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They are Sorted in the same House as her, the two boys who bullied Sev on the train.
The first one is not so bad. He actually seems friendly towards her, and to be fair, Sev was a bit rude himself there, before the boy decided to call him brainless and weak.
The other one, though…
He tried to trip Sev. He made fun of his name. What kind of prat does that? He looks so full of himself, loud and obnoxious, already making his presence felt at the Gryffindor table, marking his territory or whatever he thinks he’s doing.
At some point, he turns to her. “So, Evans.”
She doesn’t deign to respond to him.
He raises an eyebrow at her – she catches it with the edge of her vision, but pointedly ignores it – and redirects his attention to his new friend instead.
Lily continues her meal silently, until the short, ginger girl next to her makes an effort to start a conversation.
Maybe she’ll make some friends here, after all.
**
With each passing day, Lily wishes more and more that she had been Sorted into Slytherin.
James Potter is contagious; over time, all the boys in Gryffindor start acting like him. They prank, bully, make fun of everyone in their line of sight. Every time she sees Sev, he’s griping about another joke they’ve pulled on him. They don’t spare her either; they make fun of her studying habits, the way she twirls her hair around her finger when she’s trying to concentrate. And when she speaks up, she’s met with snarky grins, and a sharp comment from James Potter. It’s always him who speaks.
She can hold her own against him. The circumstances don’t always allow for it, but if they do, her own remarks don’t miss the target; and then, James Potter’s grin widens, as though he’s pleased she has responded, and he withdraws with the air of a winner, leaving her fuming.
**
He’s smart, and she hates it.
He shines in class, his spellwork always excellent, his Transfigurations exemplary, his essays always scoring high marks despite the fact that she couldn’t make out a single bloody letter of his chicken scratch even if they threatened to push her down the Astronomy Tower. And he revels in the knowledge; it fuels his ego, self-satisfaction brimming, overflowing, spilling down the corridors in the form of more boasting and hexing people just to show them how much better he is.
Lily is just as good; the teachers notice, she gets all the relevant good marks and praise, her classmates appreciate her and ask for her help. But somehow, it doesn’t matter, because she’s just another good student, whereas James Potter is smart and talented and insufferable.
“How many times do I have to explain that the school corridors are not a battleground, Potter?”
He lowers his head in front of Professor McGonagall, who has just caught him showcasing his latest achievement – a perfectly executed Green Vomit Hex, inflicted on a hapless third-year Hufflepuff. “I’m sorry, Professor,” he says, but the way his lips are suppressing his usual smirk implies he’s not in the least so.
She sighs and sends him straight to her office for detention, and then asks Lily if she would be so kind as to escort the Hufflepuff boy to the hospital wing for some Fluid-Replenishing Potion.
Lily is so kind, so she lets the boy lean on her as she trudges all the way to Madam Pomfrey, and stays there to keep him company until he’s ready to go back to his common room. He’s nice and friendly, smiling at her with gratitude, and he even hands her a chocolate frog as thanks for her trouble.
She sits in the common room after dinner, munching on it, when James Potter finally returns from detention, bubbly and energetic as if he hasn’t just spent three hours putting the entirety of McGonagall’s personal library in alphabetical order.
“Don’t eat chocolate before bed, Evans, it will make you bouncy,” he throws over his shoulder before he skips upstairs.
She sighs, her hands come up to massage her temples, and she wonders what kind of secret stash he must have found and raided at McGonagall’s office, if that’s the case.
**
He plays Quidditch too.
Of course he plays Quidditch.
And he’s bloody good at it, too.
He takes advantage of an overcast Sunday morning to go outside and throw a Quaffle back and forth with his friend Sirius Black, while Sev looks on at the pair with nothing short of hatred.
Sev would have liked to play Quidditch too, but it’s a sport that requires much more physical prowess than he possesses. His dexterity in wandwork and potion-making does not translate in skillful passing, and he may just be a little more afraid of a rogue Bludger than he lets on.
“Here you are,” she says, approaching him; his eyes leave the two Gryffindor boys to lock on to her instead. “I thought I’d find you at the library.”
“I thought I’d find you here,” he replies. “It’s your favourite weather.”
She smiles.
“While I was there,” she continues after a beat, and her face lights up with a hint of self-satisfaction, “I got this.” She holds up the book she’s been carrying under her arm; it reads Talbot Tinsdale’s Time-Saving Techniques, Volume II: Potion-Making.
His eyes widen, taking in the title with interest. “Can I?”
“Of course.” She walks up to his side and opens the book at a random page. “I only leafed through the pages quickly, but I bet there must be –”
She halts mid-sentence as James Potter’s Quaffle hits Sev right in the face; the boy lets out a cry and immediately turns to spot the culprit, who is grinning maliciously.
“Sorry, I missed,” he lies, as if that Quaffle didn’t go exactly where he had wanted it to.
“Not your fault, with all the space that nose is taking up,” Sirius Black calls out, and Sev makes for his wand right away.
“No, Sev, stop –” she grabs his hand, but he wrestles her grip away.
“Don’t treat a girl like that,” James Potter says, his tone now stern, a coldness in his usually bright hazel eyes that she’s not used to seeing.
“You’re one to talk about manners, Potter,” she retorts, as Sev quiets down next to her; his hand is still gripping his wand, but it remains tucked into his pocket, and she feels his forearm relax under her hand. “My relationship with my friend is none of your business.”
He snorts, apparently deeming her comment beyond words, then reaches for his wand and Summons the Quaffle.
“Let’s go,” he tells Black, with one last look of contempt thrown at the pair of them.
**
With each passing year, he grows more refined. His senseless pranking gives way to targeted retribution, and she hates that she finds it justified now.
He keeps butting heads with Sev’s friends. He barges in uninvited and escalates, and it earns him detention after detention; but she can’t really fault him for sending a Stinging Hex straight into Avery’s eye when he sees him walking over to where Sylvia Gillan is sitting at the library table next to the fireplace and snarling, “go away, Mudblood, that’s my table.”
Stinging Hexes may hurt, but hurtful words sting more.
**
She hates even more that her patience with her best friend is running thin; that she keeps comparing him with James Potter in her head, and somehow, James Potter always comes on top – and that’s discounting his overall better academic performance and his Quidditch talent.
She exits the portrait and sees Sev arguing with Veronica Cuthbert, the Head Girl.
“What are you doing here?” she’s asking, her dark eyes narrowed.
“I’m waiting for Lily.”
“You better not be after Remus Lupin again. He told me you followed him into the bathrooms.”
“I can go to the bathroom if I want to,” he defies.
“You heard me.” She’s tall and pretty; taller than Sev, and she’s looking down at him. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. If you keep harassing him, I’ll tell your Head of House.”
“He won’t,” Lily speaks up. “I promise.”
Veronica turns to her, her plump lips pressed together in disbelief. It’s a look Lily very often gets from Gryffindors who see her hanging out with her Slytherin friend. “Take him and go away,” she says, nodding towards the portrait of the Fat Lady. “He can’t hear the password.”
Lily knows that very well; she walks up to Sev, whose glare is still on the tall girl, even as Lily nudges him on the arm. He finally turns away and they walk down the corridor, headed to the library.
“Mudblood,” he mutters under his breath.
“Sev! You talk like that now?”
He doesn’t respond, only lowering his head instead.
She doesn’t think she can get more of an apology out of him, but he looks guilty enough that she lets go. “And why were you following Lupin?”
“I wanted to see if he really was sick.”
“Even if he weren’t, even if he were just skipping class, what’s it to you?”
“They can’t get away with whatever they want!” he protests, his voice high-pitched, whiny. “You agree with that, don’t you?”
Lily would have agreed, once upon a time; but by now she’s thinking that maybe these boys are not just doing whatever they want. Maybe they’re filling a void, stepping into a role that was never cast and yet so sorely missing from this school – that of the people who do what is right, even when it conflicts with what they must.
“It’s not our call to make,” she replies simply.
**
James Potter starts flirting with her, and she hates that she likes it.
He dawdles outside the classroom waiting for her, greeting her with an “All right, Evans?” as she passes, mussing up his hair and flashing her a grin that seems reserved for her only – and she hates that she’s noticed enough of him to know that he never smiles at anyone else like that.
She walks by him, only sparing him a raised eyebrow before she strides away, flipping her hair as she does, and she hates that she spends the rest of her break imagining his hungry gaze lingering on her back.
**
She’s in the common room, reading, when Dionysia Brightmore, her classmate and friend, walks through the portrait hole looking for her.
“Lily,” she calls out, immediately making for the armchair where she’s sitting. “Mary’s in the hospital wing.”
Lily gets up in alarm; her book is snapped closed and dropped on her armchair. “What happened?”
Dionysia sighs heavily. “Mulciber cornered her after Divination class,” she explains. “Tried to force Peeves into her.”
Lily shivers, and her teeth clench together. “What do you mean?”
“The Possession Curse. Forcing a ghost into taking over a person’s consciousness. It didn’t work, because Peeves is a poltergeist, but she lost control of her body for a minute and she’s still shaky and weak.”
“Were you there?”
“No. Veronica and Fabian found them. I ran into Veronica outside the Great Hall and she told me what happened. She took Mary to the hospital wing and was on her way to find Slughorn.”
Lily nods, a painful swallow travelling down her throat.
“Lily, things are getting dangerous,” Dionysia continues, her grey eyes clouded with worry. “You Muggleborns can’t walk around the castle alone. And you have to stop going to the dungeons.”
“Sev wouldn’t –”
“I don’t know that.” Dionysia’s tone is cutting – right through Lily’s heart, all deeply hidden doubts bleeding out. “He’s done some nasty stuff to the boys.”
“That’s their word against his.”
Dionysia crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t care about your friend.” The word comes out in a tone that might, in a great fit of generosity, be called contemptuous. “If you think he won’t hurt you, suit yourself, but what about his friends? Can you be certain Mulciber won’t jump at the chance to attack you too if he catches you alone? Would Snape protect you against him?”
“I can protect myself,” Lily says, to avoid the true question. Would he?
Dionysia shakes her head dismally. “If you think so,” she concedes. “I’m going to see Mary, are you coming?”
**
The distance between her and Sev grows, and it’s only partly circumstantial.
Between heeding Dionysia’s warnings not to roam alone in the shady parts of the castle, and Mary needing more attention and company than before – they’ve now bonded more than they had in over four years of sharing a dormitory – Lily spends most of her free time in the Gryffindor common room now, studying, reading, or chatting with the girls.
But the rest of the reason is that if she doesn’t talk to him, maybe she won’t hear things that she doesn’t want to hear; stories of kinship with Slytherin thugs, slurs that slip out a little too easily, and versions of events that look as though seen through the looking-glass.
It’s a cold March evening, and she’s in the common room finishing up some homework, when a commotion near the exit catches her eye. James Potter has just sprinted down the staircase and towards the portrait hole, while Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew are chasing after him.
“Wait, James –”
“I’m going.” His eyes are flashing, a threatening tone in his voice as he shakes his finger at them. “If you wanna do something useful, go find Dumbledore and tell him to meet me outside the Whomping Willow.”
“I’ll come with you,” Black says, “it’s too dangerous –”
“No! Stay out of it. I’ve got it.”
She looks up in alarm; it’s too late for anyone to be outside. “Where do you think you’re going?” she calls out, swiftly rising from her chair.
He only replies with a dismissive wave of his hand and hurries out the hole, quickly followed by Black. Lily rushes after them and manages to grab Peter Pettigrew by his robes before he joins them.
“What is going on?” she demands.
“It’s Snape,” the boy says, his weight erratically shifting from one leg to the other, eyes darting between Lily and the portrait hole that’s now closing behind his friends. “He went down to the Whomping Willow.”
“What for?”
“He –” She tugs again, harder, as she feels him flighty under her grasp. “He wants to find the monster.”
“What monster?”
He lets out a whimper. His face is now red, contorted in agony. “There’s a monster. Down at the Whomping Willow tunnel. It’s really dangerous.”
“What kind of monster?”
“I don’t know!” He bites his lip. “James went to find Snape and bring him back.”
Lily exhales heavily through clenched teeth. “Idiots, both of them.”
“Lily,” Pettigrew pleads, “let me go to Dumbledore. I don’t know if Sirius did or he went with James, but Dumbledore must know.”
“I’ll come with you –”
“No!” He looks at her with rounded eyes. “Please. I’ll go. It’s – it’s important.”
“I’m a prefect –”
“No,” the boy insists. “Look, you have to stay here and make sure no one leaves the common room. If the monster comes out –”
“It could come out?” she exclaims in horror.
“I don’t know! But what if it does?”
Lily pinches her brows, a tired sigh escaping her. “Fine. Go.”
He scrambles outside, and she walks across the now empty common room to sink into a sofa next to the fireplace, homework forgotten, her mind whirring with her frustrated musings.
It’s a full moon night – a perfect chance to corroborate Sev’s theory about Remus Lupin being a werewolf. Seeing the other three Gryffindor boys up in arms also lends credit to the fourth one being involved somehow, and their distress and talk of monsters and danger completes the set nicely.
Which begs the question, what is Sev doing, going after him? If Remus Lupin transforms into a werewolf, no James Potter, no one and nothing will be able to save Sev from his teeth.
Restless with worry, exasperation and too many more – all of them negative – feelings, she stays in the common room to wait for everyone else and keep watch; thankfully, the rest of the students remain safely tucked inside their dormitories.
Black and Pettigrew return soon after and go to their dormitory, unable to provide more information. James Potter doesn’t come back until almost two hours later, haggard and dirty, a hand running through his hair as though trying to brush away all his troubles.
“At last!” Lily calls out at his sight. She dons her best authoritative pose and strides towards him. “What did you think you were doing out there?”
His step interrupted, he turns to her and his weary expression turns into a smirk – for Merlin’s sake. “Worried about me, Evans?”
She raises an eyebrow at him, annoyed disbelief emerging at his ill-timed flirting.
“Of course not,” he mutters; she can taste the bitterness through his fake nonchalance. “Don’t worry. Your friend is safe.”
“What happened down there?”
“You don’t need to know everything.”
“I was worried,” she says pointedly, none of that worry in her voice now – only indignation and annoyance. “Pettigrew told me you and Sev went after a monster.”
“I didn’t go after a monster,” he spits, his hand clenching into a fist. “I went to save your fucking idiot of a friend from getting mauled by one. Who in their right mind sees a thrashing tree and thinks oh, it must be a really good idea to sneak past it? It’s there for a reason.”
“Well I guess not everybody is as extraordinarily brilliant as James Potter,” she retorts. “Next time maybe you can be a little less magnanimous and spare yourself the effort of saving fucking idiots.”
He inhales deeply through his nose, his whole face tense at a desperate attempt to control his temper. “I wasn’t trying to be magnanimous,” he hisses. “He could’ve been killed. I know he and his Death Eater friends think people getting killed is funny but I don’t work like that.”
“Yeah, you draw the line at bullying,” she manages to sneer back even though her blood has chilled in her veins.
One corner of his mouth twitches momentarily – amusement? Anger? It’s impossible to tell. “Everyone gets what they deserve,” he says. “But no one deserves to die.”
He turns away before she can speak another word – not that there’s anything worth saying left, not when that bloody moron had decided to risk his life for someone he doesn’t even like.
It is at that moment that she decides she doesn’t care about what Sev has to say about the whole thing. She has already seen and heard enough to know the truth, and she doesn’t want to taint this newfound appreciation for James Potter that’s starting to crawl its way into her heart.
**
“I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”
And just like that, all her excuses disintegrate like an Exploding Snap card.
“Sev wouldn’t –”
“He’s my friend –”
“They did it too, they started it –”
She tries to hurt him back, and she hates that all she can do is hurl the kind of insults James Potter likes to use – and how weak and flimsy they sound compared to what Sev has just called her.
Lily has always supported him against everyone’s comments even through her wavering faith in him, as she has watched him sink deeper and deeper into the snakes’ den; and yet he’s now spitting his poison at her in front of half the school, while James Potter – a person she’s never in her life shown the slightest kindness towards – is the one taking offence on her behalf.
“I don’t want you to make him apologise,” she says, and it’s true – she doesn’t want anyone to make him apologise. She doesn’t want him to apologise. He had plenty of time and opportunities to stop before reaching this point – now it’s too late.
“You’re as bad as he is,” she says, and it’s true – because even though he’d never call her a you-know-what, his attitude is more of the same: bright potential wasted in unnecessary callousness.
“You make me sick,” she says, and it’s true – because if he hadn’t attacked Sev, none of this would have happened, she wouldn’t be feeling her insides ready to spill out with disgust at the revolting behaviour of her former best friend, but most importantly, she wouldn’t be shaking with self-loathing, and the crushing, debilitating realisation that she was wrong, so, so wrong.
**
She avoids Sev for the rest of their stay in Hogwarts.
And James Potter avoids her.
She expected him to act like Sev, who chases after her in corridors, tries to find excuses to talk to her, puts on his best hurt and regretful face and silently pleads with her from a distance.
Instead, he stops trying to catch her eye. He gathers his things hastily and leaves whenever she’s around, and turns his back to her every time she so much as glances in his general direction.
She stays on the lookout, discreetly watching to see if he’s going to attack Sev or anyone else again; but other than the day she catches him pointing his wand at Evan Rosier, who is harassing a Muggleborn Hufflepuff – Rosier draws his wand too, but Lily steps in and invokes her prefect status to separate them before a fight breaks out – he remains quiet and unobtrusive.
It piques her interest, and she finds herself thinking about it – him – more and more every day, almost concerned, but she doesn’t get to talk to him until the day they are on the Hogwarts Express, on their way home.
She encounters Sev in the corridor, and makes to stride past him, but he grabs her wrist.
“Lily, wait –”
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
They’re the first words she directs at him since the day he called her a Mudblood.
“Do I really repulse you that much?”
“Yes.” The word is hardly necessary; her grimace speaks for itself.
The door to the compartment next to them opens; James Potter appears, arms crossed over his chest.
Sev turns to him, his features now hard as stone. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” He leans lightly on the door frame. “Just watching.”
Lily takes the opportunity to tear her arm away from Sev’s grip; his attention is turned back to her.
“We need to talk,” he insists.
“We don’t. Get away from me.”
She glares at him; James Potter does, too. Sev looks at each of them in turn and leaves, his expression set on bitter hatred.
James Potter watches him walking away and waits until he’s out of earshot to speak. “I wouldn’t have interfered. At least, not unless he hurt you.”
“He wouldn’t.” It comes out automatically, a reflex born out of years of habit that she now needs to unlearn; but she doesn’t rectify it. “But thanks anyway.”
“No need.” He sounds defeated, nothing like she’s used to from him, nothing like the confident façade he wore in front of Sev. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He returns to the compartment and draws the door closed; her fist rests on it, mouth forming tentative, soundless words, syllables that want to call out to him, but don’t.
**
When she walks into the first lesson of sixth year Potions, a cauldron of Amortentia is bubbling right in front of her desk, and she can instantly tell that it smells of James Potter.
She shouldn’t know what he smells like; they’ve never been in such close proximity, at least not in a context that involved anything other than angry, nasty stares – and yet the spiralling steam reaching her nose carries, among the mix of old book and cinnamon, a musky scent that’s completely new to her yet somehow screams his name.
Maybe that’s how the potion works, she reasons. Maybe it messes with your mind instead of your nose, invoking memories of things you find attractive and convincing you it’s what it smells like.
Her gaze, fatefully, inevitably, drifts to him; he is sharing a nearby desk with Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. He’s taller now than she remembers, and even though he still hasn’t grown facial hair, his jaw is more angular, more masculine; he’s growing into a man, and it suits him.
He looks more relaxed now than he did at the end of last year, but he still doesn’t catch her eye; and as the class progresses, as it lets out and they spill into the corridors, she notices he still avoids her.
Sev has finally taken his hint too; he stays behind, only stealing a furtive glance at her as she packs her things and leaves arm in arm with Dionysia.
She doesn’t miss him; all these years of friendship, and yet his presence in her heart has vanished without a trace, the void he should have left perfectly healed by the knowledge that he’s not worth it.
The one she misses is James Potter, even though he was never there.
**
He’s in all her classes, a little less loud, a little less obnoxious; but all the brighter for it, not just as a student, but as a person.
He’s perpetually busy – with classes, homework, Quidditch practices and planning, and when he’s done with all of that, he disappears, along with his friends. She knows Sev doesn’t go after them anymore, because she sees him with his own friends, fitting in easily, same self-important expressions and hateful leers thrown at anyone who’s not a Slytherin with a fancy, magical name.
Lily wonders, often and much, about what’s keeping James Potter so elusive. There’s no finding out from him; conversation between them is rare, and all her attempts to lighten it up with a joke or steer it into something more personal are met with terseness and suspicion. He never opens up enough to allow questions, and she’s not disrespectful or nosy enough to sneak after him and find out.
But every time he disappears, another piece of her heart breaks away to follow him in his escapades.
**
Piece by piece, he takes hold of her heart, which mends in his presence and stays in his hands; and he doesn’t even know.
He doesn’t have to know. It doesn’t matter. These things happen.
She doesn’t tell anyone. It will go away. Girls fall for boys all the time. The luckiest ones get a bit of snogging out of it; but that’s nothing Lily would care for.
If she had a choice, she’d want to just sit with him, listen to him speak and watch him laugh, and maybe finally get a chance to explore his musky scent from up close.
But Lily doesn’t have a choice; the choice is his, and he chooses to stay away, sitting as far from her as the room they’re in allows, and frowning and ducking away from sight every time she looks at him.
**
Sixth year passes; a pile of homework and loneliness.
When the seventh year starts, and she walks into the prefect carriage of the Hogwarts Express with the Head Girl badge pinned to her chest, he’s there too, wearing a badge of his own. She smiles at him – broad and genuine and so, so proud of him.
“Head Boy, then?”
He shrugs, almost resigned, but a faint blush paints his cheeks, and his teeth bite on his lower lip in a shy attempt at a smile. “Congrats,” he says, acknowledging her own success instead.
“Thanks.” She sits down, across from him, her straight back in stark contrast with his slump. His fingers fidget, positioned over his abs; one foot presses on the seat, his raised knee creating a barrier between them. Comfy and defensive at the same time. “You too.”
He shrugs again.
“Aren’t you happy about it?”
He doesn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”
“Really? Doubting yourself?”
His head jerks to her direction, expression suddenly stony. “Didn’t think you’d disagree.”
Lily pauses; she’s not sure why he seems offended. “I only –”
“I’ll leave you to do things as you see fit,” he says, now sitting up, his posture professional. “You’re more experienced in this anyway.”
Lily’s hand awkwardly reaches to rub her neck, while he focuses his gaze outside the window, effectively ending the conversation.
She had hoped they’d get to talk, but this is worse than if they hadn’t talked at all.
**
It seems that once he sees that she includes him in her planning sessions and asks for his assistance, he is more willing to cooperate – even though he always lets her take the lead.
They spend long hours together doing paperwork, and time mellows out his previous snappiness. He’s still distant, talks very little, and only about the work they’re doing – but the edge is off, his presence now dressed in a glowing softness Lily finds herself wanting to touch.
She thinks – she thinks she sees something like longing in his gaze, when he looks at her. It’s gentle and wistful and only lasts one second before he returns to his writing, but it’s enough to set her heart aflame.
For weeks, she holds back – until she can’t anymore, until the silence is unbearable.
He’s preparing the patrol schedules for the coming week, while she’s updating the detention book.
“Derrick Gander was sent to rearrange McGonagall’s books in alphabetical order,” she reads aloud. “Didn’t you do that too?” she asks him. “First year?”
“Yeah,” he replies simply, without interrupting his work, but she watches him; a smile, fond and playful at the same time, and a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
She’s so desperate to share in the joy of this memory.
“What?” she prods.
“Nothing.”
The brightness in his expression falters into his usual, casual indifference, and she can’t stand it.
She leaves her quill on the table, rises from her chair and walks over to him. Her hand slips under his jaw and tilts his face upward, and she kisses him, gentle yet firm, lasting.
His hand rises to her chest, his fingers curl around the fabric of her robes, and for a few precious seconds she thinks he’ll respond; but instead he pushes her away, an arm’s distance that feels like the world has split apart.
“Evans, what are you doing?”
“Talk to me,” she says, almost a whisper.
“What?”
“Talk to me,” she repeats. Her fingers caress his jawline. “I want to hear your stories, your jokes.”
“Why? So you can shut me down like you always do?”
She stills at the sight of his cold anger.
“I don’t need this.” He pushes his chair back, away from her, and gets up. “I’ve been doing my best to work with you without setting you off but I won’t have you play with my feelings.”
She swallows hard, crestfallen, words out of her reach as he storms off.
**
She finishes the paperwork on her own, to give him some time to cool off before they talk again.
He’s not in the Gryffindor Tower when she returns, and dinnertime is long past. A thought crosses her mind – she knows him so well, even though she doesn’t know him at all – and she goes to seek him out at the Quidditch pitch.
He’s there, sitting on the grassy ground by the stands, his frame curled around his knees and his robes wrapped tightly around him for a semblance of protection against the chilly November wind.
“You’ll freeze,” she says softly as she approaches him.
The tiniest shake of his head – a half-hearted attempt at disagreement.
She kneels in front of him, tender eyes searching his face; he seems to be looking at his shoes. “You have feelings?”
“Of course I have feelings.” His voice is low, but his tone is biting. “Do you think I’m some kind of monster?”
She leans a little closer and takes the hands that are clasped around his folded legs. “You have feelings for me?”
Now he turns his head away from her.
“James?”
The use of his given name draws his eyes back to hers; his beautiful hazel eyes, now red-rimmed and glistening with unshed tears. “You’re going to make me say it? Haven’t I been humiliated enough already?”
“No.” It’s not an answer; it’s a plea. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m not even asking you not to hate me,” he says. “Just – don’t torture me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
He snorts in disbelief.
“James.” She squeezes his hands, a new urgency in both her voice and demeanour. “Look at me.”
He does, miserably so.
“I don’t hate you. And I’m not trying to humiliate you. I meant what I said earlier. I want us to be friends. I want us to be more than friends.”
“You’ve never wanted that.” It’s amazing how, despite his evident hurt, his voice comes out even and steady. “Even when I did things that you –” He stops himself, shakes his head and sighs. “I didn’t do them so that you’d appreciate them,” he amends, his voice more quiet now. “I’d just think that – you’d be at least –” He sighs again. “Never mind.”
“You’re right. I’ve been unfairly harsh on you.” One hand leaves his and moves up to rub his knee. “I’m sorry.”
“Lily,” he says, and it’s tentative, cautious – trying out the word for the first time as if he’s testing its fit. “I know I haven’t been… exemplary.” He smiles ruefully as his gaze drops for a moment. “You have every right in the world to think me a prat.”
“I don’t think you’re a prat.” His honesty earns him her sweetest smile. “You might have been, but I know you’re better than that now.” Something flickers in her eyes; she knows he’ll see it. “And maybe you were right to be, sometimes.”
The same rueful smile again. “Don’t lead me on.”
“I’m not. I mean every word.”
He looks at her with his head slightly cocked – thoughtful, scrutinising.
“Can we start over?” she asks.
One side of his lips curves upwards; barely half a smile, and yet so warm and earnest. Like the ones she’s been seeking for so long. “I think it would be a good idea.”
Her hands are still connected with him; one holding his own, the other resting on his knee. She leans over and finds his lips with hers; and this time, he eases into the contact, his mouth relaxes under her touch and then responds. His free hand comes up, fingers tracing her cheek, and his other one squeezes – more than squeezes, it holds on.
She ends the kiss slowly, a promise for more lingering in the way she stays close, breathing him in, inhaling his musky scent that’s even better than Amortentia.
“Let’s start from here.”