Throughout the days leading up to their final exams, Lily and Mary spent most of their time in Gryffindor Tower. Lily had successfully been avoiding Liam. He had tried to force his way into the common room again, but when James and Sirius answered, with a few insults added as greeting, he had stopped trying. Lily was silently dreading the last day of term, where, on the Hogwarts’ Express, it would be much harder to avoid him.
Lily and Mary studied for their finals, with the occasional visit from the Marauders, who insisted that they didn’t need to study in order to pass their exams. The days passed much too quickly for Lily’s liking, and before she knew it, she was in her dormitory, trying to cram all of her scattered belongings into her trunk. She had to admit though, she was being particularly organized and thorough with the packing of her trunk, trying to avoid the opportune moments for Liam to talk to her before going onto the Hogwarts Express.
Lily was just trying to slam the lid down onto her overfilled trunk with all her might, when a hand pushed the lid down with what looked to be no effort, and she heard the click of her trunk.
“James,” Lily said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
He sat down nonchalantly on the bed opposite of Lily’s while she pulled open the drawers on her bedside table, checking that she hadn’t forgotten anything.
“Everyone else is heading down to Hogsmeade for the train, I was just wondering if you were trying to barricade yourself in here, so you could avoid Burke again,” James commented, laughing.
Lily shot him a withering look. “I am not avoiding Liam.”
“Really?” James crossed his arms over his chest, obviously amused. “You’re not? So, after our Charms final, you just fancied to go into that broom closet. By yourself, I might add?”
“Yes,” Lily replied immediately, angrily throwing some odds and ends into her bag. Then she sighed in defeat, “No.”
James laughed again. “So, why exactly are you avoiding him?”
“I’m not avoiding him!”
“I think we just established that you are,” James said with a smug look on his face.
“You are so - so -” Lily started.
“Charming? Amazing? Terribly good-looking?” he offered, standing up and taking Lily’s trunk off her bed.
Lily grabbed her bag. “Well, I was going to say frustrating.”
“Because I am so terribly good-looking?” he suggested, laughing as they exited the dormitory.
Lily rolled her eyes, “How did you even get up here?” she asked trying to change the subject.
“Well when you are a Marauder, OH SHIT!” James and Lily screamed as they stepped onto the first step, which instantly turned the staircase into a slide.
They both landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs after each being hit a few times by Lily’s trunk. James rubbed his head, muttering to himself, as Lily broke out into peals of laughter. James just looked over at her before he started laughing too. They sat there for a minute, just looking at each other and laughing.
“Why are you laughing?” James asked through his chuckling.
“Life is never boring when you’re around, is it?”
James smiled, “No, it’s definitely not.”
***
“You know, we are going to be late because of you,” James stated, as they hurried down the path to Hogsmeade, the trains’ horn sounding.
“Because of me? You are the one, that made the staircase turn into a slide and insisted that you had to stop in the kitchens for food before you got on the train,” she practically yelled.
“Have you had the food on the train? It’s like eating cardboard. Besides, you could have gone to the train without me.”
“No, you had my trunk! Who knows what you would do with it if I left it with you!”
“Oh, yeah. Well, you are the one that just had to triple check that you brought home your copy of Hogwarts, A History once we were already in the Entrance Hall. What do you need that for - a bit of light reading?” he answered sarcastically.
“You are unbelievable! You didn’t have to come with me!”
“Because you could have carried your trunk by yourself? What do you keep in this thing? Rocks? Bricks? The entire contents of a Gringotts’ Vault?”
Lily scoffed, “I could have carried my trunk all by myself!”
“Fine then, take it!” James instantly dropped the trunk on the cobblestone path. They were now about a hundred metres from the platform. He kept walking in front of her.
Lily huffed and then tried to lift the handle, but only succeeded in lifting up one side. She then proceeded to drag the trunk up the platform steps. James was waiting impatiently at the end of the train.
“Thanks for the help,” Lily said sarcastically, as he lifted up the trunk and threw it into the train, just as it began to move.
“No problem,” James smiled.
“You are so frustrating sometimes.”
“Yes, but I do make life interesting.”
“Oh, that you do,” Lily glared up into his hazel eyes as they entered the compartment at the back of the train. “Where is your stuff anyway?”
“Already in a compartment up front, I did come down here before stopping you from barricading yourself in your dormitory,” he answered.
“Well, don’t you just have all the answers?” There was silence between them, as they sat down opposite each other. Then, they heard an all too familiar voice from outside of their compartment.
“Have you seen, Lily, Lily Evans anywhere?”
Lily and James looked at each other.
“Shit! Does that guy have an over-possessive complex or something?”
“Well, you have been avoiding him for almost a week…”
“Oh, shut up, James! What am I going to do now?”
“Well, you could talk to him.”
Lily gave him an evil look. James rolled his eyes before reaching into his robes and pulling out a familiar silver cloak.
“Here, put it on,” James told Lily before she disappeared beneath it.
James lounged down on the seat in the compartment, pulling out an issue of Quidditch Today and flipping it open.
It was only a matter of seconds before James heard Liam open the door to the compartment they were in.
“Well, Potter, what are you doing all by yourself? Friends abandon you again?” Liam asked condescendingly.
“Oh, I was just catching up on my reading. Did you know that the Nimbus 1500 is supposed to rebel Bludgers? Load of rubbish if you ask me. But,” James said while flipping a page, “if you owl them before July 15th you get a free broomstick care kit!”
“That’s all very funny, Potter,” he answered.
“No, it’s really a good deal. You don’t have a quill on you, do you?”
“You seriously think I’m here for a social call? I’m looking for Lily, haven’t see her, have you?”
“Nope, haven’t seen her since,” James looked down at his watch, pretended to do some calculations in his head before answering, “the Charms final two days ago. Why, did you lose her?”
“No, I didn’t lose her. I just need to talk to her about something,” Liam replied.
“Well, I am personally a great listener if you ever need someone to talk to, Burke,” James suggested, while he continued to flip through the magazine.
“I’ll take a pass,” Liam sneered.
“Well if you ever need to, I’m all ears.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” and with that Liam left the compartment, slamming the door with a bang.
James stood up and poked his head out of the compartment door, seeing Liam’s retreating figure enter a compartment about halfway down the train.
He sauntered back to his seat before announcing that he was gone. Lily pulled the Invisibility Cloak off her head.
“Thanks,” Lily said, sincerely grateful.
“No problem, I mean, what was I going to do? Make you talk to your boyfriend? I’m not that cruel, Lily,” he answered, laughing.
Lily laughed too. “Well, it was a really nice thing for a friend to do,” she added, emphasizing a particular word.
“Friend? So, we’re friends now, huh?” James asked, trying to hide the pleasure in his voice.
“I think friend-ish is the more appropriate term, but as a loose definition, yes. I consider us friends.”
“Well, it only took me six years for you to go from mortal enemy to friend. So, what, I’ll be 23 by the time you agree to go out with me?” he suggested.
“I would say 25,” Lily laughed.
James just smiled.
***
About halfway through the journey, Lily excused herself to go and talk to Mary and James left for the Marauders. Lily and Mary gossiped most of the way to King’s Cross, trying to guess what kind of animals each of the Slytherins had turned into. When the train pulled into the station, Lily dragged her trunk and bag off the train and out into the Muggle world.
She put her trunk down by a nearby bench while she hugged Mary goodbye. Then, once her friend left, she looked around the crowd for her family, or at least for Petunia, who was supposed to be picking her up. She was late again, as usual, so Lily took a book out of her bag and sat down on the bench to wait.
Lily had just begun to settle into her book when she felt someone standing over her. She looked up and who did she see.
“Hello, James, long time no see?”
“Well, I didn’t think it was right to let a friend sit all alone on this dangerous train station. Is someone picking you up?” James asked as he sat down next to her.
“My sister and her whale of a fiancé, but knowing her she probably forgot,” Lily said exasperatedly.
“Well, I could give you a ride. My parents dropped off my car in the parking lot this morning. They are going to visit some relatives, so I get to drive myself home.”
“You? Drive? How do you even know how to drive?”
“Yes, I can drive!” James replied indignantly. “Sirius and I have always had a fascination with cars. Well, cars in my case, Sirius is really into motorbikes. But that is a completely different story. Besides, I’m still not too keen on the whole Apparition thing,” James smiled.
“Me neither, it feels like you are getting pushed through a really small tube,” Lily confessed.
“Exactly! So, do you want a ride? I mean I understand if you don’t want to, your sister will probably be really angry if you leave without her, right?”
“Yeah she will. So, let’s go,” Lily answered, while she grabbed her bag. James went and put both of their trunks on one of the carts, and they made small talk as they walked to his car.
“This is your car?” Lily asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, got it last year. A black ’75 Mustang. My parents had it shipped over from the States for my Christmas present. Passed the test over the Easter holidays,” James replied as he closed the trunk and he and Lily got into the front seat.
“I wish my parents would get me a car, they say I’m not home enough to use one. Plus, they got my sister one, and she is supposed to drive me around.”
“Won’t she be angry when you aren’t at the train station?” he asked, though he was glad that Lily had accepted a ride home with him.
“Yeah,” she replied nonchalantly.
“And you don’t care?” he guessed.
“Not in the slightest,” Lily laughed.
There was a comfortable silence for a few minutes, before she realized that James didn’t know where she lived, yet they were taking the right path out of London towards her home.
“How do you know where I live?” she asked.
“Well, I know you live by Snape,” he answered evasively.
“And you know where he lives?”
“Yes…”he trailed off as they stopped at a light.
“And how do you know where he lives?” she asked, knowing that he not telling her the whole story.
“Lily, do we really have to get into this now?”
“No, you are right. We don’t, its not like I care what happens to him anymore anyways,” She clarified.
“You don’t?”
“No, we aren’t really friends anymore. He… he’s done things that are against what I believe in, and he’s not worth it,” Lily explained.
“Am I worth it?” James asked jokingly.
“Maybe,” Lily smiled.
They spent the rest of the ride in the car talking about nothing, really. Their families (Lily laughed when James told her that his mother had pet names for himself and Sirius), their lives outside of Hogwarts, and anything else that passed their fancy during the drive from the heart of London towards Lily’s home.
James secretly wished that he could drive around in his car with Lily all of the time. The way she was outside of school, now that he was inside her small group of people that she talked to, he didn’t want it to end.
When they turned down her street, Lily sensed something was wrong. She suddenly stopped her anecdote about how in third year she had sent a whole plate of treacle tart flying across her mother’s living room on Christmas, which made James look over to see her face as she pointed urgently up the street.
“Lily? Lily? What’s wrong? Why did you…..oh my God.”
Learning To Live by MarauderWannabe
Chapter Notes: Hope this was worth the extremely long wait. School year is over, basically a filler chapter with a cliff hanger!
Chapter Endnotes: REVIEW