Lily didn’t know what to do.


She watched as James Potter--usually Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected--stared at the purple writing and his hands began to shake. His chin quivered as he stood in the common room, his owl on his shoulder.


Remus would know what to do, Lily thought. Maybe I should run to the Great Hall and tell him…why couldn’t I have been on time for breakfast this morning? Besides, I’m probably the last person he wants to see right now, Lily realized, remembering that just the day before she had yet again refused (rather harshly) to go out with James Potter.


So Lily, not knowing what to do, simply stood there. She could guess what the letter said; the purple ink and official seal were becoming increasingly common as Lord Voldemort gained power: James had lost a family member. Teachers used to take students aside personally to relay the news, but the sheer number of deaths had deemed this impossible.


She stood there watching his lip begin to quiver and his hands shake. When James looked up, Lily blushed violently and stared at the floor. I should have gone to breakfast, she thought.


But James seemed unsurprised to see her still standing there. He looked in her eyes for a moment, a determined look as he prepared himself to speak steadily.


James held the paper out to Lily.


“It’s my aunt and uncle. They’ve been murdered by Death Eaters. Will you tell Sirius, Remus, and Peter for me?”


Lily stared back into his eyes, wishing there were some way she could comfort him. But if this is what he asked of her, she would do it.


Lily nodded her head, not breaking his gaze; it was as if his hazel eyes were boring into her; she couldn’t look away even when she saw tears well in his eyes.


Lily tore herself away and walked toward the portrait holes; as she turned to close the painting she saw James sprint up to his dormitory, the letter crumpled in his fist. She felt only pity as she walked to breakfast.












Luckily for Lily, the other Marauders were sitting alone at one end of the table, deep in conversation (probably planning their next prank, Lily thought). Lily sat down next to Peter, opposite Sirius and Remus.


“James asked me to tell you something," Lily began falteringly, feeling a lump grow in her throat as she imagined hearing of her own aunt and uncle’s death.


“Yeah? Why is James sending you?” Sirius said loudly. “You weren’t too great to him the other day!”


Any other time Lily Evans would have argued back, retorted, “Well, he wasn’t too great to that Slytherin,” and left to sit with her friends. But she didn’t trust herself to speak so loudly, and James was counting on her to pass on the message.


Looking at the table, Lily spoke very quickly and softly. “His aunt and uncle were killed by Voldemort’s supporters. I saw him get the official letter; he wanted me to tell you.”


Sirius opened his mouth to perhaps to make another disparaging remark, but Remus cut him off. “Now is not the time for the Evans-Black Battle of Wits,” he said in his cool voice.


Sirius shut his mouth; his face had gone pale. Lily knew he was close with all of James’ extended family. Lily left them so as to sit with Mary and Alice, her two best friends; soon after she saw Remus, Peter, and Sirius file out of the Great Hall looking somber.


Lily soon learned that James was either very resilient or very good at keeping his feelings hidden, because--though she did not see him or any Marauder all weekend--by Monday he seemed to be back to his usual cheerful, arrogant self. But Lily did not forget that, for a moment, James Potter had relinquished his ego and let himself grieve.

---

Lily Evans was enjoying the bright fall morning. She had expected all her Saturdays to be filled with homework now that she had reached her seventh year, but the load for today was surprisingly light. Professor Flitwick had even teared up in class:


“Go--enjoy the weekend. Take advantage of your last-- year here,” he had said, trumpeting his nose on a frayed handkerchief. "I'm sorry; it's just so hard to think of you all leaving me to go into the world. Be sure to v-v-visit," his lip had quivered as the class cheered.


So after a hike around the grounds and a visit with Hagrid, Alice, Mary, and Lily were famished.


“My clothes are really dirty from that hike; I think I’ll go change before I eat,” Lily said as an owl flew up to her and deposited a letter on the table before her. Seeing that the letter bore her name, Lily took it, opening it as she walked to the common room. In a corner of the room, Lily noticed as she unfolded the parchment, was James, actually studying. Professor Scalar must have given them homework, Lily thought absently, looking down at the letter’s purple writing.


Purple writing?












Lily froze, her eyes hurriedly scanning the letter, until she found, amid the “we regret to inform you”s and “sincerest condolence”s, the sentence that told her more than she wanted to know.




“Your parents, Florence Harris Evans and Christopher Jacob Evans, were murdered by Death Eaters.”












The world groaned to a halt. Lily froze in her tracks, forgetting her hunger, oblivious to the beautiful view of orange and red trees out the common room window. Lily’s friends used to tease her because she claimed she liked all colors equally. Well, now she had a color that she hated: that indigo purple, the way it sat dully on the paper in neat script, its words so unbelievable, as though they did not belong to this world at all, but to an alternate universe, where parents are murdered and all their children are left with is parchment and purple ink.


And as realization swept over her, Lily ran to a couch, her hand over her mouth as if she could force her features into a pleasant expression, but it was to no avail. Lily cried, great wracking sobs that shook her body as pain forced itself out of her every pore, her nose running, her eyes pouring saltwater onto the couch. She was making a racket, she knew, but was too upset to care.


Lily felt someone sit down beside her, a hand rest on her back. Lily turned and saw James sitting there, his face somewhere between comforting and stricken.


“You got the letter?”


“My parents were killed,” Lily choked. As she looked at James through bloodshot eyes and a stream of tears, an image forced its way to the front of her mind: Hazel eyes, boring into her so she could not look away, his hand shaking as he clutched a piece of parchment with purple writing.


To anyone else at that moment, Lily would have shouted, “Leave me alone.” But James knows what I’m feeling, Lily thought.


And then she was crying into his shirt, her tears dripping into the cotton fabric while his hand rested on her back. She clung to him, and he held her like a friend, like a father.


He held her silently as she wept, holding the one person who could begin to understand how she felt. And as people began to return from lunch, he walked her to the quiet of his dormitory where he sat silently with her as she held his hand, until at last she fell asleep, the paper still clenched in her left fist. And James sat, watching her ragged breaths grow deeper, more regular; watching her body relax on the bed, her left fist unclench. But she still held tightly to James’ hand.


Fin

---

A/N: I attribute one line to Orson Scott Card’s book Shadow of the Giant, which you should all read (it inspired part of this story; the rest was personal experience): “She clung to him, and he held her like a friend, like a father.” Alas, I wish it were mine. Everything else is JKR’s. Please take 5 seconds and tell me what you thought…and check out my other James/Lily fic, Not Another Cinderella Story! (And did anyone get that the Arithmancy professor is named Professor Scalar, ha ha ha? Sorry, math joke)