James is unusually quiet on their ride over. Lily keeps sneaking glances at him in between turns of the steering wheel, but he continues to stare out the windshield, fingers absentmindedly running over all the foreign knobs and buttons on the console. She finally reaches over to touch his hand and it closes over hers automatically.
“It’ll be alright,” she says.
“Yeah, well.” He looks at her for the first time since getting into the car. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined meeting them.”
She swallows a sigh. “Yeah. Me neither.”
The street is quiet, almost deserted. Lily pulls the key out of the ignition and sits for a moment. James does the same. Finally, she can’t take it any longer, so she pushes her door open. “Come on.”
The path up is well-kept, as always, and the grass perfectly trimmed. James’s hand is warm in hers and he doesn’t let go. Her skirt brushes against her knees.
“Here we are,” Lily murmurs, stopping rather abruptly.
“Mm.”
They stare at the gravestones in front of them.
Surprisingly, he is the one to break the silence. He sinks to his knees in front of her parents, pulling her down with him. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Evans,” he says, voice steady. “I’ve come along with your daughter.”
Lily feels her chest rise and fall, perfectly even as her heart hammers away underneath.
“I’m afraid I’ve grown rather attached to her,” he continues. “Not surprising at all to you, I suppose; you know better than most that she’s a lovely girl. And I’m sure she’s complained about me enough in the past for you both to know that I don’t exactly deserve her now.” A strange laugh escapes her and his grip on her fingers tighten.
“I just want you to know - ” he clears his throat - “that despite all that, I’m here. For as long as she wants me around, that is. And I’d rather like - to ask for your blessing, I suppose. Because even though we’re only eighteen, I love your daughter with everything I’ve got, and I know that’s not going to change. I’m going to love your daughter for the rest of my life, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, and I’ll do anything for her. And I just… wanted to pass that by you both. Just in case."
"I don’t think they mind,” Lily said after a moment, voice nearly a whisper. “They seem rather pleased, really.”
“And how would you know?” James replied, turning to her with a smile.
“Because,” she said simply, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Just because.”
like i mean, part of the punk movement in britain in the 70s-80s
the marauders as an underground punk rock band, not like famous or popular but known of amongst the people they associate with
they sing about revolution, and love, and the oneness of the two. they sing about being viewed by earlier generations like a group of degenerates. they sing about equality and freedom and liberty. they also sing about heartbreak and loss and the early summer days of relationships.
james is the lead singer and guitarist. sirius is on bass. peter plays drums. remus is second guitar or keyboard, if needed, and also sings harmony. they record their music at the run-down studio near where peter lives, free of charge because he’s mates with the owner.
tattoos.
james with a heart shot through with an arrow on his neck, and full sleeves on his arms, dragons and swords and knights, a lot of arthurian imagery because he likes the idea of that sort of romance, even though he’s perfectly aware love’s not like that, (and also muggle!james will always be an english student to me so headcanon that he got his first tattoo, a sword in a stone, the night after he finished le morte d’arthur), but mixed in with quotes and images from asimov and clarke and bradbury because he’s unashamedly in love with science fiction, the possibility of it all.
sirius with sailor tattoos, you know the sort, ships and anchors and sea monsters on his upper arms from his stint in the navy when his parents got tired of him causing trouble, all mixed in with some lewd pictures that you have to get right up close to see properly and angry words, ‘revolution is a right’ (paraphrased from victor hugo), maybe, or ‘the liberation of humanity is all or nothing’ (from the 1968 paris riots). he also has, running around his right wrist, ‘we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars’ (wilde) because well, and around his left wrist ‘more an antique roman than a dane’ because he would die for his friends, unquestionably. i would probably fight you over those two.
also he has a white sheep on his ankle and thinks it is hilarious.
remus covers himself in literature, and images from that literature. it’s not - like, none of it is visible unless he’s shirtless or his sleeves are rolled all the way up. he has the last line of gatsby (‘so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past’), bits from prufrock (‘do i dare/disturb the universe?’) and ‘what matters most is how well you walk through the fire’ because he’s not a big bukowski fan but he loves that line more than anything, he’s got neruda swirled about with colours and wayward images, he’s got the second coming in honour of his granddad who fought in ww1.
peter has the jabberwocky on his left arm and a rocket ship on his hip, and five birds on his right shoulder. he - there’s meaning behind them, but he’s never told his friends, because he’s worried they’ll think it’s funny. (it’s for his childhood, basically; his mum read him lewis carroll and they laughed their heads off, because carroll is fucking weird, man, nothing’s ever made him feel like the moon landing did, and there used to be sparrows in his back garden in the summer, and he would watch them hopping around and feel happy)
(lol i just realised the majority of these are literature-based. i am a parody of myself)
oh!! also they all have the ramones’ logo on the inside of their right arms, because that’s how they became friends and also decided to start a band, over a love of the ramones.
lily’s got tattoos too actually!! (im really sorry how this turned into just a tattoo post but it develops i promise) she keeps hers quieter, secret, because they mean a lot to her - they’re an image of eve and the serpent and delilah cutting samson’s hair, samson’s eyes open and his hands on hers, encouraging, because lily (although part of the irish catholic diaspora) isn’t particularly devout, she doesn’t even really believe in god, she was thirteen the first time an adult man tried to come onto her and her dad told her she shouldn’t have been wearing so short a skirt, and she sees in eve, delilah, her own experiences, one of the oldest stories humankind has to tell.
she also has mermaids, a gaggle of them on her shoulder, because she likes mermaids. who doesn’t like mermaids.
she’s actually an artist!! i mean, she has a day job, she’s not supporting herself off her art, but because her job is manning the desk at the quietest book shop in the world, she’s mostly free to spend her time sketching. she’s relatively successful, actually, she’s able to earn some extra dosh that way.
she is also part of a grassroots mostly youth anti-fascist group who protest at national front marches etc and raise awareness/money for other more prominent anti-fascist groups like CARF. they were present at the battle of lewisham. lily has a scar running down her cheek from it. it’s faint, but she’s proud of it. and that’s how they meet, actually!! sirius hears about the group via benjy fenwick who’s involved in it himself, and they turn up to the next meeting where, of course, james meets lily for the first time.
and she’s never really heard their music before and tbh after meeting james for the first time she doesn’t really want to, because he’s a brash cocky arrogant git (or so she thinks) and doesn’t seem to think this is serious at all. they begin a kind of hate-flirty relationship (tho the hate is entirely on lily’s side, james thinks she hung the goddamn moon) and would happily bicker for the next century or so if lily wasn’t forced into going to one of their concerts.
and the sheer emotion, the passion behind the music, anger and love and exhilaration all wrapped up in song, just overwhelms her. she loves music, of course, but it’s never felt like this, and james catches her eye and smirks at her and her heart is beating out of her chest, and it’s then she realises: fuck, i’m already in this deep.
and she volunteers to design the album art for their baby album they’re putting together, and she and james end up falling in love obviously
that’s it for now folks i’ll let u know if i’ve got more
I'm really sorry if you're getting fed up of questions about TLAT, but I'm curious haha- will you be ending it when Jily finally get their shit together and start going out, or will we be seeing any of them after Hogwarts in the war?
Headcanon that James and Lily snuck around for awhile and their mates busted them out when they accidentally wore each other’s badges after an afternoon tryst in the library.
