But of course, if this was to last, I would not have told you a week had gone by. It is perfectly acceptable, of course, for when one’s parents die and one suppresses the pain and the tears for two years, when it is finally let go, one is bound to have more than one good cry about it.
And so it was that a week later, James Potter was in the Great Hall with his friends and it just so happened that he was noting the absence of a certain piece of his heart. Lily Evans, to name that piece, had not made an appearance, and had been strangely quiet that day.
James stood up from the table and strode out of the Hall quickly, ignoring the Marauders’ calls behind him, inquiring as to where he was going. If they had any sense, they would know, James thought. He scrambled through the portrait hole and scanned the common room and immediately saw that Lily wasn’t there.
There were a few people in the common room, studying, playing chess or Gobstones, but the two chairs in front of the fire were empty - the chairs where he and Lily had sat in a week ago when she had had her first good cry. One of the chairs, Lily’s, had a stack of books in it. A small, folded slip of parchment was lying on top of the books.
It was strange that those chairs should be empty. Winter was beginning to come awake, and there was an evident nip in the air. In front of the fireplace was a popular place to sit after dinner (one which the Marauders usually claimed). James walked over to the chairs and saw the parchment had his name on it. He unfolded the note and found a three word message.
There was no signature, but she had drawn a picture beneath the message “ a lily, pointing towards the stairs to the boys’ dormitories.
James took the stairs two at a time and reached his dormitory in seconds. Lily was curled up on his bed, sleeping. He shut the door softly and walked over to his bed. He sat down gently beside her and began to stroke her hair. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.
James silently cursed himself for not noticing that she was missing sooner.
“Lils?” he breathed, stroking her hair.
Lily’s eyelids fluttered open and she gave him a sad half smile as she sat up.
“What’s up?” James asked her.
Lily looked down and absently spun a bracelet she was wearing around her wrist. Before she could answer, Peter walked into the room.
“Oh … uh, sorry. Were you … ? Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving. I just wanted to grab my Gobstones set. Sorry again,” Peter apologized quickly, rushing to his trunk and throwing its contents to the floor in search of his Gobstones.
“It’s all right, Peter. You don’t have to leave,” Lily told him before turning to James. “Could we go for a walk? The others are bound to come up here soon anyway.”
James nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
They wandered the school’s corridors aimlessly, chatting idle about their schoolwork, their teachers, their friends, and other rather insignificant things. James carefully avoided the topic of Lily’s family, knowing she would mention it when she was ready.
They weren’t keeping track of time, or even where they were really, so when they finally noticed the time, it was well past curfew, and they had no idea what floor they were on. And by that time, the weren’t really in the mood to care, so they continued to drift about the castle.
“Can you believe Slughorn’s face today in potions? When he got to me?” James asked.
“Can you believe what your Befuddlement Draught looked like?” Lily said.
James puffed out his chest and threw his arms in the air, imitating their potions professor. “What’s going on here?”
Lily laughed and took James’ glasses and put them on. “Nothing, sir. We’re just making our potion,” she said, pretending to be James.
“Dear boy, that’s not right. That’s not right at all! It looks like your making chowder!” James flailed his arms about and twitched his nose back and forth as if he had a moustache.
“Would you like to try some Professor? My mum always said I was a good cook,” Lily offered.
James twitched his nose again. “She’s still alive! It’s a wonder you haven’t poisoned her!”
“She did get food poisoning once, sir,” Lily said.
Their fun was ended abruptly when James, not paying attention, walked headfirst into a suit of armor. He and the armor both fell down with a loud crash. James and Lily broke out into laughter. It took nearly five minutes for Lily to successfully pull James up off the floor, seeing as they were both in hysterics.
“Honestly, James, your potion looked dangerous!”
“Slughorn seemed to think so too,” James laughed. “Did you see how fast he waddled back to his desk after I said my mum got food poisoning?”
“James, your potion was bubbling violently! I don’t blame him!” Lily giggled.
“Well then, maybe I should work with you next class instead of Peter,” James suggested.
“You wouldn’t let me get any work done!”
“You’re probably right,” he agreed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Lily said.
“I think it’s a great idea!”
“What’s wrong with getting work done?” Lily asked.
“Nothing. Unless, of course, the work is keeping you from spending time with me. Then everything is wrong with it,” he told her.
Lily smiled. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You suppose?!”
Lily turned to look at him. “Yes. I suppose!” Next thing she knew, James was kissing her, his soft lips pressed against hers, his hand on the back of her neck and the sweet outdoorsy scent he always had filling her nose. James slid his other hand down the small of her back.
Lily pulled her head back. “I know you’re right,” she said breathlessly. James grinned and leaned towards her again, but they were interrupted by the sound of someone breathing heavily, coming up the stairs.
“Hello? What’s going on up there?” a voice wheezed. Lily and James froze. They were standing right next to the staircase, although they didn’t know where they were exactly.
“If you’re a student, stay right there! I’ll have to give you a detention for being out of bed after hours!”
James peeked around the corner and pulled his head back quickly. “It’s Professor Swittle!”
“He doesn’t like either of us!” Lily whispered.
“Let’s go!” James grabbed her hand and they ran down the hallway. They turned the corner and found another set of stairs just as Professor Swittle appeared on the landing holding a lantern. Lily and James ran up a few flights of stairs and down a corridor past a tapestry of some trolls.
“We need somewhere to hide!” Lily whispered.
“Shit! It’s a dead end! Go back! There’s nowhere to hide here!” James cursed and turned back down the hallway.
“James! We have to hide!”
They skidded to a halt in front of the stairs as Professor Swittle appeared at the bottom with his lantern. “Stop right there!” he called out. “Who is that? Miss Evans?” he asked, squinting at them through the darkness.
“There’s got to be a classroom down here! A broom closet, even! Bloody hell! We just need a place to hide!” Lily cursed as they made their third trip down the hallway.
They were just passing the tapestry of the trolls when Lily saw a door appear in the wall. Professor Swittle was still climbing the stairs, so she yanked the door open and pulled James inside. They slammed the door behind them and leaned up against it.
“He had to have seen us come in here!” James said. He wasn’t breathing heavily at all. Quidditch had him in good shape. Not that Lily minded that at all, but as she was leaning against door, panting, and holding her side, she was a little envious.
“No. He was still on the stairs,” she gasped. “And besides,” she paused to take a deep breath, “there wasn’t anywhere else to go!”
James chuckled. “You need to get in shape, Lily.”
Lily nodded and took a few more deep breaths. “I know! I’ll have to work on that.” Lily looked around the room, still trying to catch her breath. It was small, but cheerfully decorated in every shade of yellow imaginable. The walls were a pale, washed out, almost white yellow, and there was a small golden table, upon which rested a few bottles of Butterbeer. Behind the table was a banana yellow sofa. There was nothing else in the room.
“Have you ever been in this room before?” Lily asked.
“No, I can’t say that I have, but there are lots of places I’ve never been before,” James anwered.
“In the castle?” Lily clarified.
“No, no I’ve been everywhere in the castle.”
“How can you be so sure?”
James smirked. “Trust me. I have.”
“You seem quite confident about that,” Lily told him. “Annoyingly so, in fact.”
“Don’t you just love me when I’m annoyingly confident?” James grinned at her.
“Why yes, yes I do.”
Lily began to giggle. James grinned at first, thinking she was laughing at him, but she kept on laughing, much too long to be laughing at him. Lily leaned her head back against the door and closed her eyes, still laughing.
“What’s so funny?” James asked.
Lily shook her head helplessly. A tear even squeezed out of her eye, she was laughing so hard.
After a bit, Lily stood up, holding her stomach, which was currently in pain. “Do you think Swittle is still out there?”
James shrugged. “Are you in a hurry to leave?”
“No.”
“Well then, I propose we stay here and break into the butterbeer that has been so generously provided.”
Lily plopped herself onto the couch and grabbed a bottle from the table. James stayed where he was a watched her She drank the whole thing incredibly quickly, staring at the empty yellow walls. When the bottle was empty, she was still for a few minutes. Suddenly, she threw the bottle against the wall and it shattered loudly and the pieces tinkled to the floor.
Lily Evans was tired of hiding. She hid from her grief during the day and put on a smile for everyone. She hid from the Death Eaters in her dreams. She hid away from her friends when they tried to help her. She hid from her own feelings when they got too strong. She was sick of it. She was not going to hide anymore. From anything.
“I hate them!” she screamed. “I HATE THEM!” She picked up another bottle, full this time, and threw it to the floor. It cracked open and a puddle slowly spread. “Why? Why my family? There’s nothing special about us! Why did they have to kill my parents! Those bloody goddamn fucking greasy slimeballs! I hate them!”
James let her scream until she wasn’t angry anymore, watching her silently. Finally she collapsed back onto the couch. She wasn’t crying, though she looked as if she might. James made his way over and sat down next to her. He took both of her hands in his. “Lily, why didn’t you ever tell me? Or anyone?”
Lily shook her head. “I guess, I guess I was just trying to be brave. I thought maybe I could just ignore it, and it wouldn’t seem so bad. And I had to be strong. I didn’t want you to think of me as just another stupid girl.”
“Lily, I have never once, since I met you thought you were just another girl.” She was looking down at her hands, so James cupped her chin in one hand and made her look in his eyes. “Never. You are so much more than that, Lils. Honestly, do you have any idea how much you mean to me?”
Lily smiled slightly. “How much do I mean to you?”
“You mean more to me than the Chuddley Cannons winning the Qudditich Cup!”
“That’s an awful lot,” Lily said.
“I’m not done yet!” James told her. She smiled. “You mean more to me than all the broomsticks in the entire world. You mean more to me than … than … you mean more to me than my invisibility cloak!”
Lily smiled even wider. “Are you finished yet?”
“I could be. As long as you have an idea of how much “‘’ Lily suddenly threw herself upon him, kissing him, and interrupting his sentence. She threw her arms around his neck and he gently wrapped his strong arms around her waist.
She broke away and put her lips against his ear and whispered, “I love you.”