The Next Great Adventure (A Marauders Fan Fic)

Chapter Sixty

“You have a point, I suppose,” she conceded eventually.

“Thank you.”

“You’re insufferable.” She subsided into silence and James waited just as quietly, desperate for her answer. “Fine,” she said. “If I tell them I can’t come in much any more, even though they need as many of the Healers as they can get, will you let me go back to sleep.”

“Yes,” he replied, utterly astonished.

“And, for the record, I’d been considering doing that ever since Dumbledore mentioned stepping up everyone’s commitment to the Order last week.”

The next day, Lily and James returned to their flat to collect their things. They decided that enough time had elapsed for them to be relatively safe and, because they wouldn’t be there for very long, they could go back.

“I would rather go back and risk it,” Lily was whispering as they climbed the stairs, “than have to spend another day trying to find something to wear.”

“What have you been wearing Lily?” Sirius asked. They had recruited him and Cassie to go with them and provide back up while they tided everything away.

“Um… let’s just say that it’s a good thing Dorea hoards all of her clothes and that I can wash things.”

The door of their flat was still hanging off its hinges and Sirius shook his head as they passed it. “Can see why you wanted to move. Have to preserve the beautiful memories of our time here together.”

“Exactly,” James replied.

When they moved into the sitting room Sirius whimpered. “My beautiful flat! What have they done to you?” It wasn’t necessarily that much worse than what the two boys had done when they were experimenting with new spells or just messing around - among other things they had once managed to set an armchair on fire and, on multiple occasions, had torn the curtains down - but, because the damage had been done by Death Eaters, Sirius actually cared about it.

Lily and Cassie stood in the middle of the room, and Lily, with her wand raised, returned everything to its previous state. The flat fixed itself around them and, when it was finished after a couple of minutes, everything began to shrink. Finally all of their things packed themselves into two boxes which James pulled out of a bag, and then Cassie shrank the boxes down as well. Sirius picked one up, and James picked up the other, and the four of them left as quickly as they had come.

When they were a few streets away, James attached the boxes to his broom and hugged Sirius and Cassie goodbye. “See you next week then,” he said before he mounted his broom and kicked off. “I’ll see you in an hour or so Lily,” he called.

“You could just come back with us for a bit,” Sirius suggested as James vanished. “Our flat’s safe and James will probably get lost, seeing as how he’s an idiot and all.”

“What did you do?” she asked warily.

“Nothing!” he replied. “But you can’t deny that he is an idiot.”

“He’s cleverer than you Sirius,” Cassie muttered.

“Yeah but I accepted long ago that I’m a moron.” The girls chuckled and Sirius, in his usual exuberant manner, pranced off; attempting to swing himself round a telephone pole, he hung there for a second before landing back on the ground and bowing.

“Fabulous,” they called as he moved into a curtsey.

It didn’t take long for her friends to prevail upon her to go back with them and, while James flew their things to Godric’s Hollow, she sat in the warm sitting room which had once been hers. The time passed quickly as they chatted and, before too long, she left them and returned to the cold outside. Shoving her hands deep into her pockets, she hurried down the street, stopping on a dark corner to Disapparate.