Lily stepped out into the deserted corridor. She dabbed the corner of her eyes with a tissue and wondered if perhaps there was some sort of spell to erase the way her eyes looked from crying so much. She had just spent the past fifteen minutes in the loo and simply couldn't bear the thought of seeing other people at that moment; the embarrassment was simply too much for her.
Because that day had probably been the worst day of her young life. It started off well enough; Lily was entering the Great Hall for breakfast when she bumped into Aaron. But instead of greeting her as he usually did, he seemed strange. He stumbled with his words and looked behind him, where Lily noticed Rena O'Reilly standing off in the corner, watching. He told Lily that he wasn't sure it was going to work out. Half the school stared as Lily walked away, completely flabbergasted.
Of course, Alice and Ophelia had done their jobs as best friends- "You're too good for him!", "He didn't even have any decency in him to do the deed in private!", "Seriously, how ugly is Rena??"- but none of it did any good. The words of her closest friends were appreciated, but nothing could conceal the fact that she had just been dumped; and it hurt.
In the aftermath of this fiasco, the thought of going to her first class and facing everyone was terrifying, but there was one person whom she was more scared of seeing than anyone: James Potter. He had, of course, tried to warn her, and she had dismissed him as a liar and ruined their new friendship in the process. The past week since their awkward confrontation had been strange; James had kept his word of leaving Lily alone. She no longer walked the corridors and heard a friendly, "All right, Evans?" and the absence of that one annoying phrase somehow left her feeling empty. If James was sitting somewhere and Lily entered the room he would leave, but if they were around each other for some reason, he didn't crack jokes or even talk much at all. Head Boy and Girl meetings and duties had become very formal and uncomfortably awkward. Lily hated to admit it to herself, but she missed James so much that it nearly killed her.
And now this. Why hadn't Lily listened to him? James was so good to her. Deep down she had known he was right, but her reluctance to believe him was her way of protecting herself. She didn't want to admit that her relationship with her boyfriend had been falling apart for weeks, even months. She didn't want to admit that she was being replaced by another girl. She realized that she didn't want to admit that, after all these years, James had finally gotten his wish; she wanted to be with him. And now he hated her.
Lily swung open the door to Transfiguration and walked to her seat. She tried not to look at the faces watching her, but they were hard to miss. She glanced ahead of her and saw that every student was trying subtly to catch a glimpse of her. Everyone, of course, except James.
"You okay?" Ophelia whispered, a small, concerned smile on her face.
Lily smiled back, weakly. "I'll be fine". It was a lie- well, she knew she would be fine eventually- just not anytime soon.
As class began, she just stared at the back of James's head. She wanted to take her book at throw it at him. After all these years! She hated to admit it to herself how badly she wanted him. So she decided that she would be angry at him instead. She took out her quill and began writing about the differences in transfiguring a turtle and a tortoise, trying to eliminate all other thoughts from her mind. It wasn't until half a paragraph in that she realized she was writing in her book and not on her parchment.
*******
“Prongs?” Sirius asked. “Feel like going out for a bit, see if we can’t have a little fun?” His dark eyes glittered as he obviously imagined all the first years and Slytherins that were out there to torment.
“Nah,” James replied, not answering.
“Are you all right?’ Remus asked considerately.
No, he wasn’t alright. He was miserable. Beyond miserable. For the first time in his life, he hated being at school. He wished he was back home, where there were no red- heads to ruin his life and drive him to insanity. “I’m fine,” he answered.
“Come on, you must have a little more faith in your friends than to think that we wouldn’t see right through that,” Sirius told him.
“I just don’t want to talk about it, that’s all.”
“But it’s your last year!” Sirius nearly yelled. “You’ve got to live it up while you still can! Promise me you won’t be like this for the rest of the year, I'd rather be at home with the rest of the loving and kind Black family!"
James smiled, but it was half-hearted. “I’ll try.”
Sirius sat down next to him on his bed. "Look, I'm really sorry about Evans. Don't think that I'm not. It's just that you're my best mate, and I don't want to see you this upset over one girl."
"But she's not one girl, she's the girl," James said. Just hearing the words killed him.
Sirius laughed. "You're eighteen years old! There are plenty other snitches on the field, all ready and waiting to be caught, if you know what I mean..."
"For you there are," James sighed. "Anyway, where are Moony and Wormtail?"
“Dunno where Wormtail is,” Sirius shrugged. “I haven’t seen him for a while, actually, now that I think about it. Where has he been?”
“Maybe he’s staying late with teachers or something, he hasn’t been doing too well has he?” James suggested. “But where’s Remus?”
Sirius looked down. “Well, he’s with Ophelia.”
“Ophelia?” James asked.
Sirius sighed. “Yeah... they’re sort of... a thing now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we didn’t really want to tell you with... you know... your troubles in the lady department. Sorry about it.”
James smiled, for what felt like the first time in ages. “All right, Moony! How long has he liked that girl? A year, two years?”
Sirius smiled back. “Probably almost as long as she’s liked him.”
“Took them long enough.”
“Yeah, well... me and Alice have sort of been helping them along. We thought they would never get to it by themselves, and it’s Seventh year!”
“Good for him,” James said. He was actually very happy for his friend, no matter how badly he was hurting at that moment. And it was about to get worse.
“Well, I’ve got to go patrol...” James said quietly.
“With Lily?” Sirius asked.
James nodded. “If the pain doesn’t kill me, the awkwardness will. See you later, mate.”
He used to love going to spend time with Lily patrolling. Now, he would much rather be serving a week long detention in the dungeon with Filch.
All Right, Evans? by anglophile
Chapter Notes: Chapter 15... Enjoy!!