Author notes: …No excuses. It was my senior year of high school, I was kept hectic all year long by doing private scholarships, trying to raise money for college, but y'know, if I had really wanted and tried to, I could have written and updated this more. ...At least once. So I apologise to all of you who read this story and liked it and cared and despaired in the last…year. As I recently told one incredibly loyal reader, pandabears05, thank you: neither me nor this story deserves such readers and dedication.
And, again: not for one second over the past year was this story actually abandoned, nor did I ever consider it. I will be working to finish it in college and in whatever other kind of situation I might be in, even if I don't have any readers left – I will finish it just for myself, because this story – Rose and Mary – meant so much to me for so long, and still does, at some level.
She was awoken by someone gently shaking her shoulder. "Lily. Lily."
Opening her eyes, she was surprised to see it was dusk outside. "I slept a while, didn't I?"
"You did," said Mary, smiling. It was she who had woken her. "But I have to go now."
"Oh…go where?"
"Back to school. To finish the term. I promised Dumbledore I'd be back around dinner time."
Lily noticed the bag beside her. "But – you can't go!" she cried, grabbing at Mary's arm. "I'll be all alone!"
"Nonsense, you have the boys." Mary waved her hand behind her vaguely. "Rose will be home in a few weeks."
Lily clung to Mary's arm. "I don't want to be alone!"
"I have to go, Lily." Mary worked at prying Lily's fingers off. "Come on now, Lily. You'll have James with you. And it'll be good for you – trust me, I know."
The front door opened and James, closely followed by Remus, came in. "Leaving, Mary?" James asked.
"Yes." Mary succeeded in getting her arm loose, and leaned over to kiss Lily on the temple. "Are the others gone?"
"That they are."
Standing, Mary slung her bag over her shoulders and hugged them both. "See you in June." She turned to wave again to Lily, and Lily returned it halfheartedly. Mary walked around the sofa to the fireplace, and Lily listened as Mary took down the powder, started the fire, and called her destination. With a whoosh, she was gone.
James came and sat on the edge of the couch by her head. He held a lily in his hands, she noticed, and now he tucked it behind her ear, pushing her hair back and winding a strand of it around the stem.
"I found a pretty lily," he said lightly.
A smile broke across her face in appreciation. She looked up at his face, her hands tucked under her cheek. He traced the outline of her cheekbone and jaw with his finger.
She glanced suddenly at Remus, who stood in the center of the room before them. For a moment, she caught an odd expression on his face – but she hardly had registered it before it disappeared, replaced by his easygoing smile. She smiled back and asked,
"Do you want to stay here tonight, Remus?"
"Oh –" He frowned, considering. "Peter finally got a flat, we're still looking for a second one for James and Sirius to share. Until then, we were planning to crash together."
Despite her nap, Lily yawned. "Stay here, Remus. I still don't want to be alone." She looked back up at James. "You stay too."
James looked at Remus and shrugged. "All right. I'll – no, I don't want to waste your Floo Powder – I'll just apparate over for a minute and let them know Lily's favorites got a special invitation."
"Good. Tell them it's nothing personal…"
Both of them snorted in response, and James said, "It's okay, Lily, we all know you love us best, and you have for years." He disapparated before she could answer, and Lily sat up to face Remus.
"So…" He touched the couch with the tip of his shoe. "Does James get your sofa, and me the other one?"
"Oh – no." Lily stood up, raising a hand to secure the flower behind her ear. "I probably shouldn't lend out Rose's room, since it'll be hers and David's when they get back – but one of you can use Mary's, and, let's see…." She began climbing up the stairs, Remus following.
On the second floor were a total of four rooms, three of them made into bedrooms. The fourth was used as a sort of storage room for everything they had saved from being sold from their old home, which really wasn't that much. It held shelves of all their books and a multitude of framed pictures. On one side, gently out of the way, was Anetka's old keyboard piano on which Lily and Petunia had played. It had a long, nicely embroidered cloth cover over the keys.
Lily and Remus came into this room now, he rather curiously, as it had not been fully set up when he had been given the first grand tour, and it was rare that they ever needed to enter here. He looked round at the many photos, which were of all four sisters, taken equally over all their years. A good third were of the boys, sometimes with the girls, sometimes not. Many were set at Hogwarts, but others were not. Remus stopped to stare at one of himself and the other Marauders in the Quidditch pitch, James, David, and Sirius sweaty and dirty in their Quidditch cords, arms over each others shoulders. It had to have been their second year.
"Here."
Remus turned to see Lily nudging with her knee a futon on the wall opposite the keyboard.
"Will this be all right?" she asked. "There are plenty of books, you can read whatever you like. I'll get more sheets and blankets from the closet…."
"It's great, Lily." He looked around again. There was only one small, semi-circular window, high up, that wouldn't afford much light, so there was also a tasseled lamp at one end of the futon. "The full moon is in five days," he said, rather abruptly.
"Ah. How are the Ministry facilities?"
He sighed. "I liked the Shrieking Shack better."
"Ouch." Lily crossed her arms.
"Yeah – the first time I went, the rest of the Marauders went with me, and they weren't happy. It's just rows of small, white, empty rooms that they lock you up in until morning. Then there's no complimentary breakfast." He grinned crookedly.
Even in the dim light, the sympathy was clear in her face, but she did not ask any more about it. "And how goes the job search?"
He shook his head. "David's dad is trying to help – he's helping all of us – but it's not working out. It's pretty certain that I won't be hired to do anything that involves working with customers."
"I would hire you," said Lily firmly.
"Thanks, Lily."
She moved to look at a picture on the wall, of all eight of them in the Gryffindor common room. "It's not fair," she said, very quietly, though Remus heard it anyway. Turning back to him, she continued, "You can live here as long as you want, you know. It's no problem, Rose and I make enough together now so that –"
"Thanks, but the flat Peter just got is meant for both of us."
"Oh." Lily deflated slightly.
"He was just interviewed for a job drawing architectural blueprints," Remus added. "If he gets it – and he should – he'll be making a fair bit."
"That's good. I guess he has experience, doesn't he, with your map – well, anyway, the offer still stands. If you ever need somewhere to stay, or – until you find something, you can stay here during the day, instead of an empty flat. Work on the garden for Mary, she'll love you."
Remus smiled again. "I appreciate it, Lily."
"It's nothing. I mean, after my sisters – you're my best friend." She laid a hand on his shoulder.
He wasn't sure why, but in some way this surprised him. "Really?"
"Of course. Who else?"
Before they could continue, James's voice rang out from somewhere below. "Hey, where'd you guys go?"
Lily hurried out into the hallway. "Up here, James!"
James soon appeared, hauling two knapsacks. "I had to throw some of our stuff together," he said by way of explanation, and deposited one of the bags in Remus' arms.
"All right – come here, James, I'm designating you Mary's room. It's pretty clean, Mary hasn't had enough time to really make it hers yet. Remus is getting the other non-bedroom room, the one with a futon. Now, tomorrow, or soon, I need you two to help me switch out all the stuff in Rose's and my rooms. When we first moved back in, they somehow arranged it so I got the biggest room, but now Rose and David need it, so I want all of her things in it by the time they get back –"
"All right, all right Lily…."
The days did pass easily as Lily resumed her job. It became clear that just because the boys were getting their own place, they were not inclined to drop their habit of eating at Lily's house. She could understand this: her kitchen and dining room was about the size of their entire flat, and Peter was loath to give up her array of cooking utensils. And it was all right – she loved their company, it helped her miss Rose less – but she made it clear to them the first night that they must bring their own food – she wasn't working to feed four men.
By the end of the first week after the wedding, however, a second flat had been paid for, and Sirius and James moved into it in short order, leaving Remus to rejoin Peter in the first flat. So for the first time Lily went to bed at night truly alone.
All the boys save David, of course, continued to drop in whenever she was home, staying after dinner was over to keep her company. James was there most frequently, especially on the weekends. Lily got the feeling that Remus was holding back so that she spent more time with James.
She did enjoy his company in the empty house, when no one else was there. She felt less burdened – no expectations, no one watching them hopefully. They were free to act exactly as they liked and as they should. It was also an opportunity for Lily to realize exactly what she felt for James.
James was nice. This she knew with absolute certainty; it was her primary definition of him. It was more than his actions, it was his very character. It would take an exceptionally perverse girl to not appreciate him, and Lily was not nearly so perverse. He was also the type that made it so you didn't have to do anything to fall in love with him; you just had to sit back and let him show himself, and this is exactly what Lily was doing.
Then Rose and David came home.
Lily was overjoyed to have her back. She had found that she was missing Rose in small, startling ways – James would say something particularly sweet, and she would immediately think of telling Rose that night, only to realize belatedly, and with a rather bad shock, that Rose was away. That had never happened before.
They had been to Italy, it proved, as Rose unpacked one bag and showered Venetian lace all over the house, and then explained that a tea set made out of Murano glass would be arriving by owl in a couple days. She seemed torn between appreciation and indignation when she realized that Lily had switched their rooms, but neither of them could bring herself to be the slightest bit angry with the other.
All the boys joined them for dinner that night, which was a very loud, happy occasion.
"I miss Mary more than ever now," sighed Rose after they sat back, having finished off dessert.
Lily patted her hand from where she sat between Rose and James. "She'll be home in a couple months, then she'll never leave again."
"Yes…but tell me, how'd you do alone while I was gone?"
Peter said, before Lily could answer, "Oh, James was over here lots."
Somehow, the way he said it implied much more than what the words said, and instantly after he said it those barely perceptible smirks and knowing smiles flitted around the table. James squeezed Lily's hand bracingly under the table.
It was odd, at first, having David living with them all the time in their house. It felt odd to Lily at least; Rose was unquestionably too much in a constant state of blind, bubbling happiness to notice anything odd. But for Lily, realizing the sisters' privacy was now forever intruded upon, that she could never again sneak into Rose's room in the middle of the night and wake her up, as she had always been able to before, took some getting used to.
This change in living arrangements also proved something Lily and Rose had long held in theory: that the Marauders were as "joined at the hip" as they teased Lily and Rose of being. Before David moved in, the boys had come over for dinner quite often; now, though, they seemed to be forever popping in and out to tell David something, getting him to come see something "just for a minute, I swear."
James continued to come around when Lily was home only slightly less than he did when Rose and David were still honeymooning. Lily knew she was not encouraging him – to her, everything about their relationship seemed to have relapsed back to where they were before the wedding, with her acutely conscious of the unsaid expectations of everyone around, even though she knew they were trying not to show them. But she was made irritable and testy by it anyway, and James, unfortunately, took the brunt of it. The best solution, he quickly discovered, was to take her out, where it was only the two of them and strangers. However, this was inadvisable to do in excess for two reasons. Firstly, despite how marvelous life might be going in one's home, outside in the rest of the wizarding world, security issues were only worsening. (Lily was sometimes struck by the impression that she was living in a bubble containing her sisters and the boys.) Secondly, James was feeling that by now, they ought to be able to behave as a couple in front of their best friends. His restrained frustration and her edginess did not react well, and in the upcoming weeks they began to have petty arguments.
They all had a regular habit of visiting Natalie and Joseph Potter for a Sunday afternoon and dinner every two weeks, and then they might drop in individually or in other-sized groups betweentimes. Lily liked to visit Natalie whenever she had some spare time and Rose was busy with David; contrary to what anyone might expect, Natalie was not part of the great Lily-James conspiracy, or if she was, Lily couldn't tell.
There was another reason Lily liked to visit Natalie, and usually tried to get James to come with her: Natalie seemed uncharacteristically sad these days, almost depressed. She hid it well when they came to visit with her usual smiles and hugs, but when she laughed at the boys, it sounded just a shade forced, and sometimes when they were in a middle of a story so that all attention was on them, Lily would glance around and catch an unmistakably sad expression on Natalie's face, or at another moment when Lily would catch her alone. Lily discussed it with Rose, and they thought it might due to James and David, and perhaps even Lily and Rose too, moving out, or some worry about the current, awful state of fear and terror reigning in the wizarding world.
David finally landed a job in March in the Quidditch business – it was a rather low position as a second-assistant manager to the Falmouth Falcons team, but he quite expected to become manager within a year or two. James also placed a job at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, surveying rural land to keep magical fauna supervised and from interfering with Muggles. It was broom work, and therefore James was happy, at least temporarily.
As the days grew warmer and snow melted into rain, it seemed as though Lily and James's relationship should melt too into something much softer than the rocky state it was now, but it didn't seem to be doing anything of the sort. Lily spent her weekdays at her two jobs, one at the Muggle bakery and the other doing charmwork in the Department of Magical Transportation at the Ministry. James was there more often than not when she came home at night, but Lily pretended, obstinately, that he was there to see David. Then on weekends, when not with Natalie, she found ways to spend time with Remus. James was getting ticked.
Lily had a dim knowledge that it was going to come to a head, and probably an unpleasant one at that, but when it did, the manner of it caught her completely by surprise.
She and Rose took a weekday off from their jobs to do some much-needed chores that somehow weren't getting done on the weekends – namely, making sure a handful of garden gnomes that had actually dared to enter Mary's garden, would never be able to come back, as it wouldn't do to even imagine what Mary would do if she came home to find gnomes in her garden.
Besides setting up strong wards around the yard that would drive any gnome away, there was other work, made necessary by the arrival of spring, to be done to the grounds around the house that perhaps could be handled by magic, but no matter how carefully the spells were cast, there would have been a chance of damage to the plants. Lily and Rose were not so lazy to risk it.
They trimmed back the rose bushes that had been planted around the garden trellis for Rose's wedding, then worked on weeding the garden proper. The days were far from hot, but by early afternoon, both of them were perspiring slightly.
They had been working mostly in silence, intent upon the labour, but suddenly Rose straightened up, looking at Lily with her gloved hands on her hips, tendrils of hair that had escaped her tight braids sticking to her neck and cheeks. She looked strangely fierce and determined.
"Lily, I want to talk to you."
Bemused, Lily sat back on her heels from where she was kneeling and tilted the wide brim of her straw hat back. Her thick hair, in contrast to Rose's, was bundled up under the hat with a number of ties and pins. "All right."
Rose dropped the shears she was holding onto the grass, still looking fierce. "What's the problem with you and James?"
Lily blinked. She had been on guard for this kind of attack from a lot of people, but had never expected to hear it from Rose.
When Lily didn't answer, Rose continued with an aggressiveness that Lily had seen only once or twice in their entire lives. "It's ridiculous, Lily – do you have a reason why you're acting this way? If you do, it had better be a damn good one and you're hiding it awfully well. But what's the problem, Lily? What did James do to deserve the way you're treating him?"
Lily opened her mouth to say something to make Rose calm down, but when unable to find words for this purpose, what came out was something rather different, and much more accusatory than she had intended: "Did David put you up to this?"
Rose looked at her disbelievingly. "No, he did not! I'm James's friend too, Lily. I don't like seeing you disregard his feelings and – pretend they don't exist, while he just sits there and takes it, trying to be patient – "
"Rose!" Lily scrambled to her feet. "I can't believe –"
"It's not right!" shouted Rose, and Lily was not so completely outraged to entirely miss that there was something that looked like tears in Rose's eyes. "James doesn't deserve this – "
"How –" Lily was having difficulty formulating sentences; it felt like the majority of her brain was in shock, doing nothing but trying to grasp that Rose is yelling at me – she's yelling at me. "How can you presume that it's that simple – like you know everything that's going on with us – it's not like I've been talking to you about it!"
"You don't have to, Lily! We live with you, there's not much you two do that we don't see, and Merlin, Lily, what you're doing is incomprehensible – it's just so stupid, don't you see?" It seemed as though that in the space it took for Rose to say those last two phrases, all her anger had drained away, leaving her voice breaking and tears finally spilling over. "It's stupid because these days are so terrifying, we don't know what's going to happen to us next week – and when there's no reason for you two to be fighting – you shouldn't be, not when – when –" That was all she could manage; breaking down completely, Rose lifted her gloved hands to her face and sobbed.
Horrified, Lily moved forward and hugged her tightly. Rose put her head down on Lily's shoulder and cried. The sisters stood together for several minutes, even as Rose's shoulders stopped shaking. Never, in Lily's memory, had they ever shouted at each other before. They had disagreed, of course, but it had never been vindictive, never totally blaming the other. They held each other fiercely tight now, physically apologizing and forgiving. Then, finally, they moved apart slightly, still holding onto each other's arms and able to look into each other's face.
Rose spoke in a hoarse whisper, her voice still cracking occasionally. "Morgana, my friend at the shop – her Muggle fiancé disappeared over the weekend. She waited a couple of days, but there hasn't been any kind of letter and now she's heard rumors that there was an attack in the place he was going, last she saw him – yesterday she tried to file a report with the Ministry, but they told her almost flat-out that they were too busy with trying to take care of wizards to worry about a Muggle –" Here Rose started to cry again, and Lily held her again, feeling wretched as she remembered the wedding invitation Rose had brought home for a ceremony that had been to take place in a couple weeks.
After a moment Rose continued, speaking to the side of her shoulder as neither of them moved apart, "I'm so afraid, Lily. I'm afraid for David and all of us…and there isn't anything we can do, but –" And now Rose straightened, looking back into Lily's face. "The best we can do, I think, is to make sure we're living each day so that we'll have no regrets tomorrow. Do you understand?"
Lily became aware for the first time that she was crying as well. Wiping her eyes, she nodded.