This chapter is dedicated to Anna for being a great friend and having a lot of interesting conversations literally covering just about any topic in the world! Love you!
killerqueeeeeeeeen ♥️♥️♥️

(5th July 1977)

The weather was in a splendid mood that afternoon. The sun beamed with jocose and the clouds provided places for the beams to play hide and seek with and dance in between.
This summer was seemingly a pleasant one thus far and so Lily and Alice took full advantage of this, armed with Polaroid cameras and smiles worthy of accord.

They strolled side by side through the meadow on the other side of Lily's Hill. They called it Lily's Hill because she often found herself at the top of it and watching the small town of Derbyshire go by at any given time of day when she was particularly melancholic. Though today she walked by her friend's side with a spring in her step (metaphorically despite the spongey grass that was somehow finding its way into her trainers).

Lily enjoyed shooting Polaroids for two reasons. The first was the effect it displayed and the immediacy of the print. The second was the memory it seemed to capture, the way the moment seemed frozen,
collectible, sentimentality was safely Lily's forte and so she tended to keep piles of Polaroids; her favourites of which were pinned to her wall opposite her vinyls and the rest kept in a large box under her bed. She'd dig them out when the world closed around her and she'd relive the moments arrested within them.

Memories could be just as alleviating as they were malignant and so it appealed to her to live in them when her daydreams became somber.
This, sometimes, could do her more damage than good; she was much too erudite to know that to live in the past is to slowly kill ones soul and hope of the future, however she was not quite didactic, or self disciplined, in herself in order to enforce her own ideology.  And so she took more and more Polaroids, in hopes of one day filling the box under her bed with places she could visit when she the world was particularly cruel.

Another deduction about memories is that they were not always entirely her own. She shared them, and therefore she didn't not perceive it the same way as she did dreams. One can not give another their dreams; a wizard by the name of Albus Dumbledore had told her that just about seven years ago.
Memories, she thought, couldn't have been anything like dreams. Dreams can be magical or dire and yet one can perceive them any way they wished. Memories were not like that. They were factual. And imperfect, and therefore much easier to dwell on.

She spent far too much time pondering such ideals. Living in memories and wondering in dreams. She thought of little else...

"What are you thinking about, dreamer?"

Lily realised with a crash that she hadn't any recollection of walking the last twenty yards, at least, and yet she found herself by Alice's side; her chestnut hair billowing around her like a halo in the soft wind and her eyes glittered dazzlingly against the sun that seemed to be blushing in her presence.

"Oh, this and that. You said it yourself: I dream."

Alice chuckled, pulling the strap of her denim play suit over her shoulder, "thanks for that, Mrs Poirot."

"Isn't it Miss Marple?"

"That's besides the point."

"That's exactly the point."

She grinned, kindness often prevented Alice from arguing her own case. Some called it a lack of backbone but she preferred to refer to herself as empathetic. Although not emotional by any means, Alice was the type of girl that cried at nearly every Hollywood romance she watched in the cinema. So much so that only Frank could bare to take her to the movies anymore, and even then she must have ruined his T-shirt more than once with tears. Frank braved a lot of things in the name of love that made them, in a way, their own schmalzy Hollywood romance.

They passed a small patch of flowers that were hit celestially by the sun and Alice grinned.
"Sit in there."

"What?" Lily choked at the thought of flattening the flowers (and also mildly despondent at being interrupted from yet another daydream).
"You're lucky I don't have hayfever." She clambered into a position and smiled at Alice's camera, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

"Gorgeous," Alice smiled, catching the print and shaking it violently to reveal the newly made memory.

Often Alice liked to compose poems or short stories with the inspiration of a Polaroid, it was one of the main reasons she shot with this particular camera so often and so when she saw the picture of Lily, her auburn hair incinerated from the sun around the flowers, she began to compose a tale of an auburn haired angel that dreamt her days away...

Often the two found it easier to walk in silence, others they couldn't shut one another up. Today was the former and so they walked in congenial tranquil as the sun smiled adoringly upon them and the meadow they strolled in.

Alice was not only kind but often curious. That tended to be a natural trait of a writer and photographer. They often looked for inspiration in the most natural things. Things that seemed mundane to the naked eye and wondrous to the composer or crafter. Alice also had a tendency to be slightly nebby. That was no secret and yet she would profusely deny any such accusation. It was for this reason that she chose to break the perfectly ample silence to pursue a line of enquiry that had been plaguing her for the past few days...

"So... why Lily Simpson?"

It was clear by the decisive smile that she'd been expecting this question. And it was also evident she did not have an answer completely mapped out. That was indicated by her lips sliding open and shut a few times; as if she might catch the words out the air and into her mouth.
"Erm... didn't Dorcas tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Lily cursed.
"Evidently not..." she paused to collect herself, snapping out of her distant, fanciful world to answer her question.
"Me and Dorcas talked a few days before about what it might be like to start again. To get new names and a new life and just... be something else... I... I'd realised that I was sick of being Lily Evans sometimes and so we'd joked about me being Lily Simpson. It was a joke at first but it stuck, I guess."

"So it's a chance to reinvent yourself?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Couldn't you have just dyed your hair or something?"

Lily laughed; her laugh was able to capture anyone close enough to hear it under a spell that had nothing to do with the letter at the bottom of her jewellery box.
"And risk changing this colour? My hair is the only thing I've got going for me!"

Alice raised an eyebrow. (She wasn't half as good at doing such a thing as Marlene or Remus had been but it had a similar effect).
"We both know that's not true. And I'm pretty sure that James Potter bloke thought so too."

"James Potter?! Don't make me laugh, Ally!"

"I'm not laughing."

"Well you should be. James Potter is not interested in me, nor am I in him. I thought that was abundantly clear for the duration of the night we met." Lily's tone was, what Alice presumed, an ill-judged attempt at sovereignty and subsequently sounding completely dubious.

"It was not clear at all. You basically hate-flirted the whole night and he'd given you at least six embarrassingly accurate nicknames. And not to mention he's rather pretty."

"Whatever!" She scoffed, speeding up her step in attempt to outrun her companion, "just because I... visually enjoy that Potter bloke does not –by any stretch of imagination– mean I am in any way romantically attracted to him. He's an arsehole."

"True enough." Alice nodded, seeming about to let the subject drop before her face relit like a glowing splint in oxygen, "hang on... 'visually enjoy?' What sort of turn of phrase is that?"

"Mine. Now shut up. We're here to take pictures not arse about talking about handsome pricks."
Lily grabbed her arm and they continued to walk in quiet while she returned to her daydreaming; although this time the subject of aforementioned daydream seemed to have drastically changed...

(5th July 1977)

Marlene adored Sundays, they were haply her favourite day of the week. She wasn't quite sure why but she could never quite appreciate the ostentatious air that came with a Saturday despite never missing an opportunity to be boisterous herself. Perhaps it was because she couldn't stand being upstaged by a weekday, or perhaps she just wasn't as exuberant as once thought...

She knew James appreciated a Sunday as well, and all too well that Sirius did not. Though it didn't stop her marching into the boy's bedroom like a drill Sargent in the mid-morning:
"Salutations, dear Padfoot, good squire! Where may I find James? Unless, of course, you'd be interested in joining us for a kick-about?"

That was the third reason Marlene enjoyed a Sunday. Sunday was the day her and James usually took to the garden to go for, what they called, a kick-about. Essentially just leisurely Muggle football but the two could spend hours out together in the summer. They'd done it since they were children and first discovered the sport thanks to Marlene's stepfather.

"It's not quidditch, therefore the answer is no. And check the library. The pretentious prick usually fraternises about in there late morning," Sirius replied, looking up from his perch on the bed where he'd been sketching out the quidditch play James had them work on for the last term.

"Any progress?"

"None. I'm still figuring out where Sallanger is supposed to be during all of this?" He swept a hand across the parchment is disparity.

"Well... first of all, the team is trialed again after the holidays so we don't know if it will be Sallanger there. Secondly I'm not the person to ask but I'm pretty sure he's just above Esme-Leigh."

"Right."

"And remember not to bump into her next time. You're too focused on what James is doing!"

"Hey!" Sirius hollered, pushing her away from where she'd moved to get a better sweep of the board, "I didn't mean to do that!"

"What a charming name for your autobiography! I Didn't Mean To Do That: The charming escapades of Sirius Orion Black!"

"Fuck off and find James."

After presenting Sirius with her longest finger she took off to do just that...

As it transpired he was right. James did often fraternise with the library. However unlike Remus, he enjoyed the experience, the charm, the magic of a library while more Moony savoured the books.
Marlene had never been a large reader but as she stepped into the four walls stacked high with novels of all shapes and sizes, she allowed herself a deep breath and absorbed the perfume of paper and magic that, strangely, no-one had ever thought of bottling.

"Prongs?"

"Marlene?"

She followed his voice and found him sitting on a desk in the far corner of the library, girdled by books with one in particular in hand. The spine was fatigued and the pages frayed at the ends like confetti. She squinted her eyes and recognised the name A Tale Of Two Cities.

"You feeling okay?"

James nodded feebly, in such a way that wouldn't convince air. James had never been quite transparent but Marlene had found a way of noticing his expressions like their own language in which she was almost fluent. She'd rather describe him as translucent instead.

"No you're not."

His eyes left the pages and sought her's, connecting instantly and reminding her that his gaze had always been rather piercing; like he might be able to see out the other end of her head.

"No... mum's still in bed."

"Really?!" She bit back a gasp for his sake, "she's usually awake the same time as you!"

"I know." He paused, considering if his next words should leave his mouth at all.
"She's getting worse."

It's onerous to comprehend how one ought to respond to such a statement. To deny its veracity would simply be mocking him but to agree didn't seem like a handsome idea either.
Marlene believed that the world worked on its own. She did not believe in any divine power, nor in destiny, but she was a firm believer in the future. And that one could not change it, try as they might.

"Maybe. But remember what I said back at Hogwarts: whatever does happen we'll all be here. Every single one of us." She took his hand in her own and gave it a squeeze. Marlene was by no stretch of imagination a therapeutic friend. She said things like they were (that might play a part in why she took a hobby of punching folks in the nose) but she still somehow always had something profound to say when one desired it most. That was just how she worked.

The world was heinous. They both knew that by now. They'd seen Aliona on a hospital bed; they'd seen Trudy faint into Sirius arms after confronting what she'd done to Kieron Mulciber; and they'd seen the arcane absence of Lily Evans from Hogwarts. But just because the world was cruel did not mean they should put up with it. Just because they were dealt a bad hand did not mean they couldn't play it.

"I know. That's what makes it worse: 'cause you'll need someone there for you too, and Sirius, and my dad, and your mum and everyone else that knows her. I... I'm gonna have absolutely no idea how to deal with that."

She could tell he was biting back tears. He was doing it for her and they both knew it; because if James broke then the world broke around him. He was a backbone to them, he was a saviour, a little glow in dark places, an ace in a deck of cards and the first domino in line to fall...

"I'm not going to pretend I have an answer for that, James. I don't. You're the one that always has the answers and I take most of my sermons from you. But..." she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder, inhaling the oddly enamoured perfume of cigarette smoke, broom polish and James. "But I know that we'll figure it out. And no matter what happens we can still play football on a Sunday, alright? No matter what."

Marlene felt his chin on the top of her head as she screwed her eyes shut, pretending to be ignorant to the hot tears that dripped innocuously into her hair. She'd always found that ignoring James' tears to be the best way to make them stop, and it was much easier to ignore them, because she knew if she were to see him cry she, herself, might never be able to stop.

♣ ♣ ♣

(5th July 1977 continued)

"So..?" Marlene passed the ball to James and jogged further up the field (which was actually just a quidditch pitch) "what did you think of Dorcas?"

Prongs laughed, a hearty laugh, real.
"Love her. She's some girl, that's for sure."
James was the type for person to believe in the truth. True to the words of Jo March, he liked "big words that mean something," and therefore tended to prefer not to spin immaculate lies to impress or schmooze another. He told the truth and rarely said anything he didn't mean, and so when he told Marlene he liked Dorcas she knew it to be veracious.

"She is. I would tell you she's mine but apart from the obvious reason she wouldn't go for you anyway I seem to recall someone else receiving a little too much attention?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."
(There were not any exceptions to James and his candour but this qualifies as one of them).

"Yes you do. Let's cut the beating around the bush, mate. What happened with Lily? She was lovely to me?"

"Yeah, well," he scoffed, "all of us can't have all the luck. She was dead annoying anyway!"

This time it was Marlene scoffing as she stopped the ball he'd passed to her and began bouncing it between her feet.
"Yeah right. When she slapped that guy at the bar you were seconds away from declaring your eternal love for her!"

"Come off it!"

"The worst of it is, I reckon you'd get along if you didn't have to get into such meaningless arguments all the time!"

"Shut up, Marlene! Drop it and try and score past me."

Marlene bit her lip; shooting past him and while he cursed and retrieved the ball she didn't move. She was thinking.

"I know that look, missus, and I don't like it," James said, frowning in suspense.

"You shouldn't. Come 'ere I've got an idea!"

Growling and grumbling, he followed, squinting in the sunlight as it winked at them.
"What's the matter?"

"I said I'd meet Lily today. Dorcas asked me if I'd give her a phone –like the muggle one– and ask if she'd hang out with me..."

"What's the punchline?"

"Well," she was clearly enjoying this part, she smiled like she had the secret to the universe in her pocket, "if you come with me you might get along better?"

"Are you kidding? Lily Simpson is about as likely to get along with me as a meteor crashing down on my head in the next sixty seconds."

"You'd be surprised."

"You'd be disappointed."

"Fine. I'll cut you a deal. If you come with me then I won't bring it up ever again?"

There were a few ways James might have gotten out of this arrangement however Marlene suspected he, as much as he'd deny it, simply wanted to see her again, even if it was for a quarrel.

"Deal. I honestly don't know why I still talk to you..."

"Neither do I, but I'm glad you do."

She was glad. And so was he. James and Marlene's friendship may have began with opulence and blood status but it continued and flourished with an irreplaceable and ethereal sort of platonic affection that can only come in very few relationships. Very few could even aspire to achieve a bond like theirs, not quite the brotherhood Sirius and James had, yet still not the bashful romance he seemed to dance around with Esme-Leigh. It was somewhere in between. They felt each other's feelings; they saw each other's faults and they shared their deepest secrets. Some argue that to share a secret with another is to corrupt it. A man was only as good as the secrets he keeps, but they were the exception. They lived each other's lives and therefore seemed stronger when shared. They were stronger.

(5th July 1977 continued)

Lily could easily be mistaken for a scatterbrain. She wasn't, of course but one could not be blamed for following the common assumption that she enjoyed keeping her head in the clouds and feet on the ground.

She preferred to dream than to think and to think than to act. Her mother once told her she was a stargazer. Not in the literal, but rather the lateral sense; or the medical. Before Faith Evans found more solitude in alcohol than in dreams, she was a dreamer too and so she'd told her youngest daughter –the cynosure of her affections– the story of children born at night. In Ireland after the First World War, midwifes gave the name 'Stargazer' to an infant born facing upwards, towards the stars, and they were therefore destined to be an ethereal infant. Lily liked to imagine it was true; not just for the elementary reason that one never likes to disprove their mother, but because she felt some sense of closeness to her dreams from Faith's story.

In some lights Lily could be perceived as vacant or abstracted but in truth she was just a stargazer. Or so she liked to believe.

She was lying on her downy carpet, staring at the cracks in her ceiling and ruminating as to how they might have gotten there when Petunia's stentorian voice grated her ears. She was calling Lily to the phone with that screech of hers that Lily could, frankly, do without. But alas she traipsed into the hall and snatched the receiver off her sister with a pernicious glare.

"Hello?"

"Lily?..."

"Marlene?"

"Lily, it's Marlene!"

"I know..."

"Oh!" She could hear fidgeting through the receiver.
"Is that better now? Merlin, I hate telephones!"

It was a peculiar choice of words, she noticed. Lily'd never met someone with such a strange profanity in her life, all this despite pronouncing the word 'telephone' similarly to 'tele-o-phone'. She supposed Marlene was a peculiar girl. Dorcas seemed the kind of girl to attract that variety of girlfriend.

"Yes that's fine, Marlene. How are you?"

"Oh you know... the usual. Listen, I was wondering if you'd like to go out to Indulge later today? Dorcas has specifically requested I get to know you, Alice and Frank better –specifically you– and so I thought I'd make the effort."

Lily felt her face light up, it was such a very Dorcas thing to do, she couldn't help but love her for it.
"Of course I'll see you in an hour? Will it just be you?"

"An hour is great! I'll be there, don't you worry!"

"Wait, will anyone else—"

"—bye, Lily!"

The line went dead before she'd hit the end of her sentence.

"Who was that?" Faith Evans asked innocently as she did her best to rid a whiskey infused mug of coffee from its bitter aroma.

"A friend of Dorcas. She wants to get coffee," Lily replied with very little ardour and keeping up the charade that she'd no idea what was previously in her mother's mug.

"Well don't be too late back."

"Shan't."

Faith smiled she same sort of smile she'd always done. Riddled with a mixture of love and deception; the desire to be the Arcadian mother Lily had always seen her as. The one she'd been before she'd shattered her eleven-year-old heart into millions of crystalline shards.

"Have fun." (She'd wanted to say 'I love you' but bit her tongue).

Seeing her daughter smile before she scurried away was more than enough. She did not top up her next cup of coffee with anything other than milk...

Lily cycled to cafe Indulge and parked her bicycle in the shed behind the establishment. The day was warm and agreeable; the sun beaming into the windows of Indulge and decorating the flowers that sat in window pots outside.

The inside of the cafe was no different than it usually was. The world seemed to press pause as soon as the door shut behind her and her sanctuary engulfed her like a warm bed.
People chattered in hushed tones; clinks of ceramic cups and mugs ran out above the buzz; and the occasional clatter of the till at the front desk serenaded the handsome scene.

Lily scanned the room for Marlene McKinnon and instead found James Potter, sitting at one of the circle tables and finishing a cup of coffee quietly. Only then, in a seething rage, did she see Marlene at the till ordering two more cups.

She was about to turn on her heel and make a beeline to the door when Caroline –friend and head waitress– spotted her and smiled: "Lily! Lovely to see you here! Caramel latte?"

Now she had no choice but to smile and accept the offer with grace. Besides, Marlene had spotted her now and was practically flouncing over to her.

"You came! I brought James with me, I hope you don't mind? He's not been having the best of days right now and I thought seeing you might cheer him up, you know?" (Marlene talked very quickly.)

"Cheer him up? How could I cheer him up? And besides, what's he got to have a bad day about? Did he over spend his allowance or something?"

Like the flick of a switch a glare arose on Marlene's face that she fixated on Lily.
"No he did not. He's got plenty to have a bad day about so be good! As for cheering him up?... I dunno..." the look evaporated quite quickly when their coffees were placed in their hands.
"Come on, James'll think we've stood him up!" She lead Lily up to the table she first spied and slid into one of the four seats. Lily took another and tried not to look at James.

"Just got you another of the same," Marlene informed him trivially as she placed a cappuccino on front of him. Feebly he smiled and sipped it with a sort of morose that make Lily start to wonder if this whole 'bad day' malarkey held more truth than she first imagined...

No body spoke for a prolonged amount of time and the thickness of the silence was beginning to become debilitating. Lily opened her mouth but Marlene beat her to it.
"So Lily; I'm supposed to get to know you, as per Dorcas' request, so I guess we should probably get all the tedious parts out the way: do you have any siblings?"

Something about Marlene, red-lipstick-leather-jacket-white-eyeliner-Marlene asking after her with trivia was outrageously amusing.

"Um..." Lily coughed, "one sister. Petunia. It's best we leave it at that."

"I've got brothers," Marlene went on, "I've got two but they're much older. They're half brothers but that hardly matters."

"—And she's got me." James butted in, speaking rather gallantly for the first time during this particular dialogue.

Marlene grinned, taking James' hand briefly, "and I've got him. Can't get rid of him to be fair."

Looking at the two of them, it was hard to imagine a world in which they weren't so content in each other's platonic company and so Lily found herself pondering as to why James seemed to be so completely infuriating whenever he spoke to her.

"Moving on," she sipped a macchiato as to introduce a change in topic.
"Got a boyfriend?"

"Erm no. I've only ever had one semi-serious relationship and it wasn't worth all the crying at the end," she chuckled rather unnecessarily and decided that her latte cup was a much better candidate for focusing her attentions on to.

"I've always failed to understand why people call them a 'serious relationship'? To me, that sounds like the worst word to use." James blurted out, causing Marlene to jump and Lily to almost spill her coffee.

"Oh yeah?"

"I mean, if I had a long term girlfriend –which one had one or two– the last thing I would want to be with her is serious. I'd much rather be laughing. If you're not laughing then what's the point, eh Shortcake?"

Fuck. Why did he have to be right?! She wondered, squeezing the handle of the mug a tad to hard. He was much easier to hate when he was wrong. Although... (she thought) the petulant nickname did give her sufficient ammunition to hate him.

Their conversation was easy. Lily told them about her academic life; the photography club and she pointed out the display wall. She told them how she was allergic to coconut, adored vinyl music and how she hated sleet because it wasn't snow.
And in return she learnt that Marlene once punched an ex boyfriend after he cheated on her; that she hated cherries but loved the smell and that she put honey on her cereal.
And lastly she learnt that James can he taciturn when he wished to be. But also that he was ambidextrous but preferred to use his left hand and that he refused to get into an unmade bed, so often he spent far too long perfecting it only to clamber back in.

They must have been in the cafe for well over two hours because the sun had begun to slump in the sky, not quite setting but somewhere in between; much like that space in between sleep where dreams seemed tangible and real-life like a mirage.

"James? Will you get us a muffin or something?" Marlene asked him, an angelic smile on her face and her crystalline eyes glittering.

Shaking his head, he dug into his pocket for money, "and I take it that this is coming out of my," (he turned to Lily) "allowance?"

Her stomach hit the floor. He'd heard that?!
Her eyes followed her insides as she fixed them on the cafe's carpet.
Without an answer he skipped down the mezzanine to the till.

"So?... do you still think he's a prick?"

For a moment she hesitated.
"Yes. There was no need to embarrass me like that! Plus I've always hated provocative boys. I'm not just some conquest. Some prize." Lily said, lowly, after learning the hard way that James had rather acute hearing.

"Neither is he, to the right girl."

Lily didn't quite have enough time to reply, largely due to the fact she was completely floored by Marlene's retort that she'd almost forgotten speaking was a common reaction humans took to dialogue.

James did not announce his arrival but instead placed a blueberry muffin in front of Marlene and slid a chocolate chip one to Lily.

"Oh... I didn't ask for a muffin?"

"I know but I got you one."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to make you feel guilty for basically calling me a 'trust-fund-wanker' earlier."

"Well if you didn't act like one I wouldn't feel the need to point it out."

"And if you didn't point it out you wouldn't have a muffin."

"Oh just shut up and say 'thank you' for the LOVE OF MERL— I mean— god!" Marlene pinched her nose between two painted fingernails and appeared to be having an emotional crisis, endeavouring to locate her will to live.

Guiltily, Lily shifted in her seat.
"Thank you," she murmured, refusing to meet his eye.

"See?" He was grinning, she could feel it, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Yes."

Marlene had to close her eyes for a moment to keep composure.
"We done?!"

"Yes ma'am."

"Fan—fucking—tastic!"

Conversation seemed to flow forcefully after that. It mainly consisted of Marlene doing her best to force-feed a pair of children civil dialogue.

"I thought we'd moved away from my bloody trust fund by now!" James cried when, once again, Lily had manage to surgically remove information out of James like an interrogation without his prior knowledge.

"You just admitted to me that you have a library in your house?!"

"Bugger." He swore with an aloof look out the window, trying to puzzle how the hell she'd done that.
"How did you do that?!" (Instead, he resorted to merely asking).

Lily shrugged nonchalantly, in a way she hadn't seen herself doing in her life. It was only then she began to realise she did not like the person she was becoming around James Potter...

"He reads them as well!" Marlene added, unable to resist a chance to embarrass him, specifically in pretty company.

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid." James shrugged, smirking at Marlene, unable to resist a quip at her expense when intellect was as its core. That was the common issue with James; he found it very difficult to resist taking a jab at someone, anyone, he thought mildly deserved it.

"Sorry, Prongs, I don't speak A Midsummer Night's Dream, could you put that into English?!"

"It's not Shakespeare, Marlene," Lily corrected before James had the time to open his mouth, "it's Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey to be exact."

Now his mouth really was open, but not to reply. It was peculiar how quickly one can change their attitude towards another. James' felt the world sway beneath his feet as he stared in awe at the same girl that, a mere ten seconds ago, had dubbed him a 'trust-fund-wanker'.

"Wow... looks like I'm outnumbered by losers..."

Lily blushed readily, "put your tongue back in your mouth, Potter." She then turned her attentions to Marlene, the fire in her hair, once again, seeping into her eyes: "if I knew you were inviting him to patronise me then I wouldn't have come!"

"Excuse me?! What exactly is it you're insinuating, Simpson?"

He rose from his chair, tone almost flat and eyes beady and, the Hazel swallowed by pride. And Lily rose to it. She rose to it like a fish swims to a hook.

"You didn't need to act so surprised that I knew the book you were talking about!" Lily stood too from the other end of the table, leaning forward on both hands and fixing him with a glare that might just kill a mockingbird.

"I'm sorry! Are you trying to say I didn't expect a woman to quote literature?! How fucking shallow do you think I am?!"

"Very, actually."

"Clearly you don't know me at all." He abruptly pushed his hands off the table to lean back and study her, trying to gage if she was just playing some sort of sadistic joke on him or if she genuinely thought him that conceited.

"Oh, lucky me!"

James stared at her with a look of utter disdain. It didn't matter that her eyes carried stars and her skin resembled a pointillist painters finished work. In that moment the only thing he could feel for her was repent.

He'd regret it later but as he walked away he turned, locked her dead in the eyes that he'd lost sleep over and strode directly into their fire: "you know what, Simpson? Fuck you."

And he was gone before Lily had the chance to reply...

(5th July 1977 continued)

Marlene traipsed home with an angry heart. She didn't feel like going back to the Potter's today and so instead she found a quiet alleyway to apparate back to London.

She thought it was a good idea. It looked like a good idea in her head! They get along, the world doesn't end thanks to two pernicious tempers. She should have seen it coming. She should have known something like that would happen.

It wasn't as if Lily was upset when he left. In fact, she rather looked like she almost enjoyed the romance of animosity. She appeared to luxuriate in being challenged, despite not being a challenge, herself.

Marlene decided that she liked Lily Simpson. Even if James didn't.

London often appeared eerie in certain lights and auspicious in others. Today appeared to be the former as she crossed though the alleyway in search of her mother and stepfather's holiday London flat. It shouldn't be far and yet lampposts stretched out to torment her in a never ending seeming-parody. They were leering at her, taunting her with their size and their brightness. As she walked she fell in and out the pools of light and back into the ink; like Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole, every time she left the bright she felt the ground might open beneath her feet and send her somewhere whacky.

She reached the flat in a hurry and sped into the door to see her stepfather, Steven, stirring a cup of steaming tea.
He didn't seem all too shocked to hear the door open and shut as she entered the much-too-large-for-three-occupants house.

"Want one?" He asked her, his back still turned, "kettle just boiled."

"Please?" Marlene answered; feeling slightly shaken and wondering if tea would cut it or if tonight called for a cigarette out the window.

By the time she'd unlaced her shoes and shrugged off a summer jacket, Steven had the tea on the counter for her.

"Cheers."

"That's what I'm here for."

Stephen Hatch was a perfectly ordinary Muggle. He was an ambulance dispatcher originally from Surrey but he didn't mind moving around to various places to please Felicity McKinnon and her high society (James would have appreciated the ironic word choice) and so naturally Marlene liked him. He was difficult to relate to but by no means was she ugly to him.

"You're here to drink tea. I just gatecrashed the party for one."

Steven chuckled, he had the sort of chuckle that made one wish they could climb inside its safely and never return to real life.
"And would you care to tell me why? I won't tell your mother if you don't want me to."

"James was being a dick." (Another sterling thing about Steven was his blind eye to coarse language).

"How so?"

"He had a very public argument with one of Dorcas's mates. And then he said 'fuck you' right to her face. Luckily all it seemed to do was arouse Lily but it could just as easily upset her." Of course this was a slight exaggeration but Marlene had never been an understated character. She was all or nothing. Take it or leave it.

"And this Lily, did she deserve 'fuck you-d'?"

For a moment she pondered this. It had happened much too fast for Marlene to keep track, and most of the altercation seemed to be nonverbal. All they needed to do was look at each other for a volcano to erupt.

"Possibly. Either which way, he's going to apologise."

Steven gave her a crooked smile, his grey hair needed cut but the light made it seem white, he looked much older than he was at that moment and Marlene thought he seemed almost vulnerable.
"That's the Marlene I know. Actually I only know one but you catch my drift."

She laughed, allowing her head to bop back across the chair she had slumped into, seeing a cigarette behind her closed eyes. If she didn't make a beeline for her room soon then she might combust.

"I do. But the toil's made me drowsy so I'm going to excuse you back to your party. Thanks for the tea, Steven."

"Don't thank me. Goodnight, Marlene. Enjoy your cigarette."
Her mouth dropped open and he winked.
"I won't tell your mother."

Her bed was cold compared to the heated charms placed over the beds in the Potter's house but she didn't mind. She missed her favourite bedspread and so slipping into it felt light walking into the embrace with an old friend.

Her diary was left here before she went to stay with James, Sirius and the Potters and so when she lay eyes on it the old thing seemed to twitch at her, calling her name with as much allure as one's diary can.
Her diary, or rather The Enigma, was one of her few prized possessions that she wouldn't dare let another soul touch without her permission. It was like a safety book that she kept no secrets from. They were her secrets and that was what made it so enigmatic.

Taking a Muggle pen –a genius gift from Steven– she began to imagine what she might say to convince James to swallow his pride and make an apology. She drew up quidditch plays and even decided to draw Dorcas in her favourite hairband.
The Enigma was also accurately named because it was also rather arcane to herself what exactly it was or what it contained.

Putting the book down she stared out the window opposite her bed and admiring the stars with a celestial beauty.
Marlene rarely dreamed; she rarely slept in all fairness. Her Mamma (rather Euphemia) had once told her that, 'sleep was for dreamers' and the one with a mental capacity to face life as they saw it was truly mad. It was sensible to dream, Marlene had concluded and yet she never did... although she was not sensible either.

Despite this she dreamt that night...
She dreamt of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slipping between her fingers as she tried to assemble them together. Every time she made one piece fit they multiplied.

For a firm believer in the future, this dream seemed to hold more importance than she could seem to grasp.

Marlene McKinnon was not a dreamer and therefore never had been one to enjoy sleep...

(5th July 1977 continued)

Lily Simpson became Lily Evans as soon as Marlene was out of sight. She'd left Indulge at closing time and began to wish she'd done so sooner.

Her bike was still chained underneath the bike shed and she wasted little time in unlocking it and pushing it along the road. She didn't feel like cycling that night. She didn't feel much like going home either, and so she wandered the small world of Cokeworth, enjoying its rare moments of silence, too consumed to notice the eeriness of its thick quiet.

James had angered her, of course he had, but that did not mean to say she hadn't angered him, nor did it mean she would apologise.
Lily was not the type to apologise for anything, much like Dorcas, even if it was her own fault.

He'd started it.

She walked past the park when she stopped dead, eyeing the swings, the swings that she'd spent that winter's night with Severus. They'd argued, he'd told her he loved her and she turned him down. She hadn't seen him since.

Drawn by some invisible yarn she entered the park, abandoning her bike and stalking the swings like they might be poisonous.

Lily ran her hand along the swing with measured trepidation, braving the supposed poison and pulling back when the cold of the metal stung her skin. It was as if the metal had something of Severus inside it. Or perhaps it wasn't the metal that burned her but her own hand and the magic somewhere deep inside it.

She'd not felt it for a long time, a very long time. Magic seemed to be slipping from her fingers like sand, passing through every pore, every gap and taking her with it.
When she was a little girl magic was as easy and her life was simple. No one seemed to understand but neither did she and therefore she didn't mind. Now though? Now she knew perfectly well what she'd missed, and it wasn't Severus...

Lily had always imagined that if her magic left then she'd be comforted,
she could be normal; but as she felt it seep from her fingertips she had never wanted anything back more in her life, not even Severus.

She turned back to face the park, it seemed to be sneering, laughing at her misfortune. A play park couldn't leer, she knew, but it did not stop her thinking this.

There was a small patch of grass by the concrete, peering through the grey like a pool of wonder, like a lamp in inky darkness.

Daisies grew wildly in the compact space and she bent down to pluck one. Lily had always relied on daises, she'd never lost her ability to manipulate them, however small said ability was she did not mind. It grounded her, reminded her she was real.

Lily sat on one of the swings, this time she was not burned by its touch, and placed the flower in her hand. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them back up, the flower was standing atop her hand, smiling and winking at her, reminding her magic graced every corner of the world and that the world was not as baneful as it could seem.

The daisy had been the cynosure of her eye that she hadn't before noticed the shadow standing by the gate, looming over it and studying her.

As she looked up the daisy fell from her grasp and onto the concrete where it quashed under her foot.

The shadow wore a large hood but he stood underneath a lamppost, as if he wanted her to see him. It was definitely a him.

He's seen her do it. He'd seen the magic.

The man just watched her for a moment before she could feel him smiling. He lifted his hood barely enough to recognise him. But she saw him wink before he disappeared into the ink of the night...

(6th July 1977)

Midnight had been and gone by the time James found himself abandoning the prospect of sleep. He sat atop the kitchen counter, wondering if Marlene had gone home, if she was alright...

"Still up?"

James turned to see his mother in the doorway, a ghostly pale colour but smiling coyly as she made her way into the room and tapping the tea pot twice with her wand and began watching it make tea.

"Why aren't you asleep, mum?"

"Sleep is for dreamers."

James smirked, "I should have guessed."

"Perhaps."

Euphemia Potter had never once looked frail in her entire existence. She'd always refused help in any shape or form. She came from a family of Slytherins with proper-pureblood-manners and was conditioned to be defensive over physical help. Her natural mulishness didn't do that much to aid her.

And that was what made all the more impact on her when she tried to sit down on the chair opposite her son, creaking and grimacing heavily.
Without much thought, James rushed to assist her into the seat before he'd realised what he's done. He convinced himself she'd needed it, that she didn't ask, because Euphemia Potter never asked for help.

"Are you alright, mum?"

"I'm dying James." She said simply, her eyes glistening with simple tears she tried to mask with anger, "I don't have time to die, I've got things to do." She sighed, her hair had parted ways with its auburn glow and been replaced with an albicant grey, making her look almost like a shadow, or a spirit.
"Afterwards I'll have a whole lifetime in which to die." A tear the same silver in the moonlight slipped down her wrinkled cheek, more pooling round her eyes; eyes just like her son's.

"Mum..."

"It's okay," her smile did not reach her eyes, the eyes just like his, "don't worry about me."

"You know I can't do that."

"But I'd like it if you tried."

James hopped off the counter and padded towards his mother, his hero, his idol. He'd been inspired by her since the day he was born, if it weren't for her then perhaps the MPP would not exist? If it wasn't for her then perhaps Sirius would still be at Grimmauld Place?...

He wrapped his arms gently around her, noticing for the first time how frail she really was now, she seemed to be emaciated as he held her in his arms. Her skin was anaemic and her eyes were the only thing left to sparkle where she once did all round.

The day James saw his mother's sparkle falling from her body like an hourglass was the day he realised that it was real. It wasn't an abhorrent mirage.
Euphemia Potter was going to die soon.

And so he held onto her a little longer, smiled a little happier and told her he loved her more than anything.

Euphemia Potter was not a dreamer. But she dared to dream that she'd live long enough to be able to die with dignity. When the time came, she would sleep. When the time came she would make sure her sons never lost their dreams...

Hey dudes! I wasn't a big fan of this chapter at the beginning but having edited it I must say it's grown on me a bit which is good!

Anyway, I've started back at school (online) but I still want to make sure I'm actually writing stuff that will see the light of day rather than because I want to write quickly so my updates might be a tiny bit more inconsistent than they are now, sorry!

Finally (this is long) everyone needs to listen to Hate Myself by Dodie because it's amazing thank you and goodnight!

Love you all,

Abbi ♥️