Lily filled the silence after Underhill's departure with jumping into action, getting the two boys cleaned up and bandaged. Jasper was given a pair of jeans, which they had to engorgio just a tiny bit as he was taller than James, no where near as skinny as Remus, and not as interested in covering his legs with safety pins as Sirius was.

James insisted on bypassing Mungo's at all cost, and even though Lily urged him to go and get the ear fixed, upon clearing away the dried blood that covered him, he decided the splinching hadn't really been so bad.

"If you wait, they won't be able to fix it," Lily reminded him.

James shrugged, "tis but a scratch."

Lily sighed.

She got James to bed while Remus and Sirius went downstairs and got dinner from the curry shop with Jasper, and by the time they came back, the poor knackered hero was out like a lamp.

Lily took the box of leftover Remus had carried upstairs from him and sank into a chair, criss-crossing her legs and eating. Remus was using magic to clear up the blood in the carpet where James had fallen after staggering in, and Sirius made a big production of being exhausted himself, saying about fifty times he was going to go to bed before he actually did it, leaving Lily and Remus alone in the living room.

Lily pushed the basmati rice about in the takeout container with her fork, staring down.

Remus, as satisfied with the carpet as he was going to get, sat on the couch with a great release of stressful energy. He leaned back in the cushions, facing the ceiling and rubbed on his closed eyelids. It seemed impossible to him that he had started the day off at classes, been on the lunch date with Sirius, come home and been through all the things that had gone on since. "What an absolutely unending day," he muttered.

Lily nodded absently.

He looked up. "Lily? Are you alright?"

"Hm?"

"Are you alright?"

He was thinking of her screaming earlier, and how she'd been shaking and crying so inconsolably for half the evening. She had relaxed only moments before James and Jasper had arrived and Remus had no doubt that was no coincidence.

Lily nodded. "I'm alright."

Her tone said otherwise.

"Talk," Remus said.

"I could feel it, Remus," Lily said, eyes full of tears. "I could feel it. Physically feel it."

Remus sat forward. "Feel what?" he asked.

"Jasper."

"What?"

Lily drew a deep breath. She'd been wanting to talk about the Love Magic but hadn't been sure how to do it or when. She'd been nervous about telling James - he was already concerned with the sheer size of the books that she might be over extending. If he knew what it was really doing emotionally to her he might be against it all the more. Remus, she realized, was the perfect person to talk to about it.

So she told him. She told him all about what happened to her when she copied the runes, how her mind overflowed with flashbacks and memories, how every stroke of her quill seemed to draw them out of her, as though the memories were the ink in which she were writing with.

"And ever since the day when the memories focused on Jasper its like I can feel him a little bit. Like he is a part of me, or I am a part of him," Lily said. "Like we're tangled up somehow on some level."

Renus thought for a moment. "You can't feel Petunia?"

Lily shrugged. "I suppose her life may be so boring and normal that she doesn't feel anything strong enough to reach me."

"What about other people?"

"I feel them when I touch them, very deeply, and its like I can make them feel things, too. Like when James and I were visiting Constance Merriweather, I was able to feel her feeling guilty, and I could sort of... take that on and ease her a bit."

Remus had leaned forward so his elbows were resting on his knees and now he bent his head doen and ruffled the hair at the back of his neck as he shook his head, processing the matter. "Blimey, that's intense. So you can feel it to the point of screaming in pain."

"Yes," Lily said. "It must have been when he was being tortured, just before James rushed the stage," she added, thinking over the event as Jasper had described it.

Remus bit his lip. "Do you reckon that perhaps you ought to stop studying it? Love Magic, I mean? That's no way to live, going about feeling all the worst things others are going through. I should imagine it'll only get more intense the longer you study it..."

"I suppose."

Remus studied her a moment. "You don't want to stop," he said, seeing it in her body language.

Lily shook her head.

"I probably wouldn't either," he admitted. Then, "I think you need to talk with Professor Laurie, since he has done it and can walk you through what to expect, how to manage it, and what it means. It sounds like very powerful, very old magic. You don't want to be doing that sort of magic wrong, and you'll be needing to have support through it."

Lily nodded.

"I mean, you've got me of course, I'll support you, but I can only do so much having not done it myself."

"Thank you, Remus," Lily said, teary eyed.

He nodded, and in an impulse, he reached out and toucher her arm in firm grasp.

Her eyes instantly spilled over with tears. "I love you, too, Remus."

James could barely sleep.

He thought it was because Lily wasn't there beside him until she'd finally tiptoed in and slipped in next to him. They'd had a bit of a snog before she fell asleep and he'd been sure that was all he needed, until he found himself laying awake again.

Finally, he got up, got dressed, and snuck out of the room as quietly as possible, and, covering his eyes, he slipped into Remus and Sirius's room. "Psst. Sirius."

He could hear them snoring. He recognized the pattern of their sleeping breath from all those years in the dormitories and could tell Sirius was in his dog form by the sound of it, so he reckoned he was safe to open his eyes.

He snuck over to the bed and leaned over from Sirius's side of it, reaching and jabbing the dog in the back haunch with his finger tip.

Snuffles's tail wagged lazily, like he was waving away a fly or something.

James jabbed a bit harder.

"Pssst. Sirius."

Sirius's large, shaggy head lifted up from Remus's arm.

The skin on Remus's forearm still held the faded mark of the word traitor in it from the battle at Fallengunder, just one more scar that marred the boy's body. Loads of slashes and half moon bites covered Remus's skin. James felt something twist in his stomach, and the dog cocked his head as James stood upright and covered his mouth with his hand in anguish. He turned and left the room abruptly.

Sirius extricated himself from Remus and the blankets, transforming and flinging his leather jacket and boots on as he hurried after James.

James was outside on the landing of the stairs before Sirius had caught up.

"It's cold as balls out here," Sirius said to announce his presence.

James stopped his trot down the steps and waited for Sirius to catch him up, hands jammed into his coat pockets. When Sirius was side by side with him, they finished down the steps and struck out into a brisk walk in the dark.

Their particular neighborhood was fairly quiet for a city at night, mostly bums and late night partiers on their way home from the pubs. James and Sirius could easily have been two lads on their way home from having a lark and nobody took notice of either of them.

Sirius shook a cigarette from his pack and offered it to James, who took it, and then got himself one before lighting them both with an old muggle lighter he'd bought for himself for the novelty of it. It was silver and beautiful, he thought, and he liked how magical it felt, flicking the little switch and popping a flame into existence. It wasn't like doing it with his wand - it was more carnal than that, and it kind of excited him in a way that ordinary magic didn't. He held his cigarette in his mouth lazily, breathing the smoke out his nose, watching as James took rapid pulls and puffs, carrying it in his fingers.

"You don't usually actually smoke it, Prongs," Sirius said. "Usually you just look at it."

"I'm tired of watching everything burn."

Sirius rather liked that, and he tucked the words away in his head like one does with good poetry.

"Remember when we used to have a cup of tea in the common room whenever we had nightmares?" James asked.

"You're generous saying we, given it was always me that had had the nightmares," Sirius said. His cigarette bobbled with his words.

James said, "I feel like I'm living one."

Sirius shrugged. "You're stressed. It's okay to be stressed. That Underhill was right tough on you, and so unfairly - he should really be more honest with you. I talked to Frank today and he said that ---"

"That's just it, though, Sirius, he was right." James interrupted.

Sirius paused. "Right?! Bah. He was a bloody arse hole who could've died, along with his whole team of aurors, if you hadn't been there."

James said, "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they knew everything going on, too. Maybe they would have been just fine. Maybe I really was what cucked up the mission."

"I hate that Underhill says cucked," Sirius said. "Be a man and say fucked it up."

James stopped walking abruptly and Sirius tripped over his own two feet stopping, too, and turned back to James. "Sirius, it's like Remus's traitor mark isn't it? Remus wouldn't have that if I hadn't been such a toerag about trying to sacrifice myself and be the one who took on the most pain in a plan. And you have no idea the other shite I've taken on myself for - for others." He stared at Sirius, thinking of the time turner, and how he'd taken on that for Sirius and for Maryrose and how he'd thrown himself into Albus Dumbledore's office the night his dad died, ready to do it all again. "Fuck," James cursed, and he squatted there on the pavement, suddenly overcome.

Sirius stood still for a few moments, smoking, and looking around. A motorcar went by and some muggles were shouting drunkenly out the window as they passed. Sirius looked down at James. "You know the blokes in that car probably thought you were doing something that ought only be happening on a Tuesday, don't you?"

James looked up. "Can we just go for a motorbike ride for a bit?"

Sirius tossed his cigarette into the gutter and pulled out the motorbike from his pocket without any hesitation. "Engorgio," he said, bringing it up to size.

"Hop on, Potter," he said.