“So just give me one good reason, tell me why I should stay, cause I don’t want to waste another moment saying things we never meant to say”
-Michelle Branch
Lily
Through the watery mass of salty tears welled up in my eyes, I saw Alanna sit down cross-legged in front me. I tried to hide my tear-stained face from her flaming eyes.
“Could it be?” She sneered, her mouth curling nastily into the most horrible smile I’d ever laid eyes on.
Not waiting for my answer she pressed on.
“Could Lily Evans actually be crying?” She simpered, her expression of the sheerest delight.
I tried to respond but all that came out was another hearty sob.
“What’s wrong my dear Evans?” Alanna asked in mock concern; batting her long, mascara drenched eyelashes.
“I,” I say, the word sounding as weak as I felt.
“Could it be because you have finally realized you don’t hate my brother?” She gasps dramatically, her every word dripping with sarcasm.
Not bothering to answer her, I continue with my sobbing, burying my face in my knees, trying to curl up tightly so I’ll be so small she can’t see me, can’t taunt me.
“I told you you’d cry.” She says, sounding disgusted as I feel her eyes boring down on me.
I remain silent except for the gasps for air issuing from my mouth.
“You’re pathetic!” She screams suddenly, I look up to see her stomping around in circles in her slippers, her hair messy for once as she fails to control her anger.
“I know.” I say softly, shivering as an icy thrill of sadness overcomes me. Everything is going so wrong; this isn’t what it’s supposed to be like. I’m supposed to live happily ever after with James, right? It sounds so childish but that’s all I really want. I want Alanna to stop screaming, my heart to stop throbbing with shocks of pain. I want to be with James.
“Aren’t you going to get mad at me? Do you have ANY kind of human emotion in you?” She yells in my ear, shaking me roughly from my cozy position by my bed.
“You’re right though,” I whisper, puzzled by her anger at me not getting mad. Since when did people WANT you to get mad at them?
“I HATE YOU!” She wails, throwing me from her into the hard wall where my head makes contact with it, but I’m so numb from emotional pain I don’t feel the stinging I should.
In shock I realize tears are spilling from her eyes as well.
“Alanna…” I stutter.
“Do you even know what you did to my brother?” She snarls through the tears flowing down her rosy cheeks.
Scared to know the answer I shake my head, feeling pain beginning to penetrate my numb body.
“When I was eight years old, James left for Hogwarts for his first year. He left grinning and promising he’d write to me as soon as he got there. I felt a bit sad about him going, but knew his letter would come possibly even the next day, so I waited.”
She paused, feeling a strand of her long hair in her fingertips, not looking at me when she began to speak again.
“As I had predicted, the next day a letter did come, with my name scrawled on it in James’ messy handwriting. He wrote not about his three new friends, not about how much he loved his classes, not about his new teachers,”
She stopped again, savoring the words on her tongue and at the same time looking as if they all tasted of poison.
“He wrote about a girl. A girl with, I quote, the most gorgeous locks of red hair he’d every seen. A girl with green eyes that would make the most beautiful emeralds appear dull. A girl called Lily Evans. The whole letter went on for a page and a half about this Lily. He didn’t ask anything about me, I figured there must be another page, but at the bottom I saw an inky: Love, James.”
I didn’t dare look up at her.
“Letter after letter came, always about you. At the age of eight, I didn’t even understand half of the emotions he was claiming to feel toward you, but even at eight I could feel a pang of loneliness at the lack of my name in his letters.” She continued.
Guilt was seeping through me as she spat each word out. I couldn’t help being entranced by everything she said, it was already answering questions I had had about the depth of her hatred towards me.
“He came home for the summer. I can’t remember a single conversation your name wasn’t in.” She shot viciously, turning away from me and pacing around the room.
I could hear her panting from rage as her footsteps became heavier and heavier against the floor of the dormitory.
In the next instant she whipped around, her eyes streaming, a mad anger radiating from her.
“Of course, you’d remember what happened in second year.”
Another shot of pain swept through me.
“Please, don’t-“
“Shut up!” She snaps.
I back up even further against the bedpost and feel my heart beat quicken its pace. I’m sorely tempted to cover my ears so I don’t have to replay what she’s about to tell me in my head over and over again, just like on the train.
“In second year, I got another letter about you. The parchment was wrinkled as if his hands had been unsteady while he wrote it; his handwriting was as messy as his hair. The entire letter I got went on and on about how you were going out with him.”
Her eyes crept away from my face as she remembered this, her angry expression disappearing temporarily.
“You know what sucks even more than hearing about the girl that stole your brother from you Evans?” Alanna asks, her voice barely reaching a whisper, refusing to look at me.
Without waiting for my answer, she goes on.
“Hearing about the girl that broke his heart.”
I watch silently as she sits down beside me, pulling her knees toward her and glaring at the floor.
“Why do you think I didn’t come to school until this year? I never wanted to meet you. As long as I didn’t know you I could hate you in peace, never having to look into your eyes, never having to see what was so much better than me about this girl. When James dared to speak your name I felt surges of loathing at the memory of him not looking at me that summer because he didn’t want me to know he let one tear slide down his face caused by something other than physical pain. Unlike you, I love James, which is why I hate you.”
Tears had stopped flowing down my face at this point, but all the emotions inside me screaming to be heard tempted them to start up again. I couldn’t look at Alanna. Everything I thought of saying didn’t seem good enough to soften her, as if anything could. I didn’t know what she wanted me to do, or say. Dread was seeping through me as I attempted to stand up and fell back down because my body was too weak to support me.
“When I did meet you, the thing that killed me, was you were exactly how he described you. You were perfect. It made me hate you even more, made me want to hurt you so badly because you were better than me, and because you hurt James beyond what you can understand.”
How was I supposed to tell her I was in love with James after that speech? Not that she would believe me. I was starting to wonder if I should even bother doing something about it. Going out with him and continuing on like this both seemed risky. If I never tell him how I feel, I’ll continue feeling trapped and hated, but if I go out with him, no matter how wonderful it sounds, somehow I could break his heart again. I don’t know how, I don’t want to hurt him. I have no desire to watch him suffer. Maybe he would be better off without me.
“What do you want me to do?” I whispered quietly, trying to fight off my confusion and pain.
But isn’t he feeling awful without me right now? Isn’t it just torturing him to let him wonder how I feel? If that was true, how could he feel so alone and hurt about ME? I don’t deserve him at all. The amount of hatred I had for myself at that moment outdid Alanna’s by miles.
Her eyes glanced over me with haughty satisfaction.
“I want you to either love my brother, or go away. Those are the only two things that will ease my hatred toward you. Maybe you can heal what you did to him by loving him, but I’d make sure you’re a hundred percent in love with him before you do anything, cause if you think I’m bad this time around, you don’t want to know what I’ll be like if you hurt James again. Of course, as I’ve always wished, you could disappear. I don’t know how you’d manage either of those.”
That’s the last thing she says before she throws herself on her bed and wrenches the curtains closed.
James
When I woke up the next day I was slightly alarmed to find myself curled up at the foot of my bed, rather than in it. Rubbing my eyes, I shove my glasses on and look around; still wondering what I’m doing lying on the floor.
Even though it’s well past seven, I feel as if I didn’t sleep at all, which is when I remember what I’d been doing last night.
Last night was Sirius’ date with Lily. I had been keeping myself up so I could find out what happened but I must have fallen asleep before he came in…
At this point, Sirius yawns and rises from his bed and walks over to me with a look of concern on his face.
“What are you doing on the floor?” He asks, yawning again.
“I was waiting for you last night. I must have dozed off.” I reply, not looking him in the eyes.
Sirius lets that sink in for a minute before responding with a pleading air in his voice.
“Look, James, you have to know something. On that date, Lily, well, she doesn’t like me ok? So you don’t have to worry about it.”
I know I should probably be feeling just a bit sympathetic at this point, but my heart won’t let me because it is overflowing with irrepressible joy. I’m tempted to start hugging Sirius because Lily doesn’t like him but at the thought I realize that would be kind of cruel.
“Uh, but what about you?” I ask, semi-fearful to know the answer.
He laughs and for some reason grins widely at me.
“Nah, I don’t care. I don’t really like her, you know? She goes much better with you, you’re both so temperamental.”
I pretend to look disgusted and smile back at him. It’s as if yesterday never happened and now I can go back to normal, only having to worry about not driving Lily crazy instead of panicking about her dating Padfoot.
After getting dressed for classes we head downstairs to breakfast, letting Moony sleep in a little because he’d been having a fit about forgetting to do his Transfiguration homework. At the Gryffindor table I slide in beside Alanna, still grinning from my newly instated good mood.
“What’s up?” I ask her, not noticing what I grab for breakfast.
“Nothing.” She replies coolly.
I turn to look at her and find her glowering down at her cereal, her long hair in a plait down her back.
“Are you mad about something?” I ask, softening my voice slightly.
Her bubblegum pink lip trembles slightly as she decides how to answer. I’ve never seen her in such a bad mood. Ever since we got on the train to Hogwarts she’s been snappish and easily annoyed.
“No, nothing you’d care about.”
Even if she’s not blood related to me, I can tell when she’s lying. She seems as if she’s half mad at me, and half mad about something else.
“Why wouldn’t I care about it? I’m your brother.”
This last sentence doesn’t seem to improve things. In fact, her face goes pink as she looks at me with shining eyes.
“Look, it’s not important ok. Just leave me alone.”
With that she snatches her bag and stomps off to class, her long braid whipping dangerously behind her.
I tap Sirius on the shoulder and he jumps as if my finger was electric.
“Oh, it’s you. What’s wrong?” He asks hastily, his face reddening for some unknown reason.
“Do you know what’s up with Alanna? She’s barely talking to me.” I mutter.
“Er, no I don’t.” He says, his face going an even brighter shade of crimson.
I don’t bother finishing my breakfast and start going off to class. Everyone seems to be acting oddly today, but as far as I know nothing happened.
I walk into the Transfiguration classroom and drop my bag on the desk, trying to think what could be wrong with everyone. A few minutes later Remus walks in looking weary with a bag heavily stuffed with books.
“Hey Prongs.” He yawns, setting his bag gently on the floor while shaking his light brown hair from his eyes.
“Hi.” I reply distractedly as Alanna walks in looking even more bad-tempered than she was at breakfast.
“Whoa your sister doesn’t look too happy does she?” Remus says to me, his eyes widening as Alanna throws herself into the chair beside him.
“I can hear you, you know.” She snaps at him, carelessly tossing her bag on the floor. A small chinking noise comes from it and ink begins soaking the bottom of its hot pink surface.
Looking slightly alarmed, Remus mutters an apology and pulls a quill from his bag to start scribbling notes.
Slowly the rest of the class comes in, Sirius a lot earlier than usual, his eyes stopping on Alanna, then frowning as they come upon Remus and Rosa Marie on either side of her.
Class begins after Professor McGonagall sharply silences the sounds of chatting. No matter how hard I try to pay attention, since Transfiguration is one of my best classes, I keep getting this feeling that something’s missing. I have all my junk for class, Sirius and Remus are here, Alanna is also against her will...
Which is when I notice an empty seat, and with a pang the absence of gorgeous thick red hair falling down the back of a girl with bright green eyes. My eyes don’t leave the spot. It’s quite unheard of for Lily Evans to miss class, let alone miss it on the second day of school. How did I not notice it before?
I glanced at Sirius and Remus but Sirius was half asleep on his desk and Remus was gazing intently at Professor McGonagall. Nobody seemed to notice Lily wasn’t there.
Maybe she got sick, except that doesn’t make sense because Madam Pomfrey can mend anything in about a second. It also doesn’t make sense that Lily’s skipping class because she takes education so seriously and is usually reading some spell book; nothing seemed to explain why she wasn’t here.
I felt a sinking feeling of worry form in my stomach. What if something had happened to her? Instead of reading my book I paid more attention to the empty seat that should have contained the girl I was sorely smitten with.
After what seemed like a decade of lecturing, we were dismissed. In a second I flew out the door and waited impatiently for Sirius.
“James, what’s wrong?” He asks as he walks out, catching the disturbed expression on my face.
“Why wasn’t Lily in class?” I ask, more to myself than to him.
“Oh. I have no clue, I mean; she doesn’t exactly skip, does she?”
Quite confused, I stood at the door until I saw Alanna walk out. Even though she’d probably stab me for asking, she shared a dormitory with Lily and was likely to know where she was.
“Alanna,” I begin cautiously.
She whips around furiously at the sound of my voice and stares at me with a look that would send you straight to Hell.
“Do you know where Lily is? She wasn’t in class and I was wondering if she was alright and stuff.” My voice kept getting quieter at the venomous look she was giving me as I spoke.
Before giving me an answer I notice her blush slightly.
“No, I don’t know where she is.” She says quietly, her eyes not meeting mine.
“Where who is?”
I look behind me to see Rosa Marie and Sae at the door with half curious, half concerned looks on their faces.
“Lily.” I respond immediately.
They glance at each other, Sae raising her eyebrows and Rosa Marie nodding.
“WHAT?” I yell exasperatedly, suddenly angered by the lack of answers I’m getting.
“Oh, James it’s just she’s really upset. She told me to let her alone in the dormitory.” Rosa Marie sighs.
My heart sinks until it hits the bottom of my stomach. What could have happened to her?
“But why?” I ask, gazing desperately at the pair of them.
Sae looks at Rosa who stares back. Then they both look up at me.
“We really don’t know. All we caught was that it was something that happened last night.” Sae replies in a slightly worried tone.
Automatically I turn around and stare at Sirius.
Rosa and Sae raise their eyebrows to see my reaction.
“Wha??-No James, I swear, I didn’t do anything!” He says quickly.
I keep looking at him. He gazes straight back at me, determined to prove he’s not lying.
Something clicks in my head and I realize I’m basically accusing my best friend of hurting Lily. I shake my head and turn back to Sae and Rosa.
“She’s in the dormitory?” I ask, hitching my bag up higher on my shoulder.
“Yes.” They say simultaneously.
Without another word or question I start running down the hall until I feel something pull at the back of my robes.
It’s Alanna’s hand.
“”Lanna,” I sigh, trying to pull away from her grip but she holds firm.
“Please don’t go.”
Exasperatedly I stare at her. Her eyes look kind of frightened; you could almost read her pleading thoughts, as though she was asking me to spare her.
Something snapped in my brain again, but it was when I recognized that her eyes were reflecting guilt. Lily was upstairs all upset about something; Alanna didn’t want me to go, last night…
“You didn’t…” I groan, tearing my eyes off her stricken face.
“James!” She cries as I shove her hand off me.
“Why do you always have to hurt her? Really Alanna, why do you always have to act like this?”
She bends her head low and speaks to the floor.
“Can you answer something for me?” She asks in an unusually soft voice.
“What?” I say flatly, anxious to go find Lily.
“Would you hurt me if it meant she would love you?”
It was such an odd question that my mind was swept blank at the words. Hurt her?
Memories suddenly flooded my heart of her as a grinning six-year-old always getting into my stuff. Her laughing when she dressed my hair in ribbons at seven, every cute thing she’d said to me over her thirteen years on earth.
As the word no was about to slip from my mouth, she gaped at me with a pained expression on her face and ran off.
“Augh…” I exclaimed in fury before continuing to sprint down the hall and see exactly what my sister had done to Lily.
Lily
Sweet silence filled the dormitory. I was barely conscious of the tears running down my face, the only thing I could acknowledge were the thoughts passing through my mind, all of which involved James.
I felt so helpless up against the wall with my knees held tightly to my chest. I felt stupid, pathetic and heartless. Mostly, I felt confused. I was still debating what to do about James, trying to figure out what I could do to heal him, not myself.
Downstairs I head someone mutter something. In the silence I heard everything. I barely thought about it though, I had to come up with something that would hopefully kill this cold feeling of heart ache inside me.
Footsteps pounded up the staircase. Fear shot through me at the thought of another row with Alanna, who was probably the person coming up the staircase. I couldn’t even take the first one.
I shut my eyes to block out her profile, her angry eyes, and in vain to block out all emotion.
The footsteps came closer to me, softly hitting the floor in time with my pounding heart. As they grew closer the dread inside me increased and I felt the person they belonged to kneel down in front of me, I could feel their warm breath near my face.
Yet I still kept my eyes shut. Even closed, tears kept pouring down from them like heavy rain. I wished she would hit me or scream, just get it over with. I could sense a hand come close to me and flinched, only to feel soft fingers caress my hair.
Taken aback, I opened my eyes.
My heart was now beating so fast and so loudly I was afraid he would hear it or otherwise it would tear out of my chest.
James Potter looked intently at me with his eyes full of sweetness and concern. His hand was still touching my hair so lightly it was as if he thought I would break. Wrapped up in his eyes I kept staring at them, and they brought a sense of calm in me that I couldn’t have achieved if I had shut myself up here for hours.
Realizing what he was doing, his hand jumped back from me. Almost shyly his eyes wandered to the floor.
“Lily,”
His voice made my heart explode with the emotion that had gotten me into this. As he continued speaking, something in me sensed it was the emotion that would get me out.
“I’m so sorry for whatever Alanna did or said to you…”
His hand moved forward to touch me again but in the same instant he took it back and gazed at me with a kind of timid fear glowing in his eyes.
“I want to take care of you, but I don’t know if you’ll let me.” He whispers, his voice candied with innocence and sadness at the same time.
My emotions are hanging on this moment like a person attached to a burning rope. A moment where a wrong decision could ruin everything…
“C-Could you just hold me?” I manage to force the words out of my mouth, though they shook with every syllable.
I hang my head and feel myself blushing to the tips of my ears with embarrassment.
James doesn’t seem to find it stupid or funny, for the third time his hand moves toward me and a tingling sensation overcomes my body as his fingers move over my face, down to my shoulder and slowly both his arms wrap lovingly around me, pulling me to him gently.
The warmth from him reminds me of a cloak wrapped around you in winter, drinking hot chocolate after being out in the snow, and a million other delights, though none of them could compare to the intense pleasure I feel from his embrace.
I’m aware of everywhere I come in contact with him, including his black hair tickling my forehead. A glowing feeling fills me as he holds me to him, sucking the pain from me and reducing it into nothing. He’s so close to me I can feel his heart beating against my chest.
Shyly I let mine wrap around his waist. He moves if possible, even closer to me.
“Lily,” He whispers.
“Yeah?” I whisper back into his shoulder.
“Before I go, I need to tell you something.”
At first the only part I catch is he’s going, and my arms wrap tighter around him, but the other words connect with my heart and brain afterward.
“What is it?” I ask quietly.
His breath feels like warm air blowing across my shoulder, he loosens his grip on me so as to look into my eyes.
“I love you.”
If I was shaking before it was nothing to what was happening to me now.
I wanted to say it. I could taste the words on the edge of my lips, their sweetness pressuring me to speak.
James smiles softly at me before I can say anything, I swear at the corner of his eye I saw something watery glisten, but it must have been a trick of the light, and my chance was lost as he disappeared through the door.