The weeks after Hogsmeade kept the Seventh Years as busy as ever as the teachers tried to cram in everything they could before the Christmas Holidays. Lily and James continued to spend a lot of time together, working desperately to get everything in on time to their teachers and participate in all their other activities, but the chemistry between them had changed. James was a little bit stiff with Lily and rarely ever relaxed around her anymore, and most of their conversations consisted of questions about schoolwork or grievances about their ridiculous schedules. Every time Lily tried to joke around and have fun with him, James would close up and revert their attentions back to the task at hand. In the back of her mind, she knew that he was still upset over what had happened during their walk in Hogsmeade, but she kept hoping that he would go back to his usual carefree self.
She didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on these thoughts however, because she was kept busy running around by all of her responsibilities, the biggest of which was planning the Christmas Ball. It was all the school could talk about as each day only brought it nearer. Notes were slipped in class about who was going with whom, and every conversation in the girls’ washrooms centered around what style of dress robes each girl was going to wear and how she was doing her hair. The younger students nervously bumbled about asking each other, while the upperclassmen coolly took their time.
When the week before the dance arrived and some of the Seventh Year girls still hadn’t been asked however, they began to protest that the boys were taking too much time.
“I’ll just die if I have to go the ball alone,” May whined Wednesday when they were all at lunch. “I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face if I’m the only Seventh Year without a date. What’s the point in going anyway if everyone will be dancing and having fun without me?”
“Stop exaggerating,” Lily said, taking a bite of her sandwich. “Of course you’ll still be able to have fun without a date; it’s not like you won’t be able to put one foot in front of the other just because you don’t have a partner to dance with. And who said you won’t be getting asked in the next couple of days? There’s still time.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she retorted back. “You don’t have to worry about being asked because you’ve already got a date.”
Lily frowned and said, “No I don’t. What made you think that I had a date?”
Surprised, May glanced over at James before answering Lily. “Well, I “ I thought that “ I mean I assumed that “ I don’t know. I guess I just heard somewhere that someone had asked you, but I guess they were wrong.”
Lily knew May was talking about her and James, and wondered herself why James hadn’t asked her, but only shrugged and said, “I guess that proves that you can’t believe everything you hear.”
Everyone had automatically assumed that James and Lily would be going together because they had been so chummy this year, or at least because they were Head Boy and Head Girl. It was no secret that almost every girl in the school had a crush on James, and Lily was fairly popular herself, but ever since the two of them had become friends, most people had given them up as a lost cause and hadn’t even tried to ask either of the two of them out.
As the conversation moved on to their plans for the Christmas Holidays, Sirius turned to James and said in an undertone, “Why haven’t you asked her yet, mate? We’ve only got a couple of days left.”
“Who said I had to ask her out?” James replied before taking a sip of his pumpkin juice. The truth was that after Hogsmeade, James had decided that it was no use in chasing after Lily, because she would always think of him as just a friend, if even that. Or at least that was what he had been trying to convince himself.
Sirius gaped at him before saying, “But you’re always asking her out. I would think this would be the perfect opportunity because she’s bound to say yes this time and -,”
Before he could get any further, James grabbed his books and said, “I’ve got to get to class early and finish up the essay that we have due. See you later,” and left.
Sirius frowned after him. What had gotten him all up-in-arms? He had been acting strange lately but Sirius had been attesting it to the awful workload they’d had to deal with as the term came to a close. Obviously though, it was something more than that. He didn’t think Lily and James had had a fight, because they were still talking to each other. Maybe he had already asked her and she had said no.
“Hello! Sirius, I’m talking to you,” Ginger said, waving a hand in front of his face to get his attention.
“Sorry,” he said, “What’s up?”
“You’re not taking anyone to the ball yet are you?” she asked.
He wrinkled his nose before answering, “No! I’ve been successfully avoiding potential askers all week, and I don’t plan on getting caught anytime soon. Speaking of which, there’s Felicia Hart, and she’s starting to make her way over from the Slytherin table.” He began to shrink down in his seat to avoid her gaze but it was too late. “Great, I think she’s spotted me. Gotta run!”
“Sirius wait!” Ginger said grabbing his arm. “Just go with May. That way you won’t have to try and avoid half of the female population for the rest of the week, and May will have someone to go with.”
“But I don’t want to go with anyone,” he said stubbornly, trying to wrench his arm free in time to escape.
Holding on fast, Ginger whispered so that only he could hear her, “All you really have to do is bring her to the dance anyway; May won’t care if you dance with her or anything. As long as she can say she has a date, she’ll be happy.”
Before Sirius could respond back, Felicia barged in, shooting daggers at Ginger for holding Sirius so closely. “Hey Sirius,” she said in sugary tones.
“Hey,” he said back, visibly trying not to cringe.
“I tried to catch you after Charms today, but you left too quickly for me to get your attention.”
“Er, I had to run back to my room to get something before the next period,” he lied.
“Oh well that’s ok,” she said, plastering a fake smile on her face. “I can ask you now.”
He laughed nervously while Ginger smirked at him with folded arms.
“You wouldn’t mind going to the Christmas Ball with me, would you?” she said more as a command than as a request.
Sirius frantically racked his brains to come up with a way of saying no to the bullying Slytherin without having to fear for his life. “Actually,” he said swallowing, “I “ I can’t go to the ball with you because -,” he faltered as she glared at him, “because I’m already taking May,” he finished in a rush.
Wide-eyed, May backed up in her seat to distance herself from Felicia as the girl turned on her. Stepping in front of her to shield her friend, Ginger looked the Slytherin in the eye and said resolutely, “I guess you’ll have to ask someone else. I hope you can find someone in the next two days.”
Felicia narrowed her eyes at her but said nothing as she stomped away from the Gryffindor table.
“Come on, we’d better get to class,” Ginger said as she watched her go. Everyone agreed as they packed up their things and finished their food.
After they had left the Great Hall May turned to Lily and asked, “So what’s going on with you and James?”
Lily thought about denying knowing what she was talking about, but if May had to even bring it up, then clearly something was wrong. Sighing, Lily said, “I think he’s given up.”
Giving her a quizzical look, May said, “Given up? On what?”
“On me, or at least on thinking he’s in love with me or something like that,” she answered, suddenly finding the paintings on the wall very interesting.
“What?” May exclaimed dubiously. It seemed almost unnatural for the Quidditch Captain not to be seeking Lily’s attention. But for him to have completely given up on having a chance with her was the last thing anyone expected.
“That can’t be right,” May said. “Maybe he’s just been so distracted lately with all he’s got to get done before we leave that he just hasn’t had time to think about you as much as he usually does.”
“I don’t think so,” Lily said. “Even though we talk about the Ball at least ten times a day for all the planning we have to do, he’s never asked me to go with him or even brought up that part of the subject.”
Knowing full-well that it wasn’t the case, Alice said, “Well, you can be happy now that Potter’s off your back and not asking you out every five minutes. I mean, isn’t that what you wanted all along?”
“Yeah,” Lily answered, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice but failing.
Was that really what she had wanted? She had made James agree to it at the beginning of the year, but was she regretting it now? Truth be told, she kind of missed the attention, but more than that, she missed the closeness she had had with him. Homework had become a chore again without the jokes bandied back and forth, and patrols of the castle were downright boring. She had thought about flat-out asking James if he wanted to go to the Christmas Ball together, but had never quite worked up the courage. It was a lot harder to ask someone out than she thought it was! Plus, she didn’t know what she would do if he said no.
How could he have standed being rejected by her so many times and still have the nerve to keep asking her out over the past four years? She was beginning to appreciate his determination in winning her over, even if it did look like it had finally dissolved. As she entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom behind her friends, Lily made a promise to herself that she would try to win James back. If not for the fact the she felt like she owed it to him, she was at least almost confident that she really did want to go to the dance with him.
During the rest of the day Lily made an effort to be around James and hold his attentions. It wasn’t an easy task, as she soon found out, because there was a lot that needed to be focused on, like schoolwork, Quidditch, and Head duties. In his spare moments walking to and from classes (and even during class for that matter), she was right by his side, making witty comments and joking around with him. By the time ten o’clock rolled around though, and it was time to do their patrol of the castle, Lily was just a little bit frustrated at her lack of progress with the bespectacled boy. Running out of steam, and things to say, Lily walked tiredly down the halls next to James.
“The Ball’s coming along, huh?” she said, taking a stab in the dark at conversation.
“Yeah,” he answered. “It should be a nice break for the school “something fun after all the hard work we’ve done this year.”
“Yeah. Hey, you’re going right?” she said as they climbed a flight of moving stairs.
James frowned. He’d never really thought about not going, but then again, he’d never really made plans to go either. “Er, yeah I guess so,” he answered. “I mean, we’ve put so much work into it that I’d want to see how it all ends up turning out.”
She nodded in agreement but groaned on the inside. Could he make this any more difficult? A month ago he would have jumped at the opportunity in this conversation to ask her out to the dance, but now he seemingly remained clueless.
Trying an approach that was a bit more direct, Lily asked, “So are you going with anybody?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “No, I don’t think there’s anyone that I’d want to ask.”
“Oh.”
Lily felt her heart sink as she realized that she had been right in thinking earlier that he hadn’t even been thinking of asking her to the dance. Now she really was regretting not letting James kiss her in Hogsmeade. Would there always be a distance between them now?
“Are you?” James asked, breaking into Lily’s thoughts. James all but kicked himself for asking that question. Of course she was going with someone to the Christmas Ball. She was the most beautiful girl in school. The question was really, who was the bloke that he was going to be insanely jealous of and want to pulverize the whole night. Now that he thought about it, maybe he shouldn’t go to the dance at all.
“No. No one’s asked me,” Lily said with a bit too much force than she had intended.
Surprised, James said, “Really?”
Lily couldn’t help herself from giving him a look of annoyance. You’d be the only one to ask me, James, she thought. Since it looked like we were practically dating this year, everyone assumed I would be going with you.
“Yeah,” was all she said as they turned the corner to walk down the Charms corridor.
Realizing that she didn’t want their walk to be any more tense, she elaborated a little more and said in a more conversational tone, “Well, I really wanted someone to ask me this year, because, you know, it’s our last year “the last chance we’ll have, and I wanted it to be special. I didn’t want it to be like just any old dance.”
James nodded and said, “That makes sense,” not committing to any opinion about it himself.
They walked for a minute in silence down the empty halls. As the time grew between conversations, Lily began to feel the pressure of the stillness of the castle weighing down on her. Racking her brain for anything to say to break the quiet, she blurted out what she had been wondering about for the last five minutes.
“You don’t want to go with anyone?” she asked, still not really believing that he didn’t want to ask her.
James paused as he tried to think up something to tell her that wouldn’t be a lie. As they turned another corner he said, “Dances aren’t really my cup of tea; I’m not even sure if I’ll actually go to this one, now that we’ve talked about it.”
“James! You have to go to this one!” Lily exclaimed. “Dumbledore expects us to lead the first dance. If nothing else, you can leave right after that and come back when it’s time to do patrol, but you have to at least be there for the first dance.”
“Oh, I had forgotten about that,” he said, already dreading the moment when he’d have to be in such close contact with her again.
“Don’t sound too excited,” she said darkly as she picked up the pace, suddenly wanting a quick end to this awful patrol with him.
He frowned and hurried after her to keep up. Lily had been acting differently all day. First she had been practically hanging all over him, and now she was getting upset about everything he said. Maybe it was the stress. He shook his head and followed her down the steps to the Great Hall. One thing was for sure, and that was that the Christmas Holidays could not come any sooner.
The next night as he was packing up his things after spending a few hours in the library he couldn’t help but think the exact same thing. His brain was fried from composing a six-foot long essay for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he was ready to catch up on some sleep. Most of the other Seventh Years had left long ago, but James had only had these few hours tonight to squeeze in time to work on it. Passing Madame Pince warning some First Years that the library was closing, James made his way towards the stacks to put his book back.
He was almost to the row where his book belonged when something made him stop short. There, with a pen in her hand and her textbook open, was Lily Evans, asleep. She was bent over the study table with her head resting on her arm and peacefully drooling on her parchment. James paused to lean against the side of one of the bookshelves and watch her. The soft light from the candlesticks in the passageway lent a glow to her form, giving her an ethereal look. As she rhythmically breathed in and out, a lock of hair that was partially covering her face shifted with the air movement. Instinctively, James reached out and carefully tucked the strand behind her ear. As he took his hand away she stirred, slowly opening her eyes.
“Hey,” he said softly, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be over her.
“Hey,” she managed to get out before a yawn escaped. “What time is it?”
“Nearly ten,” he said, noticing the marks her sweater had left on her face. “The library’s about to close.”
Glancing down at her half-filled parchment, she sighed and said, “I guess I’m finishing this in the common room then. Thanks for waking me up.”
“No problem. Do you need any help putting away your books?” he asked as he noticed the stack on the other side of her.
“Yeah, that’d be great. I think the professors must have a bet going to see who can assign either the longest essay or the one that requires the most research books,” she said as she grabbed a few and began shelving them.
James smiled and took a few books himself. “That or how many students they can break the will of.”
Lily half laughed and half moaned. If there hadn’t been only one more day of classes until the holidays, she knew she probably would have cracked under all the pressure. It helped to have friends like James around though. She smiled as she realized he was finally acting like himself again.
Grabbing the last book off the table, she reached to put it on one of the higher shelves; as she did so James quickly tried to get a book in on one of the lower shelves by her knee. Unfortunately, Lily didn’t see him and tripped over him, sending them both sprawling. James’s head landed against the side of one of the shelves, while the rest of his body got pinned down underneath Lily. They both stared with surprise into each other’s faces, which were only inches apart. Seconds passed as neither of them was aware of the world around them, save the other’s eyes. Lily’s breath caught in her throat and her insides began to do the wriggle. There was so much meaning behind James’s eyes that she was beginning to lose herself in them. There was no way that he didn’t like her anymore!
Suddenly James blinked and something slid into place behind his eyes. In an obvious effort at an emotionless tone he said, “Alright Evans?” and jerked a little so that she slid off him.
Taken aback and wondering what had just happened, Lily opened her mouth to reply in an equally cold tone, but then all at once everything made sense. A bubble of laughter started to rise up that she couldn’t keep in, causing her to let out a chuckle at the whole situation. She glanced at James who gave her a clueless look. She couldn’t help herself then, and collapsed on his shoulder in a fit of laughter.
Of course she had thought James had given up on her! He had been shoving her away as well as his emotions for her, to protect himself from getting hurt again like he had at Hogsmeade. Just like he hadn’t acted like himself all those years before, calling her Evans and showing off, for the past few weeks he’d been pretending not to care about her, causing him to seem distant and not like the James she knew.
As Lily laughed at her misunderstanding of him for all those years, James bewilderedly held on to her, mentally yelling at himself to push her away again, though his body refused to obey. She was making it very difficult to feel unattached. He couldn’t help but give a small laugh of his own at her odd behavior though.
His laughter stopped short however, when she brought her head back up and said with a challenging sparkle in her eye, “Are you alright Potter?”
For the second time in five minutes, their faces were so close that they could feel each other breathing. James was absolutely dying! If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that Lily was asking for him to kiss her. She was definitely flirting with him, right? Then again, maybe she wasn’t, but just reverting back to their old banter because he had called her Evans. The best bet was to play it safe and not do anything, though he was having a hard time coming to terms with that idea as he glanced down at her lips. No way James! he thought. You don’t want to be slapped again, so just get up now and go back to the common room.
Tearing his gaze away from her lips, he quickly looked back up into her eyes and tried to get out some kind of goodbye before he stood up, but Lily wasn’t staring back at him. Instead, he swore he saw her looking at his own lips and leaning the slightest bit forward.
In an instant he was connecting their lips and losing all awareness of the outside world.
Lily thought she had died and gone to heaven. This was amazing! Why the Hell didn’t I go out with him in Fourth Year? she thought. But soon she wasn’t thinking anything at all.
Several long moments later, they were interrupted when Madame Pince hit a book over the top of James’s head and shrieked at them to get out of the library because it had closed. Grabbing her hand, James pulled Lily up and dragged her away from the irate librarian, apologizing profusely and practically running towards the door. The two burst out laughing as soon as they were safely out into the hallway. Taking their time walking back to the common room, they reveled in the unspoken change between them.
“Don’t you have something you want to ask me?” Lily asked as the painting of the Fat Lady finally came in sight.
James furrowed his brow and said, “No. What would I --,” but stopped walking when he suddenly realized what she was talking about.
“Will you go out with me, Evans?” he asked in a rush, a huge grin on his face.
“Yes,” she said, smiling back as she put her arms around his neck. “Yes, I will go out with you, Potter, you arrogant bullying toerag.”
It wasn’t for another half hour or so that the two Heads went back into their common room and up to bed. The two sixth year prefects from Ravenclaw that discovered them didn’t have the audacity to report them for being out of bed after hours, but they did tell anyone and everyone they knew that Lily Evans and James Potter were caught snogging outside the Gryffindor common room and that they were finally going out after six years.
The next two days went by in a blur for James and Lily, and before they knew it, they were leading the school in the first dance of the Christmas Ball. As they twirled across the floor, first a little awkwardly as the whole school watched, but then more relaxed as they forgot about everyone else in the room, they both wondered at the fact that they were dancing in each other’s arms. Lily never would have believed it, while James was ecstatic. As their friends joined them, they loosened up and started having a good time.
“I’m glad Dumbledore decided to have a Christmas Ball,” Lily said later that evening when they were sitting down to take a break.
“Yeah, this has been fun,” James agreed.
“Great job planning this!” May said as she and Sirius joined them. “I don’t think there’s anyone here who’s not having a good time.”
“It couldn’t have come at a better time too,” Alice chimed in as she and Remus, her stand-in date for Frank, sat down at the table as well.
The week before, another attack from Voldemort and his Death Eaters had happened in a village not far from Hogwarts, shaking everyone up and making some of the students afraid to go home for the Holidays. The excitement about the dance had lessened the worry about the future as the Dark Lord continued to gain power, but it was safe to say, that no one was scared about it now as they danced around the Great Hall.
“You know,” Lily began thoughtfully. “I’ve always felt safe at Hogwarts, but I always thought it was because Dumbledore was around. I realize now that it’s also because I’ve got all my friends here with me. It’s kind of like the speech Dumbledore gave at the beginning of the dance, that even though we’re all unique and with our own talents, as a whole, the school is stronger together than anything else anyone could bring against it, because we’ve got each other. The most important thing we can do is to care about those around us. I think he’s right.”
Everyone nodded while James squeezed her hand.
“After Hogwarts, we’ll just have each other,” Alice agreed. “Let’s promise to keep in touch.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever stop being friends,” Remus said.
“That’s right, James has got way too much to blackmail me with if we ever started hating each other,” Sirius broke in.
They all laughed and gradually branched off into lighter topics of conversation, enjoying the rest of the evening before they had to leave in the morning for the Christmas holidays. Only years later would they realize the true meaning behind Dumbledore’s and Lily’s words, when they had to rely on each other for strength and support. But the bonds they had forged during their days at Hogwarts would keep them together; stronger together.
Stronger Together by Pevensies_Pensieve
Chapter Notes: Well, here it is - the last chapter. Hope you guys have enjoyed the ride! I have the smallest of tastes for what Jo must be feeling right now. : Thanks for all the comments! They were very inspiring. Who knows, maybe you'll see me again!