“For someone who has felt so strong
It’s amazing I’m completely gone”
-Ashlee Simpson
James
I knew from the instant he asked her to talk to him what was coming. I had tried all last night to prepare my heart and brain for what he was doing, but it had been in vain.
Last night I was up in the dormitory trying to get a potion stain out of my robes when Sirius walked in. For some reason his eyes looked glassy and out of focus as he looked at me, and his expression was as guilty as my sister’s whenever she gets caught reading my “Transfiguration notes”.
“What’s up?” I asked, at first smiling but slowly beginning to frown at the look on his face.
“James,” He sighed, trudging over to me and sitting beside me on my bed.
“You’re going to hate me forever for this.”
All warning signs are out: James’ life is about to take a twist down Melancholy Lane.
“What?” I asked him warily.
“I, I think I like Lily.”
It is a long, slow, painful never ending ride down Melancholy Lane.
I can already feel my insides twisting madly inside my stomach at his words. My best friend, Sirius Black, likes Lily, Lily who I have loved since I was eleven years old.
“Oh.” I heard my voice choke out through the pain of a hard lump swelling inside my throat.
“I understand if you’re mad,” Sirius began cautiously, looking me straight in the eyes.
“N-No, it’s ok. I mean, it’s not like you guys are dating or anything.” I tried to say this with laughter in my voice. I ended up sounding as if someone had shoved a quill down my throat.
“Well,” The guilty look on his face became more pronounced as he looked at me, his bright eyes darting side to side every few seconds.
“I thought I’d ask her out.”
If only my best friend wasn’t the best looking guy in the school. If only his hair didn’t come out shiny and luxurious even after getting into a fight. If only girls didn’t swoon over his “amazing” blue eyes.
If it had been that way, I wouldn’t have had to worry about it. The fact is, when Sirius wants something, he gets it, and now he wanted Lily. I was no competition with my messy black hair and perfectly normal hazel eyes. Any glory I had felt at being one of the most popular kids in school completely vanished.
“That’s ok.” I sputtered.
“I mean, if Lily says yes, and she likes you, she’ll be happy, and that’s really all I care about.”
It was true. All I cared about was Lily.
That’s what I remember from that night, I thought I could take the pain that was now coursing through my veins. I couldn’t. Beyond my forced smile and feigned laughter with Sirius, Remus and Peter, I was howling and shrieking without restraint.
I’m weak.
All Lily can see is the arrogant, self-centered git I used to act like. The James she sees feels no pain and shrugs everything off like a pile of rags. I wish she could see the James deep within my soul, in a strange way I wanted her to know how much pain she’d caused me, because then she may realize that if I can feel pain that deep, I can feel love too. I want her to know that I love her.
All I can do is stand here and watch Sirius grin every now and then, thinking about his date with the one thing I wanted, the one thing I was never going to get.
“I cannot lie,
From you I cannot hide
I’m losing my will to try
Can’t hide it, can’t fight it”
-The Corrs
Lily
Later that day Sirius ran up to me, saying that we could leave for our date tonight at about five. I felt my face grinning and nodding at him, but my heart was uneasy. I could still hear Alanna’s words clearly in my head. Did I really want to go on this stupid date with Sirius? I didn’t have any kind of romantic feelings toward him after all. I never got chills when he looked at me, never felt butterflies inhabit my stomach at the sound of his voice, I wondered if I would feel fireworks if he kissed me.
I pulled my hair out of its braid and ran my fingers through it, studying the effect in the mirror by my bed.
No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t muster up a thrill of excitement at the thought of a date with Sirius. In desperation I spoke aloud our names together to see if I like the sound:
“Lily and Sirius.”
My reflection remained the same: a red-haired, green-eyed, slightly sick girl.
“Lily Evans and Sirius Black.”
Nothing.
“LILY BLACK!” I shouted into the mirror. All that happened was I got ten times more frustrated at my lack of emotion.
I gazed around the room to make sure no one was there, and then whispered:
“Lily and James.”
My heart went numb as I watched my reflection’s face break into a sly smile. I wanted to chuck my book at it to make it stop but at the same time I could feel my lips curling into that same expression. I thought I would have no reaction, the same thing that happened with Sirius’ name! It must have been because I was angry that the emotion had suddenly sprung up in me. Plus, love and hate are really not that different. All they are are strong passionate feelings for another person or thing; the only difference is whether the feeling is positive or negative. I must be mistaking this for love, that’s all.
Just to make sure I whispered again:
“Lily Evans and James Potter.”
Even my annoyed spirit had to admit the names fit together like pieces to a puzzle.
“Lily and Sirius.”
Just like that all my feelings evaporated.
That’s when I heard someone knock softly on the door.
“Lily?”
Sirius’ voice sifted through the door. I had no choice; I had to go through with this. After all, it was only one date, how much could happen?
“Hey.” I greeted him, my mouth splitting into a grin.
“Hey.” He returned, and then out of nowhere he slipped his arm around my waist.
As I felt the pressure of his arm pulling me to him I couldn’t help wondering if this would feel nicer if he was James.
“How did you get up the staircase?” I ask, desperate to interrupt my thoughts.
“Oh, that. Well last year I dated this girl named Artemis and she told me how to do it. It’s just a simple spell.” He replies, shrugging with the arm that isn’t wrapped around me.
“Cool.” I say, wondering what the heck I’m going to do.
The rest of the walk downstairs and through hallways passes in silence, with the added discomfort of Sirius gripping me tighter around the waist.
“How are you getting into Hogsmeade anyway?” I ask him.
“It’s not even a weekend.”
“Watch.” He says slyly, walking over to a statue of a one-eyed witch.
He pulls out his wand, prods the statue and mutters something. Instantly the statue opens up to reveal a space big enough for someone about our size to slide through.
“Sirius, are we allowed to do this?” I ask frantically. I’ve never even been in a detention before!
“No but who cares? I sneak through here all the time with the guys.”
I peer into the hole in the statue. It looks dark and not exactly enjoyable by my terms, but whatever. It’s not like I didn’t get myself into this.
“So do I crawl through?” I ask him.
“Yeah, unless you want me to go first.” He replies, totally at ease.
Taking a deep breath, I shove my head through the tunnel and slide stomach-first through what seems to be an unending cave of darkness. I can’t help being kind of freaked out because I’ve never done anything like this before, so I shut my eyes tight and keep them closed even when I feel my body stop moving. In fact I don’t open them until I hear Sirius saying my name.
“Are you ok?” He asks, bending down to see my face.
I sit up and throw my hair out of my eyes, gazing at him while trying to decide how to react. A small part of me is thinking this is the perfect way to get out of this date: I could pretend I was really mad at him for making go down the frigging tunnel and stomp off without much more of an explanation. Unfortunately my heart won’t let me. I can’t help thinking that if I’d listen to it more often I wouldn’t even be in this horrible situation.
“Yeah. It was kind of funny actually.”
I actually laugh and he grins at me through his bangs that are now speckled with dirt from the tunnel.
“So do you wanna go somewhere?” He asks, standing up and extending his hand to me.
I eye it for a second. I feel as if this whole date is just an experiment to see how I react. If I take Sirius’ hand, I’m either going to or not going to get some kind of romantic feeling. In my heart I already know there will be no reaction, all I can imagine is if Sirius were James, with his hand held out to me, smiling with the essence of an angel.
Waking from my daydream, I take his hand hesitantly and pull myself off the floor.
“Sure.”
Not letting go of my hand he walks quietly up a set of stairs, stopping for a minute to check for people as we come out, then pulling me into Honey Duke’s with him.
“Let’s go to The Three Broomsticks.” He says.
I nod, feeling sick to my stomach and trying to keep up with him when he pulls my hand forward.
Outside the weather is comfortably warm with cool breezes brushing past now and then. I find myself paying more attention to the shops than to Sirius, barely even acknowledging the change of scenery when we walk inside.
“What do you want Lily?” He asks.
James.
“Uh, I’ll just have a butterbeer. Here,” I say, trying to shove some sickles into his hand but he refuses point blank.
“I’m taking you out, remember?” He says, grinning devilishly.
It’s so weird and annoying how he can just turn anything semi-innocent into something bad with one look. That’s how it felt at that moment.
“Right.” I muttered, letting myself slide into a chair.
About two minutes later Sirius shows up, still smiling, and passes me my tankard.
“Thanks.” I say, taking a sip from it.
Warmth overflows me from the drink as it runs down my throat. It tastes wonderful but suddenly I’m reminded of how warm James felt when I fell into him.
At the thought I choke and let a few tears fall down my face from the lack of air and distinct feeling of overwhelming sadness about James.
“What’s wrong?” Sirius asks, reaching for my hand.
“Nothing.”
Why, why, why does he always have to make physical contact with me? I hate it! I just don’t want him touching me. It’s not that it’s disgusting or anything, I can’t really even explain it. All I know is-
“You have really pretty green eyes you know.” He whispers, his words sounding like something out of a romance novel. Except, this was one romance novel I NEVER wanted to read again. I think I’ll burn it when I get out of this hopeless situation.
“You have the most amazing hazel eyes I’ve ever seen.” I tell him, gazing dreamily at his beautiful eyes shining through his messy black hair.
“Um, Lily? My eyes are blue.”
Snapping out of my fantasy I blink up in terror at Sirius, whose eyes are unmistakably the bluest shade of blue possible.
“Oh, um, I meant blue. I get colors mixed up easily. Once I actually told Sae my sister had pink hair!” I forced myself to laugh, then grimaced and tore my eyes off him.
For once he doesn’t say anything, just stares at the table mirroring my appearance of feeling ill.
Inside my head I start praying that he didn’t realize why I said I loved his hazel eyes. If he found out how I felt about James, my life was over. It was bad enough even realizing I loved James.
When I looked at him again I noticed with shock that his face was about five inches closer to me than it had been. I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was getting even closer to me, and finally it penetrated my mind at the last second that he was going to kiss me.
My stomach was going crazy with nerves, not because I liked him, but because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. What was I thinking? Going on a date with Sirius Black? Of course he would try to kiss me! He’d done even more than that with the other hundred girls he’d gone out with. I didn’t have much time to conduct a plan. His lips were in danger of coming in contact with mine at any second…
Sirius
Maybe it was the fact that no emotion sprang up in me in her presence. Maybe it was the fact that she’s convinced I have the most gorgeous hazel eyes in the world. Maybe it was the fact that whenever my eyes met her blazing green ones, I saw James’ reflection instead of mine, but for some reason, I don’t think we had the hots for each other.
Yet at the moment I was trying to kiss her.
Honestly, I thought I had felt something for her. It’s not like she isn’t pretty, with her locks of red hair and emerald green eyes, it’s just, there was this other girl with red hair and green eyes that I did feel something for.
Alanna.
I knew as soon as I wrapped my arm around Lily’s waist that I didn’t love her, and knew I never would. I’m going through with this to make Alanna jealous, to make her want me. It seems so cruel and heartless, but I just had to do something to win her, and Lily is the one girl that could cause such powerful jealousy from her.
Technically that’s using Lily. She’s my friend and now that I think about it, I really don’t want to use her, don’t want to hurt her. At this instant I cannot believe I’m going to do this! I can’t believe I’d so willingly hurt her, can’t believe I already hurt James, can’t believe I’m about to so stupidly hurt myself by kissing Lily Evans.
I open my eyes the second before the kiss.
I have been saved by Lily’s tears.
Pouring down her flushed face are several shining droplets forged from her glittering eyes.
“Why are you crying?” I ask, suddenly terrified to watch the progress of such sadness.
Lily blinks up at me and tries to say something, but I only hear her hiccup.
“Lily?”
Embarrassed, she hides her face in her robes and I hear her sniffle from behind them.
“Is this about James?” I ask, wondering how she’ll answer.
Personally, I would bet my broom, house, and The Marauder’s Map that she feels the same way about James that he feels about her.
Her face snaps up and she gazes at me with mixed shock and disbelief.
“How did you know?”
This wasn’t the answer I was expecting. Normally Lily would deny any evidence that pointed toward her feeling anything for James. I guess she was sick of disguising it.
“To put it bluntly,” I began,
“It’s obvious.”
“Oh.” She said, her voice barely reaching a whisper before more tears fell down her face.
“I’m really sorry Sirius.”
Across the table I take her hand, but in a different way than the way I have been for the past hour. Gently I hold it and lift her head up with my other hand.
“Listen. Don’t worry about it. The truth is, about thirty seconds into this date I realized I didn’t like you like that, so you don’t need to be sorry. It was pretty cheap of me to ask you out anyway, since James loves you so much.” I tell her.
Lily dries her eyes and smiles weakly at me, her face flushed and her eyes red and puffy.
“Why did you try to kiss me if you didn’t like me?” She asks, not angrily, just curiously.
I feel my face grow hot and look away from her. How am I supposed to tell her? She’d hate me forever, possibly more than she’d pretended to hate James.
Well ok, maybe not that much.
“Promise me you won’t be mad,” I plead, still not releasing her hand from my grasp.
“I’ll try.” She says simply, the light from her eyes flickering like a warning signal.
“It was-“
I can’t do this.
“It was because,”
She continues to look at me with her green eyes not blinking even once.
“I wanted to make Alanna jealous.” I blurt out, tearing my hand from hers and burying my face in my arms in shame.
Silence rings through my ears. I slowly raise my head to look at her as though the effort is causing me unbelievable pain.
Lily doesn’t appear angry or even puzzled. She seems oddly satisfied, which doesn’t make any sense to me, considering Alanna seems to hate her with the same passion James loves her with.
“I should have guessed.” Is all that comes from her mouth as she observes me with amusement.
Startled, I gape at her and she begins laughing.
“What…” I am at a complete loss for anything to say as she continues giggling at my expression.
“Well, it’s kind of funny that we both went on this date, and the whole time all we wanted was to be with somebody else.” She laughs.
I really don’t understand girls.
“Listen. Please don’t tell Alanna about this, not that you guys talk or anything.” I beg her.
All the happiness that so suddenly illuminated her features vanishes.
“No, I won’t tell her. Like you said, we don’t talk.”
Clearly I’ve said the wrong thing.
Lily stands up and wipes her face one last time before saying:
“Promise me you won’t tell James.”
“But why wouldn’t I?” I reply, gaping at her.
“Just don’t ok?” She snaps, tears shining in her eyes again.
Not knowing what I should do I agree not to tell James, watching as she runs out into the dark.
Lily
The faster I sprint the less pain I feel, so I keep running and running with the fuel of every breath I stop to take.
Realization of loving James hit me too hard. I just can’t take it. I don’t think I even realized how deep I felt for him when I started picturing him with me instead of Sirius. As strange as this sounds, it was the mention of Alanna that woke me up.
Her always saying how I broke his heart seemed to slowly and painfully break mine, and shatter the wall of lies I’d built to protect myself from love.
Panting from running so furiously, I threw open the dormitory door and sank onto my knees at the foot of my bed, letting tear after tear run its course down my face. I only looked up when I saw the feet of Alanna Potter that were clad in blue fluffy slippers in front of me. Her expression bore no sign of forgiveness or sympathy. All I could think was:
Well Alanna, here come your hundred tears.