It was just after nine when James Apparated back to Godric’s Hollow. The night air struck him like glass—sharp, brittle, cold. His breath fogged white as he made his way up the narrow street, frost slicking the cobbles in silver veins beneath the streetlamps. The village was quiet except for the crunch of his boots and the low hiss of wind through the hedges. When he pushed open the door, the cottage was dark and cold. He shrugged off his cloak, kicked free of his boots, thoughts still in the pub with Evan—the conversation and the implications of his own words looping in his head like a spinning record. Maybe that’s why he didn’t notice her at first. Lily sat on the sofa, motionless, swallowed by shadow.
James moved toward the kitchen, poured himself a Firewhisky, and turned back to start the fire. The winter chill had crept into everything over the last few days—under the windows, beneath the door, under his skin.
“Where were you?”
Her voice in the dark cut through him. James jerked, nearly dropping the glass from his hand.
“Bloody hell,” he said, heart hammering. “You scared the shit out of me.”
He caught his breath, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim room. She was still in her mint-green St Mungo’s robes, arms folded, expression taut. Something was off—the stillness, the way she was watching him, the dark around her like a held breath.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” he asked. And then, another thought occurred, “I thought you were working late tonight?”
“I got home early.” There was a pause, the air heavy.
“Where were you?” she asked again, the chill from outside making its way into her voice, frosty and full of winter.
James frowned, setting his glass down on the mantel. “I went for a drink.”
“Where did you go for a drink?”
“Just a pub,” said James. “Think it was called The Black Bull or something, in Soho.” The lie came easily, slipping off his tongue without thinking.
“You went to a muggle pub in London?” echoed Lily again, and he can see in her eyes that she doesn’t believe him.
“Yeah,” he said, “something wrong with that?”
“Depends,” she said, “who were you with?”
“No one. Needed to get out of the house for a bit, that’s all.”
“Right,” she said. The word landed heavy, dull. “You went for a drink. Alone.”
“Yeah,” he said again this time with a shrug.
Lily looked at him for a long, unbearable moment before uncrossing her arms. Only then did he notice what she was holding—several slips of parchment, five or six at least, edges curled, gripped so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She set them down on the coffee table between them with quiet precision, then leaned back into the sofa, eyes never leaving him.
“What are those?” James asked.
“You tell me.”
He hesitated, then leaned forward and picked up the top piece. The handwriting hit him first—sharp, slanted, unmistakable. His stomach turned to stone. Evan’s handwriting.
Fancy a drink?
Months old—before the watches. James sifted through the rest. Each one was short, economical, gave little away.
We need to talk.
Another:
Usual spot—tomorrow night.
She couldn’t know who they were from, not from these alone. He stopped at the last one, the only one that contained anything important. Evan’s warning from the morning of the Ministry raid:
Rat squeaked. Coming for you today.
James looked up, met her eyes. Green, fixed on him and hard as jade.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
“I found them. In your desk, your drawer beside the bed. Your coat pockets. Your notebook. I went through your things, that’s how desperate I was—how fucking desperate I am—to know what’s going on with you.”
“What’s going on with me?” echoed James, “what does that mean?”
“It means that I am sick and tired of this James,” her voice rises, loud in the still room, “I can’t take it anymore, I feel like I’m going insane—and I hate it. You’re a hundred miles away half the time—and the other half I feel like I don’t even recognise you. I feel like I’m living with a stranger—“
The words hurt, each one slicing through him—all the more painful because he knew they were true, he knew she was right—had felt it himself for months, known he was letting her down. Known he wasn’t the person she’d fallen in love with, known he was wrong—first the grief of Reg, and then the lies, the war, the deaths piling up—it hollowed him out, scooped out the James that she’d fallen in love with and left a different, emptier one in his place, a James full of uncertainty about who he was and what was right, or wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he said, running a hand over his face. “I know I haven’t been myself—”
“I don’t want an apology,” anger, she was angry—he met her eyes and they were hard, “I want an explanation. I deserve a fucking explanation James. Do you love her. Or are you just fucking her. Is that what this is?”
James blinked. For a second he thought he’d misheard.
“What?” he said, confused.
“I said do you love her, or are you just fucking her?”
James stared at her, uncomprehending. His eyes flicked from her to Evan’s notes in his own hand, then back again, mind scrambling to connect the wrong dots. And then it hit him—what she thought this was—and he started to laugh. It burst out of him, rough and breathless—half disbelief, half hysteria, a release, a pressure valve finally snapping open—she wasn’t here to accuse him of sympathising with Death Eaters, or spilling Order secrets—no, she thought he was cheating, with Evan. Merlin. James almost wished that were it, that at least it would be simpler. Simpler than the truth, than the lies he’d been telling—to her, to Sirius, to the Order, to himself, for months—or even years where Regulus was concerned, piling truth upon half-truth until he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. His moral compass spinning more and more off course day by day, the world he thought he knew splitting at the seams, grief and loss and being alone in it all. He didn’t mean to laugh, he wasn’t laughing at her—but at the situation. The absurdity of it all. It didn’t matter. It was, of course, the worst possible reaction he could have had.
Lily’s face darkened, anger flashing into fury—
“How fucking dare you—”
“Sorry,” he said quickly, breathless. He raised his hands in an attempt at surrender, as if could snatch the laugh back. “It’s just—Lil, it’s not what you think—”
“Don’t,” she snapped—sharp, sudden, cutting him off. “Don’t fucking lie to me, James. I am sick of you lying to me.”
“I’m not lying,” he said carefully, keeping his voice low, steady. “Lil—these—” he leaned forward, the notes in his hand, holding them up like evidence. “I don’t know how you got cheating from these—but that’s not what’s going on here. These are from a friend, a friend who’s been helping me out—”
“The person who sent the patronus?” the was no give to her tone.
James let out a breath, “sort of,” he said, "I didn't know it at the time, but yeah—the warning came from him. Not his patronus but sent on his orders by someone close to him.”
“Him?” she asked, slowly—and James nodded.
“Yeah.”
The fight drained out of her all at once, leaving her small, folded in on herself. James frowned, thrown by the sudden change—and then he realised she didn’t know. Didn’t know about Regulus. Didn’t know about him. Because he’d never told her. In her mind, finding out Evan was a man was probably the surest reassurance he could have offered. Guilt rose hard and fast—sharp, nauseating. And with it came an unwelcome flash of memory: seventeen, a broom cupboard, hands raking down his back, a mouth hot and demanding against his, and then the realisation—the embarrassment, wanting the ground to swallow him whole as he realised he’d just kissed Evan. Lily didn’t know about that either. Not that anything was going on with Evan—of course it wasn’t. That would be ridiculous. Accidental broom cupboard kissing aside—it wasn’t like that, they were friends. Evan had never given him any indication that he found him attractive, and even if he did there was no way Evan would ever look at James like that, not the ex boyfriend of his dead best friend. Besides, Evan wasn’t even single. James forced the thought aside and dragged himself back to the present—to Lily.
James sighed. “Look, Lil—there are things I haven’t told you.” He paused, weighing his words, weighing what was safe. What she would believe. What would shift the guilt lodged in his throat—thick, metallic, and unyielding, and what he could reveal without putting Evan in danger. “I’ve been working with someone,” he said slowly. “Someone who’s not in the Order. Someone with connections—someone who can get information.”
It was true, more or less. A version of it, at least—scrubbed of names and history, of everything of the tangled web between him, Evan and Regulus.
“That patronus wasn’t the first time he’s helped me out,” he met her eyes, willing her to see how important this was, how important Evan was—how important keeping his existence secret from the Order was. “We wouldn’t know about Peter if it weren’t for him. He’s responsible for a lot of the information that’s kept people alive.” He exhaled, shoulders heavy. “I didn’t want to lie to you. But I couldn’t risk it. There’s already one spy in The Order, what if there are others and it got out. He’d be killed. I couldn’t expose him, you have to understand that.”
She was staring at him, eyes wide. “He’s not…” she faltered, swallowed hard, then forced the words out. “He’s not one of them, is he?”
“No,” said James at once, instinctive, unthinking because Evan wasn’t. Whatever his reasons were for joining Voldemort, James was sure, positive—willing to bet his own life—that it wasn’t because he believed in what Voldemort stood for. James had never seen a hint that in Evan—he wasn’t one of them. Not really. “I trust him Lil, completely.”
She nods, looks away—then back again. Bit her lip. “There really isn't anyone else?”
“No,” says James, and then— “you really thought that?”
“What was I supposed to think, James?” She looks down at her hands, twisting them in her lap.“ “You barely touch me anymore. You don’t smile. You never laugh. It’s like you’re barely here. That day I saw you talking to that witch in Flourish and Blotts—it was the first time I’d seen you smile in weeks, in months. You sleep on the couch as often as you sleep in the bed. We haven’t had sex in five months—you don’t even kiss me anymore.”
James blinked, thrown. That couldn’t be right. Could it? He opened his mouth to protest, then stopped. The room seemed to tilt. He searched his memory and came up empty. He hadn’t realised—hadn’t noticed. He’d been tired, worn down, stretched thin. There was a war, for Merlin’s sake. Regulus’s death. Then Peter. Evan. Moody. James had nearly died at least four times in the last six months—surely it was natural that sex wasn’t exactly at the top of his priorities? Still, the fact that he couldn’t remember—the exact last time—hit him like a punch.
James exhaled, slow and uneven. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “It’s not you, Lil. It’s the war—it’s everything.” He dragged a hand over his face. Stumble scratched at his fingers. “I know that’s not fair to you. I just—” He broke off, swallowed.
She nodded, barely. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I get it.” She hesitated, then added, almost a whisper, “Just—please don’t lie to me.”
James nodded, the words catching somewhere behind his ribs. “I won’t,” he said.
For a long moment neither of them moved. Then Lily reached for his hand, her touch tentative, warm against his.
They went upstairs together in silence.
In bed, the warmth of her against him felt like something fragile—something borrowed. He held her close, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, soft and clean and heartbreakingly familiar. He should have felt relief. He’d told her the truth, finally—or enough of it to count. The weight should have lifted.
But it hadn’t.
James lay awake long after she’d fallen asleep, her head against his shoulder, and all he felt was guilt. Sharp, persistent—guilt for what exactly, he wasn’t sure. Only that it clawed at his chest as he lay in the dark listening to her even breathing.
The next morning James made an effort—he kissed Lily before she left for work, that morning and each one following, cooked dinner when she came home. He’d slide an arm around her as she curled up beside him on the couch, rested his chin on her head and breathed in the scent of her shampoo. It was good. Familiar. Things felt normal—better, at least on the surface. But underneath, something wouldn’t settle. James couldn’t shake the sense that he was performing, that every smile, every touch was at least a little forced, part of some quiet rehearsal. Pretending—though what he was pretending, he couldn’t quite name. Perhaps to be the version of himself he’d been before.
December dragged its feet. And through it he couldn’t shake it, that deep instinctual feeling that he was just going through the motions, and beneath it a simmering guilt that wouldn’t settle. A guilt he didn’t understand because he’d told her the truth, most of it anyway, he wasn’t lying anymore and yet he felt as if he was. Days bled into one another—grey mornings, long sessions in The Wizengamot, the stale scent of parchment and polished oak. The Wizengamot chamber swallowed most of his week, its high dome echoing with voices that no longer sounded like people, just noise and argument and dust.
Six days before Christmas, the day of the vote on the international Portkey block—a measure Moody had been desperate to push through—James took his seat between Frank and Sirius, tugging his robes straight out of habit more than care. He glanced up toward the benches opposite—and froze.
Evan.
James had known Evan held a seat, even if he preferred to leave it unoccupied—but knowing and seeing were two different things entirely. He forced himself to look away, to adopt the same polite disinterest everyone else wore, but his gaze kept drifting back. It was disconcerting, seeing Evan between the Lestrange brothers and the man with the long, pale hair—the man James now knew was Lucius Malfoy. He watched as Evan leaned across Malfoy to say something to Crouch. And then, later watched him applaud as Crouch—leading the opposition—tore down Cattsworth’s final argument. Watched him lift his hand to cast his vote, a vote for Crouch’s proposition. A vote for the opposition.
James told himself Evan was only doing what he had to. That he’d probably been ordered to be there, was just playing his part, the same as James was. But it made something in his chest tighten uncomfortably all the same—seeing Evan fixed on the other side, the side that wasn’t James’s. James had gotten used to thinking of Evan as his, his ally, his friend. This Evan clashed with that Evan—with his Evan—the one who smirked at him across a pub table, the one who spun his guinness glass in his hand as he thought through a problem, the one who made James laugh, who knelt beside the hearth teaching James runes, who put his feet up on the coffee table and drank tea out of cheesy novelty mugs, who ate James’s cooking like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
But that man wasn’t here.
James knew Evan was a damn good actor—knew he had to be. His survival depended on it. And yet still—it left James hollow, as if something essential had slipped just out of reach. He forced himself to look away, to keep his expression neutral, to act as though he didn’t know or particularly care who Evan Rosier was. As though the man sat on the other side of the chamber were a stranger and not the one person in this whole fractured war who James felt like he could be himself around, the only person he felt like he didn’t have to pretend in front of, the only person he wasn’t lying to.