The following week at school was by far the most different week Lily had ever had at Hogwarts. Lily had thought that her fifth year had been very hectic and stressful, between doing homework, preparing for O.W.L.S, and avoiding the ever present and annoying James Potter. This year, Lily would be taking her NEWTs and already her teachers were loading them with homework. Professor McGonagall had assigned them two essays due the following week and Slughorn was requiring them to read almost half of Advanced Potion Making in a matter of days. Lily herself was already cringing at the thought of what she would be doing in the weeks before her exams.
But still, the most different thing about her seventh year was the absence of James Potter. Sure, he was still in her classes. They even saw more of each other during the first week of school because of their Head duties. To Lily, though, he wasn’t the same James Potter at least not around her.
One day in Transfiguration, Potter’s best class, Lily’s spell missed the caterpillar she was supposed to be transfiguring into a butterfly and instead gave James’ book bag wings. Before, he would have taken the opportunity to place his hands on top of hers and properly show her how to flick her wand. Lily would then sharply admonish him until a teacher had to intervene. This time, however, Potter did not touch her. He merely flicked his wand to change his book bag back and glanced at Lily.
“Better luck next time, Evans. Why don’t you try using a little less flick?” he advised before turning back to his friends. He didn’t even look at Lily for the rest of the class.
Two days later in Herbology, Professor Sprout paired Lily with Potter to retrieve pods from Snargaluffs. They worked quickly and silently, trying to tame the gnarled and prickly vines. Once Lily had secured the tentacle like vines, Potter plunged his arm into the plant and pulled out a large green pod. Setting it down on the table, he gave Lily a “good job” and wandered off to the table where Remus and Black were working.
“It’s as if he doesn’t even know I exist anymore,” Lily thought to herself as she watched Potter from afar. He had a huge grin on his face as he sat with his friends. He must have told a joke because the other boys were howling with laughter.
That night, Lily flipped open her Potions textbook to begin her homework but found herself unable to focus. For some reason, she could not get James Potter out her of head. Last year she would have welcomed his silence with open arms. She should feel overjoyed and relieved at his absence in her life. Instead, now that he was not constantly bothering her, something felt missing.
Lily turned her chair so to not face the Marauders lounging in the armchairs in front of the fireplace and urged herself to concentrate on the components of Polyjuice Potion.
On Monday, the beginning of their second week of the new term, Lily’s curiosity got the better of her and she decided to confront Potter about his behavior. He had been in her thoughts more than she had wanted him to be the past week and it was high time that she got to the bottom of this quandary and moved on with her life. Furthermore, she had a duty as Head Girl to know if the Head Boy was having any sort of problems…right?
Around eight o’clock, that night, Lily found Potter and the other three Marauders sitting on the couch by the fireplace. She motioned to him, indicating that they had to leave for their Head duties.
“Potter, we need to talk,” Lily announced as soon as they left the common room. He turned to her, looking completely dumbfounded.
“Have I done something to you, Evans?” Potter asked, with an eyebrow raised.
“As a matter of fact, yes, you have,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“Did I?” he repeated with a small smile. “The school year has barely even started. Plus, I would have thought you’d already given me enough grief to last me a lifetime.”
“You know what I mean, Potter. You’ve barely talked or even looked at me all week, even during patrols. That’s not like you. By this time of year, you should have asked me out about three times. Did something happen to you over the summer?” Lily questioned. “Now that we’re both Heads and we’ll be spending a lot of time together, you might as well tell me,” she said a little quieter.
“Are you worried about me, Evans?” Potter asked.
“Of course not!” she replied. After a hesitation, she added, “but if I was, would you talk to me, Potter?”
“Sure. I can’t have you worrying about me, can I?” he said.
She glanced at him, unsure of what to say. Was he trying to flirt with her? Even though Potter was acting more maturely this year, she didn’t think she had feelings for him. No, she knew she didn’t have feelings for him but that still didn’t mean she had to be short with him like she had been in past years. After all, he was her partner Head. Still, undecided on how she should respond, Lily chose to ignore him and focus her attention on the floor.
They walked in silence for a few minutes before Lily spoke.
“Potter, do you want to talk to me about what happened to you over the summer? I promise I won’t yell at you,” she said sincerely.
He looked at her, staring into her emerald green eyes.
“Nothing happened,” he said simply. “You’re making it seem as if I went through a major crisis over the summer. Sirius is living with us now and we spent some time talking, but that’s it.”
Lily looked at him blankly.
“That’s it. Then why have you been ignoring me all week?” Lily asked becoming impatient.
Potter shrugged.
“I’m not ignoring you. I’m just not hovering around you every second of the day. You’ll get used to it soon enough.” He looked down at his watch. “Hey, I’ve still got an essay to finish up for class tomorrow. Why don’t we split up so we can cover the rest of the castle quicker? You can go upstairs and I’ll go downstairs.”
With that, Potter started down the flight of stairs that led to the dungeons, took a few steps, but then turned back around to face Lily.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Now that we’re working together, you can call me James.”
He gave her a small smile before disappearing as quickly as if he had apparated, leaving Lily to stand alone in the corridor, even more confused. It took an owl’s hoot outside to help shake her of her thoughts and she headed upstairs to finish patrolling.
*****
Lily entered the seventh year girls’ dormitory after finishing her rounds to find her five roommates still awake in their beds and chatting about the latest gossip of Hogwarts.
In addition to Kelly and Meredith, her roommates were a fairly motley bunch. There was the quiet Alice Brown who had mousy brown hair that hung at her shoulders. Then, there was Marlene McKinnon, a pureblood, who had short dark hair and quite a knack for Charms. She lay sprawled out across a bed talking to Amber Nguyen. Amber was about as gentle and sweet as Kelly with long ebony Asian hair.
Lily took a seat on the bed next to Kelly and asked her to step out of the room. She wanted to confide to her friend alone what had just happened between her and Potter.
“Lily, are you okay?” Kelly asked concernedly upon seeing Lily’s bewildered expression.
“Yeah, I guess. I just can’t believe we’re barely back and stupid Potter is already aggravating me.”
“What happened? Did he ask you out?”
“No, but that’s the thing. He has been acting so distant all week. You’ve seen him around me, Kelly. He won’t talk to me or even look at me. Tonight when I confronted him about it, he said he hadn’t been ignoring me and I shouldn’t worry about him. Then right before we split up, he asked me to call him ‘James.’ If we’re going to be calling each other by our first names, shouldn’t I be the one to give him the go ahead? I was the one who started calling him ‘Potter’ in the first place.” Lily heaved a sigh.
“Lily, don’t let this bother you so much. You know, maybe he has just grown up and moved on from you finally. I mean, isn’t that what you’ve been wanting him to do for the past several years?”
“Yeah, but I still don’t think he’s moved on from me. Maybe, he’s just pretending to act mature just to get me to fall for him. I tell you what. I’m not going to fall for””
“Lily,” said Kelly gently, leading the way back inside the dormitory. “Calm down. Maybe you’re right, but I doubt it. Just forget about him for now and go to bed. We’ve got classes early tomorrow morning.”
“All right,” Lily said. “Kelly, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Kelly sighed as she got into bed. “I know. I only hope others would need me just as much.”
As Lily lay in bed, listening to Marlene’s soft snores, she thought about what Kelly had just said. She had clearly meant Andy. It warmed her heart that her two best friends felt so strongly about each other. If only they would come to and see it for themselves.
More than Meets the Eye by lilybobily7
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JKR does.
I'd also like to thank my beta for all her hard work. =]
Enjoy chapter 5!
Chapter Endnotes: Well, what did you think? Hopefully chapter 6 will be up soon!