know they’re good at figuring out hexes once they see them-”
He laughed. “Lily, you worry too much. That’s why it’s nonverbal! They won’t figure it out.”
*
June 1976
It had been a bit funny for half a second, remembering Sev’s smugness last fall. She had told him so! But then he had said-that, and all amusement fled.
How could Severus say that? To her?
Potter came up to her in the common room that afternoon, looking grave. “Look, I’m sorry I went too far-and even sorrier that I exposed you to insult. I guess we both already knew he was an ungrateful bastard, but I wouldn’t have expected even someone like him to say that to someone who was trying to help him. But that’s the Death Eaters for you-they all really think that way, even when they’re trying to hide it.”
Lily crossed her arms and looked away. Potter hesitated and then touched her arm quickly. His hand dropped when she looked at it glacially.
“I just hope you noticed, Evans, I didn’t do anything that could’ve really hurt Snivellus: just immobilized him and used a little bit of scourgify to clean his filthy mouth. Whereas he used a Dark spell on me-did you see how he gashed me? Took Dittany to stop the bleeding-you know what that means.”
Yes. Lily knew far better than Potter what that meant. Dittany was used in general healing, true, but most particularly in potions designed to counter curse damage.
She and Severus had been working on one just day before yesterday.
At least now she knew what he really was.
However much it hurt to know.
*
October 1977
“For almost two years now,” James said seriously. “No one but you.”
Lily burst out laughing. “Pull the other one, Potter!”
Around them in Madame Puddifoot’s, heads turned at her unrestrained laughter. Lily didn’t care, but she saw that Potter looked a little affronted. She wiped her eyes. “Oh, James. You went out with at least half my best friends last year! Now you tell me you’ve been … carrying a torch for me all this time? Oh, please!” She laughed again.
Potter turned a dull red and studied his cup. “I-you pulled me up so sharply when I asked you fifth year-and I was being a jerk, I deserved it… but… I was afraid to ask again. So I, I… asked out your friends instead of you. That way-at least I was being near you, in a way, if not with you.”
There was a silence at the little table while Lily blushed in turn. Then James added, “Besides, I thought… you were right, I was being an arrogant toerag. Someone like … you… is worth changing for, I thought. So I’ve been trying. That’s why I haven’t-you notice Sirius and I didn’t get any detentions last year. Not for hexing anyone, I mean; I think we still goofed off in class more than someone like you did. But I’ve been trying.”
The Head Girl looked at him, brows creased. “But I’ve heard… some people say you’ve just gotten better at not being caught.”
James gave her that cocky Quidditch-winner grin that everyone saw who saw no more. “C’mon, Lily, no one can TOTALLY escape being caught if they’re going around hexing people left and right.”
(Unless they had a rat with the Marauder's Map stationed in the walls as a lookout, and an invisibility cloak as backup. But she would never know that.)
He sobered suddenly. “Mind you-there’re some people, like old Snivellus-if they curse first, I’ll hex them back. I’m not a pacifist, Lily; I don’t say I won’t fight back. But when we graduate-there are people like that out there, I won’t lie down and take it. I’ll fight, Lily, where I have to. Against the Dark. And I think you will too. That’s one of the things I like about you-so many girls are just shallow, but you think about these things. I think we’re on the same side.”
She nodded mutely. The waitress replenished their tea, and the talk moved on, increasingly easily, to lighter topics. Lily was laughing again when they left.
Unfortunately Deirdre O’Connell, the worst of the sixth year gossips, had been sitting at the next table, listening avidly. By the time Lily made it back to the Gryffindor common room, four of her jilted-by-James’s friends had decided they weren’t speaking to her. Three never did again, which made the rest of seventh year uncomfortable, but it didn’t matter long-term, Lily decided.
When she accepted his ring she lost two more. Not that that mattered; Mary was still her friend. The others were just jealous.
*
June 1979
Lily had never seen James look like this. His eyes were sunken and red; she could tell by that he’d been crying, though no other signs were visible.
The dragon pox epidemic had hit worst the older generation of Purebloods.
“James,” she said. “James!” She could do nothing better than to hold him.
His mother and father both.
After a while came his whisper, muffled against her hair, “You’ll come with me to the funeral?”
She nodded against his shoulder. That didn’t seem enough; she kissed his collarbone and told him, “Of course!”
He sighed and pulled her closer. “Lily. You’re my only family now. Please. Please. Let’s do it as soon as possible. Lily, please, you’re my only family now!”
She murmured something meaningless, but when he showed up two days after the funeral with a (Muggle!) license, she Apparated with him and Sirius to a Muggle registry office and said the vows. How could she refuse him, when he was in such pain? And she meant to eventually anyway.
*
October 1979
Sirius’s punch was spiked with Euphoria Elixir. By the time Lily spotted it, she no longer cared. This wasn’t her and Severus’s improved version, either, she diagnosed giddily; Remus was tweaking Sirius’s aristocratic nose, and she was perilously close to tweaking James’s. Aristocratic too, she thought, he was a Pureblood for generations, not a middleclass Mudblood like her. She laughed and laughed.
James whirled her around in another dance and fed her more punch. She was thirsty after the dancing; it was nice of him to take care of her. He was so nice, her husband, so nice.
“Happy Halloween!”
Who had said that? Not that it mattered; Lily drank the toast.
They had just enough sense left not to try Apparating in their state. They spent the night, sensibly, in Sirius’s spare room. James had just enough sense left to put up privacy wards.
But they were both too giddy to think about Contraceptus.
Well, Lily thought she had said something, early on. But she was far too drunk and euphoric to cast the charm.
James wasn’t displeased; he’d been hoping for children early.
But Lily had a sinking feeling. It wasn’t quite the right time, it seemed to her, not with the war on.
*
January 1980
James was under so much more stress than she was. She had to make allowances.
For one thing, he was still active in the Order; he risked his life weekly or more often.
She was safe at home.
Not that Lily had had much choice: her fatigue, her nausea, and her… emotional instability, all made it seem better to drop out of active duty for now. Not that Alice Longbottom had, but as James had pointed out, Alice was a trained Auror and much older and more experienced. Lily didn’t really have that much to contribute in comparison: humiliating, but true. It was better for her to keep out of the way so no one was dragged down protecting her. James was right in that.
*
February 1980
“… since she’s stopped being active in the Order she seems a little down. I just thought maybe having some of her girlfriends…” Moony’s voice became inaudible as he moved away from the kitchen door; James murmured something indistinguishable in response.
Lily’s eyes stung suddenly with tears. Remus was always so thoughtful. But James was right, of course; it wasn’t really fair to anyone who wasn’t already committed to the struggle against You-Know-Who to endanger them by being seen to be too close. Marlene and Alice were very nice, but enough older that she couldn’t quite connect with them as she had her own friends. Plus they were too busy with Order business and their own family and friends.
She had been feeling down a lot lately, but that was mostly just the hormones of pregnancy. It was really a pity that being a witch was no help at all with that little problem.
She had hoped that their mutual pregnancies would draw her and Tuney closer again, but Tuney’s coldness had, if anything, increased. Sure, Sirius had been thoughtless at the wedding, but he had meant it as a joke. For Tuney and Vernon still to be holding a grudge, as James pointed out, showed how closed-minded they were.
Still, she missed her sister sometimes-and Mary and her other Hogwarts friends often. If only the threat of You-Know-Who was less pressing, she and James could have a more normal, a more open, life. But that wasn’t an option.
Sighing, Lily floated the tray of beers and cheese straws out to where her husband and his three friends waited. They greeted her arrival-or possibly the beers’-with cheers, and she forced herself to laugh with them in turn.
Just hormones.
*
March 1980
The four Marauders were relaxing at Sirius’s flat after the meeting. After the second beer, James loudly declared that he needed some crisps to go with. “Moony! Come with me! We’re on a Quest for Crisps.”
Remus shook his head sadly. “At midnight? You won’t find any stores open, mate.”
“I’ve got Muggle money, Moony, or we can hit a pub. We won’t return without ‘em! Where’s your
Gryffindor courage?”
Remus laughed. “All right, Prongs. We’ll find your crisps if it takes all night.”
But no sooner were they alone together in the night than James’s lightness left him. “This is hard to say, Moony, and I don’t want you to take it wrong. Sirius and I had been talking about … your mission… and Lily heard. She didn’t take it-well, the way I would have predicted. Well, she did, sort of-she said it made no difference to her. But-I know her too well, you see. I can tell she’s scared.”
Remus walked silently beside him, head bowed. After a while he looked up at his friend. “She’s afraid of me?”
“She’s ashamed to be-she tried not to show it. I’m not sure you could even tell, even as well as you know her. But I can tell-and Moony, she’s pregnant. It might be-it probably is-just one of those pregnant woman’s fancies. She knows it’s not rational; she said it herself, you’re still you. But she’s scared, Moony, and-she’s under so much stress already with the Order and You-Know-Who, I don’t want … anything added….”
Remus swallowed. He was extremely proud that his voice came out uninflected. “You’re thinking it’s better if I stay away from her, then.”
“Moony, probably once the baby’s here she’ll be more herself. She knows her reaction isn’t reasonable or fair. I hate to even ask-”
Remus interrupted. “You didn’t ask. I’m offering.” He stopped in the darkness. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for crisps, James. I think I’ll just head home.”
Prongs grabbed his arm. “You’re still one of my best mates, Moony. Lily’s being a little irrational, but I have to cater to her in her condition. We’re still friends; Lily won’t even try to interfere with that, with our seeing each other, getting together. Just not visiting the house, not until she comes around.”
Remus nodded stiffly and pulled his arm away. “Yeah James. Still friends. G’night.”
He Disapparated.
*
April 1980
Lily’s brow creased. “Is Remus still… away… on Order business? It seems so long since we’ve seen him…”
“Lily… I’m going to tell you something very confidential. You must keep this a secret. Promise me!”
She nodded solemnly, confused by his insistence. Didn’t he trust her?
James raked his hands through his hair and sighed. “Moony… is a werewolf. Sirius and Peter and I have known since third year, and it’s never made a difference. But… lately we’ve been getting a little worried. You-Know-Who has been, well, recruiting Dark creatures. We know Moony was approached, and of course he said no. But then-the Order asked him to start-hanging out with other werewolves, try to keep them from going over-spy on them, even. And since he’s started doing that-well, he’s gotten more distant with us. And we’re wondering-just a little-if he’s starting to feel… more comfortable… with his new pack than with us.”
Lily went white. “James. That’s a terrible thing to suggest about Remus. He was always the kindest one in your group, and the one who tried hardest to do the right thing. I can’t imagine he-but then I can’t imagine him as a werewolf, at all. He seems so gentle most of the time, softer than most of the Order.”
“We know, Lily, we know. And we hope it’s not true. If it’s happening at all, I don’t think it’s a choice he’s making. I think it might be a pull, like-being among his own kind, finally. And maybe we’re mistaken; maybe it’s just stress. Lily, don’t you say anything to him when you do see him. Sirius and I are trying not to treat him any different than ever. Don’t you treat him differently either.”
*
June 1980
Petunia sat stiffly beside her sister in the church, refusing to look at her. Her face was mostly buried in the missal; occasionally she looked blindly at the caskets.
At the graveside, Tuney started sobbing at the first shovelfull. Her husband put his arm around her awkwardly, uncomfortable with the public display. Petunia suddenly wheeled from Dursley’s arm’s shelter to confront the Potters. She shrieked, “You freaks! They never even saw their first grandson!”
Tuney’s preemie was still in hospital. Lily hadn’t seen him either.
Tuney advanced upon James, her face wild. “It’s your fault, you freak, you did it somehow, you knew they were getting worried about precious Lily! And it’s your fault, Lily, for marrying him! I said, I said back then, you were separated from normal people for our safety…!”
Tears streaked Tuney’s face, and her commonplace husband looked at the Potters with loathing as he gathered her in. “Ssh, Petunia, you’re making a scene-control yourself….” He stroked her dull hair as she relapsed into sobbing.
The other people at the graveside, their parents’ friends, were staring at the sisters.
James hugged Lily close-or as close as her swollen belly allowed- and shrugged at Tuney’s ranting. “She’s just hysterical. I don’t care what a Muggle says about me,” he said magnanimously.
Lily couldn’t blame Tuney really; it was because of Lily that the Death Eaters had even known of the Evans’ existence. When the coroner could find no cause for the simultaneous deaths, well, Petunia knew enough of magic to work it out.
To attack James like that, though; no, that was going too far. James had been trying to help, giving the Aurors her parents’ address; he had been trying to get protection for them. No one could have known that the Auror’s office had been infiltrated.
James had wondered aloud if Snape might have taken the Death Eaters there, but Lily hadn’t credited that. For one thing, there was the timing. For the other… though she knew Severus hated Muggles on principle, she couldn’t see him hurting her parents. His dad, now… if a Dark Mark had been found floating above Spinner’s End, she’d have believed it in a minute. But she couldn’t imagine Severus at his darkest attacking her mum, who’d fed him ginger nuts and milky tea. “Don’t your folks ever feed you, boy? Drink up, there’s plenty more!”
But... “we both already knew he was an ungrateful bastard.”
Maybe?
Somehow even just wondering made her feel even worse than she already did. She buried her face in James’s shoulder to escape.
She and James didn’t go to the cold collation after. James took her home instead.
*
November 1980
At first James had comforted her tenderly when he found her crying, but finally he started getting angry. “Aren’t I enough for you?” he asked. “My folks are dead too, but I’m not still crying.”
Of course he was enough, he was her husband! But she missed her parents, she even missed her sister-the old Tuney, not the bitter one.
But the old Tuney was as dead as their parents, and James and darling Harry were her only family now.
Lily sniffed and composed herself. James hated to see her cry without reason.
It’s not like James ever hurt her. He was careful. It’s just-sometimes she lost her sense of humor. Especially being so tired from being woken by the baby. James let her tend to Harry at night-well, that was fair; James was working for the Order. Even if the baby had the colic, and woke her six nights out of seven.
The first time he used Sev’s spell on her, she flailed and cried out, “James! What are you doing? Let me down!”
But he didn’t, and she had dropped her wand when her feet were jerked from under her. Her robes were tangled about her head; she fought to bunch them, to pull them away so she could see him. He stood laughing, his face upside down to hers but almost at the same level. “James! Let me down!”
“Not just yet, I don’t think.”
“James-anyone walking by the window could see me!”
“And what a view they’d get, eh, Lily?”
“James-” she tried to reach out to him, but he backed out of her reach, smiling.
Eventually she’d started crying. He let her down then, saying, “Lily. Lily! It was just a joke! This whole situation that we’re in, if we lose our sense of humor we’ll go nuts. We’ve got to keep our sense of fun, can’t you see that?”
He levitated her up to their bedroom, murmuring soothingly. She really wasn’t in the mood, but she agreed they needed to keep their sense of fun. And it soothed James; he was under so much stress, more than her.
He needed to let off steam, as her dad used to say.
Playing jokes was just the way he did it.
He never actually hurt her. He usually didn’t even leave marks.
*
December 1980
James had come back from the meeting with Dumbledore looking aghast. Lily had not believed him at first when he told her. Some prophecy had made He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named think that their baby-their Harry!-might someday be a threat to him, so he was targeting the Potters for extinction? That was impossible to imagine.
But they had gone into hiding, and things had gotten much worse.
No, not worse. She shouldn’t use that word. It wasn’t that bad. But James was more stressed; well, that was natural. Staying at home except for Order business, hardly seeing anyone-that was only an exaggeration of how it had been before, for her. For months now she’d seen no one but his friends. Well, and his mum’s old friend, that historian, who was so happy to help James tell her how old-family witches should behave.
For him it was different; he felt trapped. He needed to blow off steam, and she was the only outlet. It was natural that he should start pulling more jokes on her. It was just unfortunate that the stress… played hob with her sense of humor. And that she knew so little, when you came to it, about pureblood ways of doing things.
She could never be sorry James had chosen her, but sometimes she wondered if he might not have been happier with a pureblood girl who knew from birth all the things-not magic, her OWLs had been better than James’s, but wizarding world etiquette-that James had to teach her from scratch.
The day he’d found her in trousers and a blouse he had slashed them off her with a hex, leaving her naked in view of the front window. But he’d been careful not to cut her, however angry he had been.
He built a very pretty wand holder in the kitchen, decorated with willow leaves and lilies. A witch’s wand should be kept where she used it most, he told her. He didn’t like to see it anywhere else unless he gave permission. Three weeks of Expelliarmus and Rictumsempra until she was sobbing had taught her that.
Each day there seemed to be more to learn.
*
August 1981
Lily shrieked when Harry caromed into the end table, knocking the vase to the floor. It was the vase the Dursleys had sent the Christmas before the boys’ births-the last present Petunia had sent her. Lily burst into tears. Why had it been on the end table? She usually kept it on the mantle. If she were allowed to use her wand, she could Reparo it. But she wasn’t. Harry stopped zooming on his little broom to stare at his mum. His face puckered and he started to wail.
Prongs stormed in; he took in the situation in a glance. “Which do you value more, my son or your damn Muggle knickknacks?”
Wormtail followed into the room, giggling. Lily couldn’t help herself; she writhed in protest when she saw that Wormtail had his camera. “James-please-no-”
Levicorpus.
The camera flashed.
Prongs released her; she fell at his feet. She straightened her robes and scrubbed at her face as best she could without rising from the carpet without permission. James laughed, plucked the baby off the broom, and threw him to the ceiling, again and again. Eventually Harry chortled and James set him back on his broom. The baby promptly started zooming past his father’s legs and her face. James said teasingly, “That’s my boy! Now isn’t my Harry a proper Quidditch star?”
One fat hand grabbed for the cat, which yowled and leapt away. “A Seeker for sure,” James said grinning.
Lily laughed in relief that it was over again and realized that Wormtail was snapping another picture.
Prongs had her send both pictures to Padfoot with her thank-you note for the broom.
“He’ll enjoy them,” Prongs said.
*
October1981
Tomorrow she would cast the Fidelius with Wormtail as the Secret-Keeper. And then no one could visit them, ever, unless Wormtail let them in. Only Padfoot and Wormy himself, Prongs had told her.
To keep them safe.
Until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was dead, or defeated, or decided the Potters weren’t worth targeting. How many years would it take? She and baby Harry could die, trapped in this little world.
Not trapped. She shouldn’t think that way.
They were just trying to keep her safe.
But… years, maybe, seeing no one but Padfoot and Wormtail.
And Prongs, of course. And Prongs.
Warnings: Anyone who LIKES the Marauders-or who is squeamish about domestic abuse-shouldn’t read this.
Ships: Abusive!James/Lily, Severus/Lily
Liberacorpus!
Liberacorpus
June 1981
“Levicorpus doesn’t really hurt,” Severus had told her.
It must be true. James would never use anything that really hurt her. He was so careful that way, no matter how angry she had made him.
Lily hadn’t meant to slop their beers when she Depulsoed them from the kitchen. But carelessness was inexcusable; she knew James’s standards.
It was just so… embarrassing. It would be nothing if James let her wear jeans. But he liked her to dress “like a proper witch”, which meant nothing but underwear under her robes. Thank Merlin his family had been modern enough to wear underwear! At least she had stopped breastfeeding and was back to a normal bra.
She didn’t struggle or try to hold up her robes. She had been trained that it would just get worse if she did. She dangled passively, waiting for James to decide she’d been punished enough.
In a way, she was glad her robes covered her face; that meant she didn’t have to see theirs.
If only he hadn’t punished her right in front of Wormtail.
Sure enough, Wormy started giggling. “Nice legs, James. I always figured you must have done well for yourself in that department. You always were a leg man.”
Lily hated the way Wormtail giggled; she hated the thought that he was staring at her body. She could feel her bare flesh prickling with mortification.
Prongs laughed. “Oh, Evans has her points. But she needs to be more careful with her wand. Now, my wand she handles well enough. Right, Evans?”
Lily hung silently. Prongs raised his voice a little. “That was a question, Evans. You like handling my wand, don’t you? Tell Wormy!”
“Yes, James,” she answered woodenly.
“Good girl,” he replied, his voice deeper. Lily spilled to the ground in a tangle of robes, and he told her, “Now clean up this mess, Lily. I want to drink the beer, not wear it.”
“Yes, James,” she answered. “Um-my wand is in the kitchen.”
“Well, get it then,” he said. “And straighten yourself up a little. The windswept look is my style, not yours.” He grinned at her; she straightened in relief. It was over, then, for now, as long as she didn’t do anything else wrong.
*
October 1975
Severus had discovered the Room of Requirement their second year; he and Lily had used it for private meetings ever since. Usually they went over their Potions homework. Their version of the Room varied a little from visit to visit, but it always included an overstuffed bookcase, a couple of overstuffed, squashy chairs that looked suspiciously like the ones in the Evans sitting room, a well-illuminated table for writing at, and a tea service with ginger nuts among other goodies. In winter there was a cozy fireplace, in warm weather an open window, though it looked onto no view on the Hogwarts grounds. Sometimes there was a potions lab, and Severus spent their time experimenting. Usually they worked together, but occasionally they just read. Silently, companionably, unlike anything Lily found among her Gryffindor friends.
Sometimes they fought.
At the beginning of this year a sofa had appeared, though Lily couldn’t imagine why it should be required. It was squashy like the chairs. Severus had shied like a startled horse the first time he saw it. He still refused to sit on it, establishing himself firmly instead in a squashy chair. Lily sometimes curled on the sofa to read, since it was comfortable. Once she had stretched and looked over to find Severus staring at her; he had hunched into his chair and turned red.
But they weren’t working on potions today, or reading. The ceiling was higher than usual.
“That’s it,” Severus urged her. “Your wand again, so. That’s right, you’ve got it. The incantation should be done nonverbally: it’s ‘Levicorpus’. And the counter is the same movement, but flicked upwards instead, and the incantation is ‘liberacorpus.’ Got that, Lily?” He grinned at her.
“But what does it do, Sev?”
“You’ll see in a minute, Lily. Just give me a sec to prepare.” He pointed his wand at himself and muttered a word or two. “Okay, give it a try.”
“Levicorpus!” she thought, brandishing her wand. There was a flash of light, and Severus was upside down in mid air before her. His charm must have been to keep his robes from obeying gravity; they looked like a statue’s robes, turned upside down like that. Lily giggled, and Sev’s grin widened. He crossed one leg casually over the other and pillowed his head in his hands. His hair, unlike his robes, was hanging down. His face looked very different with all its planes exposed and wrong side up to boot. But the half-secretive, half-smug expression that he wore when he pulled something off was the same as ever.
Lily giggled again. “Clever, Severus. But what’s the point?”
“The point is to put someone temporarily out of action without having to hurt them. Levicorpus doesn’t really hurt them, but being yanked off your feet without warning will disorient anyone. With any luck they might drop their wand, but even if they keep it they’ll have their robes in their face and tangling their arms. One of the situations where Muggle clothing would be more practical. I’ve finally got something those bastards won’t expect!”
Lily looked at Severus hanging calmly in the air. Her brow creased as she visualized an unprepared victim-flailing, frightened, robes over their head. Exposed if they didn’t wear Muggle gear under their robes like she did.
Lily said slowly, “It might not hurt exactly but… it’s cruel, Sev. It’s-humiliating.”
He gestured with his own wand and landed lightly beside her. “Oh, what’s a little humiliation, Lily? I need an edge with those bastards always after me. Something secret I can use.”
She chewed her lip. “I don’t know, Sev, it just seems… well, cruel, like I said. Besides, don’t expect to keep it a secret, not if you’re talking about using it on the Marauders. You know they’re good at figuring out hexes once they see them-”
He laughed. “Lily, you worry too much. That’s why it’s nonverbal! They won’t figure it out.”
*
June 1976
It had been a bit funny for half a second, remembering Sev’s smugness last fall. She had told him so! But then he had said-that, and all amusement fled.
How could Severus say that? To her?
Potter came up to her in the common room that afternoon, looking grave. “Look, I’m sorry I went too far-and even sorrier that I exposed you to insult. I guess we both already knew he was an ungrateful bastard, but I wouldn’t have expected even someone like him to say that to someone who was trying to help him. But that’s the Death Eaters for you-they all really think that way, even when they’re trying to hide it.”
Lily crossed her arms and looked away. Potter hesitated and then touched her arm quickly. His hand dropped when she looked at it glacially.
“I just hope you noticed, Evans, I didn’t do anything that could’ve really hurt Snivellus: just immobilized him and used a little bit of scourgify to clean his filthy mouth. Whereas he used a Dark spell on me-did you see how he gashed me? Took Dittany to stop the bleeding-you know what that means.”
Yes. Lily knew far better than Potter what that meant. Dittany was used in general healing, true, but most particularly in potions designed to counter curse damage.
She and Severus had been working on one just day before yesterday.
At least now she knew what he really was.
However much it hurt to know.
*
October 1977
“For almost two years now,” James said seriously. “No one but you.”
Lily burst out laughing. “Pull the other one, Potter!”
Around them in Madame Puddifoot’s, heads turned at her unrestrained laughter. Lily didn’t care, but she saw that Potter looked a little affronted. She wiped her eyes. “Oh, James. You went out with at least half my best friends last year! Now you tell me you’ve been … carrying a torch for me all this time? Oh, please!” She laughed again.
Potter turned a dull red and studied his cup. “I-you pulled me up so sharply when I asked you fifth year-and I was being a jerk, I deserved it… but… I was afraid to ask again. So I, I… asked out your friends instead of you. That way-at least I was being near you, in a way, if not with you.”
There was a silence at the little table while Lily blushed in turn. Then James added, “Besides, I thought… you were right, I was being an arrogant toerag. Someone like … you… is worth changing for, I thought. So I’ve been trying. That’s why I haven’t-you notice Sirius and I didn’t get any detentions last year. Not for hexing anyone, I mean; I think we still goofed off in class more than someone like you did. But I’ve been trying.”
The Head Girl looked at him, brows creased. “But I’ve heard… some people say you’ve just gotten better at not being caught.”
James gave her that cocky Quidditch-winner grin that everyone saw who saw no more. “C’mon, Lily, no one can TOTALLY escape being caught if they’re going around hexing people left and right.”
(Unless they had a rat with the Marauder's Map stationed in the walls as a lookout, and an invisibility cloak as backup. But she would never know that.)
He sobered suddenly. “Mind you-there’re some people, like old Snivellus-if they curse first, I’ll hex them back. I’m not a pacifist, Lily; I don’t say I won’t fight back. But when we graduate-there are people like that out there, I won’t lie down and take it. I’ll fight, Lily, where I have to. Against the Dark. And I think you will too. That’s one of the things I like about you-so many girls are just shallow, but you think about these things. I think we’re on the same side.”
She nodded mutely. The waitress replenished their tea, and the talk moved on, increasingly easily, to lighter topics. Lily was laughing again when they left.
Unfortunately Deirdre O’Connell, the worst of the sixth year gossips, had been sitting at the next table, listening avidly. By the time Lily made it back to the Gryffindor common room, four of her jilted-by-James’s friends had decided they weren’t speaking to her. Three never did again, which made the rest of seventh year uncomfortable, but it didn’t matter long-term, Lily decided.
When she accepted his ring she lost two more. Not that that mattered; Mary was still her friend. The others were just jealous.
*
June 1979
Lily had never seen James look like this. His eyes were sunken and red; she could tell by that he’d been crying, though no other signs were visible.
The dragon pox epidemic had hit worst the older generation of Purebloods.
“James,” she said. “James!” She could do nothing better than to hold him.
His mother and father both.
After a while came his whisper, muffled against her hair, “You’ll come with me to the funeral?”
She nodded against his shoulder. That didn’t seem enough; she kissed his collarbone and told him, “Of course!”
He sighed and pulled her closer. “Lily. You’re my only family now. Please. Please. Let’s do it as soon as possible. Lily, please, you’re my only family now!”
She murmured something meaningless, but when he showed up two days after the funeral with a (Muggle!) license, she Apparated with him and Sirius to a Muggle registry office and said the vows. How could she refuse him, when he was in such pain? And she meant to eventually anyway.
*
October 1979
Sirius’s punch was spiked with Euphoria Elixir. By the time Lily spotted it, she no longer cared. This wasn’t her and Severus’s improved version, either, she diagnosed giddily; Remus was tweaking Sirius’s aristocratic nose, and she was perilously close to tweaking James’s. Aristocratic too, she thought, he was a Pureblood for generations, not a middleclass Mudblood like her. She laughed and laughed.
James whirled her around in another dance and fed her more punch. She was thirsty after the dancing; it was nice of him to take care of her. He was so nice, her husband, so nice.
“Happy Halloween!”
Who had said that? Not that it mattered; Lily drank the toast.
They had just enough sense left not to try Apparating in their state. They spent the night, sensibly, in Sirius’s spare room. James had just enough sense left to put up privacy wards.
But they were both too giddy to think about Contraceptus.
Well, Lily thought she had said something, early on. But she was far too drunk and euphoric to cast the charm.
James wasn’t displeased; he’d been hoping for children early.
But Lily had a sinking feeling. It wasn’t quite the right time, it seemed to her, not with the war on.
*
January 1980
James was under so much more stress than she was. She had to make allowances.
For one thing, he was still active in the Order; he risked his life weekly or more often.
She was safe at home.
Not that Lily had had much choice: her fatigue, her nausea, and her… emotional instability, all made it seem better to drop out of active duty for now. Not that Alice Longbottom had, but as James had pointed out, Alice was a trained Auror and much older and more experienced. Lily didn’t really have that much to contribute in comparison: humiliating, but true. It was better for her to keep out of the way so no one was dragged down protecting her. James was right in that.
*
February 1980
“… since she’s stopped being active in the Order she seems a little down. I just thought maybe having some of her girlfriends…” Moony’s voice became inaudible as he moved away from the kitchen door; James murmured something indistinguishable in response.
Lily’s eyes stung suddenly with tears. Remus was always so thoughtful. But James was right, of course; it wasn’t really fair to anyone who wasn’t already committed to the struggle against You-Know-Who to endanger them by being seen to be too close. Marlene and Alice were very nice, but enough older that she couldn’t quite connect with them as she had her own friends. Plus they were too busy with Order business and their own family and friends.
She had been feeling down a lot lately, but that was mostly just the hormones of pregnancy. It was really a pity that being a witch was no help at all with that little problem.
She had hoped that their mutual pregnancies would draw her and Tuney closer again, but Tuney’s coldness had, if anything, increased. Sure, Sirius had been thoughtless at the wedding, but he had meant it as a joke. For Tuney and Vernon still to be holding a grudge, as James pointed out, showed how closed-minded they were.
Still, she missed her sister sometimes-and Mary and her other Hogwarts friends often. If only the threat of You-Know-Who was less pressing, she and James could have a more normal, a more open, life. But that wasn’t an option.
Sighing, Lily floated the tray of beers and cheese straws out to where her husband and his three friends waited. They greeted her arrival-or possibly the beers’-with cheers, and she forced herself to laugh with them in turn.
Just hormones.
*
March 1980
The four Marauders were relaxing at Sirius’s flat after the meeting. After the second beer, James loudly declared that he needed some crisps to go with. “Moony! Come with me! We’re on a Quest for Crisps.”
Remus shook his head sadly. “At midnight? You won’t find any stores open, mate.”
“I’ve got Muggle money, Moony, or we can hit a pub. We won’t return without ‘em! Where’s your
Gryffindor courage?”
Remus laughed. “All right, Prongs. We’ll find your crisps if it takes all night.”
But no sooner were they alone together in the night than James’s lightness left him. “This is hard to say, Moony, and I don’t want you to take it wrong. Sirius and I had been talking about … your mission… and Lily heard. She didn’t take it-well, the way I would have predicted. Well, she did, sort of-she said it made no difference to her. But-I know her too well, you see. I can tell she’s scared.”
Remus walked silently beside him, head bowed. After a while he looked up at his friend. “She’s afraid of me?”
“She’s ashamed to be-she tried not to show it. I’m not sure you could even tell, even as well as you know her. But I can tell-and Moony, she’s pregnant. It might be-it probably is-just one of those pregnant woman’s fancies. She knows it’s not rational; she said it herself, you’re still you. But she’s scared, Moony, and-she’s under so much stress already with the Order and You-Know-Who, I don’t want … anything added….”
Remus swallowed. He was extremely proud that his voice came out uninflected. “You’re thinking it’s better if I stay away from her, then.”
“Moony, probably once the baby’s here she’ll be more herself. She knows her reaction isn’t reasonable or fair. I hate to even ask-”
Remus interrupted. “You didn’t ask. I’m offering.” He stopped in the darkness. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for crisps, James. I think I’ll just head home.”
Prongs grabbed his arm. “You’re still one of my best mates, Moony. Lily’s being a little irrational, but I have to cater to her in her condition. We’re still friends; Lily won’t even try to interfere with that, with our seeing each other, getting together. Just not visiting the house, not until she comes around.”
Remus nodded stiffly and pulled his arm away. “Yeah James. Still friends. G’night.”
He Disapparated.
*
April 1980
Lily’s brow creased. “Is Remus still… away… on Order business? It seems so long since we’ve seen him…”
“Lily… I’m going to tell you something very confidential. You must keep this a secret. Promise me!”
She nodded solemnly, confused by his insistence. Didn’t he trust her?
James raked his hands through his hair and sighed. “Moony… is a werewolf. Sirius and Peter and I have known since third year, and it’s never made a difference. But… lately we’ve been getting a little worried. You-Know-Who has been, well, recruiting Dark creatures. We know Moony was approached, and of course he said no. But then-the Order asked him to start-hanging out with other werewolves, try to keep them from going over-spy on them, even. And since he’s started doing that-well, he’s gotten more distant with us. And we’re wondering-just a little-if he’s starting to feel… more comfortable… with his new pack than with us.”
Lily went white. “James. That’s a terrible thing to suggest about Remus. He was always the kindest one in your group, and the one who tried hardest to do the right thing. I can’t imagine he-but then I can’t imagine him as a werewolf, at all. He seems so gentle most of the time, softer than most of the Order.”
“We know, Lily, we know. And we hope it’s not true. If it’s happening at all, I don’t think it’s a choice he’s making. I think it might be a pull, like-being among his own kind, finally. And maybe we’re mistaken; maybe it’s just stress. Lily, don’t you say anything to him when you do see him. Sirius and I are trying not to treat him any different than ever. Don’t you treat him differently either.”
*
June 1980
Petunia sat stiffly beside her sister in the church, refusing to look at her. Her face was mostly buried in the missal; occasionally she looked blindly at the caskets.
At the graveside, Tuney started sobbing at the first shovelfull. Her husband put his arm around her awkwardly, uncomfortable with the public display. Petunia suddenly wheeled from Dursley’s arm’s shelter to confront the Potters. She shrieked, “You freaks! They never even saw their first grandson!”
Tuney’s preemie was still in hospital. Lily hadn’t seen him either.
Tuney advanced upon James, her face wild. “It’s your fault, you freak, you did it somehow, you knew they were getting worried about precious Lily! And it’s your fault, Lily, for marrying him! I said, I said back then, you were separated from normal people for our safety…!”
Tears streaked Tuney’s face, and her commonplace husband looked at the Potters with loathing as he gathered her in. “Ssh, Petunia, you’re making a scene-control yourself….” He stroked her dull hair as she relapsed into sobbing.
The other people at the graveside, their parents’ friends, were staring at the sisters.
James hugged Lily close-or as close as her swollen belly allowed- and shrugged at Tuney’s ranting. “She’s just hysterical. I don’t care what a Muggle says about me,” he said magnanimously.
Lily couldn’t blame Tuney really; it was because of Lily that the Death Eaters had even known of the Evans’ existence. When the coroner could find no cause for the simultaneous deaths, well, Petunia knew enough of magic to work it out.
To attack James like that, though; no, that was going too far. James had been trying to help, giving the Aurors her parents’ address; he had been trying to get protection for them. No one could have known that the Auror’s office had been infiltrated.
James had wondered aloud if Snape might have taken the Death Eaters there, but Lily hadn’t credited that. For one thing, there was the timing. For the other… though she knew Severus hated Muggles on principle, she couldn’t see him hurting her parents. His dad, now… if a Dark Mark had been found floating above Spinner’s End, she’d have believed it in a minute. But she couldn’t imagine Severus at his darkest attacking her mum, who’d fed him ginger nuts and milky tea. “Don’t your folks ever feed you, boy? Drink up, there’s plenty more!”
But... “we both already knew he was an ungrateful bastard.”
Maybe?
Somehow even just wondering made her feel even worse than she already did. She buried her face in James’s shoulder to escape.
She and James didn’t go to the cold collation after. James took her home instead.
*
November 1980
At first James had comforted her tenderly when he found her crying, but finally he started getting angry. “Aren’t I enough for you?” he asked. “My folks are dead too, but I’m not still crying.”
Of course he was enough, he was her husband! But she missed her parents, she even missed her sister-the old Tuney, not the bitter one.
But the old Tuney was as dead as their parents, and James and darling Harry were her only family now.
Lily sniffed and composed herself. James hated to see her cry without reason.
It’s not like James ever hurt her. He was careful. It’s just-sometimes she lost her sense of humor. Especially being so tired from being woken by the baby. James let her tend to Harry at night-well, that was fair; James was working for the Order. Even if the baby had the colic, and woke her six nights out of seven.
The first time he used Sev’s spell on her, she flailed and cried out, “James! What are you doing? Let me down!”
But he didn’t, and she had dropped her wand when her feet were jerked from under her. Her robes were tangled about her head; she fought to bunch them, to pull them away so she could see him. He stood laughing, his face upside down to hers but almost at the same level. “James! Let me down!”
“Not just yet, I don’t think.”
“James-anyone walking by the window could see me!”
“And what a view they’d get, eh, Lily?”
“James-” she tried to reach out to him, but he backed out of her reach, smiling.
Eventually she’d started crying. He let her down then, saying, “Lily. Lily! It was just a joke! This whole situation that we’re in, if we lose our sense of humor we’ll go nuts. We’ve got to keep our sense of fun, can’t you see that?”
He levitated her up to their bedroom, murmuring soothingly. She really wasn’t in the mood, but she agreed they needed to keep their sense of fun. And it soothed James; he was under so much stress, more than her.
He needed to let off steam, as her dad used to say.
Playing jokes was just the way he did it.
He never actually hurt her. He usually didn’t even leave marks.
*
December 1980
James had come back from the meeting with Dumbledore looking aghast. Lily had not believed him at first when he told her. Some prophecy had made He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named think that their baby-their Harry!-might someday be a threat to him, so he was targeting the Potters for extinction? That was impossible to imagine.
But they had gone into hiding, and things had gotten much worse.
No, not worse. She shouldn’t use that word. It wasn’t that bad. But James was more stressed; well, that was natural. Staying at home except for Order business, hardly seeing anyone-that was only an exaggeration of how it had been before, for her. For months now she’d seen no one but his friends. Well, and his mum’s old friend, that historian, who was so happy to help James tell her how old-family witches should behave.
For him it was different; he felt trapped. He needed to blow off steam, and she was the only outlet. It was natural that he should start pulling more jokes on her. It was just unfortunate that the stress… played hob with her sense of humor. And that she knew so little, when you came to it, about pureblood ways of doing things.
She could never be sorry James had chosen her, but sometimes she wondered if he might not have been happier with a pureblood girl who knew from birth all the things-not magic, her OWLs had been better than James’s, but wizarding world etiquette-that James had to teach her from scratch.
The day he’d found her in trousers and a blouse he had slashed them off her with a hex, leaving her naked in view of the front window. But he’d been careful not to cut her, however angry he had been.
He built a very pretty wand holder in the kitchen, decorated with willow leaves and lilies. A witch’s wand should be kept where she used it most, he told her. He didn’t like to see it anywhere else unless he gave permission. Three weeks of Expelliarmus and Rictumsempra until she was sobbing had taught her that.
Each day there seemed to be more to learn.
*
August 1981
Lily shrieked when Harry caromed into the end table, knocking the vase to the floor. It was the vase the Dursleys had sent the Christmas before the boys’ births-the last present Petunia had sent her. Lily burst into tears. Why had it been on the end table? She usually kept it on the mantle. If she were allowed to use her wand, she could Reparo it. But she wasn’t. Harry stopped zooming on his little broom to stare at his mum. His face puckered and he started to wail.
Prongs stormed in; he took in the situation in a glance. “Which do you value more, my son or your damn Muggle knickknacks?”
Wormtail followed into the room, giggling. Lily couldn’t help herself; she writhed in protest when she saw that Wormtail had his camera. “James-please-no-”
Levicorpus.
The camera flashed.
Prongs released her; she fell at his feet. She straightened her robes and scrubbed at her face as best she could without rising from the carpet without permission. James laughed, plucked the baby off the broom, and threw him to the ceiling, again and again. Eventually Harry chortled and James set him back on his broom. The baby promptly started zooming past his father’s legs and her face. James said teasingly, “That’s my boy! Now isn’t my Harry a proper Quidditch star?”
One fat hand grabbed for the cat, which yowled and leapt away. “A Seeker for sure,” James said grinning.
Lily laughed in relief that it was over again and realized that Wormtail was snapping another picture.
Prongs had her send both pictures to Padfoot with her thank-you note for the broom.
“He’ll enjoy them,” Prongs said.
*
October1981
Tomorrow she would cast the Fidelius with Wormtail as the Secret-Keeper. And then no one could visit them, ever, unless Wormtail let them in. Only Padfoot and Wormy himself, Prongs had told her.
To keep them safe.
Until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was dead, or defeated, or decided the Potters weren’t worth targeting. How many years would it take? She and baby Harry could die, trapped in this little world.
Not trapped. She shouldn’t think that way.
They were just trying to keep her safe.
But… years, maybe, seeing no one but Padfoot and Wormtail.
And Prongs, of course. And Prongs.