𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀 | 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬

✧ chapter 56 ✧

1977

After she was sure Lily was safely inside the castle, Aurora emerged from her hiding spot and debated whether or not she should chase after Lily or go yell at Snape. She understood that Snape was upset but it did not excuse his behaviour. Once again, he had hurled an unforgivable slur at the girl he supposedly cared very deeply for, perhaps even loved.

After a lengthy internal debate, Aurora finally settled for hexing Snape for the moment and finding Lily. She fished her wand out of her robes and quickly fired off a couple of hexes which assured Snape's next trip to the toilet would be less than enjoyable and significantly more flammable than usual. Pleased with her handiwork, Aurora then headed inside, on a mission to find her best friend.

When Aurora finally located Lily however, she was pleasantly surprised to find her wrapped safely in James' arms as she cried.

"I know he's said stuff like this before but it still hurts every time." Aurora heard Lily whimper, nestling further into James' broad chest while he stroked her hair. James' gaze didn't move from Lily's face once and he watched her so intensely, as if he would rather die than see her cry. Aurora wondered if Sirius ever looked at her that way when she wasn't paying attention.

"I'll kill the bastard." James seethed through gritted teeth, unintentionally tightening his grasp on Lily.

"No, please, James he isn't worth it." Lily looked up to meet James' eyes, her own pleading him not to do anything stupid. Above all other things, James was still head boy and therefor had to set a good example.

James's face contorted slightly, as if he were weighing up the pros and cons of listening to Lily's advice. There was a large part of him that still loathed Snape and thus wished to take any excuse he could to hex him. There was another part, however, which wanted to please Lily. The two sides of James battled it out for a moment before the latter won. The part of James that wished to please Lily and do the right thing had been doing a lot more of the piloting lately and everyone had noticed. The impossible had become possible; James Potter was growing up.

"Thank you, James." Lily took the silence as him agreeing that Snape wasn't worth the trouble he caused.

Aurora smiled at her two friends. After years of bickering it was strange seeing them nestled together in a window alcove. Despite the apparent tear stains on Lily's face she looked happy, blissful even, as she snuggled further into James.

"Promise me you're done with Snape now? Every time you reach out to him he ends up hurting you." James asked, a hopeful glint in his eyes. His intentions were good and his words were truthful, but there was also a small, selfish part of him that liked the idea of Snape being out of the picture for good.

"He has hurt me for the last time." Lily assured, some of the fire from before returning to her eyes as she thought of her former best friend and the unrecognisable person he had become.

"Severus is my past, our past, and you, you're my future." Lily whispered timidly after a short, comfortable silence where they just held each other. At this statement, James's eyes widened slightly in shock, before his mouth split into the biggest grin Aurora had ever seen. It was almost as if the mere idea of a future with Lily was enough to make James the happiest man alive. Aurora glanced at the two one more time before deciding she should stop spying on them and wandering off down a different corridor. She still had roughly twenty minutes to spare before her first lesson of the day and decided she'd take the long way to class.

As she wandered through the familiar hallways, her arms weighed down by the extra weight of carrying Lily's books as well as her own, Aurora thought about James and Lily and how perfectly the two of them seemed to go together. There was no questioning that they belonged to each other. She wondered if that's what other people thought when they saw her with Sirius. She doubted it. As far as anyone else was concerned, Sirius didn't belong to anyone but himself. He had made that abundantly clear during his years at Hogwarts. Aurora knew Sirius was a different person than he used to be though. At the beginning of her sixth year, Aurora had set about teaching this broken, shell of a boy how to love, and now a year later she was almost certain she had succeeded.

Almost as if he could sense someone was thinking about him, Sirius appeared around a corner and sped up to join Aurora on her walk.

"Are you okay? You look constipated." Was the first thing Sirius said as he got close enough to see Aurora properly. He cocked his head to the side slightly, a habit he had picked up after years of being Padfoot. Aurora found the small action so adorable she almost forgot to be insulted by his rude remark.

"Constipated? I was deep in thought." Aurora replied, vaguely offended by the implications of his words.

"You were deep in thought? Good grief, don't hurt yourself." Sirius jested, lightly bumping his elbow against hers as they walked. Aurora just rolled her eyes in response and stuck her foot out to trip Sirius over. The smirk was wiped right off his face as he stumbled slightly, managing to catch himself before he was sent sprawling across the stone floors. Now it was Aurora's turn t smirk as she continued walking, pretending not to notice the fact that Sirius' life just flashed before his eyes.

"Hurry up, Sirius. Wouldn't want to be late for class now, would we?" Aurora teased, still smirking. Sirius scowled, but moved his legs faster in order to catch up with his girlfriend anyway.

"You're a cruel woman, Aurora Faulkner."

"And don't you forget it."

a/n sorry for not updating in ages. have some cute jily and dumb sirora