Chapter Six �“ The Fire Inside
kask
For a while, I kept an eye on Lily. If she were awake when Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail went to bed, I would sneak down to see what she was up to. I really enjoyed seeing her when she, well, couldn’t see me. She was so easygoing, although kind of strange, when she was alone. She would just start laughing or smiling while doing homework. Really, I didn’t know why she would laugh. The homework couldn’t have been funny.
Other times she would sing badly to herself under her breath. It must have been Muggle music, because I never knew the song. It was nice, though, and my grin was always from ear to ear.
One night, when no one was in the common room, Lily just sat there for hours, writing. I suspected it wasn’t homework, because I had many classes with her, and it didn’t take me that long. It could have been that she was a slow worker, but I didn’t think that was the case. I finally concluded that she was writing multiple letters or one very long one.
She just sat there for about three hours, writing. I didn’t know how she did it, but she did. My hand would have been cramped after forty-five minutes…
Lily was still writing when she slowly started to move her head from side to side, humming and snapping her fingers. Every second, she got more into the song and beat. Her hips began to sway and her whole body danced in her seat. She did this for about a minute, until she brought the quill to her mouth and broke out into song.
**“I've got sunshine
On a cloudy day.
When it's cold outside,
I've got the month of May,” she wailed loudly, smiling and still snapping her fingers.
“Well, I guess you'll say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl. (My girl, my girl)
Talkin' 'bout my girl. (My girl).”
She was both the lead and backup singers, and it was quite hilarious. Lily Evans? A closet singer? I couldn’t even believe it. She was quite bad, but it looked like she was having so much fun that I wanted to join in on the chorus; the song was quite catchy. Even later, I found myself singing it under my breath.
I quite liked the carefree, singing Lily Evans. It fit her. She was so energetic and lively, and for the first time, I saw what the other guys saw. I saw a quirky girl with strange, yet charming habits. I found it cute the way she seemed to share jokes with herself and sung at any chance. Even the way she talked to herself. When I say she talked to herself, I mean full-fledged conversations. She would ask herself questions, answer them, ponder ideas and discuss life within her own head…only out loud.
It wasn’t annoying or that she just liked to listen to her own voice. I think she did it because she got lonely. If I were to sit in quiet for hours, I would probably talk aloud too. It’s not like she thought there was anyone there to hear her.
There was something about her that I found different. She was real. That was the only word I could think of. I couldn’t call her weird, because we’re all a little weird when we’re alone.
I couldn’t see Norah singing or being loose. Norah was cultivated. I couldn’t say that Lily wasn’t. I watched Lily when she was by herself; I got a glimpse of a different her �“ something no one else really got. The way she acted was completely different from when she was in public.
But I just didn’t think Norah would do things like that when she was alone. She had had an image drilled into her since birth. It didn’t go away without the presence of people. It was who she was. She was brought up a certain way. Maybe I had been too, but I had lost it along the way. The way my father had attempted to raise me was fruitless. I didn’t end up the way he wanted me to.
Some days I wished I were different. I wish everything was different. It was difficult not to want the affection of your father. At the end of the day, he and mother were all I had. Of course I had Sirius, Remus, and Peter; they were important to me �“ more than most things, actually. But they weren’t my parents.
But I also knew that I couldn’t change the past. How could I go back and redo the last fifteen years to the approval of my father? There was no way, and even if there was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I liked who I was. On top of that, my father probably wouldn’t have been happy even if I had been the person he wanted me to be.
*
I had to stifle my amusement throughout the whole rendition. But when she finished the song and broke out into laughter, I let out a few chuckles, hoping she couldn’t hear them.
I was quite wrong. She stopped in her tracks and looked around the room suspiciously. I didn’t know what to do. Should I sneak back upstairs, hoping she doesn’t hear me? Or should I just stay and hope she doesn’t catch me? I didn’t have much time to decide, and before I knew it, I couldn’t do either. She was about a foot away from me. So I clapped my hand over my mouth, to minimize the sound of my breathing, and waited.
My heart beat rapidly in my chest. She was inching ever closer.
“Is someone there?” she called. “If someone is there, you better come out!”
She walked around the room, peering under the couches and behind every chair. She looked in every nook and corner, even up the fireplace. Finally, she came back to the very place I was sitting. She was looking right into my face, and her hand was moving…
I felt her hand lightly touch my leg, and I panicked. I did the only thing I could think of doing �“ played dead. Well, not dead exactly. I feigned sleep. My head tilted backward and my eyes closed strategically.
“What is that?” I heard her mutter, feeling around my leg. It tickled, and I had to stifle a chuckle. After a minute of feeling around me perplexed, she grabbed hold of my cloak and pulled it off.
I really can’t imagine what was going through her mind as her eyes fell on my “sleeping” form. It would have been quite hilarious, if I weren’t in the middle of the situation, of course.
“What are you �“? What is this?” she asked, confused. Still, I continued to sleep, not a bad plan in for the moment.
She shook me repeatedly when I still didn’t stir. After the second brutal push, I moved around, stretching my arms, eyes still closed.
“Potter!”
One eye opened. “What is it?” I groaned. The morning voice was perfect -- it couldn’t have been better if it were real. It never hit me that I would be an amazing actor until that incident. I did have it all �“ the looks, the charm, the personality, the obvious talent. I mean, anyway you want to put it, I’m a likable fellow. And the camera loves me.
“What are you doing?” I opened the other eye and blinked, rubbing them and looking around.
“I was sleeping.” My voice was still coarse. I ran a stand through my hair and continue to act like I had just woken up and everything was processing.
“Okay… But I need some more explaining than that. What’s this?”
I squinted at my cloak. “Oh, just my cloak. I covered myself in it and made us both invisible.” I wanted to cringe at the obvious holes in the story. Why would Lily pulling it off suddenly make the spell disappear? She would definitely notice that it didn’t make sense.
She looked at me suspiciously, but seemingly decided to overlook the problems with my story. “Why did you need to be invisible?” she asked coolly.
“Well, don’t get mad.” She just continued to look at me, arms folded across her chest, telling me to keep going. “Promise!”
“Fine, I won’t get mad,” Lily replied grudgingly.
“Okay, good. You see, we were planning a prank, and it was my job to hide out in the common room and look for a target. The person we were going to do this to had to meet a very specific criteria, and I had to scope her out.”
“It had to be a girl?” she interrupted expectedly, eyebrows raised.
“Er,” I hadn’t thought about that. I was just talking as I went, no idea what was going to come next. “Yes, it was preferable.” It didn’t seem like she was buying my story…
“Carry on.”
“Oh yeah, so I must’ve fallen asleep, and here we are.”
“And your friends didn’t try to wake you?”
“Nah, they’d think it was funny.”
“They sound like really good friends. But tell me, what was this prank you were planning? I’m dying to hear.”
She really was trying to get me into a corner, and was almost succeeding.
“Promise not to get mad?” I was trying to buy more time. She nodded, somewhat sarcastically. “Well, okay, so we were, uh,” I paused, until an idea rocketed into my mind. “We were looking for a girl to go out with Snape!” That was quick thinking. “You see, we wanted to make him feel good, you know, think that someone could actually like him, and then we were going to have the girl dump him.” It was a brilliant plan, why hadn’t I thought of it earlier? In fact, I was kind of disappointed I told Lily, for it was so good.
“I don’t think your plan is going to work.”
“Why not?” I retorted automatically, racking my brain for any faults.
“Because Severus already has a girlfriend.”
“Who?” I challenged, unable to stop the corners of my mouth from turning upward. The idea was too funny. She was probably a real monster, maybe Zoya Tetzel; I wouldn’t have been caught with her for all the money in the world. She was too ugly to look at, perfect for Snape.
“Me,” was all Lily said, completely serious. “And if this is just a cloak, I think I’ll keep it for a while. I could use another for winter.”
With that, whether she bought my story or not, Lily Evans walked to her dorm, leaving me speechless. Was she really Severus Snape’s girlfriend?
That was when it hit me. I was getting in too deep. Now Severus Snape was tied into my weird attraction to Lily Evans. Norah Kelley was dating James Potter, who liked Lily Evans, who was dating Severus Snape. It was just becoming too tangled. Norah. I had Norah. What was I doing? I was creeping around at night, losing sleep, to watch Lily Evans write letters and sing songs. I was getting caught spying on Lily and making up stories as to why. I was watching the place Lily once stood, wondering if Snape really called Lily his own. Did he kiss her and touch her? Was Snape the one Lily called her boyfriend? Why did the very idea irk me so much? Why did I want to punch a wall and kill Snape? My skin crawled at the thought of Lily’s lovely green eyes falling upon Snape with affection and her letter-writing hands enclosed in his. I didn’t know who I was anymore. But whomever it was needed to stop. I couldn’t continue going on that way, sneaking around and spying on girls. I couldn’t care that Lily was with Snape, however disgusting it was. I was in love. Norah, remember?
*
November slowly rolled into December. I loved December. I loved the spirits of Christmas �“ the decorations, the happiness, the gift giving. Christmas brought out the best in everybody, including me. I couldn’t wait to buy Norah’s present, and even my friends’ presents. I always loved giving gifts and knowing the person was going to love it.
Although November was winter for me, it was still a transitional phase. December wasn’t though, and I loved it. I loved the cold weather on my face, the rosiness of my cheeks, the blur in my sight when snowflakes got caught in my eyelashes.
The prospect of a holiday was also a cheerful one. I couldn’t wait to get home, to sleep in my own bed, and to see my mum. I never really realised how much I missed all that stuff until I had to leave it again. I loved Hogwarts, I really did; it was like my home. But when it came down to it, my home was my home. It’s where everything was, and I loved it there.
The idea of being taken care of by my mum and Winnie, our house elf, was the best in the world. I couldn’t wait to return to the cooking I had grown up on, since Winnie practically raised me since birth. My mum was always around though; it was my father who wasn’t.
The day after Christmas, Sirius was coming to spend the rest of the holiday with my family and me. We always had a blast. Sometimes it got boring at my house; there wasn’t another person under the age of forty in the surrounding kilometer radius. But not with Padfoot there. We always found something to do.
The other Marauders would pop in occasionally too. My mum always welcomed them with open arms; she knew how important my friends were to me, and loved them like sons.
*
I surveyed Evans when I had a chance, but never intentionally watched her again. It was too strange, watching her, I mean. And I didn’t want to complicate things with Norah. My eyes would wander towards her every now and again, but it dwindled as time went on. Sometimes I would glance over at her during breakfast, to see if she got any letters bringing bad news. I couldn’t help but remember the night she cried. It was still vivid in my mind. But if Lily did get any bad news, she didn’t show it.
Honestly though, my desire to watch Lily plummeted; instead, my hatred for Snape increased. Observing Lily was originally so I could find a way to get her to like me, and then dump her. But that wasn’t the case anymore. I didn’t hate her much, and I didn’t really want revenge for what she had done. It had been a while ago and it just wasn’t as important.
The main reason was still Norah. I didn’t care about making Lily like me. There was no way the plan could even work anyway. The only reason I had wanted to do it had been because I was angry. That wasn’t the case anymore. I was with Norah. I was happy, and I didn’t linger on my hatred for Lily. It seemed childish.
I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to care anymore. I just wanted the whole thing to be over. All of the incidents, all of the anger, they were all in the past. That’s where I would keep them. I wouldn’t do anything to risk what I had with Norah. I felt alive around Norah.
Even if I did feel happy around Lily, I didn’t want to ruin what I had with Norah. I guess it was different. With Norah, I felt romantic and what you feel like when you’re in love. With Lily, I was exhilarated, like I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart raced when she looked at me, and I grinned when she spoke. It was actually kind of uncomfortable and I didn’t really like it. I mean, why would a person want to feel like that? Like their insides were hanging upside down. It wasn’t pleasant.
I looked for any sign that Lily was really with Snape, and I got a few. She looked at him with glowing eyes, brushed past him in Potions, and always made a point to chat with him. I never heard his response, but it drove me up the wall. I was so angry whenever I saw them in the same room, my fist curled up and my teeth gritted. I repeated ‘Norah’ over and over in my mind, but that didn’t work. I was still fuming hours later.
Light Up My Life by KASK
Chapter Notes: Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait! End of the school year was quite crazy, but I'm back!
This chapter is The Fire Inside by Bob Seger. And a thank you to Preethi, you're the best. The lyrics** are My Girl by The Temptations.