Lily Evans was a mystery that Sirius Black was not to indulge in - so she said, anyways. Promises, after all, are not always meant to be kept. / A late night conversation between a prefect and a troublemaker, with a little bit of firewhiskey.

"I hate her, and it's awful that I can say that without feeling any sort of remorse, but I do. We choose who we hate, don't we? It's a conscious decision that we make and it's a conscious decision that we carry out. But love is different. You can't help who you love, try as you might. It just grows and grows and grows until one day you notice it's there."

He had sometimes wondered if his brother hated him, and he found himself wondering it then as the blackness seeped like poison into his skin .. Fitting, really, that it would be black and green against the red .

Back then it used to be exam grades and the "I love you"s that they worried about. Back then just the idea of Lily and James was something equivalent to fantasy, and the scariest thing to ever exist was a full moon. But now it's life and now it's death, and Gracie and Sirius are living in a war where people aren't the only things that go missing. When did the lies become truth?

"You need this, don't you? To trust him." "I want to," she whispered. "I know I shouldn't but I want to so desperately." / Where Lily comes to understand there are many different types of love, and not everyone that can be loved is worth saving.

Sirius is forced to make an impossible decision, the kind of choice that robs you of yourself. The very nature of Sirius Black's relationship with Lily Evans, in an instant.

One day, Minerva had told her: "You've got to have strength, Augusta, or else you'll never survive this." And so that was what Augusta became. (This is the story of Augusta Longbottom before she was Augusta Longbottom, and the story of Frank Longbottom before he was that, too.)

The friendships Remus once had are dead. Four became one. And where they had been was now three quarters of the moon.

In which Gideon plans a surprise party for Fabian, and Dorcas makes fun of Gideon, and Fabian has plans of his own.

You see, here was the thing about Gideon Prewett. He was not a very decent person - actually, probably less than half of a decent person - and he could have written a novel about all the things he'd failed at being. A brother, an uncle, a boyfriend, a soldier, a human being, maybe even. But, here's what you have to know about him. He was terrible, lousy, lazy, but he loved Fabian.

"Really, Vic, what kind of murderer just closes a door? If that's the extent of its abilities, I'm fairly certain we can handle it." / Albus finds himself the tag along to another one of Teddy and Victoire's dates, only this time they're in a haunted house, that's actually haunted. Lovely.

There are many things house elves do not know much about, and one of those things is family.

"James chats idly with Harry as he drifts about the kitchen. It's rather like dancing, he thinks, being a father. He's not quite so good at it—Merlin, he's burnt himself twice with this bottle—but he moves like he might be. And he likes it. He reckons that's important, too." / In which James gets to babysit Harry for an entire thirty minutes.

It's hard to have hope when you wake every morning without seeing the light of day. But James and Lily survive it. They always do. (Well. Sort of.)

"The paper was wearing thin where the man's quill had carved into it, words like a list coloring the white of the page and bleeding just hardly into the text. 'You see, generally, I don't believe that people get second chances. That's not the way the universe likes to work. But there are exceptions. And this is my thanking the universe for that.'"

For Andromeda, it seems, happiness is always eclipsed by sadness, from the time she is old enough to understand what that means.

It is in the bottom of a car entirely submerged in water that George finally understands.

"He was just an empty slate constantly taking whatever form he pleased, no identity to himself, just a passing reflection in the water." / In which Sirius Black wonders who he really is.

And when it comes down to it, who, really, can say that there is any difference between love and war?

Neville wanted nothing more to forget everything and move on with his life. But when your past comes back to haunt you, sometimes escape requires desperate measures, and sometimes you lose yourself along the way.