Springfic: "Remember Me In The Telling" for fugacious_love
Title: Remember Me In The Telling
Author: Mindabbles
Recipient: fugacious_love
Character(s): Lily Evans, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter, Regulus Black, Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 5,800 words
Warnings (highlight to read): Character death - canon deaths, but alternate timeline.
Summary: Severus pleaded with her to stay, apologizing for his ugly words. Lily tried to go, but he asked one more time and something in his voice made her stop. Teddy Lupin has a book to write, and Lily Evans has a story to tell.
Author's Notes: fugacious_love, I so hope that you enjoy this. I combined several of your prompts. But primarily used, Small AUs, such as changing a small event to create a major difference. Four lines, marked with a (*) are taken directly from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, U.S. Edition, p. 676.
Beta: elizassecret, Thank you so much for your help and general awesomeness.
Remember Me In The Telling
"You're late," Lily says. Christ, he looks like his father as he gets older.
"No, I'm not, Lily," Ted says, looking at his watch and smiling that gentle Lupin smile. "Anxiety over my imagined lateness drive you to drink this early?"
Christ, he's like his father and all.
"Don't be impertinent. It's you wants something from me. I'm an old woman. If I want a nip with my afternoon tea, who's to care?" she says. She raises her hand as he opens his mouth to argue. "And don't remind me what the healers say. I am old and if I want to gamble my health for the few pleasures I've left to me, that's my bloody business. I'll be dead anyway. I may as well be dead and enjoy myself first."
"All right," he concedes, raising one hand and laughing softly.
"But we're not here to blether on about my moral failings. You've a book to finish."
"Yes, we'd left off just before you started school."
"Just before I'd started Hogwarts. I'd been to school before. And you want to hear about Severus, I recall. He has become quite the legend, eh?"
Ted just smiles again and picks up his quill.
*
"Severus?"
Lily walked past the merry-go-round, catching one of the rails with her fingers. It squeaked in protest and ground into movement.
"Severus, it's three o'clock," she huffed to the empty playground. She had to be back at home for piano lessons in twenty minutes and if he was going to tell her about Diagon Alley before tomorrow he couldn't be late.
"Back here," a voice hissed from the bushes.
Near the back of the park, where the bushes and trees were dense, there was an opening in the leaves, almost a tunnel. It led to a hollow, branches curved around, sheltering the spot from view of the swings and the benches where parents sat to watch their children on the see-saw. The ground was smooth and there was just enough room for two to sit. They called it their fort, but Lily knew others must have found it. The ground was smooth from being trod upon by children before them who'd sought a secret place.
Severus was standing, tall enough now that he had to hunch over or have his head stuck with twigs and leaves. He was grinning from ear to ear.
"Look." He spread his arms, loose sleeves of his new black robes fanning out. "Aren't they brilliant?"
She giggled. "You look like a bat."
His face fell and she bit her lip.
"No, they are brilliant. They look grand," she said quickly. What a relief it would be for him not to worry about wearing the horrible things his parents gave him. And she had to admit, he did look very different, almost imposing, in the long black robes. "Will mine be just like them?"
The happy smile returned. "Yes. The boys' and girls' robes are just the same."
"I wish we could have gone to get our school things together," she said. The fluttery feeling that had been increasing as the summer holiday dwindled returned. "I won't know how to do anything. Explain the money again?"
Severus carefully removed his robes and folded them neatly into the shopping bag by his heels. He looked somehow smaller in his ill fitting smock. It comforted her in an odd way-he looked like her friend again.
His face glowed as he told her about a fantastic street with more fascinating shops than you could visit in one day, with wizards and witches from all over Britain in one place, and with a bookshop where the shelves reached to the ceiling and you could learn spells you'd never imagine in your wildest dreams. And it would be theirs, and he would show it all to her.
Lily was always thankful for that awkward day when he had first approached her. She could never tell him what it meant, or what he had given her. She did have a feeling that letting him show her to her new world was the most singular act of friendship, of thanks, she could offer.
"And wait until you see the Hogwarts Express."
*
"That's when you met Sirius and James and my dad, right?" Teddy asks, his face alight with interest.
"I know, I know," she says, flapping her hand at him. "You want to hear more about your father and his friends. Well, this isn't their story. The exploits of that load of ruffians will have to wait."
"Don't the stories intersect?"
"Are you going to let me tell it my way?"
Teddy chuckles and rubs his hand over his head. "Wouldn't dream of anything else."
"Fine, then. Yes, that is when I met your father and his friends. Well, they weren't his friends yet and, I must say, it was a less than impressive first impression," she says. "We'd been in school a week before either James or Sirius said a civil word to me, and even when they did I was always sure they were taking the piss."
*
Lily wrinkled her nose, peering into her cauldron through the steam. It was supposed to be canary yellow and it was more of a burnt umber.
"You have to stir it clockwise."
Lily blinked and stared at Sirius. She hadn't seen him come back to the table. He'd already handed in a phial of his perfectly earthy-orange potion. Slughorn had announced that he would award fifty points to the house that managed the most batches of perfectly brewed potion during this, their first practical lesson.
Lily immediately felt the impact of being Muggle-born. Newt gizzards and toad spawn were not ingredients she had ever touched. She'd tried to stay calm. It was following instructions. She could do that.
"Clockwise," he said again.
"What?" she asked, frowning as a gelatinous bubble gurgled from the depths of her cauldron. The potion was supposed to be the consistency of milk.
"You stirred counter-clockwise. Mucks it up. I've done this one before," Sirius said, as if that explained the fact that they'd been at school for a week and this was the first cordial thing he'd said to her.
"Oh, thanks," she said, moving her wand in the other direction.
"Well, I want the points for Gryffindor," he said, rolling his eyes. He leaned over and glanced into the cauldron. "Reckon it's too late."
The stuff continued to bubble. And bubble. The mass expanded and the bubbles rose up out of the cauldron spilling over the table. Sirius stepped back and pointed his wand at her cauldron. He muttered something that evidently did not do what he had hoped, because a second later he called, "Professor!" Lily looked on in frozen horror.
It took ten minutes for Slughorn to get the mess under control. It took even longer for the Slytherins to stop hooting and the Gryffindors to stop groaning after Slughorn announced that Slytherin had won the fifty points, plus an extra ten because Severus Snape had hurried to help Lily clean up.
"Muggle-born," "Stupid girl," and a word Lily didn't recognize rustled around the room. Remus walked past her and said quietly, "Not your fault, Lily. Might've happened to anyone." She blinked gratefully, but couldn't get anything to come out of her mouth.
Severus was back at his table and his housemates were pounding him on the back. He caught Lily's eye and she had the impression of an animal caught in a trap. She thought for a moment that he had taken a step toward her as she started to gather up her books, tears stinging her eyes. But when she looked up again, he was filing out along with the rest of the class. A tall Slytherin boy had his arm slung around Severus' shoulders.
Lily determined then that she would beat them all, every last one, at every potions lesson for the next seven years.
*
"I can hear you thinking," she says. "Say it, you want to. Yes, yes, your dad was a decent sort."
Ted chews on the end of his quill. "That's not what I was going to say," he says, mildly. "I won't deny it was nice to hear. You, you were smart and pretty and, well, socially competent. You'd probably never been the odd one out before. Severus always had. Until that day, and no matter how he cared for you, he was a kid and he couldn't turn away from being accepted in his own house."
"You're a bright young man, you are," she says, leaning back in her chair and summoning the tea things with a wave of her wand. She is enjoying this time with Ted immeasurably more than she had expected to. "And I don't think he ever forgave himself for that."
*
Lily dropped her thick copy of Achievements in Charming onto the table. There was little point in trying to study. James Potter and Sirius Black were putting on quite the show. They had an entire routine of jokes and stories they ran through most evenings. Peter Pettigrew watched them in rapt attention and Remus sat chuckling on the floor in front of the fire. A dozen other students stood around laughing.
She couldn't get the scene from this afternoon out of her head. How they had taunted Severus, how Remus, a prefect, had sat there watching.
But worst of all, how Severus had lashed out at her, cruel and hateful. Each syllable of his invective eroded a piece of friendship and she felt a physical pain of something falling away.
Shaking, she rose to head for the stairs to the girl's dormitory. No more studying was going to get done tonight.
"Lily?"
"Yes, Mary?"
"Severus Snape is in the corridor. He wants to talk to you."
"Tell him to eat slugs."
"You tell him," Mary said. "I'm not your owl. And, by the way, he's threatening to sleep under the Fat Lady. I don't need to remind you what she did with the passwords the last time someone kept her up all night."
"All right," Lily grumbled, pulling on her dressing gown.
He looked miserable. He bloody well should. He was wringing his hands and he looked like he might be sick. Good.
Apologies spilled from his lips. Too easy. Too easy when she'd heard it before, when for years she'd watched him try and impress people who would as soon see her dead.
"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."*
"No-listen, I didn't mean-"
"-to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"
He opened his mouth and seemed to struggle for the right words.*
But there were no right words, nothing he could say, so she turned and muttered the password to a very grumpy looking Fat Lady.
"Lily," he whispered.
She squeezed her eyes shut and steeled herself to keep pushing through the portrait hole.
"Lily."
Something like fear in his voice made her stop.
"What, Severus," she snapped.
He bit his lip and turned his head side to side, scanning the dark corridor.
"There's no one here," she huffed. "It's midnight."
"I-I don't know who to go to," he said, desperation making his face seem old. "There's no one I can tell. I-they're joining up. Really joining up, some of them. I've agreed to do it and you can't, you can't turn back."
"You're bright enough to have figured that out before now," Lily said. She crossed her arms over her chest, a defence against her crumbling resolve as she looked into his pleading dark eyes.
"Lily, help me," Severus said, and she could see in the curve of his shoulders how much it cost him.
"Dumbledore."
*
"Goodness," Teddy says. "He must have loved you very much. Were you-"
"You want to know if we were lovers." She sniggers at the surprised look on the young man's face. "What? Isn't that what everyone wants to know? About sex?"
"I rather thought this was about friendship."
"Everything is about sex."
"All right," he says, chuckling. "Were you ever lovers?"
"None of your damn business." She laughs with him and his laughter deepens in his chest.
"You are a contrary woman, Lily Evans." He is looking at her and a question is dancing around in his eyes.
"What?" she says. "Ask it."
"I've wondered, and tell me if I'm out of line, but I've wondered if you're not lonely."
"Why, have you someone in mind?"
He laughs. "Kingsley's single now."
"What do I need with washing some old man's socks?" He's laughing still, shoulders shaking. Good thing this boy's getting his evening entertainment.
"I did used to wonder about my dad and you, you know, after my mum. Or before."
"Remus and I were friends. We shared too much, too much grief, to share that kind of love," Lily says. Remus had been her oldest remaining friend and she'd been just a little lonely ever since he died. She shakes her head. "Now, your grandmother. She could wash my socks if she had a mind."
He laughs once more and he does sound like Remus when he was truly happy. She'd like to hear more of that sound.
It's getting late and she is an old woman and she likes to take to her bed at a reasonable hour.
"I was in love twice," she says. "That was enough. We all lost people in the war, in those long, long, years. Not everyone gets to fall in love even once. To be loved back is even rarer. But that is a different book."
"Tomorrow then?" he asks. The light lines at the side of his young eyes as he smiles make her feel unexpectedly wistful.
"Be on time, mind. I'll tell you about when I unknowingly had to save Severus' life and your father's place at school. All because Sirius Black was an infuriating so-and-so when he was a boy."
*
The full moon was nearly bright enough to read by where Lily sat in the window seat off the second floor landing. The library was hot and airless and she didn't feel like being in the company of any of her friends. Alice and Emmeline were scrambling to finish Kettleburn's unicorn essay after leaving it for a week, the boys had disappeared, as they often did, and Severus hadn't been in the library.
"Idiots, anyway," she said to the wall-idiots who wouldn't make an effort to be cordial. She didn't know what Sirius and Severus had said to each other today, but the argument had left ripples of tension in the air and now none of them were anywhere to be seen.
This Saturday would be the first time she was going to Hogsmeade with someone who really interested her and she'd like it if her friends could handle breathing the same air without a lot of posturing and melodrama.
Movement in the corridor below caught her eye. She stood to look over the banister, and in the beams of moonlit, she saw a familiar silhouette striding to the huge front doors.
"Severus," she called, somewhere between a shout and a whisper.
He froze and she thought she saw a look of panic cross his face as she jogged down the stairs.
"What are you doing here?" he asked
"Well, hello to you too," she said, unconsciously putting a hand on her hip in a gesture much like her mother. "I was reading. What are you doing skulking about?"
"I was not skulking," he said, his voice unusually surly and he kept glancing at the door.
"Am I keeping you from an appointment?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Sorry," she said curtly. "I won't ask if you want to go to the library, then." She took a breath and dropped her voice low. "But Severus? I do want to talk to you about something."
He rocked back and forth as if some force were tugging him toward the door and then back to her again. "What about?"
"Could you please find a way to be civil to Sirius and them? At least through this weekend, and then we can renegotiate after that?"
A look of pain crossed his face and he hissed, "We'll see if that's going to be necessary. I'm about to find out about where Lupin's always sneaking off to and what the other bastards are protecting him from."
"Severus, no," Lily said, her heart sinking.
"You'll see, Lily," he said, desperation in his voice. "You'll see they are not as harmless as you say. You'll see that I'm right and everyone will know the truth."
"Remus is my friend," Lily said.
Lily understood then. Severus would never, especially after today, forgive Sirius and his friends for making Lily like them.
"Please don't do this, Severus," she pleaded.
His eyes darted between her face and the door, moonlight illuminating the grimace on his face. He looked as if this internal struggle might tear him apart.
*
Teddy is leaning forward in his chair, gripping the edge. He is no longer writing as he bites his lip and stares expectantly at her.
"You just will not stop, will you?"
"What?"
"Don't play innocent with me, young man," she says. "I knew you when you were in nappies."
"I really don't know what you mean."
"You always manage to work it around to your father. Fine. I'll tell you."
"Really, tell it as you need to tell it."
"Tchah, says you, but I can see the wheels turning," she shifts in her chair. "All right, Severus never went that night. He didn't find out about Remus for certain, and neither did I, until after school. By then, we were all in it together-like it or not. Severus' cover was blown after he was out of school. He had to lay low, do research and such for the Order. Drove him barmy not being in the centre of things. Don't think he ever told anyone except me how much it bothered him. James and Sirius badgered him terribly about it. Wouldn't let me say boo to them, either. He became like that. Bloody martyr. Used to make me want to hex him. Anyway, Dumbledore recruited Sirius' younger brother. He'd gone a bit further than Severus, more useful as a spy. I could never have been a double agent like that. Hadn't the temperament. But Regulus, he was brilliant."
"I thought you were going to tell me more about my family-not that you need to."
"Don't you see, lad, these people, if they had lived, they would have all been your family," she says. Her eyes drop closed. She can still see their faces sometimes. That maddening look James had when he'd just amused himself. Sirius smiling at her like she was the sun itself. Remus' eyes twinkling with mischief in his serious face. She tries not to picture Severus. The last time she had seen him he had been dead for an hour, and that is all she can see unless she looks at a photograph. Others, Peter, Alice and Frank, Emmeline...she prefers to remember as they'd been in school.
"I think I'm beginning to see," he says softly, his hand lightly brushing hers.
"It's hard to imagine unless you've lived it," she says, and she can feel the old nervous vigilance that became normal in those days. "Take nothing for granted. Not one day. Not one chance to smile at someone you love. This good-bye could be your last."
*
The middle of Diagon Alley. The middle of bloody Diagon Alley a week before school was to start. Families and kids were everywhere.
"Lily," Remus hissed, inclining his head in the direction of the group of Death Eaters surging out of the Leaky Cauldron.
"I see them," she said, and he squeezed her hand.
They were all young, her age and younger, and Regulus was among them.
"They've done something," she said. They were flushed with excitement, talking loudly, like a Quidditch team that had just roundly, and perhaps unexpectedly, trounced their opponents. Lily was certain that the Evening Prophet would have a line or two on the bottom of the sixth page about a tragedy befalling some Muggles. Hatred rose in her chest.
"Or they're about to do something," Remus said under his breath, drawing his wand and turning toward them.
Regulus caught her eye. He shook his head and then gestured vaguely, indicating across the street. One of the Death Eaters put a hand on his shoulder and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.
She put a steadying hand on Remus' arm and whispered, "Uh-uh."
Regulus could have been pointing her to the stationery shop, Flourish and Blott's, or Madam Malkin's. The group started moving down the street. Lily felt like she was seeing them in slow motion. They paused to harass people every few feet, knock into shoppers laden with parcels. The chatter of a family with three young children caught her ear and it hit her.
Flourish and Blott's. It was full of students and probably half of them would be Muggle-born. They might even land a treat and there would be some Muggle parents they could terrify.
"Come on," she said, tugging on Remus' sleeve.
He saw it then, what was going to happen. She knew from the fierce look in his eyes and the way she could feel his muscles tense beside her.
The book shop was indeed packed with kids and parents. Lily and Remus managed to slip in before the increasingly unruly group made their way to the door. She couldn't be certain, but she thought Regulus kept holding them up, giving her and Remus time.
"I'll tell him to floo the Ministry," she told Remus, gesturing at the shopkeeper.
"Why bother?" he said, shaking his head. "The Minister is so intent that nothing's wrong, who knows if they will even send someone."
"Mad-eye."
"Good point."
Remus moved through the crowd, quietly and calmly telling adults that they should consider finishing their shopping later and take their children home.
She hurried over to the mousy little man who managed that shop and said quietly, "There is a gang of Death Eaters in the street. We have reason to believe they are coming here. Floo the MLE and ask them to send Alastor Moody. Tell him Lily Evans said he's needed."
The man looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. A few short months ago, he probably would have told her to get lost. But people were so afraid now, despite what the Prophet refused to print. You could only hide so many dead bodies.
Dark shapes of the Death Eaters loomed in the window and Remus started telling customers to leave through the back door. The mousy little man drew his wand and Lily let out a slow breath and said, "We should have found Sirius and James."
"They'll be-"
Remus' words were cut off by shouts from outside. The mass of dark silhouettes had multiplied. A flash of light and a scream and the window of the bookshop shattered.
A few of the shouting voices were so familiar. She ran after Remus to the blasted-open door. There were more flashes, more screaming. Moody's rough voice suddenly barked orders. A jet of green light moved in slow motion, sent right to Remus’ chest. Her Shield Charm was not fast enough, but James came from nowhere and blocked the curse. He and Remus fell in a heap, blasted back by the force of James' spell. Sirius yelled for help from down the street and James and Remus leapt up and ran. She turned as she felt the presence of someone behind her and stunned the Death Eater just as he raised his wand.
The air echoed with shouts and the chill of dark magic. Someone, a voice she knew, called, "They're leaving." She'd had no clue which side was coming out the better until then.
"Everyone out," Moody shouted. "And make damned certain you're not followed."
Them leaving was not always a good thing. Often they'd just be back with more. There always seemed to be more, and staying to continue the fighting here would just endanger people.
"Take him back." Moody slapped her on the shoulder and pointed at a figure slumped against a wall.
Remus.
Remus was flopped against the wall, eyes closed. He could have been taking a rest if not for the odd angle of his neck. Her breath left her body in a quick whoosh.
"Stunner," Moody said gruffly over his shoulder, sprinting away. He wouldn't leave until everyone was on their way back to headquarters.
She grabbed Remus, hugging him, feeling the warmth of his body against hers, checking for the rise and fall of his chest. She scanned the street for James and Sirius. Moody barked again that they had to get the hell out now and she gripped Remus tightly and Apparated. She hoped that James and Sirius had stuck together. They always did.
They always did.
*
"Running toward danger is not the natural order of things, you know," she says. Her voice sounds like it is coming from the other end of a tunnel. Her chest aches a little and she feels as if she's put something down and forgotten to pick it up. "It does something to you-you spend too many years doing that."
Ted's fingers brush across hers and she can feel the comforting, half-touch. She looks at her hand and is surprised to see the veins, prominent and blue, the skin papery and thin. They are the hands of an old woman.
"I would imagine that it is very hard to stop fighting when the fight is done."
"It's easy to stop fighting. It's hard to know what else to do," she says. "I think I would have gone mad if it weren't for your father in that time right after Voldemort went into exile."
"You and my father, really were never together? All those years?" he asks, with an apologetic little smile.
"I told you, your father was my best friend. I loved him," she takes a deep breath and smiles sadly. "We both lost lovers in the same battle you know. That very one I just described."
"What?" Ted breathes. "Who? I-" he stops and looks at her as if she might shatter. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Will you tell me? No one will ever tell me much about that side of him. It's as if they want me to believe he never loved anyone but my mum. And you, you-I'm sorry. Who?"
"Sirius Black and James Potter."
"Really?" he gasps. His face lights with curiosity. "Oh, they died so young. I suppose I knew they had, but it was all so distant, before," he says, frowning. "But wait. Whose lover was whose?"
"Don't I keep telling you that's a different book?" she says. "The Loves of Lily Evans, or some such rot." She shakes her head, clearing fog and rubs her arms to brush away that empty feeling. "Anyway, it's complicated. Now then, where was I? There was a prophecy, about a boy, surely you know about that. Well, the only people to have heard it were Dumbledore and Severus, or so we thought. Turns out one of the rats what nicked food from breakfast trays at The Three Broomsticks was more a snake than a rat. You know about Pettigrew as well, I'm sure. I don't need to tell you about the day that little baby defeated the Dark Lord. You heard about that from your grandmother enough. But for us in the Order, the work of years was just to begin. Neville's parents had been murdered and now the Order was charged with helping his grandmother to raise him. Dumbledore knew Voldemort would be back and our champion had to be ready."
*
Severus never seemed quite comfortable at the Three Broomsticks. He was not really the corner pub type. It was more than that though; he had told Lily once that he could never quite let go of the feeling that the walls had ears.
Remus raised his goblet and smiled at her, his eyes warm and a little sad. "To Hogwarts' newest Professor! May Dumbledore have his head examined."
Severus was the closest to excited she'd seen him since their first day at Hogwarts. He had not been able to hide his pleasure that she would be joining him on the staff. "Don't listen to him, Lily, you'll be absolutely brilliant."
"You're just pleased because Lily taking the Charms post means you've beat her at Potions for the first time since first year," Remus said, laughing and Lily thought she might cry.
"You're really leaving, then."
"I am."
Lily knew that he was. James and Sirius were gone and without any missions or battles to focus on, their absence screamed out into the quiet. Dumbledore had offered Remus a way to be useful elsewhere. The next years would mean everything and they all had to do their bit. The Order were scattering about the wizarding world. They would build lives, grow and change, move on. But in the background, their unbreakable link would be the knowledge that all of their actions were ultimately in preparation for the day Voldemort would return.
She reached across the table and took Remus' hand. Severus looked away, uncomfortable with her and Remus' shared grief.
"I'll miss you," she said.
"I'll be back, and in the meantime I'll write."
Their plans to spend the day together before she and Severus had to go up to the school and help prepare for the first night's feast suddenly seemed absurd. There was nothing left to say. He was to embark on his next task and she on hers. It was just as well to be getting on with it.
*
"He left so soon after the first war ended?" Ted asks, looking as sad as she had felt that day.
"He had to," she says. Remus beams at her from a photo over the fireplace. He is older and holds a tiny baby in his arms.
Ted scribbles frantically, old fashioned parchment and quill, inky fingers capturing her memories. It takes minutes and she wonders how he can put it all down so quickly.
When he looks back up at her, it's another moment before she realizes those brown eyes aren't Remus'. They have all become so close again, so present in the telling.
"How was to it go back to Hogwarts?"
She watches as his eyes flick over the dozens of photographs on her mantle-images of the different parts of her life, layered and blended into a collage.
"You have to understand, those years were about protecting Neville. We didn't think of what we wanted for ourselves. I know that sounds sad to you. But it wasn't, not really." She pulls the blanket off the back of the chair against a sudden chill. "It was good and right to make our lives about the community. That said, it was so painful at first to be back at Hogwarts knowing that Sirius and James would never walk those halls again with me. I saw them, and the others, around every corner. Minerva and Poppy took me in hand. I don't think I would have made it without them."
"What about Severus?"
"He never knew what to do with my missing them. We were always friends, but over time, my not being able to give him what he wanted drove a wedge between us. I realised, too late to stop it, that he'd hoped with the others out of the way, I'd fall into his arms."
Ted looks back over the long roll of parchment curling over her table. He seems to be searching for more questions.
"Life was fairly quiet for years. I loved teaching. It was a good life," she says. They are near the end-of this book, anyway. She can see the intensity of his focus shifting and she feels her energy to keep telling flagging. "Then the signs that Voldemort was regaining power began to surface. Peter Pettigrew was sighted near Hogsmeade one summer, among other things. Dumbledore called your father back to teach Defence. He taught all the students of course, but he was really there to teach Neville. It was wonderful to have him there. It was only for a year, of course, but you knew that. I think you learned the rest from Professor Granger or at family meals."
"It's different to hear it from you like this," he says quietly. "But you're right. I think we've finished. I've stayed past your bedtime." Sighing, he stretches his hands over his head and stands. He pauses and looks at her as if they'd just met. "I'll-I'll come by or floo if I've any more questions."
"You have everything you need, Ted Lupin. I think you'll find you have everything you need."
He stands in the doorway, neither staying nor leaving. "I-it feels strange to leave knowing I won't be back to talk with you tomorrow."
"Well, you can always come back, lad," she says, smiling. "Keep an old lady company."
He pulls her quickly into a tight hug. He is precisely the same height as his father.
"Thank you," he says quietly as he leaves.
The chair in the front garden is painted purple. It faces the west and on clear evenings, she can watch the sun set through the trees. Some evenings, she sits out in the rapidly cooling air until she can see the first stars begin to twinkle in the sky. Sometimes she lets her eyes wander the sky, and the names of constellations learned long ago spring to mind.
A gentle breeze caresses her skin, sensuous and alive. The lightness she feels must be the absence of everything she has just passed to Remus' son. He is young and his broad shoulders can hold it now. If she closes her eyes, she can still feel the embrace.
She opens her eyes and the sky has darkened to an inky blue-black. Sirius is there, bright in the early summer sky. He's there, twinkling and grinning as he does. He only smiles like that when he and James have something afoot and she knows that means they're all waiting for her.
Severus is here and he takes her hand. He has on his new robes and he spreads his arms wide.
"Look, Lily," he says, beaming. "Aren't they brilliant?"
Author: Mindabbles
Recipient: fugacious_love
Character(s): Lily Evans, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter, Regulus Black, Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 5,800 words
Warnings (highlight to read): Character death - canon deaths, but alternate timeline.
Summary: Severus pleaded with her to stay, apologizing for his ugly words. Lily tried to go, but he asked one more time and something in his voice made her stop. Teddy Lupin has a book to write, and Lily Evans has a story to tell.
Author's Notes: fugacious_love, I so hope that you enjoy this. I combined several of your prompts. But primarily used, Small AUs, such as changing a small event to create a major difference. Four lines, marked with a (*) are taken directly from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, U.S. Edition, p. 676.
Beta: elizassecret, Thank you so much for your help and general awesomeness.
Remember Me In The Telling
"You're late," Lily says. Christ, he looks like his father as he gets older.
"No, I'm not, Lily," Ted says, looking at his watch and smiling that gentle Lupin smile. "Anxiety over my imagined lateness drive you to drink this early?"
Christ, he's like his father and all.
"Don't be impertinent. It's you wants something from me. I'm an old woman. If I want a nip with my afternoon tea, who's to care?" she says. She raises her hand as he opens his mouth to argue. "And don't remind me what the healers say. I am old and if I want to gamble my health for the few pleasures I've left to me, that's my bloody business. I'll be dead anyway. I may as well be dead and enjoy myself first."
"All right," he concedes, raising one hand and laughing softly.
"But we're not here to blether on about my moral failings. You've a book to finish."
"Yes, we'd left off just before you started school."
"Just before I'd started Hogwarts. I'd been to school before. And you want to hear about Severus, I recall. He has become quite the legend, eh?"
Ted just smiles again and picks up his quill.
*
"Severus?"
Lily walked past the merry-go-round, catching one of the rails with her fingers. It squeaked in protest and ground into movement.
"Severus, it's three o'clock," she huffed to the empty playground. She had to be back at home for piano lessons in twenty minutes and if he was going to tell her about Diagon Alley before tomorrow he couldn't be late.
"Back here," a voice hissed from the bushes.
Near the back of the park, where the bushes and trees were dense, there was an opening in the leaves, almost a tunnel. It led to a hollow, branches curved around, sheltering the spot from view of the swings and the benches where parents sat to watch their children on the see-saw. The ground was smooth and there was just enough room for two to sit. They called it their fort, but Lily knew others must have found it. The ground was smooth from being trod upon by children before them who'd sought a secret place.
Severus was standing, tall enough now that he had to hunch over or have his head stuck with twigs and leaves. He was grinning from ear to ear.
"Look." He spread his arms, loose sleeves of his new black robes fanning out. "Aren't they brilliant?"
She giggled. "You look like a bat."
His face fell and she bit her lip.
"No, they are brilliant. They look grand," she said quickly. What a relief it would be for him not to worry about wearing the horrible things his parents gave him. And she had to admit, he did look very different, almost imposing, in the long black robes. "Will mine be just like them?"
The happy smile returned. "Yes. The boys' and girls' robes are just the same."
"I wish we could have gone to get our school things together," she said. The fluttery feeling that had been increasing as the summer holiday dwindled returned. "I won't know how to do anything. Explain the money again?"
Severus carefully removed his robes and folded them neatly into the shopping bag by his heels. He looked somehow smaller in his ill fitting smock. It comforted her in an odd way-he looked like her friend again.
His face glowed as he told her about a fantastic street with more fascinating shops than you could visit in one day, with wizards and witches from all over Britain in one place, and with a bookshop where the shelves reached to the ceiling and you could learn spells you'd never imagine in your wildest dreams. And it would be theirs, and he would show it all to her.
Lily was always thankful for that awkward day when he had first approached her. She could never tell him what it meant, or what he had given her. She did have a feeling that letting him show her to her new world was the most singular act of friendship, of thanks, she could offer.
"And wait until you see the Hogwarts Express."
*
"That's when you met Sirius and James and my dad, right?" Teddy asks, his face alight with interest.
"I know, I know," she says, flapping her hand at him. "You want to hear more about your father and his friends. Well, this isn't their story. The exploits of that load of ruffians will have to wait."
"Don't the stories intersect?"
"Are you going to let me tell it my way?"
Teddy chuckles and rubs his hand over his head. "Wouldn't dream of anything else."
"Fine, then. Yes, that is when I met your father and his friends. Well, they weren't his friends yet and, I must say, it was a less than impressive first impression," she says. "We'd been in school a week before either James or Sirius said a civil word to me, and even when they did I was always sure they were taking the piss."
*
Lily wrinkled her nose, peering into her cauldron through the steam. It was supposed to be canary yellow and it was more of a burnt umber.
"You have to stir it clockwise."
Lily blinked and stared at Sirius. She hadn't seen him come back to the table. He'd already handed in a phial of his perfectly earthy-orange potion. Slughorn had announced that he would award fifty points to the house that managed the most batches of perfectly brewed potion during this, their first practical lesson.
Lily immediately felt the impact of being Muggle-born. Newt gizzards and toad spawn were not ingredients she had ever touched. She'd tried to stay calm. It was following instructions. She could do that.
"Clockwise," he said again.
"What?" she asked, frowning as a gelatinous bubble gurgled from the depths of her cauldron. The potion was supposed to be the consistency of milk.
"You stirred counter-clockwise. Mucks it up. I've done this one before," Sirius said, as if that explained the fact that they'd been at school for a week and this was the first cordial thing he'd said to her.
"Oh, thanks," she said, moving her wand in the other direction.
"Well, I want the points for Gryffindor," he said, rolling his eyes. He leaned over and glanced into the cauldron. "Reckon it's too late."
The stuff continued to bubble. And bubble. The mass expanded and the bubbles rose up out of the cauldron spilling over the table. Sirius stepped back and pointed his wand at her cauldron. He muttered something that evidently did not do what he had hoped, because a second later he called, "Professor!" Lily looked on in frozen horror.
It took ten minutes for Slughorn to get the mess under control. It took even longer for the Slytherins to stop hooting and the Gryffindors to stop groaning after Slughorn announced that Slytherin had won the fifty points, plus an extra ten because Severus Snape had hurried to help Lily clean up.
"Muggle-born," "Stupid girl," and a word Lily didn't recognize rustled around the room. Remus walked past her and said quietly, "Not your fault, Lily. Might've happened to anyone." She blinked gratefully, but couldn't get anything to come out of her mouth.
Severus was back at his table and his housemates were pounding him on the back. He caught Lily's eye and she had the impression of an animal caught in a trap. She thought for a moment that he had taken a step toward her as she started to gather up her books, tears stinging her eyes. But when she looked up again, he was filing out along with the rest of the class. A tall Slytherin boy had his arm slung around Severus' shoulders.
Lily determined then that she would beat them all, every last one, at every potions lesson for the next seven years.
*
"I can hear you thinking," she says. "Say it, you want to. Yes, yes, your dad was a decent sort."
Ted chews on the end of his quill. "That's not what I was going to say," he says, mildly. "I won't deny it was nice to hear. You, you were smart and pretty and, well, socially competent. You'd probably never been the odd one out before. Severus always had. Until that day, and no matter how he cared for you, he was a kid and he couldn't turn away from being accepted in his own house."
"You're a bright young man, you are," she says, leaning back in her chair and summoning the tea things with a wave of her wand. She is enjoying this time with Ted immeasurably more than she had expected to. "And I don't think he ever forgave himself for that."
*
Lily dropped her thick copy of Achievements in Charming onto the table. There was little point in trying to study. James Potter and Sirius Black were putting on quite the show. They had an entire routine of jokes and stories they ran through most evenings. Peter Pettigrew watched them in rapt attention and Remus sat chuckling on the floor in front of the fire. A dozen other students stood around laughing.
She couldn't get the scene from this afternoon out of her head. How they had taunted Severus, how Remus, a prefect, had sat there watching.
But worst of all, how Severus had lashed out at her, cruel and hateful. Each syllable of his invective eroded a piece of friendship and she felt a physical pain of something falling away.
Shaking, she rose to head for the stairs to the girl's dormitory. No more studying was going to get done tonight.
"Lily?"
"Yes, Mary?"
"Severus Snape is in the corridor. He wants to talk to you."
"Tell him to eat slugs."
"You tell him," Mary said. "I'm not your owl. And, by the way, he's threatening to sleep under the Fat Lady. I don't need to remind you what she did with the passwords the last time someone kept her up all night."
"All right," Lily grumbled, pulling on her dressing gown.
He looked miserable. He bloody well should. He was wringing his hands and he looked like he might be sick. Good.
Apologies spilled from his lips. Too easy. Too easy when she'd heard it before, when for years she'd watched him try and impress people who would as soon see her dead.
"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."*
"No-listen, I didn't mean-"
"-to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"
He opened his mouth and seemed to struggle for the right words.*
But there were no right words, nothing he could say, so she turned and muttered the password to a very grumpy looking Fat Lady.
"Lily," he whispered.
She squeezed her eyes shut and steeled herself to keep pushing through the portrait hole.
"Lily."
Something like fear in his voice made her stop.
"What, Severus," she snapped.
He bit his lip and turned his head side to side, scanning the dark corridor.
"There's no one here," she huffed. "It's midnight."
"I-I don't know who to go to," he said, desperation making his face seem old. "There's no one I can tell. I-they're joining up. Really joining up, some of them. I've agreed to do it and you can't, you can't turn back."
"You're bright enough to have figured that out before now," Lily said. She crossed her arms over her chest, a defence against her crumbling resolve as she looked into his pleading dark eyes.
"Lily, help me," Severus said, and she could see in the curve of his shoulders how much it cost him.
"Dumbledore."
*
"Goodness," Teddy says. "He must have loved you very much. Were you-"
"You want to know if we were lovers." She sniggers at the surprised look on the young man's face. "What? Isn't that what everyone wants to know? About sex?"
"I rather thought this was about friendship."
"Everything is about sex."
"All right," he says, chuckling. "Were you ever lovers?"
"None of your damn business." She laughs with him and his laughter deepens in his chest.
"You are a contrary woman, Lily Evans." He is looking at her and a question is dancing around in his eyes.
"What?" she says. "Ask it."
"I've wondered, and tell me if I'm out of line, but I've wondered if you're not lonely."
"Why, have you someone in mind?"
He laughs. "Kingsley's single now."
"What do I need with washing some old man's socks?" He's laughing still, shoulders shaking. Good thing this boy's getting his evening entertainment.
"I did used to wonder about my dad and you, you know, after my mum. Or before."
"Remus and I were friends. We shared too much, too much grief, to share that kind of love," Lily says. Remus had been her oldest remaining friend and she'd been just a little lonely ever since he died. She shakes her head. "Now, your grandmother. She could wash my socks if she had a mind."
He laughs once more and he does sound like Remus when he was truly happy. She'd like to hear more of that sound.
It's getting late and she is an old woman and she likes to take to her bed at a reasonable hour.
"I was in love twice," she says. "That was enough. We all lost people in the war, in those long, long, years. Not everyone gets to fall in love even once. To be loved back is even rarer. But that is a different book."
"Tomorrow then?" he asks. The light lines at the side of his young eyes as he smiles make her feel unexpectedly wistful.
"Be on time, mind. I'll tell you about when I unknowingly had to save Severus' life and your father's place at school. All because Sirius Black was an infuriating so-and-so when he was a boy."
*
The full moon was nearly bright enough to read by where Lily sat in the window seat off the second floor landing. The library was hot and airless and she didn't feel like being in the company of any of her friends. Alice and Emmeline were scrambling to finish Kettleburn's unicorn essay after leaving it for a week, the boys had disappeared, as they often did, and Severus hadn't been in the library.
"Idiots, anyway," she said to the wall-idiots who wouldn't make an effort to be cordial. She didn't know what Sirius and Severus had said to each other today, but the argument had left ripples of tension in the air and now none of them were anywhere to be seen.
This Saturday would be the first time she was going to Hogsmeade with someone who really interested her and she'd like it if her friends could handle breathing the same air without a lot of posturing and melodrama.
Movement in the corridor below caught her eye. She stood to look over the banister, and in the beams of moonlit, she saw a familiar silhouette striding to the huge front doors.
"Severus," she called, somewhere between a shout and a whisper.
He froze and she thought she saw a look of panic cross his face as she jogged down the stairs.
"What are you doing here?" he asked
"Well, hello to you too," she said, unconsciously putting a hand on her hip in a gesture much like her mother. "I was reading. What are you doing skulking about?"
"I was not skulking," he said, his voice unusually surly and he kept glancing at the door.
"Am I keeping you from an appointment?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Sorry," she said curtly. "I won't ask if you want to go to the library, then." She took a breath and dropped her voice low. "But Severus? I do want to talk to you about something."
He rocked back and forth as if some force were tugging him toward the door and then back to her again. "What about?"
"Could you please find a way to be civil to Sirius and them? At least through this weekend, and then we can renegotiate after that?"
A look of pain crossed his face and he hissed, "We'll see if that's going to be necessary. I'm about to find out about where Lupin's always sneaking off to and what the other bastards are protecting him from."
"Severus, no," Lily said, her heart sinking.
"You'll see, Lily," he said, desperation in his voice. "You'll see they are not as harmless as you say. You'll see that I'm right and everyone will know the truth."
"Remus is my friend," Lily said.
Lily understood then. Severus would never, especially after today, forgive Sirius and his friends for making Lily like them.
"Please don't do this, Severus," she pleaded.
His eyes darted between her face and the door, moonlight illuminating the grimace on his face. He looked as if this internal struggle might tear him apart.
*
Teddy is leaning forward in his chair, gripping the edge. He is no longer writing as he bites his lip and stares expectantly at her.
"You just will not stop, will you?"
"What?"
"Don't play innocent with me, young man," she says. "I knew you when you were in nappies."
"I really don't know what you mean."
"You always manage to work it around to your father. Fine. I'll tell you."
"Really, tell it as you need to tell it."
"Tchah, says you, but I can see the wheels turning," she shifts in her chair. "All right, Severus never went that night. He didn't find out about Remus for certain, and neither did I, until after school. By then, we were all in it together-like it or not. Severus' cover was blown after he was out of school. He had to lay low, do research and such for the Order. Drove him barmy not being in the centre of things. Don't think he ever told anyone except me how much it bothered him. James and Sirius badgered him terribly about it. Wouldn't let me say boo to them, either. He became like that. Bloody martyr. Used to make me want to hex him. Anyway, Dumbledore recruited Sirius' younger brother. He'd gone a bit further than Severus, more useful as a spy. I could never have been a double agent like that. Hadn't the temperament. But Regulus, he was brilliant."
"I thought you were going to tell me more about my family-not that you need to."
"Don't you see, lad, these people, if they had lived, they would have all been your family," she says. Her eyes drop closed. She can still see their faces sometimes. That maddening look James had when he'd just amused himself. Sirius smiling at her like she was the sun itself. Remus' eyes twinkling with mischief in his serious face. She tries not to picture Severus. The last time she had seen him he had been dead for an hour, and that is all she can see unless she looks at a photograph. Others, Peter, Alice and Frank, Emmeline...she prefers to remember as they'd been in school.
"I think I'm beginning to see," he says softly, his hand lightly brushing hers.
"It's hard to imagine unless you've lived it," she says, and she can feel the old nervous vigilance that became normal in those days. "Take nothing for granted. Not one day. Not one chance to smile at someone you love. This good-bye could be your last."
*
The middle of Diagon Alley. The middle of bloody Diagon Alley a week before school was to start. Families and kids were everywhere.
"Lily," Remus hissed, inclining his head in the direction of the group of Death Eaters surging out of the Leaky Cauldron.
"I see them," she said, and he squeezed her hand.
They were all young, her age and younger, and Regulus was among them.
"They've done something," she said. They were flushed with excitement, talking loudly, like a Quidditch team that had just roundly, and perhaps unexpectedly, trounced their opponents. Lily was certain that the Evening Prophet would have a line or two on the bottom of the sixth page about a tragedy befalling some Muggles. Hatred rose in her chest.
"Or they're about to do something," Remus said under his breath, drawing his wand and turning toward them.
Regulus caught her eye. He shook his head and then gestured vaguely, indicating across the street. One of the Death Eaters put a hand on his shoulder and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.
She put a steadying hand on Remus' arm and whispered, "Uh-uh."
Regulus could have been pointing her to the stationery shop, Flourish and Blott's, or Madam Malkin's. The group started moving down the street. Lily felt like she was seeing them in slow motion. They paused to harass people every few feet, knock into shoppers laden with parcels. The chatter of a family with three young children caught her ear and it hit her.
Flourish and Blott's. It was full of students and probably half of them would be Muggle-born. They might even land a treat and there would be some Muggle parents they could terrify.
"Come on," she said, tugging on Remus' sleeve.
He saw it then, what was going to happen. She knew from the fierce look in his eyes and the way she could feel his muscles tense beside her.
The book shop was indeed packed with kids and parents. Lily and Remus managed to slip in before the increasingly unruly group made their way to the door. She couldn't be certain, but she thought Regulus kept holding them up, giving her and Remus time.
"I'll tell him to floo the Ministry," she told Remus, gesturing at the shopkeeper.
"Why bother?" he said, shaking his head. "The Minister is so intent that nothing's wrong, who knows if they will even send someone."
"Mad-eye."
"Good point."
Remus moved through the crowd, quietly and calmly telling adults that they should consider finishing their shopping later and take their children home.
She hurried over to the mousy little man who managed that shop and said quietly, "There is a gang of Death Eaters in the street. We have reason to believe they are coming here. Floo the MLE and ask them to send Alastor Moody. Tell him Lily Evans said he's needed."
The man looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. A few short months ago, he probably would have told her to get lost. But people were so afraid now, despite what the Prophet refused to print. You could only hide so many dead bodies.
Dark shapes of the Death Eaters loomed in the window and Remus started telling customers to leave through the back door. The mousy little man drew his wand and Lily let out a slow breath and said, "We should have found Sirius and James."
"They'll be-"
Remus' words were cut off by shouts from outside. The mass of dark silhouettes had multiplied. A flash of light and a scream and the window of the bookshop shattered.
A few of the shouting voices were so familiar. She ran after Remus to the blasted-open door. There were more flashes, more screaming. Moody's rough voice suddenly barked orders. A jet of green light moved in slow motion, sent right to Remus’ chest. Her Shield Charm was not fast enough, but James came from nowhere and blocked the curse. He and Remus fell in a heap, blasted back by the force of James' spell. Sirius yelled for help from down the street and James and Remus leapt up and ran. She turned as she felt the presence of someone behind her and stunned the Death Eater just as he raised his wand.
The air echoed with shouts and the chill of dark magic. Someone, a voice she knew, called, "They're leaving." She'd had no clue which side was coming out the better until then.
"Everyone out," Moody shouted. "And make damned certain you're not followed."
Them leaving was not always a good thing. Often they'd just be back with more. There always seemed to be more, and staying to continue the fighting here would just endanger people.
"Take him back." Moody slapped her on the shoulder and pointed at a figure slumped against a wall.
Remus.
Remus was flopped against the wall, eyes closed. He could have been taking a rest if not for the odd angle of his neck. Her breath left her body in a quick whoosh.
"Stunner," Moody said gruffly over his shoulder, sprinting away. He wouldn't leave until everyone was on their way back to headquarters.
She grabbed Remus, hugging him, feeling the warmth of his body against hers, checking for the rise and fall of his chest. She scanned the street for James and Sirius. Moody barked again that they had to get the hell out now and she gripped Remus tightly and Apparated. She hoped that James and Sirius had stuck together. They always did.
They always did.
*
"Running toward danger is not the natural order of things, you know," she says. Her voice sounds like it is coming from the other end of a tunnel. Her chest aches a little and she feels as if she's put something down and forgotten to pick it up. "It does something to you-you spend too many years doing that."
Ted's fingers brush across hers and she can feel the comforting, half-touch. She looks at her hand and is surprised to see the veins, prominent and blue, the skin papery and thin. They are the hands of an old woman.
"I would imagine that it is very hard to stop fighting when the fight is done."
"It's easy to stop fighting. It's hard to know what else to do," she says. "I think I would have gone mad if it weren't for your father in that time right after Voldemort went into exile."
"You and my father, really were never together? All those years?" he asks, with an apologetic little smile.
"I told you, your father was my best friend. I loved him," she takes a deep breath and smiles sadly. "We both lost lovers in the same battle you know. That very one I just described."
"What?" Ted breathes. "Who? I-" he stops and looks at her as if she might shatter. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Will you tell me? No one will ever tell me much about that side of him. It's as if they want me to believe he never loved anyone but my mum. And you, you-I'm sorry. Who?"
"Sirius Black and James Potter."
"Really?" he gasps. His face lights with curiosity. "Oh, they died so young. I suppose I knew they had, but it was all so distant, before," he says, frowning. "But wait. Whose lover was whose?"
"Don't I keep telling you that's a different book?" she says. "The Loves of Lily Evans, or some such rot." She shakes her head, clearing fog and rubs her arms to brush away that empty feeling. "Anyway, it's complicated. Now then, where was I? There was a prophecy, about a boy, surely you know about that. Well, the only people to have heard it were Dumbledore and Severus, or so we thought. Turns out one of the rats what nicked food from breakfast trays at The Three Broomsticks was more a snake than a rat. You know about Pettigrew as well, I'm sure. I don't need to tell you about the day that little baby defeated the Dark Lord. You heard about that from your grandmother enough. But for us in the Order, the work of years was just to begin. Neville's parents had been murdered and now the Order was charged with helping his grandmother to raise him. Dumbledore knew Voldemort would be back and our champion had to be ready."
*
Severus never seemed quite comfortable at the Three Broomsticks. He was not really the corner pub type. It was more than that though; he had told Lily once that he could never quite let go of the feeling that the walls had ears.
Remus raised his goblet and smiled at her, his eyes warm and a little sad. "To Hogwarts' newest Professor! May Dumbledore have his head examined."
Severus was the closest to excited she'd seen him since their first day at Hogwarts. He had not been able to hide his pleasure that she would be joining him on the staff. "Don't listen to him, Lily, you'll be absolutely brilliant."
"You're just pleased because Lily taking the Charms post means you've beat her at Potions for the first time since first year," Remus said, laughing and Lily thought she might cry.
"You're really leaving, then."
"I am."
Lily knew that he was. James and Sirius were gone and without any missions or battles to focus on, their absence screamed out into the quiet. Dumbledore had offered Remus a way to be useful elsewhere. The next years would mean everything and they all had to do their bit. The Order were scattering about the wizarding world. They would build lives, grow and change, move on. But in the background, their unbreakable link would be the knowledge that all of their actions were ultimately in preparation for the day Voldemort would return.
She reached across the table and took Remus' hand. Severus looked away, uncomfortable with her and Remus' shared grief.
"I'll miss you," she said.
"I'll be back, and in the meantime I'll write."
Their plans to spend the day together before she and Severus had to go up to the school and help prepare for the first night's feast suddenly seemed absurd. There was nothing left to say. He was to embark on his next task and she on hers. It was just as well to be getting on with it.
*
"He left so soon after the first war ended?" Ted asks, looking as sad as she had felt that day.
"He had to," she says. Remus beams at her from a photo over the fireplace. He is older and holds a tiny baby in his arms.
Ted scribbles frantically, old fashioned parchment and quill, inky fingers capturing her memories. It takes minutes and she wonders how he can put it all down so quickly.
When he looks back up at her, it's another moment before she realizes those brown eyes aren't Remus'. They have all become so close again, so present in the telling.
"How was to it go back to Hogwarts?"
She watches as his eyes flick over the dozens of photographs on her mantle-images of the different parts of her life, layered and blended into a collage.
"You have to understand, those years were about protecting Neville. We didn't think of what we wanted for ourselves. I know that sounds sad to you. But it wasn't, not really." She pulls the blanket off the back of the chair against a sudden chill. "It was good and right to make our lives about the community. That said, it was so painful at first to be back at Hogwarts knowing that Sirius and James would never walk those halls again with me. I saw them, and the others, around every corner. Minerva and Poppy took me in hand. I don't think I would have made it without them."
"What about Severus?"
"He never knew what to do with my missing them. We were always friends, but over time, my not being able to give him what he wanted drove a wedge between us. I realised, too late to stop it, that he'd hoped with the others out of the way, I'd fall into his arms."
Ted looks back over the long roll of parchment curling over her table. He seems to be searching for more questions.
"Life was fairly quiet for years. I loved teaching. It was a good life," she says. They are near the end-of this book, anyway. She can see the intensity of his focus shifting and she feels her energy to keep telling flagging. "Then the signs that Voldemort was regaining power began to surface. Peter Pettigrew was sighted near Hogsmeade one summer, among other things. Dumbledore called your father back to teach Defence. He taught all the students of course, but he was really there to teach Neville. It was wonderful to have him there. It was only for a year, of course, but you knew that. I think you learned the rest from Professor Granger or at family meals."
"It's different to hear it from you like this," he says quietly. "But you're right. I think we've finished. I've stayed past your bedtime." Sighing, he stretches his hands over his head and stands. He pauses and looks at her as if they'd just met. "I'll-I'll come by or floo if I've any more questions."
"You have everything you need, Ted Lupin. I think you'll find you have everything you need."
He stands in the doorway, neither staying nor leaving. "I-it feels strange to leave knowing I won't be back to talk with you tomorrow."
"Well, you can always come back, lad," she says, smiling. "Keep an old lady company."
He pulls her quickly into a tight hug. He is precisely the same height as his father.
"Thank you," he says quietly as he leaves.
The chair in the front garden is painted purple. It faces the west and on clear evenings, she can watch the sun set through the trees. Some evenings, she sits out in the rapidly cooling air until she can see the first stars begin to twinkle in the sky. Sometimes she lets her eyes wander the sky, and the names of constellations learned long ago spring to mind.
A gentle breeze caresses her skin, sensuous and alive. The lightness she feels must be the absence of everything she has just passed to Remus' son. He is young and his broad shoulders can hold it now. If she closes her eyes, she can still feel the embrace.
She opens her eyes and the sky has darkened to an inky blue-black. Sirius is there, bright in the early summer sky. He's there, twinkling and grinning as he does. He only smiles like that when he and James have something afoot and she knows that means they're all waiting for her.
Severus is here and he takes her hand. He has on his new robes and he spreads his arms wide.
"Look, Lily," he says, beaming. "Aren't they brilliant?"