The Marauder Monologues

LILY POTTER: Life, Death, And Love

I knew exactly what James was going to do well before he did it. He'd hinted around, sort of asking if I'd say yes, long before Christmas morning. I could see it in his eyes, in his trembling hands, when he woke me up with a kiss and led me to our favorite spot on the snow-covered grounds and spoke in a tense, emotional voice. But I still burst into tears of sheer, absolute joy when he knelt on the snow and took a small velvet box from the pocket of his cloak.

The spot was beneath a kind of flowering evergreen, some strange tree I'd never seen in the Muggle world. It had been beneath that tree during the winter of our fifth year that we stood one evening, looking at the stars, and we'd kissed and first admitted that we loved each other - that we were in love with each other.

James woke me with a kiss, gave me my robe after having enchanted it with a Warming Spell, and led me outside when the first golden rays of the sun were brushing the snow. We stood side-by-side, arms around each other, watching the sunrise in an awed kind of silence. "Happy Christmas, Lily," he whispered to me, kissing my pink cheeks.

"Happy Christmas, James," I said. "This is beautiful."

He waited a moment, and I sensed he was working his courage up to do something. And I was right - he let me go and took my hands in his, his blue eyes wide with earnestness and a kind of terrified anxiety, he began to speak.

"Lily," he said, and I'd never heard his voice quite like this before. "Lily, I don't know how to tell you how much I love you. You've been like my sister, my best friend, and now so much more - I am in love with you like I could never love anyone else. And in the past seven years, you've made my life worth living. You are the air I breathe, the light I live by...the reason I exist. And - and you're so beautiful and kind and intelligent and talented. You are the most perfect person I've ever met. And...you're the only woman I will ever love. I know I will never deserve you. But I will love you like no one else, love you more than anything - I will love you till the day I die. I know this is true."

That's when he knelt, and I began to cry. Not sob, not wail - just little happy tears escaping from my eyes because I didn't know how else to express the moment when all my dreams came true. He produced a tiny velvet box from within his cloak and continued. "If you will have me, Lily, I swear I will love you forever." And he opened the box as he asked, "Lily Evans...will you marry me?"

I hardly looked at the ring that moment - I was awed by the depth of love I saw in his clear blue eyes, shining with hope behind his gold spectacles. "Yes, James," I said, still crying, "Yes, I will."

He quickly stood and took me into his arms, and we kissed like never before, intermittently saying how much we loved each other. Then James took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto my finger. It was a perfect fit - it was gorgeous. On a narrow gold band was an oval diamond, set by two small emeralds that he claimed were the color of my eyes. We stayed beneath the tree for a long time, kissing and holding each other and crying from happiness, before we went inside to the rest of the Marauders for the morning's celebration.

They must have known from the looks on our faces, because the minute we entered Gryffindor tower and found Sirius, Remus, and Peter warming themselves by the fire and tossing wrapping paper at each other, they all stopped and gawked at us. "What happened to you two?" Sirius asked loudly, tactless but charming as always.

"Something wonderful, it looks like," Remus mused. Peter watched eagerly.

James looked at me, and without words, we agreed we should announce it. I nodded to him, and he gushed, "Lily and I are engaged!"

There seemed to be a roar of excitement erupting in the room as the three boys rushed us and enveloped us in hugs and kisses and congratulations. James and I couldn't stop laughing and smiling while they teased us, asked us about the date, interrogated James about how he'd proposed, and jokingly asked me what I was doing marrying a great git like him. We'd never been quite so happy in our lives.

Then there were the deaths of our parents.

I'd never known a sadness like that before. I'd never believed that depth of grief was possible in a human heart without that person breaking down completely, but somehow we managed it. I'm not sure if sharing that grief with James made it harder or easier to bear, but we were together as we healed. And somehow, as our broken hearts mended, they grew closer together than before. I believed very firmly that our parents' deaths were the result of pure, base evil, but if anything remotely good ever did come out of them, it was the strengthened bonds between James and I, and between myself and all of the Marauders.

I'm not sure how I survived those first few months without my parents. I'm very glad I was away at school, because there I could focus on my studies or our pending careers in the Order without constantly being reminded of Mum and Dad. But I did miss them - I missed them so much I thought I could die. Their funerals were singularly unpleasant. I sat with the family at Mr. Potter's funeral, as the Marauders and I had at Mrs. Potter's only a few years before. But at my parents' funeral, we met with trouble. First Petunia didn't want any of the Marauders, not even James, to attend. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall wanted to pay their respects, but Petunia refused them as well. She was eighteen by then - an adult, and in charge of the funeral arrangements, but fortunately not the executor of our parents' will. Finally she relented and allowed James to attend with me, simply because he was my fiancé. She never knew that Sirius, Remus, and Peter were there beneath James's invisibility cloak the entire time. They were good friends.

We did survive those dark times - all of us graduated, even Peter, despite his usual troubles in Potions - and we were all highly involved in the forming of the Order of the Phoenix. Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and several Ministry Aurors - Mundungus Fletcher, Alastor Moody, Arabella Figg, Frank Longbottom and his wife Nancine, and Lane Levine - and the five of us were the 'charter members.' Within the year Tatiana Shiresong would tire of her job at Gringotts and finally accept Dumbledore's invitation to join us. But the Order was not initiated till August. July was our wedding.

It was so beautiful. It had taken us forever to choose decorations, but we finally did, and the time spent on it was well worth it. Wizard weddings are slightly different from those of Muggles, of course, but it's for the same purpose: to forever bind two people who share a lasting love. My friends born into wizarding families were happy to fill me in on the finer points of the traditions.

The day of the wedding, James and I were not allowed to see each other at all. We wore plain white robes, while all of our friends were dressed festively. There was a wedding brunch that morning, where the men sat at one table and the women sat at another; the afternoon was spent preparing for the ceremony; that ceremony took place sometime in the late afternoon; and everyone danced and celebrated well into the night, sometimes into the next morning.

The brunch was completely old tradition, mostly a game invented for the amusement of the wedding guests and the frustration of the bride and groom. The Concealing Charm was placed on both James and myself, so everyone else could see us, but we could not see each other. My girl friends seemed to think it was endlessly amusing that I kept turning around and searching for James, but couldn't seem to find him anywhere. The Marauders told me the same story about James later on.

I barely recall what happened when I was preparing for the ceremony. It seemed to take forever - yet I was suddenly scared to perform the rites. Not that I didn't want to be married to James, I wanted it more than anything, but that I was afraid I would flub the lines or something silly like that - that something would spoil this perfect day. And before I realized it, it was time for the ceremony to take place.

I wore sparkling white dress robes, brighter and fancier than anything I'd ever worn before. They were simply beautiful - very elegant, very fetching. My hair was tucked up with little tendrils hanging round my face and neck, and I wore the emerald earrings my mother had given me for my sixteenth birthday.

The ceremony was held in a restored building we'd found and rented out - it was usually a hotel, but we'd emptied it for our wedding. The main hall of the hotel was what we wanted, because it had a grand double staircase in the front of the room, one set on each side, creating a perfect entrance and backdrop for our vows. What we'd envisioned was perfect. The ceremony surpassed all of our wildest dreams.

James and I heard the music start and knew that Sirius and Tatiana, our only attendants, were to walk forward from the sides the first time it was played, when the music was somewhat softer than it would become. When the verse ended, we stepped from behind the curtains on the opposite sides of the balcony. The first thing I did was look out - I saw all of our friends, remaining family (except Petunia, of course), teachers, coworkers-to-be. There seemed to be an endless array of people seated below and before us, all smiling and now whispering about how we looked.

We. It was a startling reminder. I looked across the balcony and saw James there, and had to remind myself to breathe. He was wearing similar white dress robes, only in a very masculine cut, and his mop of hair was as untidy as ever. But there was a smile on his face brighter than any I'd ever seen before, and his blue eyes were positively sparkling. It made my heart pound to look at him.

The wedding march - not the one Muggles use, but one that is much grander and more sweeping, and yet more tender and beautiful at the same time - a song beyond beautiful - was playing. Smiling at each other in a kind of daze, we approached the stairs and began to walk down the curved staircases, where we would reach the bottom floor and say our vows. Those staircases were hung with flowers and white drapes; candles were lit everywhere, giving a soft glow in the afternoon. The guests stood for us, and we reached the ground level; from there, we walked forward to each other, I on the left, James on the right.

We stood together front and center of all the guests, who now sat down. Sirius and Tatiana were behind us. James and I stood a breath away from each other, though we were breathless at the moment; the administrator we had chosen from the Department of Marriage and Commitments was there, holding open the manuscript that he would use to ask us the traditional wizard wedding vows.

I must confess I hardly remember what he said, I was so light-headed. I don't think James recalls much either. I know someone sang a song. I know we took hands, and we answered the questions the administrator asked us after he gave his little speech. Questions sort of like a Muggle wedding, only slightly different, like, "Do you swear to love and stand by your husband in sickness and in health, in..." A brief list of conditions. "Do you swear to be faithful to your husband..." An oath of fidelity. More questions, ornate and flowery, promising the customs of marriage would be loyally upheld in our union. Each question, directed first to James, then to myself, we answered with a reply of, "I swear."

I remember glancing into the rows of seats, just out of the corner of my eyes. I saw Remus and Peter on the front row, grinning idiotically at us and giving James thumbs-up signs. Professor Dumbledore was in the second row - he had never looked more pleased. His eyes were twinkling wildly as he gave a little smile. Professor McGonagall was actually wiping her eyes with her handkerchief; Professor Flitwick reached over and patted her on the shoulder gently. Alastor Moody was alternating between watching our ceremony and eyeballing the room nervously; some things never changed.

Finally, the end of the ceremony - the part that was the most sacred vow. Tatiana had impressed upon me the value of this vow to no end. These were the words that blessed every union and haunted every divorce. The administrator, a kindly older wizard with graying hair, looked at James and me and announced, "If you are so foresworn to join in married bliss, I ask you now to give your sacred vow, binding you together for all eternity." The room seemed to hold its breath as the administrator said, "I do swear -"

James and I murmured, "I do swear..."

"--to give my love--"

"...to give my love..."

"--to give my heart--"

"...to give my heart..."

"--and to give my life--"

"...and to give my life..."

"--to thee and thee alone."

"...to thee and thee alone."

"This I swear in life, and in death, and in love."

James and I turned to each other, our eyes meeting. Tears welled up in my eyes; I thought I saw a glimmer in his as well. We said together, softly, with all our hearts, "This I swear in life, and in death, and in love."

The whole room seemed to sigh. The administrator smiled at us and said, "Then by the power invested in me by the Department of Marriage and Commitments, of the Ministry of Magic, I now pronounce you husband and wife."

He took me in his arms and kissed me oh-so-sweetly while our friends stood and clapped and cheered. I heard Sirius's distinctive wolf-whistle over James's shoulder, but I didn't care, I was lost in the moment, and so was he. Finally, we remembered to stop and proceed down the center aisle, from where we would proceed to the ballroom and dance the night away.

Everyone kissed and hugged and congratulated us. There was food, wine, music, dancing, kissing, laughing, crying, until well into the night. It must have been nearly one or two o'clock in the morning before everyone left, and I will admit that by then James and I were a little anxious to be alone.

We spent the first night of our married life in a particularly beautiful suite of the hotel, to Floo to our honeymoon location (a small island populated only by wizards, called Isla Vimala). That night was our first time truly being together, in that sense. It was a little awkward, a little nervous, but we had both decided to wait - it was sort of in memory of our parents. We would have wanted them to be as proud of us as possible. I had the feeling they were proud of us, somewhere.

I remember how breathtakingly beautiful it was to make love with James. I remember how he leaned his face down, just an inch from mine, and we breathed the same air and whispered our love for each other. I remember how it all felt - because it was just as spiritual as physical. It held such meaning for both of us.

It was beautiful, it was undoubtedly the most intimate thing we'd ever done - I was glad we waited because making love for the first time on our wedding night really was like promising ourselves to each other, like sealing the bargain with a kiss...well, with a little more. We were pledged to be together forever - in body, mind, heart, and soul. Together forever in life, death, and love.