No one spoke again until Dumbledore was seated in a comfortable chair before the fire and Lily and James sat opposite him, in the couch. Lily looked back and forth between the two; James was fiddling with his glasses finally having put his wand away, and Dumbledore looked contemplative.
“Erm... would you like anything to drink?” asked James, almost making Lily smile at how he was trying to be a gentleman.
“I’m quite all right James,” said Dumbledore, surveying the pair over his half-moon spectacles. “I just need to speak with you, and then I’ll be off.
“I heard about what happened in the Leaky Cauldron,” said Dumbledore, intertwining his long fingers.
James shifted nervously beside her and held a hand to his sore ribcage. “Yes, well... that wasn’t a very -”
“It is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact I think you two managed quite well, under the circumstances. So well, that I need to share something with you.”
“Is this about your connections?” asked Lily, speaking up for the first time. Dumbledore looked down kindly at her.
“Why yes, this is. I am here to tell you about something very secret, so secret that you may not even tell your best friends, lest they be untrustworthy. But first, where is Mr. Black?”
"Oh!" said James, and he called Sirius up the stairs. The expression on his face when he spotted Dumbledore was quite amusing, Lily decided, but he managed to pull himself together enough to join Lily and James on the couch.
"Good to see you, Professor," he said, throwing a confused look at James, who just shrugged.
"Indeed, you are surpirsed to see me, Sirius, but I need to tell you all something very important..."
Lily and James leaned forward, and she felt a slight fluttering in her chest. This was the key to a positive outcome of the war, it had to be.
“It is a secret organization that I have quite recently begun to try and stop Lord Voldemort. We are few, and Voldemort’s supporters are many, but I feel that if we opperate well enough, we can eventually overthrow him.
“It is called the Order of the Phoenix.”
Lily, Sirius, and James glanced at each other, as Dumbledore proceeded to tell them about what being in the Order would mean. After an hour, he was finished with his tale, but they had made up their minds long before.
“Of course I’ll join!” exclaimed James and Sirius, both jumping up from his seat.
“And I will too. Someone needs to put a stop to his antics,” added Lily, nodding her head, feeling that finally she would be able to accomplish something.
Dumbledore smiled, stood, and shook James and Sirius' hand. “I knew you would. Now if you excuse me, I need to get back to Hogwarts. I shall see you three again shortly, I daresay.”
He paused at the grate. “And do remember, that not all people think as you do. There is quite a chance that more Death Eaters have been added to Voldemort’s ranks this holiday, and some of them will be at school with you. They can not suspect that you are in the Order. It will put you into more danger.”
With that, their Headmaster left, leaving the three teenagers in a pensive silence.
That night, Lily found James once again on the roof. She nestled against him and sighed, watching the steam from her mouth rise up and intermix with the twinkling sky.
“What’s wrong?” asked James, letting loose a snitch and then catching it before it escaped him, over and over...
“Do you think we can do this?” she asked, feeling slightly bogged down with it all.
“Do what, love?”
She felt a flush at his words but continued on. “Do this: become a part of the Order of the Phoenix.”
“I think we’ve proved out worth so far. We can handle it,” he said, setting aside the snitch.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Now that we’ve withstood him once as well as his Death Eaters, I don’t think that Voldemort would hesitate to kill us,” she shivered at the thought, and James stroked her cheek. “I mean, your mum was right. This is the real world we’re involved in now James, not just school.”
He looked down into her eyes, beacons of warmth in the cool night, and he whispered, “It’s better to die fighting for the right cause, than to live without trying and having to stay the darkness.”
She hesitated, and then spoke, her voice wavering. “I’m afraid.”
“I am too, Lily,” he said, but then he smiled. “It won’t be easy, but we’ll get through this. I know we will. We’ll get through this together, and have a family and a home, some place that our son or daughter can romp around in, and then they’ll too go to Hogwarts and we’ll listen to their adventures when they come home for break. And we’ll have grandchildren too. Yes, we’ll overcome this darkness, together.”
Lily hugged him and stared out into the stars, feeling her confusion lessening and that glorious feeling of freedom returning. Her spirit sang with thoughts for the future. As she watched, a shooting star streaked across the sky, a symbol of promise.
“I love you James...”
His answer was a kiss.
And they did fight for the right cause. And they did die. Nearly two years later, Voldemort found them and their young son Harry at their home in Godric’s Hollow. He killed James, who tried to protect his wife, child, and dreams. And though Voldemort told Lily to stand aside, she didn’t, and sacrificed her life for her son, so that he might live on and defeat Voldemort, for the final time.
Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to two promising adults who were good, and kind, and brave, because they strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Lily and James.
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Disclaimer: that last quote was from JK Rowling, but I changed it up a bit...
Yes, that was the last chapter. Sadly, I haven't had any time to write, so I'm ending it there for now. Better there than leaving it uncompleted, right? Hopefully some time in the near future I'll be able to pick it up again.
Thank you to all me dedicated readers and reviewers. I don't think I could have kept going but for y'all!