August 1995, Sunday 8:00 am, A Meeting that Never Happened After Many Other Things Which Didn't Happen.

"You know, Lenin," Lily said clearing her throat as she stood in front of his desk, trying and failing not to think of the fact that she was on step 1 of reenacting the naughty school girl drama with Professor Riddle, "Tomorrow is the first of September."

Wizard Lenin, predictably, said nothing. Not only did he say nothing, he did nothing but read through The Daily Prophet. Now, Lily might have been offended if she hadn't been perfectly aware that Wizard Lenin considered The Prophet to be utter propagandist tripe (it was his propagandist tripe so he couldn't complain too loudly but it still featured Rita Skeeter as a major journalist). Which, of course, just made it painfully obvious that he was just trying to avoid looking at her face like usual.

He may have willingly returned to Malfoy Manor in that late week in August of 1995 but that hadn't meant he'd liked it.

"In case you suddenly don't remember," Lily continued, "I leave for Hogwarts on the first."

He still said nothing.

"Me and Ferret Malfoy are gonna board the Hogwarts Express and reunite with all of our plucky friends," Lily continued, rocking back and forth on her heels, "Some of them may have even had growth spurts."

Lily wanted to say that they may have even miraculously become as attractive as Cedric Diggory, dearly graduated Adonis among Hufflepuffs, but that was asking entirely too much. The gene pool lottery had skipped over Lily's years in Hogwarts and had left Lily, Lepur Rabbitson (who looked just as ethereally and unnaturally beautiful as ever), and oddly enough Hermione Granger (who had cleaned up miraculously well to snag none other than Hungarian beefcake Viktor Krum) as the best of them by a mile.

So, the best she could do was imply they might have perhaps grown tall enough to interest Lily.

This was a filthy lie, but Lily was looking for some sort of reaction here.

"I could get myself a boyfriend," Lily plunged ahead with a bravado she certainly didn't deserve but was willing to own if it'd get her some kind of reaction, "Some Hufflepuff or another."

Wizard Lenin finally lowered the paper, however instead of seething with jealousy he just gave her this flat deadpan look as if he really couldn't believe she thought he was this stupid, "If you can't be bothered to learn his bloody name I hardly think he's going to be inclined to court you."

Still, that was more than a reaction she'd got in a way, Lily pounded her hands down on the table, grinning and moving forward, "But you do remember I'm leaving, don't you?"

"Yes," Wizard Lenin said, "And good bloody riddance too."

"You don't mean that," Lily said slyly, "I leave you alone for six months and you'll just be stuck with these people."

These people, of course, being his loyal minions and cultists. Each and every one of whom he loathed entirely. The very thought of the next six months in their company had Wizard Lenin paling ever so slightly before he could reclaim his composure, "You won't last six months. Not without some tournament to the death keeping you there."

This was probably true, Lily had an abysmal attendance record at Hogwarts, and likely only the fact that she was the girl who lived kept her moving along with the rest of her class.

Still, he wasn't saying what she'd come to talk about, not really. She wasn't necessarily hoping for an, "I'll miss you" or even a "I'll write" but she'd been looking for something. Finally, feeling the smile leave her lips with a sigh, she asked, "What are we going to do?"

"Do?" he asked, as if he had no earthly idea what she was talking about.

He'd been doing that for the entire last half of August. Ever since their night of drunken revelry. She was pretty sure he'd either obliviated or else traumatized Draco into silence as well. Like if he covered it up enough then it would never have happened in the first place.

Except, he hadn't erased it from his own mind, had he? Nor had he tried to take it from hers. Maybe it was because he knew how she felt about that, the places she wouldn't dare to travel since Morgan Gaunt, or maybe it was because he both wanted to forget and didn't want to at all.

Trapped by his own ambivalence.

Lily couldn't say she wasn't sympathetic. Except, the way she viewed it, they'd been past that ages ago. Why dwell on decisions you simply couldn't take back and boundaries already crossed? The only thing you could ever do was move forward.

"Things change," Lily said, "We've changed."

"Nothing's changed," Wizard Lenin scoffed, or rather attempted to, but his heart wasn't in it, "Who said anything's changed? I certainly haven't changed."

"So, you really are fine if we go our separate ways here?" Lily asked, watching as he paused, considered her as if she'd said something truly dangerous.

"You stay here, playing nurse maid and sugar daddy to Bellatrix, I go to Hogwarts and get myself some boyfriend or another—"

"You're bluffing," Wizard Lenin said with a laugh, "You would get bored of those fifteen-year-old boys so quickly that—"

"Sometimes, Lenin, we settle," Lily interjected, giving him a pointed look, reminding him that whatever he wanted to call it Bellatrix LeStrange was settling. Him and her, well, that wasn't so different from Lily and some Hufflepuff, now was it?

Well, now that Lily was thinking about it, she paused, "Or maybe I could try and swing the other direction?"

Lily hadn't considered the female half of the equation too seriously, her hormonal preferences had seemed skewed towards muscular abs, but if she thought about it then the girls of Hogwarts were leagues beyond the men. You had Cho Chang (who sure, she was dating Cedric or what have you), but then Granger with her suddenly normal person hair was in the mix, Lily had always been fond of Luna, and maybe she could start some sort of long distance relationship with Fleur the proudly seductive ice queen across the sea.

"Lily—"

Fleur might have loathed Lily at first, but she'd come to regard Lily with respect even in the beginning for her feminist appeal, and then saving Gabrielle had just made Lily the greatest thing that had ever happened. It was too bad that had been after the Yule Ball though, as Lily really could have used that date.

"Lily!"

Lily suddenly remembered where she was and what she was doing, and that, oddly enough, it appeared to suddenly be working. She smiled at her oldest and closest friend, "You see? Sometimes, Lenin, we can't just sweep things under the rug."

He sighed, dropped his head into his hands, and muttering down at his desk asked, "Are you seriously suggesting, that you and I, engage in some kind of long-distance relationship?"

Lily wasn't sure that was what she'd been asking. Really, she'd just been looking for some kind of acknowledgement. However, now that he said it, he had a point. Long distance relationships were things people did in these situations. You called on the telephone, or the closest thing Hogwarts had to a telephone which were fireplaces, you saw each other any of the breaks you had.

"Sure," Lily said, "I can do long distance."

He dragged fingers through his hair, tugging at it in anxiety, "What have you reduced me to?"

"Please, I didn't do this," Lily said, "This was the product of alcohol and poor decisions. But they were decisions and we have to live with them. I don't think they're all bad, do you?"

"You are—" he cut himself up, looked up at her in desperation, "You're not even half my age, you're less than that!"

"I try not to think about that part," Lily said, which was really true, as that part was… uncomfortable and hadn't necessarily become less uncomfortable over time. Of course, if she really thought about it, then she wasn't sure why their being any closer in age would somehow make it better.

Look at Wizard Trotsky, they were only a year apart, and he was a bloody madman. Was it really suddenly better for her to date the younger version just because he was younger? Wasn't it better that she took the version refined by experience?

Which suddenly sounded a lot dirtier than she'd intended.

"That is the part you must think about, Lily!" Wizard Lenin shouted, "And what about everything else? What if it gets out?!"

"What if what gets out?"

"You and I are mortal enemies—"

"I live in your house!"

"Anything circulating at the moment is easily dismissed rumor, so absurd it's laughable, but if word spreads that I'm your lover—"

"I don't see how that's any less tabloid worthy," Lily noted, she could see the article right now, right next to Luna's latest expose on a blibbering humdinger. Sadly, though, The Quibbler was the only paper of repute left in England, it was just that nobody had realized it yet.

"And so what if they do?" Lily asked, "That's just a lame excuse and you and I both know it. You just don't want to deal with this, as usual."

That last bit… It'd just slipped out, she hadn't meant it, no she had, but she hadn't meant to say it. Suddenly though she realized how true it was, that in his own way, Wizard Lenin was always running away from who he really was and what he really wanted. He tried so desperately to shape himself into what he thought he was, what he yearned to be, that he forgot about the man who lay beneath it.

"As usual?!"

"You never want to deal with anything," Lily said quietly, "This isn't anything new, is it? Why should I have expected any differently? For once, Lenin, can't you forget about the world and what you think it expects of you? Let them make up their own minds, they always do."

She sighed then, shoved her hands into her pockets, and with a half-hearted smile announced, "Well, I guess I'd better finish packing. Have to prepare myself for whatever psychopath Dumbledore has hired for Defense this time."

"See you—"

"Wait!" he stood, he actually stood up from his goddamn chair in the most melodramatic manner Lily had ever seen, like he'd forgotten he didn't live in a soap opera or romantic comedy in that pivotal moment where the jackass male lead realizes the error of his ways.

Then he suddenly remembered he was in the real world and stood there with his mouth half open like an idiot.

Lily waited.

She kept waiting.

… He seemed to be broken, he just kept standing there staring at her, like he was waiting for her to start saying something.

"I'll do it," he finally blurted.

"What?"

"Your long-distance relationship," he said, "I'll do it. No, I'll do better than that!"

"Better?" Lily asked, not quite sure where he was going as the dating itself was more than she would have expected from him, as it was she was still trying to wrap her head around how that would possibly work.

Did this mean she was going to get flowers in the mail from him? Or those weird singing valentines people sometimes sent off?

However, whatever hesitance he had before seemed to have been ripped from him in a moment of panic, leaving only unadulterated determination in its place, "It's time we go public! Show Dumbledore exactly how far he's lost you and bring this nation to its knees in despair!"

Well, that sounded romantic.

"We'll get engaged!"

Lily stared at him, took in that manic grin and dazed expression, and decided that she'd better leave him alone for a few months. Maybe then he'd settle down into a reasonable human being.

Author's Note: Written for the 4500th review of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" by Relent1ess who asked for a continuation of "There's Got to Be a Morning After" with a focus on Lily/Lenin. Lenin goes mad with panic.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are greatly appreciated.

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