Marauders Sister

War

Lily finally emerged from her room three days later, after James had come to coax her out.

"Lily, you can't stay holed up in here for the rest of your life. I know you're hurting but this isn't the way to deal with things, please just talk to me".
"I can deal with things however I want to Potter" she slammed the door in his face.

After an hour of consideration. She decided she had had enough of feeling like a victim. James was right. Slowly decaying in a bedroom was not the way to deal with the trauma she had been through.

She made her way up to James' room to apologize for snapping at him. Only when she reached the fourth floor landing did Lily realize what she must have looked like. Her long Auburn hair, thrown up into the epitome of a 'messy' bun that had been keeping the hair out of her face when she was crying. She was wearing gray jogging bottoms with a non intentional rip in the knee and what used to be a white but now stained cream, coloured crop top. The bruises on her arms were now green tinted.

She went to turn around and go back to her room to change, when James' bedroom door suddenly opened.

James was dressed in muggle clothing. He was wearing black jeans that looked too short on his long legs, a plain white branded T-shirt and his signature messy hair. Seriously, Lily thought, considering his dad invented Sleekeazy's hair potion you'd think he could use a bottle of that on his wildly untidy, jet black hair.

"Oh, Hey Lils!" He spoke too enthusiastically, considering an hour ago she had bitten his head off "Did you need something, you can come in if you want?". Lily stood there, debating for a second whether to just run away.
"Okay, thanks" she was overly aware of the way she looked, blushing as she met his eyes.

James' room was the mirror image of his Hogwarts dorm. The room was painted in Gryffindor colours with quidditch memorabilia covering the walls. There was a four poster bed in the middle of the room, this was the only difference from his dorm. While at Hogwarts there are four single beds per room, James' bed was bigger and the only one.

Lily sat down on the edge of James' bed running her fingers through the furry blanket that had been folded on top of the duvet. James stood awkwardly by the bed not wanting to invade Lily's personal space.

"I wanted to apologize, you know, for earlier" she said sheepishly.
"Oh, you have nothing to be sorry about, it's water under the bridge!" James replied, still unusually chipper. Lily supposed he was just happy to see her up and about.
"I just, I don't know how to explain it." She paused "I feel like since that night, the world has stopped spinning and I'm just slowly floating up into space as the gravity fails. If that makes sense?"
"Yeah, that makes sense... I felt like that when my mum was diagnosed with an incurable strain of Dragon pox. They gave her six months to live" still standing by the bed, he looked down at his feet.
"Wh-what? I didn't know your mum was dying?" Lily was shocked to say the least
"Nobody knows, except the lads of course"
"I'm so sorry Jay that must be awful, what you're going through and for your mum" she tapped the bed next her indicating for James to sit down.

They sat like this, in silence for a few minutes. Pondering life. There was an awkwardness between them; the same awkwardness that is shared between two strangers. And Lily realized that that's what they were essentially. They didn't really know each other past a surface level.

"I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes I'm back in that study, tied up" Lily suddenly stated. James was taken aback but recovered himself pretty quickly.
"Lily that's what I gave you the mirror for, I'd happily sit and talk to you until you went to sleep"
"You would do that for me?"
"Of course!"

Lily and James continued to talk about almost anything for at least an hour. It was the most normal Lily had felt in four days. James had persuaded Lily to have dinner downstairs with him and his parents (who Lily had still not yet met) instead of in her room. So when it was time they headed down to the kitchen.

Euphemia Potter was a fine woman. Her salt and pepper hair tied neatly into a chic updo perfectly complemented the silver dress robes she wore. She was a small woman but made up for it with kindness; welcoming Lily into her house with open arms and zero questions.

Fleamont Potter was the opposite of Euphemia however, he was exuberant and cracked joke after joke. He didn't have a head of hair to match with his dress robes which were burgundy in colour. He was a tall yet plump man who obviously was enjoying his retirement.

Dinner consisted of Fleamont talking about his potioneering skills and surprisingly, his dueling skills. He explained that he was bullied in school for his name and often picked fights with the bullies. Almost as if they had been forewarned, they didn't actually ask Lily anything about herself.
Perhaps they already knew everything from Remus.

After dinner, Remus came to visit. Apparently he had visited the past two days, but had decided to leave Lily be. He sat with them at the table for a couple of hours chatting with James and Fleamont; whilst Lily chatted with Euphemia about using magic to cook.

When Fleamont and Euphemia left the table to go to bed, James, Remus and Lily stayed sitting.

"I'm happy to see you up and about Lil's" Remus said.
"It's nice to see you smiling as well" James added, Lily blushed in response.
"Listen, I didn't just come to check on you. We wanted to have a word with you but wanted to wait until you were ready" Remus' whole disposition had switched from light hearted to intense.
"What's going on?" Lily asked
"We wanted to talk to you about the war and the slytherins' involvement. It's obviously time we stop shielding you, metaphorically speaking, from what's going on" James responded, Lily merely sat waiting for him to elaborate. Remus spoke next.
"The brewing war is much more than a headline in the daily prophet used to fearmonger. It's very real. There is a large group of people who literally hate muggle borns"
"That group of people include a lot of the 'sacred 28' Pureblood families. Therefore, there has been recruitment within Slytherin house due to the relation between Slytherin and Anti muggle born ideologies" James joined in.
"These people want to see the complete eradication of muggle borns and muggles alike. So you have to have your wits about you whilst at school and when in amongst the wizarding community" Remus finished.
"So... I have essentially been walking around with a target on my back and you chose to what, hide this from me? Lily didn't know whether to be angry or upset. What she did know however, was that she was scared.
"It's not like that Lily", Remus pleaded "we just didn't want you to be scared of living your life for no reason. We didn't know that it wasn't just propaganda until the attack on you."
"But I don't understand, why me? Why not another muggle born?"
"Because you're friends with two blood traitors, you're the smartest in the class and you are very likely to be chosen as prefect next year. You are everything blood purists believe muggle borns shouldn't be!"

They sat in silence until Remus finally left the table stating he had to be home soon. He said his goodbyes, walked over to the fireplace and flued home; leaving both James and Lily alone in the kitchen.