ᴅɪsᴘᴇʟ ᴍʏ ʙᴏʀᴇᴅᴏᴍ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴅᴇᴜʀs' ᴇʀᴀ

Epilogue 1: Lily and James, June 1980

Lily walked around the house, charmingly red-haired, with angry freckles all over her face, and pot-bellied. Everything and everyone around annoyed her. She didn't like the new cream curtains with golden bird patterns; she didn't like the kettle whistling on the stove; she didn't like the pear cake and especially didn't like James-freaking-Potter. He sang along with the magical radio. He was walking wrong. He smiled wrong. He even breathed wrong.

James turned around to the creak of the floorboards, noticed round Lily puffing with anger and beamed with a happy smile. Lily suppressed an immediate desire to pour boiling water into his face. Spoons and forks on the table rattled dangerously.

James instantly took up a defensive stance and raised his hands conciliatorily. Only now Lily noticed that all of James was in flour, especially his apron with hares. For a second, she was touched, but then she remembered how this apron and this man annoyed her, and boiled with anger again.

"Lily, sunshine! Remember what the doctor taught us? Breathe in and breathe out. In and out!"

Fork fell off the table and stuck right where James's head was a second ago. Lily exhaled.

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "But I'm so angry with you now. I don't know why. I can't control it!"

Nobody said magical pregnancy would be easy.

James dodged projectiles with the deftness of the best chaser of the team. The doctor said to be patient for another month, and at that moment James really wanted to ask him if he meant survive.

They had a wedding, had a row with Dursleys a couple of times (mostly James, who couldn't understand how one can be so primitive and stupid in such a big and interesting world), took part in a considerable number of battles with Death Eaters, and then Lily realized she was pregnant.

It horrified James at first. Then he looked at Lily's frightened, uncertain face, lost his words realizing that Lily Evans was his wife, and was terribly proud of the thought that this goddess would also give birth to his heir.

The same evening, Sirius arrived with a bottle of firewhiskey, Remus with the book 'Tips for the Future Mother', and Peter with a set of donuts. Sirius and James got drunk under the accusatory looks of their friends, and Lily tried to get something out of Remus about Emily. When her attempts failed, and James began to depict a dragonfly, Lily switched to Peter, and he told them that playing double agent made him sick but Dumbledore had high hopes for him, Mulciber watches him, and Eliza almost doesn't show up at home.

Peter told them about his position assigned to him at his seventh year, but only after all members of the Order of the Phoenix took the oath and officially entered the Order. Peter's guesses were true, Dumbledore didn't trust anyone, and only now, he allowed Peter to confess to those who were close to him.

A little later that evening, Peter had a drink too, along with Remus.

Then they sat with Peter in the corner of the cozy kitchen, he was drinking freshly brewed mulled wine, Lily sipped hot milk with honey and cinnamon.

"Tell me, Wormy, what bothers you?" she asked gently when no one could disturb their friendly solitude.

Peter stared with his sick red eyes into the dim surface of his mug. He shrugged and grimaced at his reflection.

"It wasn't so bad at first, we were together all the time. But now I think she has someone."

"Someone?"

"She's often out of house, and I know that she lies about her friends, because she has none. She was a loner at Hogwarts, and she doesn't keep in touch with her father. I think he even stopped writing to her."