"Right, so we agree that was just bonkers, yeah?" James asked after Constance Merriweather had closed the door behind himself and Lily and they'd started walking to the gate in the little fence that surrounded her front yard.

Lily said, "Fishy, for sure. She's obviously had her memory altered." She paused, "Oh but she was such a sweet old woman. James, she felt so much remorse for the things that she's been unwittingly a part of."

"D'you reckon she really didn't know all that time?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, can anybody be that daft?"

Lily nodded, "I know she wasn't aware of it, James. I could feel it." She paused. "I reckon she worked with a team. Sort of like doctors, nurses, and researchers would do in a muggle hospital."

James wasn't sure how things worked in a muggle hospital, but he didn't think much of Mungo's - and thereby the Department of Magical Health Services at the Ministry - for the process they were operating. It was just rubbish. He looked at Lily, who was unlatching the gate, and he thought that if it was someone he loved that had been mistreated like that he would bloody have it out for whoever had done it. Clear the place top to bottom, he would. He shook his head.

Lily said, "I think there must be more to all this than you know."

"To what?"

"To the Anne Veigler/Marjorie Grant case," Lily said. "I mean, clearly somebody's been here that knew she was involved that figured someone else would eventually come to call on Constance. They cleared her mind for a reason. Your visitor at Mungo's must be a key to something that's going on. And whatever it is, they've kept Constance alive for some reason, too. I mean, they could have easily killed her and none the wiser. She's a lonely old woman with nobody in her immediate circle that's around. Do you know anything more about her, besides that she worked at Mungo's at the time Anne Veigler was there?"

James shook his head. "I thought she would just tell us she didn't remember the visitor and that would be the end of it. I didn't expect anything more from this, really. Honestly, the only reason I asked you along was because I wanted to spend some time with you. Seems we don't get to do that as much lately."

Lily nodded, "I know. Being an adult is rubbish, isn't it?"

"Absolutely," James answered. "Golly we used to have so much free time and I never realized it. All that complaining about homework I've done - never realized it was bloody easier to do all that than actual work."

Lily laughed. "Youth is wasted on the young, 'ey Potter?" She winked, then turned to him, laced her fingers through his, and said, "You sound like an old man."

"Maybe I am an old man," he said, "At heart, if not in body."

"Well, I expect there's a lot more to be done in terms of research with Constance Merriweather, but I think rather than worrying on it now, let's use the rest of our free time together, shall we?"

"Yes, let's," James agreed. "Let's do something fun."

"What do you want to do?" Lily asked.

James thought for a moment, then he grinned and he held out his hand. "I know just the ticket."

Lily took his hand. "Lead the way, sir."

James grinnd, wrapped his fingers through hers, and with a crack they'd disapparated away from Constance Merriweather's yard and with a twist of her stomach they were pulled away. Lily always instinctively closed her eyes when she was disapparating and before she opened them again, she was smiling because she could smell precisely where they were. She laughed, "James."

"What?" He was grinning all toothy and lopsided when she opened her eyes and she could see the boardwalk stretching away behind him, the sea stretching off to the horizon on their left. It was sunny and blue, despite the cold wind coming off the ocean. The boardwalk was quiet, not many people were dotting the stretch as there might've been during the summer, but was was rather nice. Even from the distance they were at, she could hear the tinkling music of the carousel and see the spinning ferris wheel way off down the pier. "This was where we agreed to be Friends In Law of Sirius Black," James said, waving his palm at the ferris wheel.

"I remember," Lily lauged.

"We watched him ride it," James reminded her, "But we didn't get to have a spin ourselves."

"We didn't," Lily agreed.

"Well, come on, let's have a go!" James pulled her hand excitedly along and she laughed, giving in to his childlike enthusiasm. He paid for a roll of tickets, which the attendant said they could use on anything along the boardwalk they wanted, and James said, "Brilliant!" Lily squealed as he lifted her up and plunked her down on one of the painted ceramic ponies, which had strawberry-milk colored body and mint green mane that had been sculpted to look as though it flowed behind a fast-running horse. James himself climbed aboard a sun-yellow horse with a fire-red mane. He straddled the thing and pretended to be making it giddyap, slapping the ceramic hocks of the horse and bouncing in the saddle. "Yee haw!" he shouted as the ride lurched and they started going forward, the music playing loud and plink-plonky as the horses began rising and falling.

Lily laughed, "You absolute nutter."

"This is exhilerating," James said, and he stood up in the stirrups, holding onto the pole of the horse as it rose and fell.

It wasn't going very fast, but Lily was glad for it, and she loved the way everything outside of the pair of them seemed blurry and far-off, and for a few moments the world matched how she often felt when she was with James... as though nothing else existed except him. It was as though everything looked right for once. She hung onto the handles of her painted pony and pretended to urge the horse on, the same as James was doing, pretending to race one another as the horses rocked forward and backwards on an endless loop.

"My lady," James said, dismounting his horse when the ride was over. He bowed before her as she slid from her horse, "You are the greatest horse racing component I have ever had the pleasure to be challenged by, and I here by award you with my heart as your prize for the clear victory in this race."

"I shall take it in full," Lily said, tilting her chin upward with an air of mock superiority. "Thank you kindly sir." She took the invisible heart that he pretended to pull from his chest and hand over to her, and she laughed, then snatched the roll of tickets from his pocket. "Now," she said, "You're going to take me to the top of the world."

"The top of the world?" he asked.

Lily nodded, grinning, and pointed at the ferris wheel.

"To the top of the world it is, Evans," he said, and they rushed down the boardwalk, holding hands and dodging 'round the few other people who dotted the way. They were young and obnoxious and free and happy and Lily liked the way his fingers curled into hers and remembered all the times that she had marvelled at the way they fit together so perfectly in the past. This was no different. And every time her golden snitch engagement ring caught the sun just-so it flashed brilliantly, like a beacon of yellow light, and she was warmed all over again with the thought that they would be together like this always.

The ferris wheel seat rocked a bit as they rode and they were the only ones on so the attendant let it carry them around and around far longer than he might've done if there was a crowd. He stopped them at the top and the wheel sat motionless as they looked out over the sea and the land all around them for several long moments. The clouds skittered with the wind and although it was chilly in the air, James was warm beside her and Lily pulled his arm 'round her shoulders and he leaned in and looked down right into her beautiful bottle-green eyes.

"Hullo Evans," he said thickly.

"Hullo Potter," she replied back, smiling, then breaking into a little giggle as his eyes twinkled. "Oh do stop teasing me and just give me a kiss already, won't you? You know ferris wheels are the best for snogging."

"Oh is that what they're best for?" he asked, "I had no idea."

"It's the entire purpose that muggles invented them, my darling," she answered, "Didn't you know? I read all about it in The Very Official Muggle Guide to What Ferris Wheels Are Really Meant For."

James laughed, "Sounds like a legitimate book."

"Oh it is, really," Lily said, "It's by... Ima Goaround."

James snorted. "Oh really is it now? I reckon you've been hanging about us Marauders too long."

"James, just shut up and kiss me."

"Alright. I think I will," he said. And he did. Again and again... and again... and again...

James and Lily returned to the flat in East London later that night with a bag of half-finished popcorn, part of a cloud of cotton candy, and each wearing thick sweatshirts with the name of the sea side city embroidered on the front of their chests. They were laughing and Lily was carrying a pink stuffed bear that James had won by throwing a ball at a stack of milk bottles. They stumbled up the metal stairs 'round back of the building, acting like giddy teenagers, and into the door of the flat.

Sirius was sitting on the couch, biting his tongue as he worked his wand up and down, a needle sewing a patch onto his leather jacket's back. "Well, well, well," he said, looking up and letting the needle hang in the air before him. "Will you just look'it what the cat dragged in." He sniffed the air, then, "Bloody hell, you lot have been to the shore without me." He paused, "You've been having fun without me. I can smell the fun on you."

"We could never have fun without you," Lily said, kissing the top of Sirius's forehead. She held out the bear, "Look what James has won for you."

Sirius let out a squeal and took the bear from Lily's hands, hugging it to his chest. "Oh blimey, Prongsy, I've never had anything so beautiful in my entire life. How did you know this was my greatest desire in the entire world?"

James said, "It was just screaming your name."

"I love it when things scream my name," Sirius said, grinning.

"I know you do, love," James replied.

Sirius grinned and squeezed the bear, which very suddenly yelled, "SIRIUS!!!!!!!!" Sirius jumped in surprise and Lily let out a peal of laughter as she tucked her wand back into her pocket and ducked into the kitchen.

"Nearly gave me a heart attack she did," Sirius said, shaking his head. He squeezed the bear, which yelled again, and he grinned. "I'm going to put this under Remus's side of the bed later and give him a turn."

James snickered, "He won't hear it over his own shouting."

Sirius grinned. "Probably not."

James sank down into the couch beside Sirius, his face flushed and a stupid grin on his mouth.

Sirius studied him a long moment, then said, "Prongs, it's good to see you happy."

James looked over at Sirius and laughed.

"But honestly if you ever go to the boardwalk without me again I'll have to kill you."