An Uncertain Future

A/N: A giant thank you to Phantom of Desire for Beta-Reading. (Naturally, all mistakes remaining are mine, not hers.)

~*~*~*~*~

London was thronged with last minute Christmas shoppers when Lily, James and Sirius arrived the next day. Tightening her hand about James's, Lily had to admit that - adamant as she had been that all she needed was some peace and quiet - getting out of the house might not have been such a bad idea. Godric's Hollow might have been her spouse's ancestral home, but it was out in the middle of nowhere and left her little to do but ponder recent events.

At the moment the trio was wondering through Covent Garden and Lily was watching friends and shoppers go by, or children gather about street performers while their parents watched on. James had been right - this was good for her soul. It felt like she'd almost forgotten what normalcy was.

Something of her thoughts must have shown because James suddenly pulled her into a strong hug, tucking her neatly underneath his chin in a way that she simply hated and yet never could quite bring herself to stop. Against her back, his hand rubbed soothing circles and, for a moment, Lily just allowed herself to just be. To relax into the offered warmth and try to forget about everything in the waves of noise and laughter eddying about her.

Laughter really doesn't sound like screams, so why was she feeling her throat close off and her eyes fill with tears?

"I'm fine." She gently pushed James away and turned to face the violinist in the corner. She was simply a fantastic player, so young and pretty and talented. Lily liked the girl's music; that was why she was looking away from James. She told herself that her eyes were just stinging with the cold. After all, it wasn't like she'd cried her eyes out for her parents at the funeral as Vernon had been so quick to point out. No, she wasn't like 'normal' people. Magic was power and power corrupts. If she couldn't cry for her parents in their blood soaked living room and she couldn't cry for them when she'd brought the news to her sister and she couldn't cry at the funeral, then why would she be crying now?

From behind her, James's arms wound about her waist again, pulling her close to him. He didn't say anything and for a moment they just stood there watching the girl with her violin as she twirled through half a dozen melodies that Lily thought she recognised, yet couldn't quite pin down. Dad had liked to play Mozart on the record player while Petunia seemed addicted to the Rolling Stones. Lily couldn't remember what her Mum had liked to listen to and for some odd reason that seemed to make crying a little easier. Not just because she couldn't remember, but because she thought that maybe Mum had never really listened to the songs she liked, that she had humoured her husband and her daughters and that now she was gone and would never get to choose her own record. That Lily would never catch a snippet of a half-forgotten tune and turn to James and smile and say, with bitter-sweetness, 'This one was Mum's favourite'.

Not that she was likely to hear such a tune. Witches and Wizards listened to the Wizarding Wireless Network. It didn't play much Mozart.

Giving a final, determined wipe of her eyes, Lily squeezed James's hand and turned to smile up at him. "Do you know where Sirius has gone? I'm certain he'll have got into all sorts of trouble without us there."

"You mean without you there," James said, grinning. "You know I'd just join in with the trouble." He tapped her gently on the cheek before turning to scan the crowds.

For a moment Lily just watched the young man. Her young man. He'd grown in the years that she'd known him. Not just in height or stature, but from a spoilt brat into a gallant man. She wondered vaguely what she'd ever done to deserve him - to deserve how he'd changed for her - and felt guilt flicker within her breast for worrying him.

Determined to pull herself together, she stepped back from James as he frowned about at the milling people. Turning on her heels to scan the arcade back the way they had come, Lily came face-to-face with a very guilty-looking Sirius. Dark eyes sparkling, he snatched his hands back from where they'd been hovering over her head, hiding them behind his back and leaving Lily with only the blurred impression of closed fists.

Sirius smiled brilliantly at her for good effect and she punched him lightly on his arm. "Just what were you thinking of doing?"

"Oh, you know, this and that." He was gazing up at the icy blue sky, his eyes so wide that they seemed to reflect every wisp of cloud in the heavens. Strange how he never managed to look anything other than caught red-handed, in spite of all the practice he must have had. "Nothing important really."

"Oh really?" James raised a doubtful eyebrow, but his eyes seemed to be laughing.

"Yeah, really." Sirius didn't even try to hide his grin. "Would I ever do anything to your lady fair?"

"Ah, how true." James turned a mock-glare on her and for the first time in weeks Lily smiled at him. "Honestly, missus, accusing my good friend like that! I don't know what's got into you."

"Indeed." She couldn't help but cast an ironic look at Sirius. "It's not as though he's ever done it before."

"'It', fair lady?" Sirius's face was a picture of wounded innocence.

"Yes. 'It', my husband's friend. Meaning things like swapping the sugar and the salt. Or helping James spell that set of formal robes, into rather.... er, well, you know. Or - and I use this as merely a random idea - transfiguring all of our honeymoon clothes into different types of flowers."

"I thought it was pretty. I could have turned them into newts."

"James had to transfigure my wedding dress into nightwear so that we could get a decent sleep before sorting it all out the next day."

"You wore a nightgown on your wedding night?" Sirius looked utterly horrified and Lily just glared at him, trying not to blush.

"It took ages to transfigure my wedding dress back-"

"But why would you want-"

"Because it was my wedding dress, you git. It took ages to get rid of all the little bows."

"Bows? I thought the dress was sequined or something."

James leered at his best friend's puzzled expression and Lily abruptly realised that maybe that was one comment she shouldn't have mentioned. "What? I thought you knew that bows featured on all sexy lingerie--Youch!"

Lily stepped hard on James's toes whilst smiling sweetly at Sirius. "Yes. Bows. Is that a problem?"

"No, ma'am. I have only one problem right now and that can easily be solved by that delectable little cafe over there," Sirius replied, gesturing vaguely to the opposite side of the square and encompassing maybe a round dozen different establishments. "Everyone hungry?"

"More like 'anyone hungry'," James muttered as he started to wander in the direction that Sirius had pointed. He looked like he knew where he was going. Maybe the two of them had been to lunch here before, Lily thought. Maybe James actually knew where Sirius was pointing. "Honestly, you eat more than Moony after his monthlies."

For just a moment Lily felt light again. She wondered why her smile felt so rusty. Then she remembered why she'd worked so passionately on her wedding dress. It had been her mother's.

~*~*~*~*~

Lunch was a busy affair, something that had been all too lacking recently in the wizarding world as people hid from Voldemort's minions. Sipping on a cup of coffee, Lily watched as James and Sirius played table football. Sirius was up about a hundred goals to three and his little preening celebrations were beginning to catch some disapproving attention from a couple of older ladies. Stirring some more cream into the coffee, a smile caught at her lips as she watched James aim, shoot and utterly miss before dropping his head forward onto the table with a dramatic sob. Many wizarding folk had fled to the Muggle world as the disappearances escalated. Of course, due to the fact that a lot of people were disappearing, it was far from certain how many had just fled and how many had been taken. For the first time, Lily was beginning to see exactly why people might choose to run. The warm cafe scene seemed to epitomise everything that her world had lost and Lily almost wished that she could return to it.

"Do you think that Petunia will ever forgive me?" It wasn't a question she had even meant to raise.

"Of course she will, Lily Love." James sauntered over to her, squeezing her hand comfortingly and seemingly glad of the diversion. "She was just upset. After all, family is family." James really was wonderful and, for an annoying little know-it-all, had grown up to know just the right things to say to make her feel better. She could almost dismiss the doubtful look on Sirius's face as he left to pay the bill.

Outside the air was crisp, and the winter wind numbed her cheeks as Lily stepped outside. The light had fled from the sky while they'd sat inside and darkness had crept out of alleyways and from under overhangs; spreading until the streets were awash with shadows. Above, the sky was streaked with rosy clouds, but below the street lights were yet to turn on, leaving only the bright Christmas lights from store fronts to fight the shade. It was all rather dark and at the same time surprisingly beautiful. Occasionally James would pass a particularly bright storefront and his hair would shimmer with the colours of Christmas; warming red light shimmering along his glasses whilst the bright yellows brought a glow to his cheeks. He looked beautiful.

It was Sirius--perhaps unsurprisingly--who found the fortune teller. She was sat in a small alcove, little more than an extended porch with a curtain to keep out the night. A battered, but neatly painted sign declared her to be: 'The Amazing Cassandra to whom the future is made clear'. There were little pentangles sprinkled liberally across the sign and an optimistic picture of a veiled woman leaning over a deck of tarot cards. The painted cards were more detailed than the woman.

Sirius was already leaning in before they caught up with him and as they came to a stop he popped out to grin at them. "She's a piece of all right."

"You're getting your fortune read by a Muggle?" Irony was liberally laced in James's voice.

"No. I'm humouring a very pretty young thing. And damn, but I hope she helps me foretell her phone number." The grin was back. Lily rolled her eyes and wondered if there'd ever come a time then Sirius didn't think with his hormones.

"We really shouldn't hang around for too long. Remember, we told Mad-Eye we'd come to the meeting tonight." And she really needed to attend. If there was one thought holding her sane through her parents' deaths and the sudden soul-shattering realisation that she would probably never live to see the end of this war, it was the fact that at least she could fight. She wouldn't just curl up and hide, but would give everything she had to the cause and that, maybe, it would be enough.

"It won't take long." Sirius gave her a merry wink. "Come in if you want. That way you can hurry me along if you like. Just let the wondrous Cassie know you're with him, not me."

James just flashed her a quick look and she knew that he was simply dying to know what Muggles thought passed for fortune telling. And probably to sneak a peek at the girl that had caught Sirius's attention. Lily never really understood how he never tired of feigning interest in the unending line of women Sirius went crazy for, though even Lily had to admit that they really always were quite beautiful. Smart too. She always felt slightly guilty as she watched them fall, one after another, for Sirius, only to be fated to have their hearts broken.

Maybe this one really would have some gift. Not at magic, but at reading people. It might do Sirius some good to get a brush off and it would certainly give people at the Order meeting a good laugh when they heard about it.

Nodding her consent, Lily stepped up to the curtain, feeling James settle his arm about her hips as they sauntered in.

The booth was, on closer inspection, actually a curtain strung up across the deep porch way of an abandoned store, while brightly dyed shawls disguised the walls. There was a tiny folding trestle table in the centre of the shrouded space with a two camping chairs on the customer's side. It was the lady on the opposite side of the shabby tablecloth that caught Lily's attention, however. She looked only slightly older than Lily herself, although there was a lack of tension around her eyes that made Lily feel ten times older. A gorgeous cascade of wheat coloured hair framed almond shaped eyes and a wide, full mouth. Yes, Sirius definitely hadn't lost his knack for picking them.

At just that moment, she was smiling up at Sirius as he shifted about, one of her hands nervously fussing with some lace on her frock while the other toyed with a stack of cards. "Are you all together then?"

"Yep." Sirius was ushering Lily and James into the two seats which was, she noted, not entire selfless of him, since it allowed him to slouch against the wall next to 'Cassie' rather than sit in enforced formality opposite her.

"I see." Cassandra seemed to have regained some degree of calm and was shuffling the cards in her hands. "Do you have any specific questions you want answered or are you interested in a more general reading? Perhaps the young lady and her man might like a glimpse of their future? Or maybe you," she said, darting Sirius a flirtatious glance, "might like to discover what's in your stars."

"Doesn't everyone? So you do tarot?" asked Sirius.

"I usually do tarot although I can read palms if you prefer. And there's always the crystal ball. It also depends on what you want to know."

"Lily'd like to know if she and her sister will reconcile," Sirius said and Lily wasn't certain whether she wanted to hug him or strangle him. That he could think to bring up something so extremely sensitive for common sport... and yet that he was thinking of her. Typical Sirius tact.

"So you've become estranged with your family then?" Such painless words for a very painful situation. Speaking around the sudden block in her throat seemed impossible, so Lily just nodded, even as the cynical part of her mind knew that this was sufficient for any halfway decent charlatan to form a 'good' background for their 'prediction'.

"Maybe a card reading then?" Cassandra's eyes locked firmly with Lily's as she finished her shuffling and dealt with surprising abruptness.

It was a five card layout, recognisable from Hogwarts' classes, and Lily had dealt similar patterns herself many times over the years. The trick was neither in the question, nor the pattern, nor, oddly enough, in the reading. The lynch pin really seemed to be the dealing, as if your hands were the ones communing with the great unknown and would present the answer by putting down the correct cards in the correct places as the dealer would understand them.

Lily had never gotten the dealing right.

From what she could see of the cards, neither had Cassandra.

Still, the story was interesting if unlikely. She and her sister had rowed publicly over a family matter. But they would meet again; would have the chance to work things through in the future. That their children might play together. All very possible if far too vague to get any firm basis for assessment. That was the problem with foretelling; you never knew whether you were hearing a vague truth or a general tale.

It was a nice fiction. Lily tried to let it comfort her. You did never know.

James hugged her lightly and that was also nice.

"Is that all?" Cassandra looked away from Lily for the first time since she started her reading and it was with amusement that Lily saw her glance over to Sirius again. It didn't look like he was going to have much trouble getting that phone number! On the other hand, Lily wasn't certain that she'd be able to sit through another bogus card reading with a straight face. Starting to giggle, no matter how much James might say she needed to let go, would probably damage Cassandra's ego and, with it, Sirius's chances. Definitely a bad idea.

"Er..."

Sirius got there before her though. "Sure. How about something different though?"

"Yeah. Why don't you get your palm read, Sirius?" James's tone was light and teasing and Sirius immediately matched the smile with one of this own.

"You know what? I think that's a great idea." Presenting his hand to the fortune teller Sirius gave her his best grin. "Tell me I'm going to be famous and I'm going to live a life of high adventure before dying a hero's death with all my friends and many beautiful women mourning me." He was laughing, eyes squinting and bright and his head tilted down at his unsuspecting prey. Besides Lily however, James stiffened.

His voice was light enough when he spoke, however. "Don't go wishing your life away, mate. If you do end up going out with a bang I'll have to bring you back and kill you again just to teach you not to go about upsetting people like that."

"I wouldn't worry too much about dying young," Cassandra was saying, diverting attention back to herself. "Your lifeline is fairly long, so I wouldn't bank too much on being young and pretty in your coffin." Her smile was bright as she looked up at Sirius, the light from the table lamps reflecting from her eyes. "Your heart line doesn't show any signs of you settling down however, and I don't see any signs of you having children either. You should be watchful though. You run the risk of betrayal from an unexpected source."

"Like an angry ex," muttered James.

Cassandra's eyes flickered briefly in his direction and the smile that she sent was maybe a little more flirtatious than Lily liked. Sirius was one thing, but James was hers.

"Maybe another disenchanted person. It appears you've left many in your path and I doubt you'll reconcile with many of them. Be warned, too, that you may not have to be the one that lives with the consequences of your actions."

"Condolences, Padfoot. It looks like she's got you all figured out."

"Stow it, Prongs. It's a good moralistic warning, that's all." Deftly swapping the positions of their hands, Sirius swept her fingers up to his heart. "And maybe someone might like to come out for a drink with me sometime. Just to make certain that I stay on the straight and narrow, of course." Cassandra skilfully extracted her hand from Sirius's grip and told him that she didn't mix business and pleasure, but that maybe his friend might like a reading. She might not have been quite so young and naive as Lily had first thought. Cassandra definitely didn't seem to need any advice as far as Sirius was concerned.

And right now Sirius was nodding agreement and asking James what he wanted to know and Lily just knew that James would go along with things. Still, a quick glance at her watch reassured her that they still had an hour or so before they needed to run for the Knight Bus. "Do you also want your palm read?"

And perhaps James had some foretelling abilities of his own because, when he spoke, he sounded slightly nervous and shot Lily an uncertain glance. "Er, no. Not the palm reading. I, er, tripped. Yes, I tripped in some glass as a kid. So, you see, you can't really read my palm." Lily didn't think that she was that scary. Maybe he was worried about what Sirius would say about letting his latest target paw him. "Maybe the glass ball instead."

"Crystal ball." There was definitely disapproval in the correction. "I have to warn you that I'm not as good with it as I am with the tarot deck, but if you really want me to try..." At James's nod, she reached underneath the faded, floral table cloth and lifted a battered cardboard box onto the table. There was dust on the top of it and when she caught Lily's frown she shrugged nonchalantly. "I told you. I really don't use this that much." She didn't bother to brush off the dust, but just opened the flaps and reaching inside.

What she drew out was a very beautiful object, which startled Lily. A globe, maybe eight inches in diameter, made from flawless rose quartz, was set on a soft flannel in the centre of the table. It was much more beautiful than the ones that Lily remembered from her divination classes and looked far more expensive than she'd have expected. She half anticipated hearing that it was an old heirloom, but no story seemed forthcoming. Instead Cassandra spent a few moments just fussing, turning the ball this way and that, although what exactly she was looking for was more than Lily could make out. Eventually she seemed satisfied and sat back. "Do you have a question you'd like me to ask?"

"I just want to know what the future's like for us. Will it be pleasant?" It was a surprisingly sentimental request and from the glint in Sirius's eyes, James would get mocked like anything for it later. Cassandra, however, just nodded as though that was a fairly standard request. Maybe it was.

"Okay. If you're ready, it can help if you focus on the crystal ball as well. It helps me to connect between the energies and your future."

The tent was definitely not very warm and sitting there shivering was far from conductive to meditation, but Lily gamely tried to focus. It was a surprisingly difficult task and as the lack of flaws provided no easy place to focus on Lily found her eyes latching on to weirdly distorted things on the other side of the ball: the surreally twisted flowers of the table cloth; Cassandra's fingers both unnaturally fat and thin at once; and the shape of the fortune teller's amethyst necklace. Light reflected from the amethyst and caught on the globe, mixing with reflections of herself and James and, highly warped and off to one side, Sirius on the globe's front face.

Cassandra sighed, sounding frustrated. "I'm sorry. I'm really not getting anything." And, then, as she turned away, Lily saw something. For a moment she couldn't work it out, leaning forward instead to try and clarify the image. She thought she saw James and maybe Sirius begin to lean forward and then her vision seemed to blur. There was a flash of light and then darkness marched forward. Lily spiralled into nothingness.

~*~*~*~*~

A/N: Oh, and for the curious, this Cassandra is no relation to our own, much loved, Prof. Trelawney.