The End of the Beginning
James sighed heavily as he grasped his scarlet Quidditch robes off a nearby, wooden change room bench. His Nimbus 1500 lay to the right of him, and he glanced down at it momentarily before exhaling sharply.
The change room was empty. There was not a single soul present as James Potter stood gazing in contemplation at a wall in front of him. A ringing in his ear became apparent from this silence, and his train of thought was broken as he looked once again down at his broomstick.
After James had left the pitch, the Hufflepuff team had dismounted onto the ground and hugged each other tightly to express their victory. The Hufflepuff crowd had erupted into cheers and chants as the Gryffindor team made their way sulkily into the change room, copying what James had done a few minutes ago. Most of the Gryffindors were silent as they changed. None of them brought up anything that happened, nor did they complain about losing the game as they would normally do. Even Jennifer Wood remained quiet. Usually, she would be lecturing everybody on new strategies she had already come up with, and how the next practice was when she was going to put these techniques into place. Today though, there was nothing but awkward silence that remained until every Gryffindor Quidditch player had left, save James Potter.
Click.
James turned to the side to notice a fiery redheaded girl standing there, looking at him with her arms crossed sternly. At her entrance, James noticed a slight smell of cinnamon (that the girl always appeared to carry) drift into the crisp air. She was bundled up in her coat and scarf.
He sighed wearily.
For a moment, the two just stared at each other speechlessly. Lily carried an expression of disgust and disappointment, and James held a tired appearance that explained that he had no idea what to say or think.
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating with Brendan or something?” inquired James, the first one to break the dead air.
“Just because we are dating doesn’t mean we have to be around each other twenty-four hours a day. We have an understanding, unlike some people.”
James rolled his eyes as if to say, “Oh, brother.”
“Why did you do it?” inquired Lily, clearly ignoring James’s rude gesture.
“Do what?”
After James had asked, he knew it was the most arrogant question to reply with.
“You know bloody well what I mean,” answered Lily sharply as her arms remained crossed. “Why did you go after the Snitch when you know only a Seeker is allowed to catch it? You of all people would know that since you are absolutely Quidditch oriented and obsessed. If I do recall correctly, the foul you almost committed is called a ‘Snitchnip’.”
“I didn’t want Hufflepuff to win the game. I was trying to interfere. Is that such a crime?” questioned James swiftly.
Lily laughed cynically. “You didn’t want Hufflepuff to win? Is that your lame excuse? You’ll have to do better than that to fool me. I know very well that you went after that Snitch in order to spite Brendan. You completely forgot the rules out of jealousy.”
“Well, if you knew the answer then why did you even bother asking me?” retorted James as he chucked his Quidditch robes into his bag, grasped his broom, and slung the black bag over his right shoulder.
“I wanted to make sure I was right,” said Lily in an attempt to clear up the issue.
“Well, aren’t you always right?” asked James as he walked over toward Lily and the door.
“That is so arrogant of you, Potter. You are acting so sarcastic now just because I’m dating Brendan. Are you really that low?”
James stiffened briefly at the sound of her words, but she hadn’t noticed. She was too heated up in argument to notice.
“Things can’t always go your way, Potter, and trying to catch that Snitch from Brendan was so disgusting. You aren’t even the bloody Seeker! If it wasn’t Brendan, you wouldn’t have gone after that Snitch. You would have stuck to the rules!”
“Fair? You’re lecturing me about ‘fairness’?! That’s a good one, Evans. Might I recall the one who cast a spell on the lenses of my glasses?”
“I did that to make it fair for Brendan! I was making it fair for him!”
“You’re just saying that because he is your boyfriend.”
“No, I’m not. I’m saying it because I know when somebody is being a real bloody jerk, and it is my responsibility as a person to put those people in their place!”
Lily had not noticed that her arms were no longer crossed but gesturing in front of her to get her frustration across.
“Move out of the way,” stated James edgily as he towered over Lily who was blocking the Quidditch change room doors. “I don’t want to continue with this conversation.”
“No, this ‘conversation’ is your own fault,” replied Lily resiliently and stubbornly.
“Move, Evans.”
“No.”
James sighed as he re-adjusted his strap from his black bag.
“Please move, Evans.”
“No, but nice try.”
James exhaled sharply in agitation, but Lily did not seem intimidated at his irritation or large body build.
“Get to the point, Evans. What do you want?”
“I want you to apologize to Brendan, Jennifer, and the rest of the Gryffindor team. It wasn’t your place to almost cost the team a major foul. Also, you had no right to play Jennifer’s part as Seeker, and it was not your place to go after the Snitch and compete with Brendan. These apologies are all needed because of your stupid ‘crush’ on me.”
“You make all these accusations of me about going after the Snitch, but how do you know that I would never- “ James paused slightly to contemplate his word choice before continuing with, “-interfere if it was someone else?” he questioned with a deep frown.
“Oh, come on. Ever since I have known you, I have never witnessed such a competitive crave and desire in your eyes. Did you really feel that competing for the Snitch was really the same as competing for me? Was that your analogy?”
James sighed as he rolled his eyes before saying, “You always think it’s about you, don’t you, Evans?”
Lily was slightly taken aback at his comment that she gave him enough time to hastily grasp the door handle of the change room and slide through. Lily regained herself quickly and caught up with him trudging his way across the grounds back towards Hogwarts.
“What is that supposed to mean?” interrogated Lily rather offended as she walked beside him.
“Well, if you know everything, you should tell me.”
James’s pace quickened, but Lily remained with him as they both walked passed a patch of snow left behind from winter.
“Stop being so cynical, Potter. You know what I mean.”
“If my head is so bloated with self-arrogance, I probably don’t know what you mean.”
“The sarcasm you are using is sick and immature.”
“Really? Funny, it sounds a lot like someone else’s, don’t you think?”
“Stop changing the bloody subject, and tell me what in Merlin’s name you meant before!” demanded Lily, her anger and tone rising.
“Won’t you be so kind as to remind me what your question was?” asked James sarcastically as he continued to walk with a quick pace.
“Fine, don’t tell me then! Be a conceited, cocky toerag for the rest of your life! I thought you were changing, James Potter. I saw you play the piano, and I appreciated how you took the blame for me so many times. I also read that note where you were tutoring that fourth year girl. I really thought you were maturing up. But then you do something foolish like this, and I know my original thoughts about you were correct. All you are is a bullying, incompetent fool that only likes to hex other, poor, defenseless people for fun in order to make himself feel better. You treat people disrespectfully, and you have this impression that all girls and people are just meant to like you. You are nothing but an egoistic person, and you just want to have me because I am the only girl you will never be able to have.”
James stopped abruptly and turned to look at her. The sudden motion had startled Lily slightly but not noticeably.
The two were now present in the Entrance Hall.
“You know what, Evans?” began James, his frustration apparent. “You talk as if you know me as a person, but I know perfectly well what you think of me is so wrong and prejudged that you never gave me a chance or the light of day. You think I love you because you are the only girl I have never been able to ‘have’. Let me get this straight for you, OK? Everything I have ever done in front of you, and everything idiotic I have ever said to you was all because of you. Maybe you never truly understood that, so don’t lecture me on things you don’t understand or know about. I thought a lot about that night at the Christmas party where you snogged Brendan so ‘passionately’. Then I came to wonder: why do I waste my time on a girl that will never love me the way I love her? I love the one girl that I would give the world for, and all she knows how to do is rip my heart out. I think about it now, and see that I was a fool. I wasted my time and my freedom of thought because all of it was occupied by you, and only you. I see now that the one girl I could never ‘get’ is the same one that hates me with the most extreme, utmost, unbelievable hate that will never turn into anything more than that. That same girl is also the one girl I am better off to live my life without. So, after all this time, effort, and wasted attempts, I hope you’re happy now. Isn’t this what you wanted; for me to leave you alone and get the hell out of your life? Everything I do now has nothing to do with you, and I’m sorry if it is arrogant, conceited, and what other bloody hell it is, but that’s the way I am. So don’t you dare waste your bloody time or mine on me. There you go, Evans, you can have a peace of mind now. You no longer have to expect me breathing down your neck or asking you out. You’ll have all the time in the world now since you have no one else to lecture, or maybe you’ll find somebody else? Whatever your plans are, they will no longer include me, because it’s over, Evans. It’s over.”
As Lily surveyed James she felt so many emotions at the same time, she didn’t know how to feel. It was true she had never thought that James Potter could actually and truly be serious about his feelings towards her, but the way he acted was still inexcusable and frustrating. She felt torn between guilt of prejudging him, and satisfied that he admitted he was disrespectful and wrong.
The choice of whether she wanted to continue complaining, apologize, or slap him across the face did not matter, for her calmness was the first thing to take a hold of her words.
“Well, I’m glad we have that straightened out, Potter, and I am relieved to hear that you have ‘given up’ on me. It might just be the smartest decision you have ever made. I see now that lecturing you on your actions has been a waste of my time, and has been inevitably fruitless. Thank you for describing to me so fully your disposition. I believe we will no longer have any further interactions with each other.”
The two faced each other, and each observed that the other’s face was crimson from the cold. Lily glanced up at him with her piercing green eyes and saw him gaze back at her with his strong hazel ones. Deciding purely on instinct, the two parted from each other at the same time in opposite directions.
Lily whipped her blazing red hair behind her and walked gracefully away from him with all the composure she could muster. With each step she took, however, she couldn’t shrug the uneasy feeling that she was walking away from something special. Turning away from James Potter created an unknown sadness within her: a sadness she couldn’t quite explain.
James had told her it was over because he felt that he needed to let go. He couldn’t let his jealous emotions for her control him. For crying out loud, he had forgotten an obvious and actual Quidditch rule by trying to catch the Snitch. He wasn’t the bloody Seeker! He would have committed a huge foul. His envy was causing him to be manipulated so easily into doing almost anything (even if it was wrong) that remotely concerned her. That was why he needed to hear him say his own words to make him realize the reality that Lily was, and would always be, out of his reach. He couldn’t dwell on something that wasn’t there. Lily was taken, and that was the harsh truth.
Oh, but how heart broken he was.
Little did Lily know, James Potter had stopped mid-step to turn and gaze at her as she walked away to take one last, longing picture of her in his mind before he would never pursue her again.