Through It All
A little while later, everyone said their good-byes to Frank and they began the long walk back to the castle. As they walked, the sun began to droop, falling from its place high in the sky, painting pinks, oranges, and reds across the clear, cloudless horizon. The lack of clouds promised a clear, starry night.
They reached the gates at the edge of the grounds, and Lily looked up at the well-protected castle pensively. She stopped walking to look, and James walked a few steps further before realizing she had stopped and turning around.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, puzzled.
Lily looked at the gates, her brow furrowed. “I was just thinking. About everything that’s out there.” She spun in a circle, sweeping her outstretched arms across the landscape. “Everything we’re learning at Hogwarts is supposed to prepare us for life out there. But what do we really know about it? What’s it really like, being out in the world? We don’t know the half of it, spending seven months out of every year boarded up here in this protected atmosphere where nothing can touch us. That’s not what real life is like.”
“No one said life was going to be easy after Hogwarts. No one ever told us it was going to be the same. They just said they’d do their best to try and get us ready for it,” James said.
“It’s not going to be easy. We’re not ready for it. How much good is a cheering charm going to do us in the real world? I mean, read the papers! There’s a war going on out there. People are disappearing and dying left and right! Wizards and Muggles alike. The teachers try to keep it hushed up so we won’t worry, but it’s not doing us any good. People will still get hurt. Did you notice that Eileen Murphy hasn’t been in Herbology with us lately? Her parents died last week.” Lily fell silent, lost in thought, her eyes roaming across the walled-in grounds of Hogwarts where they had spent most of their time over the last seven years.
James looked at her, knowing that somewhere behind those bright green eyes, hidden in her thoughts, she was remembering the day her parents had died. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. Where else can we go to learn this stuff? There’s nowhere better. I think we just have to keep our heads down, learn as much as we can while we’re here, and do as best we can when we get out there. But mostly, we have to hold on to the ones we love, and hope that somehow, through it all, we’ve learned what’s truly important in life.”
Lily looked around at him quickly, cocking an eyebrow. All previous thoughts had vanished from her mind. “Keep our heads down? Learn as much as we can? Who are you, and what have you done with James Potter?” she teased.
James grinned and shrugged. “Thought I’d take a stab at being serious for once.”
Lily smiled and they resumed walking towards the castle. “Well, you did get a few things right.” A few steps later, Lily stopped walking again, and James stopped beside her.
“For the record,” Lily placed a hand on James’ cheek. “Serious-James is quite enticing.” She drew his head down and their lips met for a brief moment. “But don’t let Prongs get too far away. I think I might miss him.”
James winked. “He’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”
“Good to hear,” Lily said, kissing him again.
She was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming. For one thing “ all the colors were more vibrant than they could ever truly be: the sky was too blue, the clouds too white, the grass too green, and the brightly painted yellow shutters on her house were a yellow so perfect it couldn’t be real. And she knew was dreaming because she relived this terrifying day nearly every night of her life.
A slight breeze blew the perfect clouds across the bright sky, and she looked at her house. The white siding and cheery lemon-colored shutters where just as she remembered. They smiled happily at her, while at the same time, intensifying the dark, gaping holes that were windows, and the largest where the door had been blasted off its hinges.
She relived this day almost every night of her life. Relived the pain of returning to her silent house each night. Each night she took a few shaky, stiff steps towards the door and peered into the darkness. And each night her stomach wrenched into a knot, her heart dropped, and her head began to spin. The door lay in the garden, blasted into several pieces. Her parents were dead. The Dark Mark floated above her house.
She stepped forward into the open doorway. Everything was dark, but still she walked inside, like every other night, and paused to let her eyes adjust to the dark. This was where her dream separated from reality. She had never gone inside her house. Never seen her parents bodies lying limply on the floor, eyes open in shock, mouth wide in a silent scream.
She moved jerkily into the room away from the doorframe, knowing what image awaited her. And there it was. Only this time “ this time there were three figures sprawled across the floor. Her breath caught in her throat. Without looking, she knew who the third body belonged to. She knelt down beside the third figure on the floor.
This was new. He had never been here before, in her house, dead or alive, dream, or reality. She had seen and accepted her parents, but seeing him lying on the floor, his muscular body limp, his hazel eyes wide and blank, she began to cry. She knelt beside James’ body in her dark, silent, morbid house and cried.
She didn’t know how long she knelt on the floor, crying, inside her nightmare, but the next thing she knew, she was lying in bed, her pillow damp with tears.
Lily sat up and wiped at her eyes. She shivered, remembering her new nightmare. She hoped this one would not come every night.
Lily glanced at the clock before sliding out of bed. 3:27 am. She paused, hearing her friends snoring lightly, still asleep, like any sane person. She swiped at her eyes again before scurrying across the cold floor on tip-toe. She slipped out the door and down the stairs, creeping quietly across the common room to the stairs on the other side. She climbed the stairs without a sound. Exactly twenty-seven stairs up, her hand, which had been running along the wall, found the doorknob she was looking for. Ever so slowly, she inched the door open and slid through the curtains around the first bed.
Beneath a sheet, James was sprawled across the bed, one arm flung across a pillow, the other hanging off the edge. Lily slid in next to him and nestled against his side, kissing him lightly on the cheek. She reached up and ran her fingers through his dark hair.
“James?” she breathed softly.
His eyelids fluttered open and he took a deep breath. “Lils?” he whispered.
“Hi,” she said.
“What’s up?” James asked.
“I missed you,” she said, twirling a lock of his hair between her fingers.
“I missed you too, Lils, but it’s, Merlin! It’s 3:30 in the morning!”
“I know but,” Lily paused. She had been ready to tell him about her dream, her nightmare, but decided against it. It was her dream, and it was up to her to deal with it, if she ever wanted to be free of it. “I just missed you,” she told James.
James turned and kissed her forehead. “Are you okay?”
Lily smiled and wondered for probably the hundredth time how it was that he always seemed to be able to read her mind. “I’m great,” she told him. A sudden image flashed in the front of her mind of James lying on the floor, dead, and tears welled up in her eyes again. She tried to blink them away before James noticed.
James took Lily’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Are you sure?”
Lily nodded and bit her lip, closing her eyes shut tightly to try and keep the tears in.
“Please, Lily. What’s wrong? You can tell me anything. You know that,” James rubbed his thumb back and forth over the back of Lily’s hand.
Lily sighed. “Really. It’s not important. It’s quite dumb, actually. Don’t worry about it.”
James placed a hand on Lily’s cheek. “Lily Evans. You wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me you miss me, and expect me to just say ‘Oh, I missed you, too, goodnight now.’? I know you better than that.” He kissed her lightly. “Please, tell me.”
Lily placed her hand on top of James’. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “You were dead,” she whispered.
“What?”
“You were dead. I dreamed about the day my parents died. It was so real. The Dark Mark was there. I walked in my house and found my parents. And you. You were dead. They killed you.”
James pulled her into a tight embrace. “Shh. It’s okay. It was just a dream, Lily. Just a dream.”
“But it was so real!” Lily shivered. “It was so real. It was like I was living that day all over again, but a hundred times worse. James, I walked in my house and I really thought you were dead. I was all alone. I don’t want that to ever happen!”
“Sh, Lily, it won’t! It won’t happen. I promise.” James hugged her even tighter.
“But it could happen, James. It could. They killed my parents. People are dying every day! They could “ You could “ It could happen. I don’t want to lose you.”
James looked into her eyes and took both of her hands in his. “Lily, we’re in this together. No matter what happens. And I will never, ever leave you.”
Lily smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. “I love you.”
“Prongs!” Sirius’ sleepy voice drifted from across the room. “You gettin’ some action? Well, try to keep it down! Some of us are actually trying to sleep!”
James reached under his pillow and pulled out his wand. Levicorpus! he thought, flicking his wand towards Sirius’ bed.
“Ahh! Ahhhh! Bloody hell!” Sirius shouted. “Accio wand!”
Next thing he knew, James was being lifted into the air, feet first. Lily looked up at him from the bed and giggled. He was wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue boxers with little red hearts all over them.
“Accio wand!” James said. “Truce?” he called to Sirius.
“If you promise to go about it quietly tonight!” Sirius called back.
“Fine! Yes! We’ll be quiet.” James yelled. Liberacorpus! he thought, and heard the mattress groan as Sirius came crashing down onto it. A moment later, James was falling out of the air, and landed on the bed, on top of Lily.
“Sorry,” he apologized, starting to roll off her.
“Don’t be,” she said, grinning wickedly and catching his head in both her hands.
James smiled wolfishly down at her and placed his mouth over hers, softly at first, then deeper, and longer, parting her lips with his tongue. Lily entangled her hands in his dark, messy hair and kissed him back. She wrapped an arm around his neck as he slowly worked his way down her jaw line and kissed the side of her neck.
Suddenly, the curtains were thrown back, and with a forceful shout of “Aguamenti!” a harsh stream of cold water was being sent at them.
James reached for his wand again. “Rictusempra!” he pointed his wand at Sirius, who broke out into uncontrollable laughter and the stream of water stopped.
“Truce! What happened to truce?” James said loudly.
Sirius shook his head helplessly, still suffering from an uncontainable fit of giggles.
“Oh, sorry,” James said, flicking his wand at Sirius again and lifting the tickling curse. “What happened to truce?”
Sirius gasped, now that he could finally get a breath, then he grinned at them. “I just wanted to make sure you two weren’t starting anything too scandalous. Not with me in the room, anyway. I mean, really, have some decency.”
“Decency?! If you don’t have the decency to leave us the bloody hell alone I’ll float you on up to the girls’ dormitories in nothing but you’re boxers!” James threatened.
“You wouldn’t!” Sirius said, his eyes wide and frightened.
“I don’t know if he would, but I wouldn’t stop to think twice about it,” Lily said, raising an eyebrow challengingly.
Sirius held up his hands in surrender. “Leaving! I’m leaving! G’night!” Then he winked. “A very good night.”
Lily laughed, reached up and slid the curtain around James’ bed. Sirius wolf whistled from the behind the curtain and Lily and James both chuckled.
The next morning, James and Lily arrived at breakfast later than everyone else. They walked in together and sat down with the other Marauds who were already seated and halfway through their meal.
“Lily Evans! So that’s where you went last night!” Kylie shouted.
“Mm, scandalous,” Jess said suggestively, lifting her eyebrows.
“I thought so too,” Sirius said, winking at Lily and James.
Lily rolled her eyes and scowled at Jess. “Jess, where is your other hand right now?” Jess quickly slid her hand away from Sirius’ leg and out from under the table, blushing. “That’s what I thought,” Lily said smirking.
Lily looked across the table at Remus. He looked pale and tired. “Are you okay?” she asked. Remus glanced up at her and nodded.
James leaned closer and put his lips against Lily’s ear. “The full moon is tomorrow night.”
“Oh,” Lily gasped. “I suppose Prongs and Padfoot and Wormtail are all going out then?”
James nodded. “Of course.” Lily absently bit her lip, thinking.
As the girls traversed the crowded corridors and stairwells towards the dungeons, they fell behind the Marauders. They walked into the classroom and saw the boys already paired up across the room. Kylie and Lily took a table far away from the boys, and Jess and Emma took the table next to them.
As Professor Slughorn began to explain the day’s lesson, Lily took a glance at the board where instructions to the potion they were supposed to be making were listed.
“Good, it’s an easy one,” Lily muttered.
Kylie looked at her, eyebrows raised incredulously. “I suppose you’ll be making it then for me as well, since you’re not going to let me pay attention to Slughorn right now.”
Lily laughed. “Yes, fine. I’ll do yours as well.”
Kylie nodded. “Good. I don’t think I’d get it right even if I was paying attention now.”
Lily laughed again, but then immediately sobered up. “You know what tomorrow night is, I suppose?” she asked Kylie.
Kylie looked at her sharply. “Of course I do. Have you been keeping track?”
Lily shook her head. “James told me. I think we should go.”
“What?”
“Haven’t you ever thought about going along? They all transform and go along. We can too, so why not?” Lily reasoned.
“They won’t let us go!” Kylie pointed out.
“They don’t have to let us. We’ll follow them, and by the time they realize we’re there, it’ll be too late for us to go back,” Lily said.
“I don’t know,” Kylie said hesitantly. “How is it that you plan on following them? Doesn’t James have an Invisibility cloak? I’m sure they’ll use it to sneak out of the castle.”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. But we have the rest of today and tomorrow to think about it,” Lily admitted.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea? We could get hurt,” Kylie said nervously.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Lily told her friend. “Have James or Sirius or Peter ever been hurt? And I’m sure they’ll be keeping an eye on us.”
“It still sounds dangerous to me.”
Lily rolled her eyes and turned to Jess and Emma’s table. “Psst! Guys!”
Jess and Emma turned to look at her.
“Miss Evans, I know this potion may be below your skill level, but could you at least not distract my other students?” Slughorn said from the front of the room where he stood, reading off the board the list of ingredients and directions.
Lily rolled her eyes and set about brewing the potion for her and Kylie, waiting for Slughorn to finish talking so she could speak with Emma and Jess.
By the time Slughorn stopped explaining and told everyone to get started working, Lily and Kylie’s potion was already nearly done, and needed to simply sit and simmer for the rest of class with occasional stirring.
“What’s up, Lily?” Emma asked once Slughorn was on the other side of the room.
“Well, do you guys know what tomorrow night is?” Lily asked quietly.
Jess and Emma looked at each other for a moment. “Uh, Wednesday night?” Jess guessed.
Lily rolled her eyes. “It’s the full moon.” Their eyes widened.
“What does that mean for us? I mean, other than Moony’s deal,” Jess wondered.
“Well, I think we should go along,” Lily whispered.
Emma dropped the vial of armadillo bile she had been measuring and it broke and spilled all over the table. “What do you mean we should ‘go along’?”
“Well, Prongs, Padfoot, and Wormtail do it every time. We can do the same thing as them, so I say we should go along.”
“We don’t even know how they get out!” Jess protested.
“We’ll figure it out,” Lily said, shrugging.
“I don’t think they’ll be very happy with this plan,” Emma put in.
“Bugger with them! We have every right to go along and support Remus if we want to!” Lily said. Why were her friends such worry-warts?
“We won’t get any sleep,” Kylie told them.
“Merlin! Come on, guys. Where’s your sense of adventure? Are you all Marauderesses or not?” Lily asked.
“Let’s do it,” Jess said, nodding.
Emma and Kylie looked at each other doubtfully.
“I don’t know,” Kylie bit her lip.
“Kylie! He’s your bloody boyfriend!” Jess said exasperatedly.
“But, it’s not safe,” she whispered feebly.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Lily whisper yelled at her.
“All right, yes, fine, we’ll go,” she consented.
“Emma?” Lily asked forcefully.
“Well, I don’t see as I have much choice in the matter, now do I?” Emma asked.
Lily grinned. “Not much at all.”