Marauders Sister

Strangers

"We should head to bed, it's getting late" James finally spoke. The awkwardness was back.

Lily followed James through the house and up to the third floor where they parted ways, to go to their respective bedrooms. She walked into her room and changed from her stained/ripped clothes to her pyjamas.

As her head hit the pillow and Lily closed her eyes, the memories swarmed back; like a flock of attacking birds, swooping and clawing at her. She lay like this for a while, almost as a masochistic way to gain some recollection of what actually happened that night.

When she couldn't bear the memories any longer she sat up on her bed. She hadn't really looked at her bedroom before now; the pale blue walls and oak floor reminded Lily of her room in her childhood home. There was a framed painting of a ship sailing on the ocean nailed to the wall. She was convinced that if you looked at it long enough, you could see the waves moving. Perhaps she was going stir-crazy.

It was now well past midnight and the pull of sleep was too far away to catch now. Lily reached for the glass of water on her nightstand; her finger brushed over something sharp and ragged. "Oh bugger" she thought, as she sucked her finger to stop the bleeding, "What the bloody hell was that".

It was then that Lily remembered the little mirror shard that James had given her. She remembered James saying she could simply speak into it and he would be at the other end of it, like a telephone.

She picked up the mirror and held it to reflect her face. "James?" she spoke, "are you awake?"
"Hey Red" he replied groggily
"I'm sorry James, go back to sleep"
"No it's fine, I told you if you needed me I'd be there. Can't you sleep?"
"No, I can't turn off the memories"
"Well then talk to me, about anything"
"Like what? Give me an example"
"What do you want to be when you finish school?"

The answer to this was obviously a healer at St Mungo's. This question led to many other questions involving school. Which led to questions involving home life with Remus' family. They kept this up until after two in the morning.

"I love living with Remus and his parents are the best guardians I could have asked for" Lily started
"But?" James interrupted
"Well, they're not MY parents are they? They're amazing, but they just don't compare."
"Tell me about your mum and dad" James caught Lily off guard. No one had asked her anything to do with her family since their deaths, out of fear of her having a breakdown.

Lily described her parents as the kind of people to be beautiful inside and out. They were gentle and kind, never raised their voices and were extremely supportive of Lily's magical abilities. Lily's sister however was the opposite. She used to be friends with her until Remus showed her that she had magical abilities. Since that day, she has hated Lily out of jealousy.

In response, James talked about his family and his mothers diagnosis. Way back when, his parents had struggled to conceive and tried for years; so his dad tried to compensate for their childlessness by spoiling his mum with his riches. James was somewhat of a miracle baby, and they treated him as such. They were a close-knit family. So when his mother was diagnosed with the pox and they were told that she would never recover from it, James and his dad were devastated. Euphemia had locked herself in her room for days (the same way Lily had done after the attack).

They eventually moved on in conversation, opting to talk about the Slytherins at school and the ever developing war.

"You know they say that this 'Voldemort' bloke went to Hogwarts before us. He even applied for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position and when he was turned away, he cursed the job. That's why we have a different teacher every year" James added to the conversation.
"That's definitely just gossip James. There's no way a wizard as dark as that came from Hogwarts!" Lily replied
"Perhaps. You are right though, he is a very dark wizard and having the views that he does doesn't come from a loving and supportive childhood".
"Exactly, and you could have a point about the DADA position. It would be like having a recruitment pool at his fingertips. Raising the youth to be dark and share his views".
"I would argue, Lil's, that even now he has the recruitment pool at his fingertips. He picks from the pure blood slytherin families. Sirius says there's some sort of initiation they have after they've completed a task in Voldemorts name. He's scared that he will eventually be expected to do it"
"Do you think that um...?"
"Do I think, what, Lily?"
"Do you think that the attack on me was part of those slytherins' initiations?"
"Potentially" James spoke cautiously.

They continued to chat like this until Lily finally fell asleep, mirror in hand, James nodding off to the sound of her snoring.

The pair kept this up every night. Sometimes Lily would call James and sometimes James would call Lily; but they spoke to each other well into the night about their deepest secrets and darkest thoughts. It was the only way Lily could sleep without the memories of her trauma attacking her.

One night, James worked up the courage to ask the question he had been dying to ask for a while.
"Who attacked you that night, Lils? I promise I won't tell anyone"
"It's not that I don't want anyone to know, it's that I don't want you, Remus, Sirius or Pete doing something stupid like trying to fight for my honour! I don't want justice, I just want to forget about it all"
"I promise you I won't do anything stupid" There was silence. Lily didn't know if she could trust James. They had been talking every night for three weeks now and she knew more about him than she had ever thought possible. James Potter was a stranger turned close friend. She eventually responded.
"It was Wilkes, Rosier and Lestrange"