This chapter is dedicated to Sophie. Despite not reading this book she's still a wonderful friend and supplied me with an abundance of deer related jokes so there's that... Love you!
BooksAndCocoa ♥️♥️♥️

(30th September 1977)

The last day in September begun with a hollow sunrise. One that didn't hold much soul or feeling and appeared rather drab if one cared enough to pay it any heed.

But however prosaic the sunrise may have been, Lily Evans did not mind. Because the sun was new and full of promises. The sunrise spoke of beginnings and possibilities and all sorts of things Lily had almost forgotten existed.

Her mother had spoken to her, and it had broken the barrier of whatever spell hung over the house like the plague. It meant that the wall of silence could be broken again. Soon she would have the courage to be the one to do it. She just needed a little more time...

♥ ♥ ♥

(30th September 1977 continued)

Dorcas arrived outside Lily's door dressed in school uniform and a winter jacket, her tight curls atop her head in a bun, always practical.

"Thought you weren't going to show up for a minute, sweetheart. Had me waiting an age!" She cried when her best friend finally stumbled out the door, looking sheepish but positively aglow with happiness.
"Lily?"

"What?"

"You're grinning like someone's stuffed you with rainbows." Her tone was far too matter-of-factly to fit her aphorisms. It only made Lily smile more.

"If this is what being stuffed with rainbows feels like then I'll gladly put up with the rain."

Dorcas groaned, "oh, for Pete's sake, Lily! Stop being philosophical and just tell me what's got you in a good mood!"

Lily locked the empty house behind her and followed her best friend back out to the gate, linking their arms together and leaning into the taller girls side.
"Just... everything." She paused, glancing up at Dorcas as they hurried along the road, "do you ever have something happen to you that makes you think that everything might just be okay in the end after all?"

"Yeah I have. But it wasn't a something, Lil, it was someone."

"Oh?"

Dorcas didn't look down to meet her friend's eye, instead she smiled up at the sky, like it shared with her some kind of fantastic secret.
"Marlene. She hit the reset button on just about everything bad in my life. And I loved her all the more for it."

A moment passed between the two like a gust of wind. Lily tried to ignore the nagging sense that she knew exactly what Dorcas was talking about. Hadn't James reset her life?

"Lily I'm going to ask you one question." Dorcas said, stopping walking and holding out a hand for Lily to do the same. They faced each other in the street, Dorcas wore the sort of knowing expression that she was not widely known for, that look was usually reserved for Alice.
"I'm going to ask you one question and then I won't ask again, alright?"
Lily nodded, swallowing hard.

"When did James come to see you?"

The sharp intake of breath was more than sufficient a response and Dorcas nodded, a look of warmness but also sympathy in her ludic bronze eyes.

"You are the worst, Dorcas Rae Meadowes." Lily huffed, resuming her walk at a much quicker pace.

"I'm the best, Lily Juliette Evans."

"You're embarrassing yourself."

Dorcas hopped on front of Lily, a laugh close to her lips and smirking like someone she knew all too well.
"Really? I rather think my candour makes decent entertainment."

"Candour? Maybe stupidity."

"May-be. But I know for a fact you'll be thinking about what I said all day, and sooner or later you're going to have to face facts."
All of a sudden she had adopted an arcane, brooding demeanour and Lily felt like slapping her.

"What do you mean, face facts?"

Dorcas shrugged, grabbing Lily's hand and pulling her back along the path. She hadn't noticed she'd stopped walking until Dorcas was dragging her again.

The day that followed Dorcas was proved correct. Lily had not stopped thinking about what her best friend had said. Was James really her Marlene? What did that mean for her? What did that mean for James?

♥ ♥ ♥

(30th September 1977 continued)

The sun was setting but Alice and Lily couldn't tell. The dark room at the top of the school building was locked shut and the two friends worked the hours away, barely noticing them pass.

Lily worked quickly, rather maladroitly, processing the film taken in Derbyshire at the weekend. Most of her pictures were of Alice and Frank smiling together and so enviously in love it made Lily long to have someone look at her they way they saw each other.

Thoughts like that were rather precarious to someone like Lily. Being such a corybantic dreamer, she had a tendency to be dangerously rhapsodic and spiral into a gyre of thoughts and images she'd rather stayed hidden from herself, where she could unpack them when she was ready. The trouble with Lily was that thoughts often bombarded her all of a sudden and there was little she could do about it. In that moment her mind did exactly that...

As Lily held a picture of her friends in her hand, gazing at their love, she stupidly allowed herself to dream of looking at James in that way. She allowed herself to imagine him holding her the way Frank held Alice– arms round her middle and chin on her shoulder, beaming at her like the sun shone from her insides out.

She threw the picture away in distain, horrified she had allowed the gluttonous dream to cloud her thoughts, ambushing her as it were. She should not have allowed herself to think that way. All of a sudden guilt chocked her and tears burned the backs of her eyes. They didn't fall but Lily could feel them, salty and hot and menacing– threatening her.

The motion of throwing the picture startled Alice and she looked up at her friend, an expression of deep concern colouring her cheeks and fusing her eyebrows.
"Lily?" She asked in a voice so soft it sounded like it might break. "What's the matter?"

When Lily didn't respond, Alice put down her equipment and reached out for the developed photo on the floor– her and Frank. Still, Lily said nothing; averting her eyes and trying to appear rapt by the tiling of the floor. It looked like it had been stained red with the light from the developing apparatus.

"Lily, talk to me, please?"

Nothing.

"Lily? Can I guess what this is about?"

In her head, Lily silently recalled Dorcas saying something similar that morning. It made her feel slightly violated that her friends seemed to know more about her than she allowed them.

"I saw you with James in the skatepark last week. I saw you two holding hands, looking heartbroken but the most contented I'd ever seen you. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen you look like that with anyone."

Lily stopped thinking for once in her life. The rhapsody stopped. The dreams stopped. Everything held its breath while she remembered the feeling of her hand in James'; having him tell her exactly how everything would be alright, how he would help her manage. She remembered how invincible he'd made her feel, like the world would roll out a carpet of magic wherever she chose to walk.

"Lily?"

"Yeah?"

"You know you can tell me anything?"

Lily considered this. Thoughts of telling Alice every single thought she'd had about James. About his raven hair that looked like fine silk; about his hazel eyes that looked like molten gold when they faced the sun; about his soft lips that were never far away from a smile; about the reassuring words he'd whispered to her in his polished but soft accent, and the way he squeezed her hand as he said them.
She very nearly told Alice about the feeling of her heart as it swelled when he took her hand as they chased the ice cream van that day, laughing until the sun went down and she had to sneak back home in the dark. Lily very nearly told Alice everything about James she had to hold herself back from loving.

You know you can tell me anything?

Anything seemed to hold more meaning to Lily that it should. Lily who had lived her life hidden from magic; Lily who had been able to manipulate flowers and cry blood and cobwebs and rain ash but not tell a soul. Lily who was very much magic. Lily who had to hide that fact for so long she'd grown used to the lie. The lie that had hit the reset button the day she met James and his friends. The day she'd seen him wink at her and insult her, the shout at her, then forgive her at his mother's funeral. Lily who had never considered the possibility of telling anyone of her magic until she'd spent time with James. James who needed her just as much as she was coming to realise she needed him. He brought her magic back just as she was beginning to fear it would fade...

She could have told Alice all of this. She could have told her everything. But Lily was not that brave, at least not today.

"I know. I love you Alice, you and Dorks are the best friends I could ask for."

The smaller girl smiled, echoing the sunset still glowing outside, though they didn't see it.
"Love you too. Come here," she held out her arms and Lily walked right into them, the feeling was oddly like coming home.

(1st November 1977)

Sunrises in November had a peculiar whiteness to them. They no longer sparkled gold or shimmered orange like they once did in the summer months, but instead they seemed to become more drab and simultaneously blinding.

Looking up at this sort of sunrise was like looking at snow. One couldn't quite tell which part was blinding you because it was all white but it still hurt to stare for too long. So as James embarked on his run in the chilly, anaemic morning, he tried not to think too much about the blindness that would follow if he stated.
He came out to run almost everyday and this was no exception. He glanced at the sky every so often as he jogged on round the castle grounds, empty this early morning.

Oddly he was reminded of Icarus the Greek legend that flew too close to the sun in search of glory. Having spoken a lot of Greek as a pureblood Potter, he'd known a fair few stories of the gods and their supporting characters; it was one of the only things that kept him interested in learning how to speak Greek when he was a boy. His mother would tell him a story and in return he would offer her a period of his undivided attention to devote to the tedium of verbs and sentence structure. (James used to joke that it was time wasted in the end because Greek wasn't exactly the love language that French was, so Sirius had a lot more benefit from the Black's language in that respect).

But thinking of Greek only made him think of his mother. It was her that taught him most of his Greek, and how to ballroom dance and all sorts of other things.
All of a sudden he was thinking about her again. His mother, looking younger than he'd seen for years; laughing with him as he giggled, spinning him round the ballroom of Potter manor. He'd stand on her toes and she would spin him round, using the excuse that he had to learn what dancing felt like before he could do it himself. Eventually her excuse came back to bite him when he'd been forced to learn more about partnering with Trudy when the Notts came to visit Potter manor. They were both ten and horrendous at dancing but Trudy's mother –a traditional Slytherin and half Lestrange– insisted they practice properly until the two of them were skilled enough to dance a waltz at the next pureblood ball. He grimaced at the memory, he'd not known Trudy very well at the time but it was still something they laughed about to this day.

But thinking of those memories only brought back his mother, crushing his air pipes but he kept running, kept pushing forwards because he wouldn't allow himself to stop and feel, because then he might never stop.

He was five years old, crying after a nightmare and his mother was there. She held him tight, promising never to let go. She broke her promise.
James ran on.

He was eleven and it was the thirty-first of august. He'd been excited about Hogwarts all his life but now it was tomorrow, all of a sudden he couldn't fathom leaving home. He hadn't slept a wink and his mother had slipped some Pepper Up Potion in his tea the next morning. James pretended not to notice but he saw it. His mother had taken care of him without him even asking. Who would do that now?
James ran on.

He was seventeen. He was dreaming of dominos when he woke in the rain, instantly feeling something was wrong and before he knew what he was doing, he was by his mother's side. She had said she was proud, that he would be a good man. He would never get the chance to prove it to her.
His lungs gave out and he stopped running.

"JAMES!"

The voice was thick with anxiety as it called after him. It was then James realised two things. Firstly, he was on the ground. Secondly, that was probably not the first time the voice had called his name.

"James, Merlin's Sake, are you alright?! Bordel de merde, you're pale!" It was Esme-Leigh. She must have been out running too when she saw him fall and raced to catch up.

Esme knelt down next to James and pulled her arms around him. One around his head, cradling him to her chest and the other round his broad shoulders, making him feel a lot smaller than he was.

"Ez..."

"Shh. Don't say anything, alright? I know. It's okay, I know."

It was only then James realised that he was crying.
He was crying because he was exhausted, and he was sick and everything was wrong. Sometimes everything was just wrong.

"Stupid bloody... sunrise." He murmured, unsure exactly why he's said it, or if Esme would understand but she probably didn't need to.

Her touch and her words were a comfort, he noticed after a while. She held him fast and her voice had a calming effect to it, like a sort of drug that slowed the system. He found himself wondering if it was a trait of veela. Regardless it helped.

Although there was a whisper in his head that seeped into the crevices of his mind, into his conscience and beyond all rational thought. It was a subtle whisper and it spoke of Lily. It reminded him how it felt to have her head rested on his shoulder as they watched the sunset together the day of his mother's funeral. Her comfort made him feel invincible, Esme's made him feel better. He didn't like to imagine why he was comparing them but Lily was not here. Esme-Leigh was, and so he let her console him, he allowed her words to wash over him and her hands to run through his hair until the tears faded.

Esme-Leigh was here. Lily was not. For a moment that was enough.

♣ ♣ ♣

(1st November 1977 continued)

The sun was setting when the owl arrived by James' window. He was writing a potions essay on the desk in his Head's dorm room when an official looking bird hopped onto the sill with a letter tied to its ankle.

Raising his eyebrows, James set about the room to find some treats for the bird, opening the window fully for it to hop inside.
"Who are you then, eh?" He asked it, stroking its feathers with the back of his hand and laying the treats he'd collected with the other.

"Let's see what this is then, shall we?"
The letter had a ministry seal and he recognised the writing as his fathers.

My dear James, (it read.)

I'm writing this letter so that when word hits the papers you won't go berserk like previous times. As you know I took quite the bashing after the attack outside Newcastle. Many called for me to resign immediately but I held off. I'm afraid that now I cannot hold them off much longer. Information has reached sources which might leak the news that we had the town guarded to the prophet. I imagine once this is public knowledge I'll have no choice but to resign sooner or later.

The problem, of course, being the amount of unfinished business that needs to be carried out. Work that I don't imagine anyone else on the taskforce could handle all at once. I know you think I could use that to my advantage. I can hear you telling me I should push for some sort of induction period for my replacement and I very well might, but it shan't stop me from being pushed out my position.

Expect the news sometime next week, I imagine, and my resignation before the end of the year. I'll see how long I can hold on.

In separate affairs, a girl has just joined our taskforce directly from auror training on personal request. A halfblood: Sempere. Goes by Jasmine at work but I've heard her called Jazzy by the colleagues she's friendly with. I met with her today, she said she was pally with you? I hope it was all innocent? She seems like a nice girl. Smart, focused, determined. Anyway, if there's a good word to be put in for her then I'll trust your judgement.

So this shall be where I leave you. Write me back when you get this. I'll be happy to answer anything. How's school? How's Sirius? Marlene? The others? Give them my best will you?

Your father,
Fleamont Charles Quinton Potter

James read the letter over until it was committed to memory. Surely it wouldn't take long for the news to spread? And knowing his father it was likely he was understating the severity of the situation. This was bad.

"Marlene!"

Seconds later a blonde figure appeared in his door frame, leaning on the side with her robes handing off one shoulder and her Head Girl badge skewed.

"You called?"

James didn't reply, he simply handed her the letter with a grim expression.
It took her a few moment to scan its contenders before she swore, rather colourfully.

"He's sure?"

"I'm assuming so."

"Can we take his word as gospel though? Because if not we need to do something."

He shrugged listlessly. "What?"

Marlene studied her friend for a moment, considering her answer carefully, but there was no time to reply when a knock sounded at the portrait hole.

"I'll go." Marlene hurried to the door to find Aliona Connolly waiting on the step. Dark rings encircled her eyes and her usual glossy hair did not cascade like fine wine, instead it matted around her head. Her silver eyes looked less and less like the twinkling of moonlight and more like fresh tears.

"Merlin, sweetheart what happened to you?"

Aliona shrugged, sheepishly. Her voice came out throaty and tough, like she hadn't spoken properly in a while.
"I got tired of pretending."

The Head Girl extended her hand for her just as James came skidding round the corner to see the first few tears roll down the girl's cheeks.
"Oh no, Al, what's happened?"

She took a while to reply, only once she was seated on a sinking chair by the fire with a blanket over her shoulders did she manage to speak.
"I spoke to Sirius a few days ago. I didn't tell him why I've been sleeping in the MPP room but he said if I ever wanted to talk then I should choose someone I trust. You two were the first people I thought of."

"You've been sleeping in the room of requirement?!" James nearly shrieked, his tone shrill and disbelieving, Marlene had to kick him to shut up.

Aliona nodded, "to get away from Trudy."

"Why?" Marlene's voice was gentle, her accent nearly as smoothly cajoled as James' but there was still a kinder element to it. Perhaps it was a female touch that made her sound more encouraging, or likely it was the way James still appeared to be mortified Aliona wasn't sleeping in her dorm.

"Because she told me she loves me."

"What?!"

"Shut up, Prongs!"

A small smile crept onto Aliona's face before returning to her story.
"It was that night we spent planning the prank on Brodie O'Connor. We were both a little drunk and she just blurted it out, then she kissed me. It all went by so quickly that I didn't have much time to think! Trudy, she asked me if I loved her back and..." tears resumed their decent down her rosy cheeks, ruining her soft skin with sadness.

"It's okay. Come now," James shifted out the chair opposite her and brought his arm over her shoulders, pulling her head to his chest. Marlene wasn't far behind him, setting herself at Aliona's other side.

"Why don't you stay here? Just until you're ready to go back? I'll take the couch in here and you can have my room?" James pulled back just enough to study her face as she wiped her tears and steadied herself to answer.

"Nonsense!" Marlene interrupted, "she can sleep in with me. The bed is big enough and I used to do it with Esme-Leigh all the time, didn't I pet?"

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. On one condition: you talk to Trudy."

She smiled, her eyes glittering like a starry night once more.
"Done."

♣ ♣ ♣

(1st November 1977 continued)

Marlene's bedroom was dark, discounting the strip of purplish moonlight that stretched across the floor like an oil spill where the curtains hadn't been properly shut.

Aliona watched from the bed as the Head Girl stalked across the room in search of her hairbrush, clad in quidditch shorts and the same grey bra she'd insisted on wearing since fifth year.

"I'm sure it was here!"

"You won't need it until the morning, anyway. Lay the matter to rest!"

Marlene grinned and Aliona couldn't deny her friend was beautiful.
"You know I can't now... ah-ha!" She paraded the brush around the room for a vacant audience.

"Just... get in."

Aliona found that Marlene was a warm weight next to her on the bed, despite not taking a decent share of the quilt, she preferred to keep half her body on top of the covers while the other stayed tucked in, arm cupping the pillow to her cheek.

"Marlene?"

"Mmhm?"

"Have you talked to Trudy?"

The blonde girl frowned, "no, but Esme did and apparently she's cut up. I think she just wants her friend back."

"Really?"

Marlene nodded, reaching out to stroke Alionas hair behind her ear, "what I think you'll find is that often people can't let go of the things they treasure most in life, even if they can't have them the way they want to."
Aliona did not reply but Marlene seemed to be heavily in thought before she added, "can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"When you were dating James, did you ever feel jealous of Esme-Leigh?"

Aliona nodded before she'd thought of sufficient words to follow.
"I can't imagine anyone wouldn't be. They're not quite like you and him. Not strictly siblings, there's something a little extra."

Marlene nodded gravely, clearly this was not the answer she was looking for and it had lodged her deeper into the spiral of thought.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You only live once."

"When did you realise you were in love with your girl?"

A smile brighter than the moonlight should have allowed spread across her face, her cheeks reddened and Aliona could see the dip in her collarbone as she tensed with emotion.
"Do you want to whole thing?"

"Please." Aliona thought of her reoccurring dream. The dream she'd had of Trudy, walking over the Blake lake and kissing her sweetly...

"It didn't take me long to realise I was doomed. I met my girl –Dorcas– in a bowling alley. She was there on her own, leaning against an arcade machine and she wore this denim jacket with about a million badges on it, all sorts of bands and clubs and she was beautiful. I was supposed to meet Esme-Leigh there but she'd said she wasn't feeling well, so I went to talk to her. And she was funny, told me she was there with her track team but one of the girls was pissing her off so much that she wanted a break and I offered her a game while she cooled off. I noticed her lesbian badge on the jacket when she ran in front of me to an alley and I didn't realise I liked her all that much until I nearly jumped in the air with excitement." Marlene rolled into her back, glancing over at the night, the hue of purple tinting her skin.

"Of course we were both competitive and kept demanding rematches until we lost count of who was winning. By the time we finished playing her entire track team was gone. And if it was me and the quidditch team I'd have gone mental but Dorcas just said: 'I'm glad they're gone. It leaves everyone else to deal with fucking Donna!' That was when I realised that this girl could be special.
"I realised I loved her less than a month later. We were at her house, listening to a vinyl she'd stolen from her friend and I was watching her dance around the room, black curls jumping with her and she was so lost in her own world that it just hit me so hard. I love her so much. Dorcas is the most scatterbrained, insane woman I've ever met but she's my girl and I'm stuck with her."

Aliona smiled, doing a spankingly good job of holding back the tears as she listened to a love story so wonderful she'd sell her soul for it.
"She sounds fantastic."

"She's the best thing in the world. But you know how it feels don't you?"

Aliona didn't respond. She watched Marlene smile knowingly at her, the moonlight struck her blonde hair all sorts of shades and the skin of her stomach looked pale purple.

"You don't need to answer. Maybe it's in a different way but you know how it feels to love someone like that. And Trudy, she loves you too. Even if it's not in the way she wished you could, she just wants you to come back. Anyway you'll have her. Trust me, Aliona, she's lost without you. I remember how it was when you were in the hospital wing, how she cried herself to sleep on the nights that Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let her stay by your side over night. I was there when she nearly broke down after attacking Kieron Mulciber and when she found out she faced expulsion." She smiled, something that looked oddly like sympathy crossed her face then.
"Aliona, please let her back in. You didn't see what it was like for her when you were gone. It was like someone had pressed pause on her life, and you seemed to be the only thing that made it right again. So call it what you want but no matter how she loves you, she won't be able to stop, so giving her space won't do anything for either of you. You miss her too, I can see it clearer than Sirius' bloody mirror!"

It was hard not to smile when Marlene was smiling in that knowing way, like she knew everything anyone needed to know. It was easy to see why she was Head Girl in that moment; perhaps not the most dignified of places for an epiphany— half dressed, sharing a bed and whispering in the moonlight, but it was true.

"Thank you, Mar. I needed that more than I thought I did. And you're right, of course you're right."

"I'm rarely wrong. Now," she pulled the blankets further up her torso and helped tuck Aliona in too, "now we sleep. I'm knackered."

"Night, Marlene, you legend."

"Night, Aliona, you idiot."

Stars twinkled and they slept. The stars would forget in the morning.

(1st November 1977)

It's easy to wonder what one might see under the same sky. The first night of October was uncharacteristically clear, displaying an array of stars that stretched further than the human mind.
Lily sat beneath them, at the foot of her bed, studying the street below, bathed in dim orange light that settled in circular pools.

Lucifer was there again. He never wasn't. Lily wasn't entirely sure when he had begun to appear on the street, under one of the amber pools to study her. He came every night, watched her for a moment, winked and then left. She hadn't seen enough of his face to recognise but something about him was always vaguely familiar.

The Devil caught her eye just then, Lily imagined he might be smiling but it was too dark to tell. He winked of course, then he was gone.

Often she found herself waiting up for Lucifer, if only just to let him torture her, but sometimes she wondered what he might do if she didn't wait to see him. Would he be gone in the morning? Was that worse? To know he was there and she hadn't seen him?

Some questions were worth knowing the answer to, but Lily didn't feel like finding out.
Sleep hadn't come easy to Lily in a while and this night was no exception. Every angle of her bed seemed bitterly cold. It wasn't until nearing morning that Lily realised she'd magically coated herself in frost.

♥ ♥ ♥

(2nd November 1977)

Spending ones life a dreamer was a precarious situation to live out. Lily knew that her way of thinking could ruin her just as easily as it could air her. Being the way she was often made dealing with things awfully serpentine.

Still, the days dragged on in her house, trudging in a silence so brittle it seemed now like a china doll; all it would take was a whisper and it would break, shattering into a million porcelain pieces. Of course they would need to be cleared away, likely by hand, and so Lily would have to risk cutting her hands on the jagged edges.

The fragile silence had become a part of the house as much as anything tangible seemed to be. It coexisted with the chairs and the coffee-table, just like anything else would. It was hard to imagine life without it.

And yet she couldn't seem to help it.

Her mother was in the kitchen again, alone but not drunk. Airy, perhaps. Sometimes Lily wondered if her mother was a dreamer too...

Faith Evans stared out the kitchen window, dishes thoroughly forgotten and abandoned by the sink, soaked but not dried. Unfinished. There was a bitter taste in Lily's mouth at the thought.

She crossed the room to her mother, stopping just short to study her dark brown hair, tinged auburn in certain lights. She didn't have freckles like her daughter, she'd grown out of them a lifetime ago. To Faith, her freckles were just another part of her she would not get back. Something that reminded her she was not always a wooden doll; resemblance of who she once was. There, but not quite. Faith often wondered if she was perhaps just a prop nowadays, something inanimate that just sat innocuously in a corner, simply for decorative purposes.

Lily wanted to speak. So did Faith. But neither did. Instead Lily thought of James, of what he might say to her and she felt like a coward. The day she'd spent with him made her feel invincible but clearly his drug had worn off, leaving her with a sense of disparity; like the gallantry he gave her would fade if it wasn't restored soon. It was an peculiar feeling. To know just how much better a person made you. It was oddly close to needing someone, but not quite. Lily didn't need anyone, but James came dangerously close.

He would probably call her an idiot, she realised. Given half the chance, Lily thought he might march in her himself with an accordion or something equally as idiotic to tarnish the place.

Lily was not that brave (nor did she possess an accordion, she realised, almost smirking). She was not as courageous as she knew she should be. So instead of talking she held out her hand, wordlessly to her mother.

Faith felt her daughters hand as a cold but pleasant weight, one she hadn't felt in a while. Never had Faith wished for something to say quite like this in her life. But she said nothing. Faith was not yet so brave.

So the silence continued, but for a moment, a fleeting, gorgeous moment, it wasn't so bad.

(2nd November 1977)

Mary and Esme-Leigh were alone in the astronomy tower, just before the sun went down and revealed the stars. They seemed to be trapped together in the purgatory the sky found itself and in before the midnight blue leaked across the landscape.
A plethora of telescopes and star charts were laid out in front of them, waiting to be used.

"So do you have a time plan yet?" Mary asked the other girl. They were discussing the up and coming birthday of Sirius Black, a day in which it was customary to stage a spectacular prank on the school, if not to display their talents then to adorn the school in trepidation for a while later.

"We're working on it. The boys always bring in me and Marlene for the big pranks, the more hands and brains the better I presume."

Mary nodded, a coy expression on her face, "and I'm guessing that you've been sworn to secrecy?"

Esme laughed, a beautiful sound that meddled with the bird song below them.
"Remus would throw a fit if we breathe a word to anyone. Peter is already a liability as it is, he'd tell anyone anything!"

"Shame he won't tell me the Herbology homework."

"You'd take homework off Peter? Are you sure?"

Mary shrugged with one shoulder, averting the gaze of her pale green eyes out to the grounds below, "yeah. Why not? He's pretty good at Herbology. Better than me anyway."

"Fair enough. Just don't take charms work off him. Ask me instead 'cause Pete would have you blown up before you can say 'pillock!'"

Esme felt her stomach drop watching Mary giggle; her eyes twinkled and her aggressively freckled cheeks blushed a rose pink. When Mary threw her head back the gold in her hair seemed to illuminate under the low light, catching all sorts of sunbeams, making an oddly fashioned halo around her. Esme wondered if this picture would be her dying thought. Mary certainly looked like an angel, and Esme-Leigh might well meet her demise if she didn't get to see this again.

They were supposed to be waiting for the sun to set, to study the stars like Mary had promised to help her with, but they'd come out too early and now they were stuck together, like the only people in the world, abiding patiently on the stars. Secretly, Esme hoped the sun never set so she didn't have to tear her eyes away from Mary.

"What is it?"

Esme-Leigh started, "pardon?"

"You look somewhere between bliss and combustion."

"You could say that."

Mary hummed, eyeing the other girl with a sceptical look.
"I like your ring," she said, seeming to innately sense that the subject needed changing.

Esme looked down at the ring on her right hand, the little jewel was sparkling aqua blue in the light, matching her hair.
"Thank you, it's charmed to match my hair. Has my name engraved too."

"Really? Did you do that?"

Esme shook her head. Conflicted whether she should mention James or not. Although she didn't quite understand why it would be a bad thing to mention James. It just would.

"Who did it?"

She looked away, running her hands through the thick blue waves of her hair.
"James did. It was a present."

Mary didn't respond for a while. They sat in the first uncomfortable silence they'd ever experienced.

"It's lovely." Mary's tone was forced and they both knew it. Though neither knew exactly why.

The stars eventually did appear, and both girls were grateful for the distraction. Astronomy wasn't like life. There were no places to hide in a clear night sky...

♣ ♣ ♣

(2nd November 1977 continued)

Life was just a series of sunsets, sunrises and stars. James had known this for a while, like most people. But that didn't quite seem to prepare him for the torture of counting each one when he didn't see Lily. It wasn't that he needed to see her, it was more that he might just die if he didn't see her.

Every time he saw the sunrise he would see her blush, every time he saw the sunset he would see her hair, and every time the stars twinkled he would see her freckles, or sometimes the twinkle in her emerald eyes.

James didn't expect to be so enthralled by a person as he was with Lily. He didn't wholly understand why looking at her made him feel slightly sick; seeing her was like the feeling he got while diving on his broomstick– just when he's about to fall, the firm feeling of the quaffle under his arm grounds him and he skims the grass below before shooting straight back up again.

He promised he'd see her again, if more for himself than her. It was a delicate friendship, James knew. One that sparked from beautiful sunsets and the smell of caramel that lingered in the coffee shops they would hop between. A far cry away from the first days they spent in each other's company, bickering and fighting, baleful insults and poisonous sneers. Lily was like a fire, it caught faster then anyone expected and refused to be dimmed.

Lily had called herself Simpson when they first met and she hadn't corrected herself. James knew better than to ask why but he'd seen the little bursts of magic that seemed to be leaking out of every pore of her. He knew it wasn't her real name but he wouldn't dream of labelling her a liar. So he let her be Lily Simpson, until such a time and she wished to correct herself and be Lily Evans.

James walked down Hogsmede in the late evening, just as the stars began to come into focus. The streets were always empty when he walked them at this time, so nobody was there to question why a boy like him was to be found wandering the streets, into a dark alley and disappear with a crack.

♣ ♣ ♣

(2nd November 1977 continued)

James reappeared in Cokeworth, just outside the Potter's retirement home. He could see Lily's bedroom window from here, and the face in it.

Once Lily caught sight of him she nearly fell out the window, a beaming smile stretched across her face, a smile that made the stars seem dim.

James jogged over the road and hopped the fence deftly, grinning all the while. There was a tree just by her window which he made an easy climb of, quidditch had given him the sort of agility and dexterity that could be wonderfully transferable to other skills.

James offered Lily a questioning look but she opened the window for him and he hopped inside, landing on two feet in her bedroom with nothing more than a soft thump. He was suddenly hit with the realisation he'd never been in her bedroom before, clearly she had the same thought because when he glanced at her way she was blushing.

Lily's room looked much like her soul splashed onto four walls. Polaroids, bookcases and vinyls decorated just about every crevice. Other trinkets he did not recognise were dotted around too, along with a collection of cameras and film rolls.

James smiled, "I like what you've done with the place."

She shook her head, smile still visible despite herself.
"Me too. What are you doing here in the bloody dead of night?! The neighbours will talk!"

"What will they say? 'Oh, did you see that gorgeous man climb into Lily's bedroom last night? Wasn't he a stunner?!'"

"—oh shut up!" She hissed, interrupting him but her smile didn't falter.
"And keep your sodding voice down!"

He mockingly sent her a salute.
"I came to see you."

For a second Lily regarded him in silence, enthralled, if not a little confused by his unusual methods of contact.
"Oh."

"The lacklustre attempts at letters to us all give me reason to believe that this whole thing has yet to dissipate," James made a sweeping gesture around the room as if to display his thoughts.
The extras thing about Lily was that she seemed to understand perfectly what he had meant.
Carefully, she shook her head, followed with a soft, "no."

He held out his hand and she took it. They stood about a foot apart, save for their intertwined fingers, but still there was something intimate about the gesture. Something Special.

The air hummed with electricity and neither of them really wanted to speak. But James had come all this way in the dead of night to see Lily and she'd be damned if she wasted the opportunity.
Lily pulled on his hand and sat him down on her bed, trying to ignore her blush.

"Are the rest of your family asleep?"

"What are you alluding to?"

James chuckled, his shoulders shrugging with the strain of keeping quiet.
"Nothing, love. It wasn't supposed to be a preamble to some form of elicit rendezvous," he smirked, "unless that was on your mind?"

Lily pushed his shoulder with a little more chagrin than she had anticipated and nearly sent him tumbling onto the floor.

"Merl— wow, Simpson! Message received!"

"Splendid."

"That's my thing."

"You cannot own a word, Potter!"

James shrugged again, adopting a vacant gaze and sighing, "it's tacky to steal things, Lily. That's all I'm saying."

"You infuriate me."

"Good."

The laughing was a break from the alliance they seemed to have as of recent, one sodden with grey skies and bleak conversations. No matter how beautiful it was, the bond they shared seemed to have a downcast sort of undertone.

"You're wearing the necklace I bought you?" James said eventually, his tone disbelieving as he reached out a hand to toy with the golden snitch on her collarbone.

"Of course I am. You said it was a good luck charm, didn't you?" She looked down to observe his fingers as they ran over the ornate, little golden ball.

"Of sorts, yes."
James didn't think telling her it's real origins– or that he'd charmed it to reflect positivity– were very viable options for a response.

"Then I won't take it off. I need the luck."

James frowned at Lily's disheartened expression.
"How so?"

She sighed and James wanted to trounce whatever had caused such a deflated sound.
"Nothing changed. Mum still won't speak, dad still only comes home late and my sister's never been the diplomat."

"Well then what will you do?"

"What can I do?"

For a second James just looked at her, his expression too foggy and cryptic for Lily to make sense of. He looked at her, drinking in her copious freckles and lustre eyes.
"Whatever you want. Lily, I don't want to sound like I'm being unsympathetic but you're Lily, for the love of merl—god! You could cut a mountain in half given the right resources! If something needs fixed then you better bloody fix it!"

Lily watched James speak; all extravagant hand gestures and passionate hazel eyes. She was in awe. Somehow he had words to combat anything. James could win a war with words sometimes.

"James?"

"Yeah?"

"You're brilliant."

"It has been said, yes."

"Don't get cocky."

"When was I ever not cocky?"

No reply. James smirked, "prosecution rests."

"Shut up!" But really there was a beaming smile on her face.

"Right," he sighed, pushing up off the bed, "I might dissolve into the cosmos if you don't let me have a smoke out this window."

He turned to see her scowl at him and he only laughed louder, nearly snorting.
"Please?"

"Don't make cute faces at me, Potter. Fine. You can smoke this once, but you really should try to quit."

James shot her a coquettish grin and a mock salute, "yes ma'am."

And so James smoked out the window while Lily hummed a tune behind him, pacing around the dark bedroom and enjoying the feeling she got from knowing James was right there when she turned around. The only substantial light came from the lit cigarette in his hand and the lamppost of a similar hue on the street.
She didn't think to check for Lucifer tonight. She would never know if he had come to watch her, or if he'd gone back to wherever he goes when she doesn't arrive.

Instead she watched the sunrise with James, enjoying the sanctuary in time they had created for themselves. She fingered her necklace, he smoked out the window, legs dangling off the side, and when he had to leave he kissed her cheek, half out the window, half in her warm bedroom. He kissed her soft skin gently and whispered in her ear, "best of luck, love," before he was gone, disappearing round the corner into a dark alley, of which he did not emerge...

(3rd November 1977)

The stars were there again that night. This time they winked and twinkled coyly at Esme-Leigh Bisset and James Potter as the pair darted across the grounds of Hogwarts like bandits.

"Sush woman!" James hissed as they went tumbling in from the courtyard, rather unceremoniously, and pelting into a wall, mere feet away from a suit of armour.

"Sush yourself! The map says we're fine!" Esme retorted with a hushed giggle as she pulled him down the corridor by the hand.

Sirius' birthday prank, it seemed, involved a lot more preparation than originally anticipated, and subsequently required a lot more equipment. So that was what brought the two of them on the mission to the Restricted Ingredients Cupboard behind Professor Slughorn's classroom.

"Do you have the list?" James asked her as they ran, a lot more deftly than before now they had gathered their bearings.

"I'm not a dolt, Prongs, of course I've got the list."

James held up his hands in a defensive stance as the two of them skidded to a stop.
"Steady on, Ez, only a question."

"Well it was a daft one!" But she was smiling from ear to ear, incandescently blue eyes sparkling like moonlight reflecting off the ocean.

James led the way inside the dungeon and with a flick of his wand the cupboard was unlocked. Immediately Esme-Leigh pulled the list from her robe pocket and the pair began gathering what they needed, replacing what they took with replicas (Sirius' idea).

"It feels almost too easy to be doing this don't you think?" She asked him after a while, when both of them were nearly done.

"Perhaps Slughorn just hasn't bothered to barricade the place because he doesn't think many students would dare break in? He's a terribly trusting chap," James said with a shake of the head, "poor sod," was added for good measure.

"May-be. But regardless, I'm eager to get out before we find out there's a catch to this thieving."

James stood up from his crouching position by one of the shelves and dusted off his robes, "then let's get going." He held out a hand and Esme took it.

Once again the two of them crossed the grounds of Hogwarts like spiders, clinging to the walls and sprinting down corridors.

"Shit!" James hissed as they rounded another corner, rather carelessly. On impulse he pulled them round another corner, this time they ended up in the courtyard; a place where the stars provided ample lighting but also a suitable amount of shadow should they have to find a place to conceal themselves.

"I saw Filch. Really should have checked the bloody map!"

"It's fine, now hush a minute."

"Ez—"

She put a finger to his lips, "Une minute!"

"Ju—"

"Silence!" She hissed in French.

James complied with a frown for a moment while Esme-Leigh listened, the sound of her breathing still sounding harmonious.
It was only ,now seeing Esme-Leigh in the nightfall, that he realised how well she seemed to fit in. Her blue hair shimmered and her glasses bounced off the moonlight. And her voice, if moonlight could talk, then James imagined that's what it might sound like.
Similarly, Lily's voice seemed to come from a sunbeam; in fact, only now, seeing Esme, did James notice just how out of place Lily could be in the nighttime and Esme-Leigh at sunset.

"He's gone, I think."

"You think or you know?"

Esme sneered, "if you say something as stupid as that again then I swear you will lose teeth."

"Duly noted."

They were both observant for a moment longer, though James seemed to favour observing her. How she shimmered under the stars.

"Right. It's safe."

Esme-Leigh made to slip back around the corner when James caught her arm.
"Ez?"

"What?"

"What do you look like?" The question was arbitrary to her but James had thought of it long enough.

"I know your eyesight isn't great but come on, James."

"No, I mean it. Without the metamorphagus magic I don't think I've ever seen what you really look like, or if I have you didn't say."

Esme studied him for a moment before concluding that he was indeed very serious and his question was perfectly innocent.
"Okay. Well you know I can't change much, being quarter veela has this sort of magnetism where I can't look too different for long periods of time, I'm not sure why. But I'm fairly sure I look something like this– I've been changing for so long I'm still not entirely sure."
Esme smiled at him before running a hand through her hair as it changed from blue to a deep golden, nearly copper and her eyes melted into an equally deep caramel. Her freckles were slightly more pronounced and her eyelashes were minutely shorter. She was still strikingly angelic, perhaps even more so now. It felt strangely intimate to know what Esme-Leigh was really like, even if it wasn't a drastic juxtaposition from how she normally looked.

But the longer he stared into caramel eyes he hadn't quite seen before, the easier it was to realise just how vulnerable she appeared.
"Esme?"

"What?"

"You're beautiful."

A blush crept up into her freckled cheeks and she hastened to push her wire glasses up her nose to hide it.
"Thank you."

"Why don't you go around like this more often?"

The shorter girl paused for a moment, choosing her words carefully, like she was plucking them from the dictionary and arranging them in order before she spoke:
"I guess I'm scared to be more authentically veela. I've seen my family look like me and I get the chance to water it down every now and again. So I do."

"You shouldn't have to. You really shouldn't."

"I know but I do."

The stars reflected in her eyes and James had to run a hand through his hair rather forcefully to keep himself from wanting to kiss her.

"Come on. Let's get out of here. The rest of them will be wondering where we got to." Once again James held out his hand and Esme-Leigh took it.

Together they navigated away from the stars and back to the Heads common room where their friends were waiting. James didn't realise that Esme's hair was purple and eyes startling blue until he was leading her back into company.

(3rd November 1977)

The sunset wasn't particularly special that day. One minute the sky was grey and the next a darkness descended upon the horizon, revealing the stars it had been hiding.

It was during this sunset that Lily had decided she'd had enough. Looking outside, where James and her had watched the sunset on more than one occasion she'd finally taken into her stride that she could fix just about anything.

She sat at the dinner table when she took this decision; her lucky charm around her neck and her hair tied back to she could toy with the silver chain. Watching the room pass her by like she was the spectator of a silent movie seemed to build up a sense of dread until she couldn't handle it anymore...

"When is this going to stop?" She asked, louder than she remembered speaking previously, certainly louder than she had anticipated.

Faith, Martin and Petunia Evans all snapped their heads around to stare at her in sheer disbelief. The china doll that held the house captive in silence seemed to smash when she spoke and every family member knew they would not return to their previous state.

"When are we going to be normal? Are we going to be normal?" Lily continued, growing more vehement as she picked up pace, "I know that seems to be a loaded question seen as I smashed all our picture frames and Petunia nearly killed you, mum, but I'd appreciate if we could just pretend for a little while longer. Can we do that? Can we pretend to be normal? Please?"

Her last words fell from her lips in a hoarse whisper, her emerald eyes brimming with tears of vexation. This was the best she could do.

Seconds ticked by that felt like hours. Time had no place in that moment, it seemed to stop. Lily vaguely registered the fall of night upon the house but didn't comment. She waited.

Faith Evans spoke first, a look of conflict in her eyes but they were warm all the same.
"We can try. We can try."

Lily smiled, crossing the room to her mother and holding her as tightly as she dared, fearing her frail body might break.

Martin came next, pulling the two women into his arms and enveloping them in the familiar smell of the cigars he smoked.
Petunia seemed hesitant, but when Martin Evans extended an arm to his daughter she couldn't refuse to join, although the look she gave her sister was something of disgust. She still hated Lily. She had meant exactly what she'd said, but that didn't mean they couldn't pretend for a moment that nothing had happened. They could pretend life was normal, for as long as they dared.

♥ ♥ ♥

(3rd November 1977 continued)

Perhaps it was Petunia's cold embrace that had Lily feeling the way she did. Perhaps it was the bitter cold that floated in through the window. Haply it was because of where she sat, legs swinging out the window like James had done earlier in the week. He'd given her the push to break the silence but now it was broken there was still something that perturbed her. Something still made her bitter.

The stars twinkled that clear night. She wondered if James was watching the stars too?
Lily often ruminated on the most impossible things. Perhaps that was what brought her to the realisation that life was merely a series of sunrises, sunsets and stars. One never truly knows when we'll see our last, and so we are told to enjoy them as long as we can fathom. But sometimes, beautiful as they seem, they leave one feeling bitter and all the more alone– left to wonder who might be watching them too, miles away and with someone else...

thank you for being so patient with this new update! I've got some mixed feelings about it but hopefully it'll pick up soon!

for anyone curious here is a dollify of Esme-Leigh's real appearance I made:

finally a happy pride month to everyone! this is my first pride out as a pansexual! even if it's only online I'm still so happy to be openly part of the community and everyone has been amazing to me thus far so thank you all so much! 💗💛💙

my eternal love,

Abbi♥️