Slight adjustments and minor edits have been made to the first chapter of The Jeep Universe! Not sure if anyone cares, but i thought i would document it here just in case anyone notices! They're really minor edits-- grammatical errors and one minor inconsistency about why Ice was the only one in the hospital when Mav woke up! I also fixed all the en dash to em dashes (in all the posted chapters)! finally. whoopsies.
Since tomorrow (a great holiday) but a sad day in the Jily fandom do we get a snippet tomorrow to bring us some cheer?❤️❤️❤️
Okay, so, I’ve been informed by trusted sources that this is not, actually, a cheerful little snippet. But, uh, it’s what I got…so happy Halloween, here’s some TLE3 Jily??
Excerpt from The Last Enemy: Marauders’ End.
It was a perfect night for it too, all crisp and clear under the swirl of stars. Lily had spent years in Scotland now, far from the smoky haze of Cokeworth’s mills, but she never ceased to marvel at the utter magnificence of the night sky out here. You could count every star in the constellation. Stare long enough and you’d probably find new ones. She’d never get tired of staring. James probably knew that. That was probably why he brought her here.
Yes, it was a perfect night, and so they sat there on that rooftop, side by side on the tartan blanket, wine glasses clutched in their hands like the adults they still felt they were pretending to be. She felt in this moment as close to James as she ever had another person, but even so, she wanted to be closer.
“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before.”
James let out a surprised little exhalation of air at this request. “That’s a tough one,” he said. “I talk a lot.”
Lily smiled and took a sip of her wine. “Go on.”
“Let me think a minute…well, all right, how about this: I used to be terrified of flying.”
“What? No way.”
“Marauder’s honor.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I am not. It’s true. When I was seven my dad took me out in the garden and gave me a proper broomstick. A Cleansweep Five, if I recall. I’d only had toy brooms before then. I was so excited, I took off…and promptly fell twelve feet from the sky and broke my leg.”
“Oh no!”
“Yeah, mum was furious. Of course, dad fixed it up in a flash, but after that I was terrified. I told my dad I’d never fly again. Well, dad wouldn’t accept that. Kept giving me a load of tosh about how when you fall off the broomstick, the only thing to do is get right back on again. I resisted for a long time, but eventually I got back on…and I loved it. Never looked back. Greatest thing in the world, flying. I felt so foolish for ever having been afraid. So I told my dad I was never going to be afraid of anything again, and — I’ll never forget this — he said: ‘Bravery is not whether or not we feel fear, it’s what we do in the face of that fear.’”
“Wow,” said Lily. “Pretty heavy stuff for a seven-year-old.”
James laughed. “Yeah. He always talked to me like I was an adult. Always saying things like that. I didn’t understand for a long time, but I think I’m starting to suss it all out.” James was quiet for a minute, then he gave Lily a nudge. “Okay, your turn.”
“Oh, right. Something I’ve never told anyone before…” She turned her gaze from James back to the sky and sifted through her thoughts for something to say. The truth was, there were so many things she’d never told anyone. She had long ago learned to keep herself — her true self — locked up inside, whether that was the magic little girl in Cokeworth, or the Muggle rebel at Hogwarts. She so rarely invited anyone in that the idea of doing so now made her nervous, as though she ought to at least tidy up a little first, dust off her darkest corners and hide away her dirty laundry. But it had been her idea, this conversation. And the truth was she wanted to let him in.
Stars winked overhead, and before she’d really thought it through, Lily heard herself say: “I’m not sure I believe in God.” She glanced at James, then back to the stars, then down at the wine glass in her hands. A flush of heat across her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “That’s weird.”
“No,” said James. “That’s not weird.”
“I mean, I should. Growing up with a vicar for a father, I should believe in God, right? But I don’t know…big man in the sky watching over the world, deciding who lives and who dies? Seems a bit ridiculous.”
James pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “When you put it that way.”
“Yeah.” For once, it was Lily who didn’t seem to be able to stop talking. “You’d think my crisis of faith would’ve happened when I found out I was a witch, but my dad just said I was a miracle, and that was that. You don’t question the vicar.” She laughed a little, and James smiled.
“So what changed?”
Lily went quiet for a moment. “Mum,” she admitted at last. “I broke up with God around the time mum died. I remember sitting in that church with my sister and my father and thinking that if there really is a God, then he can’t be any good at all, because if he was, he’d give me back my mum. If he was, he never would’ve taken her in the first place, and he’d never —” she stopped herself, shook her head, and took a large gulp of her wine, emptying the glass. “Sorry,” she said. “God, listen to me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” said James softly, setting his own glass aside.
“Here we are having this beautiful romantic date, and I’m talking about death.” She let out a slightly frazzled laugh. “Real ray of sunshine, that Lily Evans, I can see why you like her.”
“Hey,” said James. “Come here.” And he wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. They lay down on the blanket, Lily’s cheek against his chest, a canopy of stars above. They stayed like that for a while, staring at the endless glitter, until James said: “I think about it too, you know.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Dunno. The whole God question is a lot for me to chew, but I believe in…something. That there’s more, you know…after.”
After.
“Dad the vicar always said death is not the end,” said Lily, “just another door we pass through on our journey to salvation, or whatever. It’s rather appealing, isn’t it? The idea that there’s just some portal to pass through, some door to the parlor of eternity where everyone you love is waiting for you with a cup of tea…silly though.”
“Maybe not,” said James. “We wizards like to pretend we know everything, but look at all that.” He waved a hand across the star-scattered sky. “We can chart the stars all we like, but we know almost nothing about them. Our government has a bloody Department of Mysteries, for the love of Merlin. Who’s to say there isn’t an afterlife?”
She nestled deeper into his embrace. She could hear his heart beating. Thump, thump, thump.
“Sometimes I think it’s not death we fear anyway,” mused James. “It’s being left behind.”
Lily looked up at him, the glimmer of stars blinking against his glasses. “Don’t ever leave me behind.”
SIXTY-THREE CHAPTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M SO EXCITED OMG I hope you know that nothing escapes my notice 😉❤️❤️
man y’all don’t miss a beat! I knew you would notice eventually but I didn’t think you’d notice so quickly, before I even posted the next chapter following my break! I’m impressed 😂😅
yeah ok you caught me, I spent most of the break fixing up the second half of the book, and between a few extra POV chapters I threw in early on and a few chapters coming later that I decided to split into multiple POVs…my original chapter count was a little off 🙈🙈🙈
