Hello friends! This is my first fan fiction, although not my first written work. I have always loved Lily and James, but have lately been wanting to see Lily grow up a bit out of Hogwarts before they got together. Thus, this story was born. Although it diverges from the canon timeline, I do try my best to stick with the information J.K. Rowling has given about this time period. I have no idea how long this story will be, but I cannot wait to see where it leads! Expect more explicit content (both war and love related) in later chapters. Please review and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: The Wizarding World, and all characters within, are property of J.K. Rowling.

1.

Lily Evans wiped down the worn and weary oak bar, the blue moonlight streaming in through the window and unnecessarily reminding her of how disgustedly early in the morning it was. Quarter til four. She surveyed the empty pub, which seemed so much smaller without the steady bustle of familiar patrons weaving through the tables and crowding around the bar. Colder, too. She pulled her woolen grey wrap tighter around her narrow shoulders, shivering unconsciously.

She tossed the damp towel into the leaky sink and walked up the back stairs into the apartment that sat above the pub, and that Lily and her two roommates called home. She leaned against the doorframe of Dorcas Meadowes' room, watching her peacefully smile in her sleep. What a shame to wake her, Lily thought, she must be having a lovely dream.

Indeed, there was little to smile about these days, for Dorcas or any other who inhabited the hidden world of magic in Britain in 1979. It had been two years since the war had officially broken out, although its hateful undercurrent had been simmering for decades. Lord Voldemort had been slowly gaining followers and power on the platform of prejudice against Muggleborns, witches and wizards who came from non-magical families, and hatred towards Muggles themselves. First seen as an extremist party with only sporadic hate crimes to its name, Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters now held sway over a majority of the Ministry of Magic, and their unflinching use of violence cowed many of its opposition into submission.

Lily Evans was a Muggleborn witch. When Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had first arrived on the steps of her coal-blackened stone house in Cokeworth, she felt like she had stepped into one of the many books that littered her bookshelf, nightstand, floor, bathroom sink, pretty much any flat surface that she came into contact with. Of course, her best friend Severus Snape from down the street had been telling her for years that she was a witch. She just assumed that he was making fun of her; she was used to being made fun of, but Sev didn't seem mean about it so she just nodded and went along with it. Some days Lily wished she could go back in time to before she got her Hogwarts letter, when she thought that magic solved everything. The truth was, magic just amplified problems, made them even more complicated.

The city of Inverness had turned into a bit of a hub for young Muggleborn and halfblood witches and wizards since the start of the war. Located in the Scottish Highlands, it was far enough away from London that they were able to stay away from the mess that the Ministry had become. It was also close to Hogwarts. None of the Muggleborns or halfbloods would ever actually admit it, but they had a childlike fear that if they strayed too far from the school, one day they would wake up and realize that the past several years had been nothing but a dream. Hogwarts was their lodestone.

It was for these same geographical reasons that Albus Dumbledore had chosen Inverness for one of the safe houses for the Order of the Phoenix, the guerilla group he had formed to help fight against Voldemort. And it was this safe house that Lily Evans currently inhabited, and for this reason that she reluctantly shook Dorcas awake.

In the same way the Leaky Cauldron was the magical gateway to Diagon Alley, The Mucky Duck was the door to the Inverness Safe House. Lily and her roommates, Dorcas Meadows and Mary McDonald, were barmaids, gatekeepers, healers, and hostesses; really, whatever Dumbledore asked them to be, they were. Lily had been asked to join the Order of the Phoenix at the end of her seventh year at Hogwarts. Her answer had been an automatic yes, although whether that was out of pure Gryffindor loyalty and courage, or because of the stark realization that she had nowhere else to go, she would never really know.

The three girls shared shifts: eight hours in the bar, playing both barmaid and guard, eight hours in the safe house upstairs acting as a Healer and hostess to the Order members that stumbled in and out, and eight hours to themselves. Lily spent a majority of her free time working on brewing potions, both for their makeshift hospital and for the front lines. She squeezed in sleep when she could, although not nearly enough, as her roommates frequently berated her for.

Dorcas usually wore her hair in some sort of style, whether tightly plaited or pulled back into a bun or ponytail, but in her sleep she had allowed her hair to billow out around her, her tight black curls making it look like the foam that surged up at the bottom of a waterfall. It was the kind of mess, a beautiful mess, that Dorcas would never abide in her waking hours.

To say that Dorcas Meadowes was a control freak would be a terrible understatement. She had lived surrounded by secrets her whole life, and had to maintain tight control over every aspect of her life so as to never let the façade slip. Her mother came from an old pureblood family, but had fallen in love with a Muggle who worked in the coastal town in Wales that her family vacationed in during the summer. Following Hogwarts, Genevieve Fawley had run away with Tom Ward, hiding in the Muggle world for over a year, until the day that her beloved died in an automobile accident. Lost in an unfamiliar world, without her lover and her guide, she had returned home in disgrace, only to learn that she was pregnant. Her childhood best friend, Damian Meadowes, had proposed marriage to save her and her future child from ostracization by the ruthless pureblood society.

Dorcas spent her childhood pretending to be the perfect pureblood heir, even begging the Sorting Hat to place her into Slytherin. She carefully selected every word, action, even facial expression to hide her true heritage, what she viewed as her dirty little secret. It wasn't until Lily Evans had found the dark-haired Slytherin weeping in an empty classroom over a particularly gruesome issue of the Daily Prophet in their fourth year that she admitted the truth out loud for the first time since her mother had told her when she was eight years old. For the next three years Lily was Dorcas's confidant, and eventually became her best friend, even if their friendship stayed in the shadows of secret passages and hidden classrooms. It was not a wise choice for either of them to broadcast a friendship with someone from a rival house, as Lily had learned the hard way through the destruction of her relationship with Severus.

In seventh year, though, Dorcas finally made her allegiance public. When two Death Eaters in training, Preston Nott and Grayson Mulciber, attacked Lily from behind in a corridor while she was on patrol, Dorcas had hexed them so thoroughly that it took three days for the two boys regained consciousness. The dark-skinned girl had immediately been forced to vacate her dormitory in the dungeon or face brutal retaliation from the rest of the Slytherins. Lily had brought her friend to the Gryffindor dormitory instead, where a sixth bed had magically appeared overnight; it seemed the castle had found a new home for her.

When Dumbledore approached Dorcas to join the Order of the Phoenix the week before graduation, she did not have to consider it for even a second. The choice of which side of the war she would fight on had been made three years ago when a redhead who hardly knew her had sat by her side all night long while she cried and cried.

While Lily played potion master for the Order, Dorcas was the herbologist, so when she finally rolled out of bed she immediately grabbed her dragon-skin gloves and, yawning a lazy good morning to her friend, made her way down the twisting hallways to the mini-greenhouse that the girls had converted the attic into. She would check on all of her darling plants before her shift as guard in the pub began.

Watching the former Slytherin slink down the hallways, half-heartedly braiding her hair as she went, Lily turned in the opposite direction with a sigh. She wandered down a couple of hallways of the strange apartment, making a few wrong turns and finding a dead-end before finally coming to the Hospital Wing.

Lily often wondered what this building had been before it had been turned into a safe house. Had it been some crazy old recluse wizard's home? Maybe it had once been some sort of an inn; it certainly had the space. After two years, Lily still found new rooms every once in awhile; there seemed to be a new secret hidden around every corner. This comforted her though, reminding her of Hogwarts and its unpredictability. She wondered if every wizarding home was this way. She wouldn't know; she had never even been invited over to a wizard's house, not even Dorcas's, and in the current climate she didn't see that happening anytime soon.

The redhead knocked on the doorframe of the only open door in the hallway, alerting Mary, who was on duty in the Hospital, to her presence. The cherubic girl had a round face and blond curls cut off at her chin, making her look like she belonged in the 1920s. Sometimes Lily thought that Mary was the only one really cut out for this particular role in the Order; her natural nurturing skills made her the perfect Healer. Mary MacDonald was a former Hufflepuff, a year above Lily in school. She had joined the Order after Lily had been working in the safe house for half a year already; a Muggleborn as well, her family had died in the Derbyshire Massacre of 1979, leaving Mary with no other prospects and a fire burning in her heart for justice. At this moment, her gentle smile was turned towards a rather familiar looking boy with shaggy blonde hair who was smiling wanly back as she held a cool compress to his forehead.

"Remus?" Lily asked in shock, taking in her old friend's presence.

It had been over a year since the two of them had talked. Formerly fellow Gryffindor prefects, they had always been good friends. Remus was a shy, intelligent, and kind boy, all traits that Lily valued to the highest degree. Privately, she had always believed that the word that best described him was "demure", but she had never told him that in case it offended his sense of masculinity. They had bonded over their irritation at the habit of the other Gryffindors of their year of never studying for class, instead depending on their nerve and sheer dumb luck to make it through. Remus and Lily's perfectionism was a bit of an oddity in their house, a trait that was more commonly seen in Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and they had enjoyed being able to openly admit their petty frustrations.

Lily never truly understood how Remus could posses all of these characteristics, and yet still run around with the likes of James Potter and Sirius Black. The two boys were picturesque Gryfifindors: irresponsible, arrogant, and utterly charming. They, along with Remus and their other roommate Peter Pettigrew, had the same kind of popularity as a Muggle boy band: based on a rebellious bad-boy image and mysterious exclusivity. They even had given themselves a ridiculously cheesy name: The Marauders. Although Lily generally got along with Remus, and even (every once in a blue moon) the others, the four of them together proved to be the bane of her existence at Hogwarts.

Lily had always been viewed as a bit of a freak as a kid. The mothers of her Muggle friends whispered that she was a bit too imaginative for her age, and that strange and unexplainable things seemed to happen around her. Petunia, her older sister, hated anything out of the ordinary, and would bully Lily relentlessly whenever she did anything "freakish". Consequently, she had entered Hogwarts painfully self-conscious, and hoping for a new start in which she could be anonymous and completely normal (at least, under these new circumstances).

Unfortunately, the four boys that were the Gryffindor counterparts of her year had no intention of allowing her to stay under the radar. They teased, pranked, and goaded her until the temper that she worked so hard to keep under wraps came out blazing. Their taunting brought out her competitive side, and she ruthlessly crushed them under the weight of her stack of "Outstanding" assignments. She could not stand idly by while they bullied other students, and somehow standing up to them made her a leader in the school. Looking back, she realized she should probably thank them; they had saved her from a life of endless boredom. However, she was not in Gryffindor for nothing, and her pride would never allow that.

Although a bit troublesome, the four boys were Gryffindor to the core, and it was no surprise when they, too, joined the Order. At first she had dreaded having to continue to work with them (she had assumed she would be finally, gloriously free of their harassment after graduation) but after being exiled to Inverness, she only saw them a couple of times a year at the Order meetings that she was able to make when she was not on duty in either the hospital or the pub.

The past year had not been friendly to Remus Lupin, Lily surmised sadly. A few new scars had cropped up on his face, and he looked even shabbier than he had in school. If he was standing in the middle of a field, she might have mistaken him for a scarecrow.

"Evans!" the young man replied, cracking a weary smile, "I was wondering when you'd show up. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

"Oh nonsense, silly boy," Lily smiled teasingly back, "If I had known you were here I would have come running in a heartbeat." She turned to Mary now, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you would have come running in a heartbeat," Mary teased, "The lads brought him yesterday afternoon, while you were still asleep. Dorcas and I didn't want to wake you, we haven't seen you sleep more than four hours in nearly three weeks, and we were just so relieved¾"

"Yes, yes, and then I was on duty in the pub and it didn't make sense, yes," Lily interrupted, squirming nervously in her seat. She didn't want Mary to broadcast her insomnia to the rest of the Order, she couldn't stand to look weak in a group were her very blood made her a liability. "Speaking of rest, shift is over Mary, off to bed with you," the redhead said, shooing her friend away. The blonde gave her a stern look, knowing that she was changing the subject on purpose, but letting it go for now. She gathered up her healing potions, bidding them both goodnight, even as the first hints of sunrise began to bloom. She turned back before she exited, looking at Remus to say, " Make sure she eats, please."

"Why'd you tell him?" she protested, "I'm the caretaker here!"

"Oh Lily, we all know that you can take care of anyone but yourself," Mary laughed, as if it was the most obviously thing in the world. Remus grinned back in agreement. Lily felt like she was still missing the joke here.

"Oh, go away Mary, leave me with my secret lover," Lily cried dramatically, flinging her arms around Remus. She withdrew hastily when he flinched a bit from the unexpected contact. She giggled at him, "Oops, sorry lover."

"I always knew you were into a Marauder, I just had my money on the wrong one," Mary giggled, grinning conspiratorially at the boy. He grinned back, and once again Lily felt like she was being left out.

"Oi! You! Bed!" the redhead commanded Mary, who yawned as if on cue and waved goodbye. Lily turned back to her new ward. "Now, Remus, I am going to need you to spend the next eight hours filling me in on every detail of they outside world," she stated, placing her hand commandingly (but more gently this time) on his arm, "I have not left this damn bar in weeks. Maybe months. Is the sun still warm? I remember it used to be like that." She grinned, letting him know that she was joking, even though it felt painfully true sometimes.

"Are you not going to even ask what battle your brave hero has returned from?" Remus joked, pretending to flex his arms.

Lily laughed, but her eyes flickered to the window automatically where the moon was descending to make way for the sun. She thought it was rather obvious why he had shown up: the night before had been the full moon, and she assumed that this was the kind of discreet healing ward that a werewolf would appreciate for their recovery.

Although Remus had never explicitly told her he was a werewolf, she had guessed pretty early on. One of the benefits of being an insomniac was that she knew pretty much everything that went on in the castle at night, and more than once had seen Remus making his way to the Whomping Willow with Madam Pomfrey at his side on the night of the full moon. It was pretty easy to put the pieces together, and she had figured it out halfway through second year. He had never told her, though, and she had never pressed. She guarded her own privacy ferociously, and felt no need to ask a question that she already knew the answer to if it was only going to make him feel uncomfortable.

She remembered one night, at the beginning of sixth year, when she had been sitting in the common room early in the morning. As it often did, Lily's anxieties about her school, work, family, and generally uncertain future was keeping her mind too occupied to relax and fall asleep. She refused to use the sleeping draughts that her roommates often tried to slip her, claiming they made her brain feel hazy the next day. Instead, she had a system where if she could not get to sleep by two in the morning she just pulled an all-nighter. The adrenaline high would get her through the rest of the day, and she was usually gloriously exhausted by the end of the day and was able to sleep through the night. She knew it was an unhealthy habit, and vowed every weekend to finally get her sleep schedule back on track, but never seemed to follow through.

On this particular night, she had used a charm she had come up with to amplify the light of the full moon to do her homework by. She preferred the cool white light of the moon to the sleepy warmth of the fire; it gave her an edge that helped her to focus on her work. If she wasn't going to sleep, might as well be productive. She had watched several hours earlier as Remus had been walked down to the Willow. She could tell by his limping gait that it was going to be a rough transformation, and had written a note to remind herself to charm her collection of chocolates to show up in his school bag randomly throughout the following day.

Lily jumped when the portrait hole suddenly creaked open, her green eyes open wide like a startled doe as she whipped her head around to take in the intruders. The three boys walking in weren't exactly intruders, she supposed they had just as much right to be in the common room as she did. However, Lily viewed this time at night as so private that it felt like a crime for anyone to encroach on it. The guilty looks on the faces of James, Sirius, and Peter only seemed to further this belief, and the redhead drew herself up to begin one of her famous tirades about being out after curfew. She had even opened her mouth, but stopped herself when she remembered what night it was: full moon. No matter how furious their blatant disregard for rules made her, and how much they risked the House Cup, she realized that more than likely they were out in order to support their werewolf friend in some capacity.

James Potter had stepped in front of his two friends protectively, staring her down as if daring her to berate them. She met his stare proudly, making sure he knew that she did not approve of his rule breaking, before give him a small nod. He nodded back cautiously, and she turned back towards her homework. All she had to do was tell herself very firmly that no, she had never seen these boys, and suddenly the whole encounter had never happened.

"What the hell was that?" Sirius had whispered fervently, presumably to James. He said nothing, and soon Lily heard their feet on the stairs and the door to their dormitory closing.

Remus coughed awkwardly, bringing Lily back to the present. She briefly wondered why she had fixated on that memory in particular, but Lily had always made a point to actively avoid analyzing herself too much, and just let it slide. There were more important things at hand, including the guilty and slightly fearful look on her friend's face.

"Remus," she began somberly. The werewolf immediately tensed up, and she sighed sadly, "Remus, I am so sorry. I figured it out in second year, I didn't mean to, and I promise I never told anyone. I know it's your secret to tell, I am so sorry for prying." Lily looked ashamedly at her hands, hoping that her friend could find it in his heart to forgive her. She kept in mind however, the old Muggle saying: curiosity killed the cat.

"Wait, are you being serious?" Remus scoffed in what Lily assumed was an indignant tone, "Second year?"

"I know, I understand if you are angry, but I promise I never told¾"

Lily was suddenly enveloped in a strong hug. Remus released her, still holding her by the shoulders and staring at her in wonder. "You knew the whole time? And never treated me any differently? Lily, you do realize how completely rare that is for me, right?"

"Well, you never held me acting like a totally insane woman around your friends against me so we're even," Lily blurted out, immediately embarrassed, but incredibly pleased when it made her friend bark with laughter.

"You know, James always told me you knew. He said you figured it out in sixth year. We always figured he was just making it up because¾" Remus stopped himself, clearing his throat awkwardly before continuing, "Anyways, sorry for keeping it from you all those years. The usual reaction I get is horror and disgust, not hugs, so…" He trailed off for a moment, before a wide grin spread across his face as he realized, "You were the one who always made sure I had chocolate in my bag, weren't you?"

She grinned back, although her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, "It was the only way I could take care of you, I am a compulsive mother-er."

"Well, I appreciate it," he said, "Although, I think Sirius ended up eating most of it, the bugger."

"Speaking of buggers, where is the rest of your little gang?"

"We're not a gang," Sirius said smoothly as he swept into the room, "We are a secret gentleman's society."

"I don't think anyone could call you gentlemen and keep a straight face," Lily snorted, smiling at the new arrival. He was dressed impeccably, as always, in a set of plush black robes over a tailored pinstriped suit. It never ceased to amaze her how far wizarding society was behind the Muggle world, particularly when it came to fashion. It seemed like they were just now reaching the 1920's.

"You wound me, Evans," Sirius replied, solemnly placing a hand over his heart. Peter had trailed in next, wearing blown robes over a brown tweed suit. The combination was almost overwhelmingly plain. His jolly grin at the sight of his friends made up for it, though; for all his faults, Peter had a truly lovely smile.

"I think your ego can handle a few blows," Lily said, rolling her eyes at the dark-haired man, "In fact, it's so formidable I think I could spend three hours a day doing nothing but insult you, and you wouldn't even flinch." She turned to the other man next, smiling kindly, "Hello Peter, it's nice to see you again."

"You too, Evans," the young wizard replied, smiling abashedly. He was not used to being so directly singled out amongst the overpowering personalities of his friends.

James Potter was the last of the Marauders to enter the room. He looked just as he did during the school days: shirt carelessly rumpled and unbuttoned at the top, with his tie hanging loose around his neck, jet black hair mussed as if he had just flown through a hurricane, and somehow, despite being a wizard his entire life, he had once again forgotten his robes. "Padfoot, you'll never guess who I ran into earlier today at the Order meeting. Emmeline Vance, remember her? Great arse, even better snog¾" he stopped mid-sentence when he saw Lily seated primly in the center of his friends, as if holding court. "Fuck. I mean¾shit. I just¾Merlin." The messy-haired boy turned around and walked right out of the room.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Lily asked the three other wizards, who had expressions varying from amusement to absolute horror.

"Nothing," Peter and Remus said at the same time that Sirius stated, "I'll deal with it," and strode out of the room. The three remaining sat in awkward silence, pretending not to hear the (loud) conversation trailing in from the hallway.

"Shit, Padfoot, what the hell is she doing here?"

"Don't look at me, Prongs, I just got here too! Using context clues, though, I would say that she is one of the Order members on duty here."

"But she's supposed to be in Inverness!"

"We are in Inverness!"

"I thought this was Galway?"

"Definitely Inverness."

"Shit."

"You should really watch your language, Prongs, you are becoming a right foul-mouth." This was delivered with a heavy dose of sarcasm. "Also, your geography could use some work."

"Shut up, Pads. I never would have agreed to bring Moony here if I had known she was going to be here. You know I can never keep my head on straight when I'm around her."

"Well, it's too late now, so grow some bollocks and get back in there." There was a sigh, and the two wizards re-entered the room.

Lily was horrified to realize that tears had slowly been growing in her eyes as she listened to this encounter. Before anyone could utter a word, she stood up abruptly, saying coldly, "Happy to see you too, Potter. I'll be back in an hour to check on you, Remus." With her back ramrod straight, she strode out of the room before a single tear could fall.