A/N: Wow, I totally forgot about this. I was looking at my profile, and I was like "Oh yeah! Ship of Dreams! I need to finish typing that up..." So that's why it took so long for me to update. Sorry about that (but hey, moving away to college for the first time is stressful enough to distract me, right?).

Chapter 9 was really short (which was probably for the best, as it's a pretty depressing chapter), so I decided to tack on the Epilogue at the end of it instead of putting it in a tenth chapter. So now the story's done.

Also, deepest apologies to momiji'ssunusedhalo.

Summary: It's 1912 and there's a new ship sailing on the ocean: the R.M.S. Titanic. Lily Evans boards the ship as a first-class passenger, as does her betrothed James Potter and his best friend Sirius Black. Meanwhile, Remus Lupin and Severus Snape languish in third class. When the two groups meet and befriend each other, societal subcultures clash, internal battles are wrought, and numerous pranks are played on unsuspecting and unprepared first-class passengers. But no one is prepared for the iceberg that looms ahead...

...oo0oo...

Chapter 9:

The Ninth Circle

He couldn't break through. His hand caught an ankle and he tried to use the leg to climb up, but then the leg kicked out and caught his nose. His glasses were gone, probably crushed, but right now what mattered was that he needed to breathe; and the water was packed with too many people, all swimming and floundering and pushing him down whenever he tried to reach the surface, but dammit, he needed air. Now. He needed air to live, so he could see his Lilykins again (had he told her he loved her before he left? He couldn't remember); after all, how could his Lilyblossom marry him if he was dead? So he fought, clawing and struggling until he realized that he couldn't feel anything and even though he was willing his arms to move they weren't doing anything, and that even his lungs had gone numb and why weren't his bleeding hands working and was it getting darker and he needed to see Lily because there were so many things he hadn't told her...

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Sputtering and retching, Sirius collapsed onto the dresser. It tilted dangerously with his weight, but at the moment he simply couldn't bring himself to care. His throat- hell, his entire body- was on ice-cold fire. He managed to lift his head and look around. "James?" His voice was a scratchy whisper. "Remus?" His only answer was a great wail that seemed to swell from the ocean itself. It was the sound of death, of hopelessness and despair and everything else that was wrong in the world, and it rose through the air like some terrible song of mourning.

Someone else had climbed onto the dresser, but Sirius ignored him. "They're alright," he murmured to himself. "They're alive."

He wiggled his fingers and smiled a little- he could still feel them.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

"No! We cannot go back! They'll kill us!" The woman wrung her handkerchief and looked pleadingly at the Quartermaster.

"Are you mad?" cried another lady. "We can't leave them to die!" The Quartermaster sent another nervous glance toward the shrieking mass of quickly dying people.

Oh, sod it, thought Lily angrily, and in a flash of desperation tinged with rage she lunged toward the nearest oar and seized it, knocking back the woman who had been rowing. Everyone in the boat stared at the redhead.

"We must go back. Those are people we know. Those are your husbands out there, your sons." Lily directed the 'sons' part at Mrs. Potter. "And you'd leave them to die, simply because your too afraid and too selfish to go back?!" Lily's heated proclamation was met first with shocked stares, then a general murmur of assent rumbled through the tiny boat. Lily gripped her oar and began to row. It was only then that she realized that the shrieking had died down to mere groans and sobs. She rowed faster, her shoulders beginning to burn sharply even as her hands felt like they were freezing to the oar handle.

By the time they reached the massive huddle of floating people, the air was silent. Nothing moved except for the oars sweeping slowly through the water. The Quartermaster took out a headlight, shone it over the water, and when the white beam hit the first face, Lily gasped. Not because it was a person she recognized, but because of pure shock; the man's face was stark white, and eyes frozen wide, lips crusted with ice, one hand poised to clutch the straps of his lifebelt.

As they entered the sea of people, the oars began to hit frozen flesh. Lily winced with each dull thud and did her best to keep her oar from whacking any dead people, but had little success; there were too many dead, bobbing silently in the water, ice crystallizing on their hair, eyelashes, lips. Most of them had their eyes open, staring glassily ahead. The majority of faces were twisted into expressions of terror or fear. None of the faces were familiar to Lily.

Looking at the people, searching their faces for either familiarity or signs of life, Lily was reminded of a book she had read a few years ago. It was about a poet's journey through Hell, which consisted of nine circles. The ninth circle, the last and deepest one, was where Lucifer resided, and all the sinners there were frozen eternally in ice. Just like tonight, thought Lily morosely. This is Hell.

Her oar clipped one of the frozen men, and she gently pushed him out of the oar's path. Hands numb, she continued rowing.

It was only the next day, on the rescue ship the Carpathia, that she saw him. She was so unused to seeing his face in a grim expression that she nearly missed him. She had never been so happy to see his aristocratically arrogant face, and flung herself to him with a cry. He smiled at her- a haunted smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Oh, Sirius! I saw your name on the list of survivors, but I didn't believe it at first." She paused, unsure of how to continue what she had been about to say. "...I didn't see the others, though. James, Remus..." Sirius shook his head, and Lily silenced herself, even though she longed to ask when he'd been rescued.

They sat, wordless and unmoving, on the Carpathia's deck until the Statue of Liberty appeared, her gold flame piercing the sky and windless sky.

They had made it to America.

Xoxoxoxoxoxo

Epilogue

Lily stared first at the postbox, then at the letter in her hand. It was addressed to her parents; no doubt they were worried about her. The letter assured them of her wellbeing, but now Lily wasn't sure whether she wanted to send it. She fully planned on living an independent life in America and she 

knew her parents would be disgraced by it. After a moment of indecision, Lily pocketed the letter, then turned and made her way to the train station.

She was going West now. New York City was too dirty, too crowded, and she'd stayed there for too long. For two months, actually, getting registered and receiving papers and working odd jobs to get money, since she'd lost everything in the sinking. She didn't know where Sirius had got off to; she'd last seen him at the port, after the Carpathia docked. They had said goodbye and had promised to locate each other when they'd gotten settle down, a promise they both knew would not be kept. Seeing Sirius would remind her too much of the sinking...it was still painful to think about. It probably always would be.

She sighed and set her carpetbag on the empty chair next to her. Maybe she'd post the letter later. Or perhaps she'd simply burn it, let her parents and Petunia think she'd perished in those bleak waters. I should have, she thought, then shook her head clear. Now was not a time to be getting depressed about surviving when all those other innocent people (about 1500 of them) had died. No, now was a time to focus on future prospects.

A clanging bell and a whistle announced the arrival of her train, and Lily picked up her bag and took her ticket from her coat pocket. A man passes by her, a tall man with dark unruly hair, and Lily started before she caught sight of his face. It wasn't James. Of course not, you dolt. Still, for a moment she had felt hope that the survivor's list was mistaken and her friends had all lived. On occasion she thought she saw their faces, but she would always look closer and realized the men didn't look like her friends at all.

She sighed and stepped onto the train, handing her ticket to the conductor before seating herself. Hugging her coat close around her, Lily leaned her head against the window. The coat was a man's, and therefore was too large, and the collar tickled her nose. She didn't fix it- the coat still smelled like James. Instead she closed her eyes, settled deeper into the coat's woolen folds, and was soon asleep.