Lily knew James was smart, funny, kind and responsible. She knew he was creative, that he knew the value of laughter and that he was far from humble. She knew that he took care of his friends with everything that he had. She knew that he was most definitely not a soulless cretin and that he loved her more than she ever thought anyone could and she knew all of these things before she started dating him. What she didn't realize until after she agreed to go out with him was that these things were piling on his shoulders until he was hunched under the weight of the world and it was all he could do not to throw it off and watch it shatter.

There were the constant things that weighed on him – the way that Remus was exhausted all the time by the self-hatred he kept locked away in the dark and the way it burst out of him in droves around the full moon; the way Sirius was just a little too loud, a little too flirtatious and a little too smart mouthed because under the surface he was bubbling with anger and violence and love for a brother he hated; the way Peter wore his inadequacy like a cloak, letting only his closest friends catch glimpses of what was underneath. And there were the new things like the gathering darkness on the horizon, the inexplicable disappearances, the way students at Hogwarts seemed to watch the fear gather around the edges of the grounds like dementors waiting to pounce on them as they left, the lines being drawn in the sand and the hesitancy as people stepped to one side or the other.

Trying to dispel all of these things, trying to keep laughing and pranking and entertaining, trying to act like nothing was wrong while all the while keeping track of his friends and shouldering their weight was burying him and Lily didn't know how to comfort him, how to take some of the weight or at least let him know that she knew and she cared without breaking his concentration and bringing the whole house of cards tumbling down.

She thought maybe she was adding to the weight, making it harder, especially when the Mudblood comments got louder, the insults and taunting got more obscene and James had to add defending her and controlling his reactions to his never ending laundry list of responsibilities. She thought that maybe if she disappeared into the woodwork, removed herself from the equation it would get better for him, get easier. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. She loved how safe he made her feel too much, and anyway she thought he looked a little less tense, that his shoulders were a little less hunched when she took his hand. She might be imagining it, but she felt guilty either way. Guilty and safe verses absolved and alone was a choice she had already made and forced herself not to question.

So she kept smiling at him, and laughing at even the bad jokes and holding his hand under their desks in class and hoped actively every second of the day that they came out of this unscathed. But it all came to a head on Valentine's Day.

James and Lily had agreed to keep their Valentine's Day low key. With NEWTs coming up, the Quidditch finals and heads stuff, they were entirely too busy to make a big deal out of one day. Lily had volunteered to watch the Quidditch practice and then she and James were going to spend a quiet evening relaxing and enjoying each other's company. Just before practice, however, she met James as he was leaving.

"James!" she called as she jogged to catch up to him and Sirius before they went outside. He stopped and smiled as he turned to face her.

"I was wondering where you were," he answered leaning over to kiss her on the cheek as she stopped just in front of him. "You ready to go?"

"Yea, about that…" she looked at her toes because she didn't want to see his face fall. "Its freezing outside, and I have a headache and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I watched from that alcove on the 6th floor. I can see practically everything, and I won't get sick and-"

"It's fine Lils," he cut her off with a smile and she looked up at him sheepishly. "I didn't think about the weather. You should definitely stay inside. I'll come find you after." He ran his hand over her hair as he spoke, letting his fingers trail down her back, stopping firmly at her waist and pulling her towards him.

"Love you," she said, pulling him closer to her by the collar of the sweater he was wearing under his Quidditch robes. He grinned before meeting her lips in a scintillating kiss.

"Alright, lovebirds!" Sirius yelled, practically in their ears. "You're just doing that to be obnoxious now." James pulled away from Lily to glare at his best friend. "Oh come on James, if we don't hurry up, Brandt is going to start leading practice and then we'll never get him to shut up."

"Love you too, Lily," James said quietly before pecking her on the forehead and turning to leave with Sirius.

Hours later she woke with a start in the alcove where she had huddled in one of James' sweaters to watch Quidditch practice. It was dark outside now and she had no idea what woke her, only that her face was freezing where it had been pressed against the window pane. She jumped up, slipping her boots on before running off down the corridor in the direction of the heads suite to meet James. She figured practice must have just ended because if she wasn't in the entrance hall to meet him, James would have pulled the map out and come looking for her.

She was nearing the secret passage way near the hospital wing, the one that lead straight to the entrance hall when she heard James' voice muttering quietly. She stopped for a moment to figure out which direction he was coming from, but didn't have to think about it long because James and Sirius turned the corner just ahead of her.

James was walking a little way bit behind Sirius, his hand on Sirius's shoulder, his knuckles white as he muttered. As they got closer to Lily, she could hear James saying quietly "Just let it go, Padfoot, please just let it go. Keep walking." Lily turned as they approached so she could walk next to James, seeing as she did that he had scrapes on his knuckles and a bruise forming on his wrist.

"James! What happened?" she demanded as she ran her fingers lightly over the hand that was holding his broom.

"Some Slytherins ambushed us at practice," he said tightly. "It got a little violent." She gave him a questioning look, but before she could ask, Sirius interjected.

"Some Slytherins?! A little violent?! Jesus fucking Christ, James, tell the story right at least." He was walking slower now, and Lily could see the muscles in James's arm tense as they kept Sirius moving forward. "It was my idiot, pansy ass brother and my succu-bitch of a cousin and their death-eater-in-training minions. And Aiden and Elena are in the hospital wing, along with Peter. How do you think that's going to fucking work out for Saturday's match, huh?" Sirius's voice was hoarse even as he shouted.

"Just keep walking, Sirius. Dumbledore knows what happened, he's taking care of it. You don't need to get in trouble to make this better. Just keep walking, please." James was practically begging. Lily thought it was the note of desperation in his voice that kept Sirius walking more than the hand on his shoulder, but then again, she wasn't even sure that this was something Sirius noticed.

They had been walking in silence for only a minute or so when they started to hear footsteps behind them. It was another thirty seconds before they heard the taunting and Sirius stopped walking all together.

"I'll take care of it, James," Lily said, giving Sirius a stern look. "You guys just keep going."

James eyed her warily, but nodded. "Alright, but shout if it gets out of hand." She rolled her eyes and kissed him on the cheek.

She looked back at James and Sirius even as she stopped directly in front of the three hooded Slytherins. It may not have been the best idea, but she wanted James and Sirius to be out of hearing range when she started. Unfortunately they hadn't progressed. Lily thought that they seemed to have moved backwards.

"Its past curfew for those who aren't in sixth or seventh year," she said, gesturing with her wand so that the three boys' hoods fell off.

"Ooooh, curfew, how dangerous!" One of them laughed maliciously. Lily rolled her eyes again.

"Maybe not, but potentially humiliating for you if I have to return you to your common rooms dangling by your ankles." Lily was usually one for following the rules, and maybe this was James' influence, but somewhere in the back of her head she heard a voice telling her that the time for playing nice had past. She would give them every opportunity to return to their common rooms on their own, but after that she could make no promises.

The one in the middle responded this time, his voice suddenly harsh and demanding. "What is the little mudblood head girl going to do about it, huh? You're pathetic and useless and I think we'll be taking our wand back- iliviara!"

Lily gasped in pain as she felt the skin of her cheek splitting open, but she had barely raised her wand to respond when Sirius was suddenly in front of her and before she really understood what was going on, two of the boys were on the floor and the third was trying very hard to not let Sirius snap his wand in half. Lily was about to throw up a shield charm in between the two of them when she heard James's voice behind her.

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" he yelled, his voice hoarse and angry. Sirius and all three of the Slytherins fell over, frozen.

Lily stared wide eyed, her breath coming in short gasps as James turned her around roughly. "I didn't know you could do that…" she breathed as James ran his thumb over the cut in her cheek.

"I can't believe them. Are you alright?" his voice sounded like sandpaper, but his face was relaxed as he ran his wand over the line and it mended quickly.

"I'm fine, James. Why don't you get Sirius back to the Gryffindor common room, and I'll handle the Slytherins." He opened his mouth to protest. "Please," she cut him off. "Sirius is going to be really pissed when you unfreeze him. He's much scarier than some idiot fifth year Slytherins who aren't going to be unfrozen until they are in their common room." She could practically see all four boys on the floor glaring but she gave Sirius a sympathetic smile before levitating the other three.

"Fine, you're right. But at least throw the cloak over them so you won't get in trouble for 'unconventional' punishments," he smiled a bit as he quoted unconventional with his fingers. "They'll fire me for being a terrible influence on you."

"Fair point." She kissed James quickly. "Your future is in my hands."

The walk to the Slytherin common room was quiet. She didn't even run into any of the ghosts. In fact, she had the entire walk to think about the fact that this essentially meant she was going to have to talk to Severus again. She hadn't spoken to him in at least a year.

Luckily, as she neared the common room, a young second or third year girl was approaching the common room door. When she saw Lily she looked absolutely terrified.

"I was just going to send a letter to my mom! I'm sorry! I know I'm missing curfew. Please don't-"

Lily smiled at her kindly, albeit a little forced. The girl almost ran into the cloaked Slytherins still floating in the air. "You're not in trouble," she reassured the girl. "Can you just get Severus Snape for me please?" The little girl nodded quickly and practically fell over herself getting inside. Lily couldn't help but feel a little pleased – she still had authority over someone, at least.

When Severus stepped outside of his common room, she had already pulled the invisibility cloak off of the fifth years who had attacked her and set them lightly on the ground. She could tell that he had set his face so that he wouldn't react to her, but he couldn't help but raise his eyes at the paralyzed boys on the floor.

"You should inform the students in your house that attacking the head girl is not only disrespectful, ignorant and against the rules but that it really won't end well for them, as evidenced by this," she said coldly, gesturing to the boys on the floor. "Deal with it."

She was impressed with herself that she was able to walk away calmly without showing any outward signs of having heard Severus call after her.

Walking into the Grffindor common room to wait for James, she was immediately hailed to the arm chairs by the fire by Alice, but she also noticed that most of the room was quiet and nervously glancing at the ceiling where the muffled shouts of James and Sirius could be heard along with the occasional thump.

"What is going on with those two?" Alice asked excitedly. "James floated a paralyzed Sirius up there twenty minutes ago!"

Lily relayed the story, appreciating that Alice gasped, exclaimed and expressed anger in all the right places, but she couldn't help but pause every few seconds to listen to the sounds coming from above them. It was only the way Alice said "Oh, Lily, they'll be fine. They fight all the time. What happened next?" that kept pulling the words out of her throat.

"Those death-eaters in training are getting way out of hand. I don't know that I really expected it to go this far…" she said when Lily had finished. "We're going to have to do something about this."

"I don't know what we really can do. And, on top of this, James has been so tense lately and I can't seem to help it at all. I think I make it worse…"

"Lily, don't be ridiculous. Anyone can see that you're the only thing that keeps him together," Alice said kindly. "And the way he looks- Oh hey James, Sirius." Throughout their conversation, Lily hadn't noticed the end of the fight upstairs but now they were standing behind her chair, Sirius looking at her sheepishly.

"Hey guys," she said, standing up quickly. "Everything alright?"

"Sure," Sirius answered. "I'm sorry for losing it like that, flower. I can keep it together better than that, and I'm sure you would have handled it just fine."

Lily wrapped her arms around him, smiling. "It's alright, Sirius. We all lose it sometimes." She pulled back, glancing at James and trying to keep her worry off her face. "I'll see you tomorrow, Alice," she said after a moment, taking James his hand and starting to walk toward the portrait hole. She missed Alice's response as she crawled out behind James.

They walked back to the heads' suite slowly, and quietly. Lily wasn't quite sure what to say, and in any case she didn't want to start what would inevitably be a conversation in the middle of the hallway.

"I'm just going to go change," she said softly, once they were inside their suite. "James," he looked up at her, surprised. "You have blood on your shirt, you should go change too." He nodded but didn't seem to move as Lily made her way into her own room.

When she came back down, James's sweater now up against her skin and wearing her pajama shorts, James was sitting on the floor shirtless, but still in his jeans. His back was up against the couch, his elbows resting on his knees. Lily sat down next to him. When she placed her hand on his back, she could feel his muscles trembling beneath her finger tips.

"I'm sorry I didn't come to practice today James," she started. "I was watching, but I guess I fell asleep because I missed the whole incident."

"It was enough that Peter ended up unconscious," James said flatly. "If you had been there I would have lost it immediately."

She tried not to be hurt. She knew what he meant, but there was something in his voice that brought back the feeling that if she weren't in his life, she could remove some of the weight. "Well," she said trying not to inject a note of pettiness into her voice. "I don't want to make things more difficult for you. Maybe I should-" She nearly jumped out of her skin at the speed and sudden movement with which James jumped up.

"God, Lily. I saw the letters you were trying to write me. You're the only thing that keeps me sane. The only thing at all. I can't even…why would you think…" he was incoherent, stumbling over his words as he began pacing. His voice was cracked and angry and hard and heated and she pulled herself up onto the couch because she couldn't see him when she was on the floor, but she was uncomfortable and a little scared and wanted to stay seated.

"I can't do this anymore. It's too much. Too much everything and I'm losing control of everything and its overwhelming and falling apart and dangerous and I'm terrified and angry and you're scaring me. And Sirius and Remus are in too much to help and Peter can't even see straight he's so obliterated with fear all the time and I hate everything. God. Why is everything so fucking much all the time." He had stopped pacing and the air was heavy and thick and his breathing was the only sound for a few moments. The ragged sound seemed to pull Lily off the couch, but the sound of her footsteps was flat and after a moment she stopped walking, entirely unsure if James even knew she was there anymore.

He punched the wall, and Lily clapped her hand over her mouth because the brick should have broken his bones and she hadn't realized that there was no cracking sound. James seemed to realize this too because he looked interested as he flexed his fingers seemingly without pain. He hit the wall again, this time with the other hand. And then he was punching the wall repeatedly, the sound broken and ugly and seemingly painless. All Lily had in return was an instinct to stop him born of muggle years of seeing broken knuckles.

She moved quickly but James only stopped when she had placed herself between him and the wall. He glared at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to shove her out of the way or continue punching the wall around her. But then his hands were on her neck and he was kissing her and it was angry and passionate and fierce and beautiful all at once and she couldn't think anymore, letting her body move of its own accord to throw her arms around his neck and jump up so that her legs were wrapped around his waist.

The surprise of the added weight made James stumble backwards, one hand wrapping around Lily's waist and the other reaching backwards to find something, anything to hold onto so they could keep their balance. It was a losing battle. They ended up on the hardwood part of the floor, Lily straddling James, placing open mouth kisses on every bit of skin she could find. James could hardly stand to remove her mouth from his skin and so ripped his sweater over her head as quickly as he could. He soon realized that removing his jeans and her shorts would be even harder and so moved to remove all remaining clothing as quickly as possible.

In the hurried sweaty tumble of clothing removal with hurried kisses being placed everywhere at once so that neither Lily or James seemed to be able to distinguish lips from skin from tongues from teeth, Lily ended up laying on the ground, James hovering over her, his eyes burning and his tongue carving burn patterns on her skin.

What happened next, Lily was sure she would remember for the rest of her life and yet she couldn't give you the play by play if you threatened her life.

James seemed to be everywhere at once holding her together and breaking her apart as his fingers grazed bundles of nerves, sliding around, under, over, in, out of her skin, arching his back as she returned the favor, her fingers sliding over his shaft feeling his pulsing energy marching onward in time with her own. When he slid into her even the way it hurt was a beautiful explosion of lights making her gasp in pain and pleasure, feeling the way his muscles clenched with the effort of holding back just a little so that he wouldn't kill her with his love.

They reached the end at the same time, falling over and under past it until they were screaming each other's names, breathing love and fear and passion and anger into each other's skin with what felt like hours and hours and infinite hours of pleasure and pain as they came together and broke apart.

It was hard to tell where her skin ended and his began but Lily found, as she drifted off to sleep, her forehead pressed to James chest and the comforting silence broken only by their heavy breathing, that she just didn't care.

She had expected to wake up on the floor, to find herself sore and raw and naked on floor of the heads' suite, her skin still stuck to James's. She would contemplate the irony of being confused about waking up in a bed later. She was still naked but surprisingly comfortable, the sheets laying softly against her skin. She was mostly disoriented, however, by the fact that she was in James bed, but very much alone.

It wasn't until she sat up, pulling the sheet so that it covered her up to her collar bone that she realized that James was dozing in a chair in the corner of the room. She was just decided whether or not to get out of bed and wake him up even though they had an hour before their alarms would go off when he woke with a start.

"James what are you doing over there?" She asked into the silence, fear growing in the pit of her stomach because he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"I didn't want…" he started and her eyes began to burn. "I didn't know if…" he tries to start again and a tear slips down her cheek. "I was afraid…" this time she knows he didn't mean to continue and she can't stop her lungs from trying to pull short gasps of air in through her mouth, the mouth that he…

He finally looked at her, the ragged sound of her breathing pulling his eyes up to meet her and in a the flash of a moment he was in front of her, wiping the tears away from her eyes with his thumb. "Lily, Lily stop crying. What's wrong, love?" His voice was hoarse, but he started pulling back from her as she calmed, looking like he hadn't meant to do that at all.

"James, what are you trying to tell me? Was I bad?" She spoke quietly, forcing her lips to form the words, pulling them out even though all she really wanted to do was disappear. "It was my first…I mean, I can…" but the sentence died on her lips when she saw his facial expression.

"God, no, Lily, it was incredible, it was better than anything I could have possibly imagined." She allowed herself to feel relief, to enjoy the way his eyes glazed over as he remembered it. But she was still concerned.

"Then what…"

"I wanted to apologize," he said moving to sit in front of her on the bed. She didn't have a chance to tell him there was nothing to apologize for before he started talking again. "I was rough and angry and it was too much and I knew it was your first time and I still couldn't stop myself. I probably hurt you, I was afraid you were scared, that you'd hate me." He couldn't, wouldn't, meet her eyes.

"James, look at me." When he didn't look up, she put her hand lightly beneath his chin and pulled his face up to meet hers. "It was incredible for me too. Yea, it was a lot. But it was also the most amazing experience of my life." His eyes still wouldn't meet hers. "I knew you would stop if I asked you too, James." These words are quiet, soothing, honest in the same way the sheet falls bearing her skin to him. It takes a moment but his eyes come up to hers eventually, scanning for any sense of fear, any lies. But he finds none.

It takes a minute, a long, searching minute. But he smiles eventually – the slow, sexy smirk that got her the first time her thoughts betrayed her, the first time she thought "hot damn" when she meant to think "arrogant jackass," – and it's like he knows. He leans forward, pressing his lips against hers in a slow, sizzling kiss that makes her ache, leaning against her until she's back against the pillows again. He slides his jeans off and crawls beneath the sheets with her.

This time, its slow and agonizingly sweet. He teases every inch of her skin until she is tingling on the brink. When he slides into her, she can feel his muscles shaking with the effort of slow torture and she curses him more than once – but its love and she feels it surrounding her squeezing and pushing and sliding and pulling until her nerves are firing off and she is seeing blinding white lights and hears him moan her name in her ear. It's a sound she never forgets (when she dies, she'll hear it ringing in her ears and it drowns out the fear – an alarming and beautiful triumph she'll never be able to express. With that sound, they win).

They shower separately or they'll be late, but she tightens his tie and he straightens her skirt and they both are trembling with the sweetness of it.

At breakfast they can't stop smiling.

"Oh for the love of god, Prongs," Sirius says as he sits down in front of them.

"What?"

"Lean forward," Sirius demands, and when James does Sirius rubs a thumb roughly over his cheek bone. James smacks his hand away.

"What the hell are you doing, Pads?" he demands.

"You have a little bit of sex afterglow left on your face," Sirius smirks.

James lets Lily do the honors of smacking him on the back of his head.

Things were still too much. James still hunched under the weight of the world and Lily still watched him fearfully. But now, instead of taking his hand and absorbing only a teaspoon of his laundry list, she takes him, absorbing it all. For a few moments he is free, and it saves him every time he looks at her. (When he dies it is with the sound hope makes, that maybe this time he can return the favor and do the saving. When she materializes next to him he hates himself a little because he is overwhelmed with relief that he doesn't have to do this without her.)