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"Shit." Lily felt James stiffen beside her. They were barricaded in an abandoned house (save for the slaughtered dog outside the kitchen door) fighting against the tide of inferi surrounding them. They were the only two of their original group who'd made it this far, and they were worn out from their seven month long fight against seemingly impossible odds; they hadn't seen a living person in weeks.
"What? Is it bad?" Lily asked, clutching her wand so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
James turned away from his small vantage point through the mostly boarded-up window. "They're everywhere," he answered honestly, and Lily was sure she saw panic in his eyes - he never considered that it would come to this. "I don't think…shit, Lil. We're not gonna make it."
"Okay," Lily responded calmly, naturally attempting to balance out James' growing distress. "Okay. We knew we weren't going to be able to use this house forever, right? So we make a run for it. Blast them out of our way - bombardas straight to the head, okay?"
"No."
"What?"
"Marry me."
"What!?"
"Marry me." Lily must have been looking at him like he'd lost his mind, because he continued. "I mean it - we're probably not going to make it out of here," as if on cue a window from the right side of the house shattered as a fence post fell through it, "but I refuse to die without making you my wife," he continued undeterred, speaking over the chaos, his voice shaking slightly. "Merlin knows I've wanted to for…an embarrassingly long time, and…" he turned to face Lily, grabbing both of her hands in his. "This is my last chance. My very last one, and I'm not going to mess it up again. I've had my grandmum's ring in the drawer beside my bed for about a year now…of course, we had to burn the flat down before we left it, and I didn't grab the ring before because I was so distracted by us nearly dying, and-"
"Yes."
James blinked. "Yes?" Lily nodded enthusiastically. "But…I didn't even get to telling you about all the times I almost proposed. Like that day at the beach, or that time I finally got you on a broom, or that morning you got pancake batter all over the kitchen."
"James, it's fine. I don't need…anecdotal proof that you want to marry me. I want to marry you, too."
James blinked again. "But…I had this whole speech-"
This time he was cut off by another window smashing, this one on the other side of the house. Lily turned, wand raised, and discovered that it was just another post being upended. "James!" she turned back, urging him on.
"Right," he said, standing and looking around. After a moment, he bounded up the stairs, and before Lily could ask what he was doing he was back down, clutching an old bible in his hands. "I figured there'd be one in the nightstand. Will this do? I mean, we don't have a clergyman, or a civil officiator, or any witnesses, or any live people within a reasonable radius, but it should be fine, right?"
"It's perfect." Lily had begun to cry from the unique combination of euphoria and desolation that the situation was creating in her.
Suddenly somber, James got to his knees in front of Lily - which she mimicked - and set the bible on the ground between them before taking both of her hands in his. "I…don't know what to say."
"I thought you had a speech?"
"I can't remember it right now."
There was a pause as they both stared at each other, drinking in the moment - one of their last - and searching for the perfect vows.
"I love you," Lily said, quite seriously.
"I love you, too."
And with that simple statement, they kissed, because to them simple didn't mean plain, it meant pure. It meant that love was enough - more than enough - to get them ready to do what they had to do next.
"All right, Potter?" James asked as they pulled away.
Lily nodded, smiling tearily. "On the count of three, then?"
"One," James started as he rose to his feet.
"Two." Lily took his hand in hers before raising her wand.
"Three."