“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Sirius said, peering around a bookshelf in the library, “let the betting commence.”
“A week,” Peter said instantly, “tops.”
“Two,” countered Frank Longbottom.
“No way,” Mary said, shaking her head. “Not until next year, if then. Lily can be pretty dense about this stuff.”
“I don’t know,” said Marlene thoughtfully. “Some people thought they’d never get to where they are now, and they did.”
“This is stupid,” sighed Remus.
The six of them were hiding in library stacks, pushing aside books so that they could get a clear view of the table where Lily and James sat together, ostensibly studying.
“It’s not stupid!” Sirius said indignantly. “If they’re going to take forever to get together, we might as well make a couple of Galleons off of it!”
Remus looked at him, raising his eyebrows slightly.
“Well it was Mary’s idea,” Sirius said guiltily.
“No it wasn’t,” Mary said vaguely, examining her cuticles. Sirius frowned at her, but she didn’t notice.
“Come on, Remus,” Marlene said, nudging him teasingly in the side. “You aren’t even going to take a guess?”
Putting down the book he had balanced on his knees, Remus glanced over to the table where Lily and James were both leaning over the same piece of parchment, grinned lopsidedly, and said, “End of the year.”
“No way,” said Peter and Mary simultaneously, then looked at each other and burst into laughter.
Remus looked up at Sirius. “Aren’t you going to make a bet?” he asked.
Sirius looked down at him. “Oh, no way,” he said. “I’m not going to try and make money off of my best friend’s happiness. What kind of person do you think I am?”
Remus rolled his eyes.
---
“Come on, Evans,” James groaned, dropping his head onto his arms. “The Potions exam isn’t for another two weeks, we don’t need to be studying for it this much already!”
Lily, turning over a page of her notes, said, “Two weeks is nothing. Do you know how many different Potions we have to get through before then? Although,” she paused, looking worried, “I am a little nervous about the Charms exam.”
“Charms?” James said doubtfully, lifting his head. “Charms is always a breeze.”
Lily scowled at him. “For you, maybe.”
“For you too,” James told her. “Didn’t you get like, a hundred and eight percent on the last exam?”
“And how would you know that?” Lily said teasingly. “Anyway, it’s not really Charms in general I’m having trouble with, just the Vanishing Charm. I can’t get the hang of it.”
“You have time,” James yawned, sitting up and rumpling his hair.
They had grown even closer over the last few weeks of term”she had with all of the boys her year. When Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup, Lily and Sirius had thrown an impromptu celebration in the common room, and she had been among the first to congratulate James, throwing her arms around him in a hug that would linger with her for days. When Peter had produced his first successful Patronus, she had been there to see it. And when Remus disappeared again, she kept one watchful eye on the moon and worried about him.
“I just wish I had something to practice Vanishing,” Lily muttered now, gazing surreptitiously around the library. Her gaze fell on Isaac Smith, who was sitting a few tables over, sucking on the end of his quill as he regarded a stack of parchment. With a rather vindictive smile, she slid her wand from the table and whispered something.
James jumped mid-stretch as the spell flew past him, and looked over just in time to see Smith’s quill disappear. The burly Hufflepuff looked at his now-empty hand stupidly for a moment, and then began pushing aside his stacks of parchment.
“Ha,” Lily said, sounding satisfied, and James gaped at her.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” he said, slightly shocked.
Lily shrugged smugly. “I can break the rules too, you know,” she said.
“Yeah, well, no doubt,” James said, laughing and shaking his head.
“Come here,” Lily said, reaching towards him. “You have ink on your face.
He leaned forward obediently as she rubbed her thumb against the swipe of ink on his cheekbone. From his hiding space behind the bookshelf, Peter Pettigrew whispered loudly, “Three days!”
At that moment, James turned his head towards the stacks; for a moment, his lips were pressed against Lily’s palm. Peter, who was peeking out from behind the bookshelf, ducked back out of sight.
James turned back to Lily, looking amused. “So,” he said casually, “you do know that there’s a whole group of people back there watching us.”
Lily gazed upwards, sighing. “They’ve been back there forever,” she said. “Mary and Marlene keep popping up and whispering, like they think I won’t notice.”
James chuckled, pretending to flip through a sheaf of notes. “What do you think they’re talking about?” he asked.
“Well, us, obviously,” Lily said, stealing the notes from him so she could actually read them.
“I know that,” he said. “I meant what do you think they’re saying?”
Lily looked over at the bookshelf concealing their friends. “Oh, who knows,” she said. “They’re all way too giggly for it to be anything reasonable.”
James glanced up sharply. “What, you mean like they think we’re going out or something?” he said, his voice very controlled.
Lily shrugged, not looking at him. “Yeah,” she said, scribbling something in the margins of her parchment. “Something ridiculous like that.”
His laugh, when it came, sounded rather forced. “Oh, come on,” he said. “It’s not that ridiculous.”
She looked up at him, suddenly serious, those startling green eyes wide. “Well,” she said slowly, “I mean…you weren’t planning on asking me out again, were you?”
He held her gaze for a long moment before giving a short bark of a laugh and saying, “No. No, Evans, don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that again.”
Lily wasn’t aware that she hadn’t been breathing until he finished speaking, but as he bent back over a book, she exhaled in a whoosh. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Well…good, then.” But after a moment, she began shoving books and parchment haphazardly into her bag.
“What’re you doing?” James said, alarmed.
“I have to go,” Lily said distractedly. “Sorry. I just…have to.” And throwing her quill into her bag, she turned on her heel and walked briskly from the office.
“Damn,” Sirius hissed from behind the bookshelf as a bewildered James watched her go, struck quite suddenly by the fact that he was, once again, watching her walk away.
---
Except for classes and meals, Lily kept to the girls’ dormitory, staying away from the common room, the library, and other public places. After a few days of this, she figured that James would’ve realized she was avoiding him.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she was avoiding him; she just knew that their last conversation in the library had been something like a blow to the stomach and she had absolutely no desire to see him for a good long while. She refused to consider the reason behind this, however, and threw herself wholeheartedly into her studies”final exams were fast approaching.
On the eve of the sixth-years’ Transfiguration exam, however, Lily was so sick of her dorm room that she felt like screaming, and Mary was hinting that she might like to go to bed soon, so Lily gathered her notes and decided to risk the common room. To her relief, it was nearly empty”it was late enough on an exam night that most students had chosen a good night’s sleep over the extra hours of studying. There were a group of seventh-years, preparing for the start of their N.E.W.Ts in one corner, and at a far table by the window sat Remus Lupin.
Seeing him, Lily hesitated for a moment, torn”he was James’s friend, but she had something unrelated she’d been meaning to talk to him about.
Remus looked up as she approached, smiling tiredly. “Hi,” she said. “You’re up late.”
He shrugged. “I work better at night,” he said.
He was cautious”Lily could tell he thought she’d come to talk about James, and she appreciated that he wasn’t asking her outright. Part of her, she realized, actually did want to talk about James, but she suppressed that particular impulse.
“Me, too,” she said, sliding into the seat opposite him at the table. She paused for a moment, eyeing the crescent moon that hung outside the window, considering her words carefully. “So,” she said slowly, “lucky exams aren’t during the full moon, huh?”
His face betrayed no emotion, but his elbow slipped off the table, and she noticed the end of his quill quivering as he clutched it. “So,” he said, his voice low and controlled, “you know.”
Lily swallowed and nodded once.
Remus put down his quill and folded his hands on the table in front of him. Keeping his gaze locked on his fingers, he asked, “Did James tell you?”
“Oh no, no,” Lily said hurriedly. “I don’t think he’d do that to you.”
Remus relaxed visibly. “No,” he agreed, “you’re right. He wouldn’t.”
“I just kind of figured it out on my own,” Lily admitted. “Actually, I can’t believe it took me this long.”
Remus actually cracked a smile. “We should’ve known you’d figure it out eventually. Well…you don’t seem too…disgusted.”
Lily looked at him, surprised. “Of course not!” she said. “I know you. And I am Muggle-born, remember. I think it helps; I don’t have all the same prejudices. Anyway, it explains a lot.”
“Like the monthly disappearances?” Remus asked, laughing.
“Like that,” Lily said. “And…well, your nickname.”
Remus scowled. “I knew those were going to get us in trouble,” he muttered. “Is that how you knew?”
Lily hesitated. “It was a factor,” she said. “Actually…I saw James’s Patronus the other day, and I know you all call him ‘Prongs’ and I just kind of wondered if it went deeper than that, you know. I’m still not really sure about what this means for the other three, but you were easy, actually, since I sort of doubted that your Patronus was an actual moon. I just checked the lunar chart to see when exactly you were disappearing, and then…well, actually, Severus used to have this theory…”
Remus held up a hand to stop her. “Snape knows,” he said heavily. “He saw me transform last year.”
Lily gaped at him, speechless.
“I think you weren’t friends with him anymore at that point,” Remus said softly. “And Dumbledore forbid him to tell anyone. Although I think he did almost tell you this past winter, in front of the Shrieking Shack.”
“When James jinxed him,” Lily said softly. “Oh, Remus, is that why? Not out of spite, but to protect you?”
Remus nodded sadly, and Lily shook her head. “I didn’t speak to him for weeks after that,” she said, guilt flaring in her chest.
“He couldn’t tell you,” Remus said. “Not without giving away my secret, anyway. I don’t know if that…changes the way you feel about him, but…”
Lily laughed bitterly. “Oh, the way I feel about him has changed about a hundred times this year,” she said, and bit her lip, looking at him pleadingly. “I can’t even really think about that now, not with exams coming up. Look, can we just…study for Transfiguration?”
Remus’s smile, when it came, was a little too understanding for her liking. “Oh, I think we can manage that,” he said, opening his book.
“Lily! Remus!”
They both looked up, startled, to see Marlene Mckinnon detach herself from the group of seventh-years and walk towards them. She looked bleary and exhausted, but her eyes sparkled. When she reached them, she threw her arms around both of them. Lily and Remus looked at each other, entertained.
“I’m going to miss you both so much!” Marlene wailed. “I can’t believe these are my last two weeks at Hogwarts!”
Lily patted her on the back, trying not to laugh. “You should probably get some sleep,” she advised.
Marlene waved a hand at her. “There’ll be time for that,” she said. “Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you was that I talked to Dumbledore yesterday. And I know he’s been hinting at this kind of thing all year, but he actually confirmed that there is a resistance group against You-Know-Who, and that there’s a place in it for me and a few others when we graduate. And he said that there is for all of you, too, next year, if you’re still interested. He couldn’t tell me any real details yet, so all I know is that it’s called the Order of the Phoenix.”
“The Order of the Phoenix,” Remus repeated quietly, a faraway look in his eyes.
Marlene nodded, and squeezed Lily’s shoulder. “Have a wonderful seventh year,” she told them both, her eyes tearing slightly. “I’ll see you soon.”
“You will,” Lily assured her as she walked away, and then Lily and Remus were left regarding each other excitedly.
“Can you imagine?” he said quietly, looking as though he hardly could. “Doing something that matters…”
“I know,” Lily said, her heart racing. “Although we probably have to pass Transfiguration first.”
“Oh yeah,” said Remus, looking back at his book. “Well. Let’s do that then.”
“Sold,” Lily laughed, opening her own.
---
The first week of exams passed without incident. James had spent more time studying for these exams then he had for the previous five years combined, which Sirius scoffed at and Remus approved. James didn’t tell either of them”although he rather thought they guessed”that it was an effort to distract himself from the sudden coolness with which Lily was treating him.
It wasn’t working.
It didn’t help that Peter wasn’t himself either; he was still quiet and surly and avoiding James, and James couldn’t believe that it was still guilt. But the few times he had tried to talk to him, Peter had been evasive and polite, and James decided that he just had to let his friend’s mood run its course.
James woke early on Sunday and lay staring at the ceiling for awhile, simultaneously savoring the fact that there were no exams for at least twenty-four hours and dreading the fact that he would spend most of the day studying for Potions, the only one he was really worried about.
Jinx, who slept on his pillow, saw that he was awake and stood up. The tiny cat butted her head against his cheek and he picked her up, setting her on his chest. She sat there, purring for a few moments, and then leapt from his bed to Sirius’s. For some reason, she loved Sirius and hated Peter, a preference that both James and Sirius thought was oddly backwards. “Doesn’t she know I’m a dog?” Sirius groused on a regular basis. “Shouldn’t she be chasing after the rat?”
Now, Jinx pounced on Sirius’s hands. Groaning, he tried to bury himself under his covers, but she stood by his head, meowing plaintively, until he gave in and petted her. Jinx gazed up at him adoringly, while James looked on, chuckling.
Sirius glared at him. “I hate you,” he said.
James stuck out his tongue. “No you don’t,” he said.
“Well, maybe you’re right,” Sirius said, yawning and stretching. He blinked and looked around the room. “Where is everybody?”
For the first time, James noticed that both Remus and Peter’s beds were empty. “Wormtail must’ve taken off early,” he said. “Again.”
“Moony probably fell asleep on a stack of books in the common room again,” Sirius said, giving a long-suffering sigh.
James considered this, and grinned. “Probably,” he said as he slid out of bed and started looking for his socks.
Sirius stared at him for a few moments. “So,” he said finally, “what are you going to do about Potions now that you’re on your own?”
James looked over his shoulder at him. “Thanks, Padfoot,” he said dryly. “Kill my mood why don’t you.”
Sirius shrugged. “I’m just saying,” he said. “Hey”you’re not going to get all wimpy again like the last time she wouldn’t talk to you, are you?”
James scowled at him. “No,” he said sullenly. “I’m angry, actually. I mean, last time I knew why she wasn’t talking to me, even if it was because she thought I did something I didn’t. Plus we weren’t exactly close back then. But it’s different now, we’re different, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to have done!” He yanked his sock savagely onto his foot.
“Interesting,” Sirius mused. “Well. Are you going to talk to her?”
James sighed heavily. “Eventually,” he said. “I kind of just want to put it on hold till after exams, though. I don’t know that talk will go down.”
“Good plan,” Sirius said, flopping over onto his pillow. “I’m going back to sleep now. Have fun studying for Potions!”
Jinx, who looked delighted to have such close access to Sirius’s face, leapt onto the pillow and curled up next to his head. “Traitor,” James muttered, and dug his notes out from under his bed.
---
Finally.
James set down his quill and looked around. Finally Potions”the last, most dreaded of his exams”was over. No more studying. No more trying to remember names and ingredients and uses. Summer was so close he could practically smell it.
A few seats ahead and to his left, Lily stuck the end of her quill in her mouth and frowned. James watched her, his expression darkening. As though she felt his gaze, she turned slightly, looking back at him. He dropped his eyes as his stomach lurched.
I really don’t want to have this conversation, he thought, but now that exams were over, he was out of excuses. I thought everything was going fine, I thought we were friends…what happened?
At the front of the classroom, Slughorn called time, and summoned their test papers. James leapt to his feet as his classmates began filing out, looking for Lily, but she had already gone, and he was in no hurry to find her.
---
The night before the students were due to go home, Sirius found himself wandering the corridors alone. He did this every year after the end-of-term feast; the castle was more home to him than any other place in the world, and he missed it during the holidays more than he would ever admit. He was trying to decide between going out to the courtyard”there were still a few hours of daylight left”or heading back up to Gryffindor Tower to find his friends, when a small hand closed around his wrist and dragged him into a side hall.
“You really need to learn how to keep your hands to yourself,” he told Mary irritably as she stood there, hands on hips.
“What happened?” she demanded.
Sirius sighed. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
Mary rolled her eyes impatiently. “What do you think I’m talking about, dungbrain?”
Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Dungbrain?”
As usual, she ignored him. “I’m talking about James and Lily! Why aren’t they speaking?”
“I dunno,” Sirius said. “What’s it to you? Worried you aren’t going to win the gamble?”
“Oh, please,” Mary said derisively. “I said they weren’t going to get together until next year. I’m not worried about the bet.”
“Then don’t meddle,” Sirius said. “Seriously. I’m getting kind of tired of you yanking me around to talk about my best friend’s love life. If it’s meant to be, they’ll figure it out. I don’t know, I’m kind of starting to think it’s not. I mean, if all those letters James wrote her didn’t work, I don’t know what will. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m just”what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Mary was staring at him, her mouth open. For the first time in Sirius’s memory, she was speechless. After a moment, she finally said, “James wrote those letters?”
“Yeah, of course he did,” Sirius frowned. “What, she didn’t know they were from him?”
Mutely, Mary shook her head, but before Sirius could say anything, she bolted from the room.
“Works for me,” Sirius muttered.
---
Mary did not usually run; it made her skin flush which she knew did nothing for her pale complexion. But this, as she saw it, was a matter of life and death, so she forced herself to dash all the way through Gryffindor Tower to her dormitory.
Leda and Amelia were elsewhere, which Mary was grateful for; it left only Lily, kneeling in the middle of the room, neatly stacking her books in her trunk.
“What are you doing?” Mary nearly shrieked, and Lily looked up in surprise.
“I’m…packing?” she said.
“Well I can see that,” Mary said. “But what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You have to go find James.”
“Excuse me?” Lily said, standing up. “No, I don’t.”
Mary looked at her for a moment. “Look, Lily,” she said, “you need to know. All those letters? The ones that you thought Snape wrote? They’re from James.”
For a moment, it seemed as though Lily hadn’t heard her. She was gazing out the window, at the setting sun. But finally she turned back towards the center of the room and said, so softly that Mary had to strain to hear her, “I know.”
“You know?” Mary said, shocked. “Then why haven’t you done anything?”
“Well, I mean, after it wasn’t Severus, there was really only one person it could be,” Lily said. “But James…he wrote those letters before he really knew me. He doesn’t feel that way about me anymore?”
“How do you know?” asked Mary. “And why aren’t you talking to him right now? Lily, please. I don’t understand.”
Lily sat down heavily, her hands fluttering on her thighs. “It’s…oh, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain,” she sighed.
“Try,” Mary said simply.
Lily got to her feet again and started pacing. “It was easy, you know, when I thought they were from Severus,” she said, “because that part of my life was over. Nothing would ever happen between us, especially not after everything that happened. So it was an end to something. But with James, it…he…so much has changed that I just don’t…”
Mary tilted her head to the side, regarding her. “You like him,” she said with finality.
“No. No!” Lily said emphatically, shaking her head. “Of course I don’t, I mean, how could I, he’s James Potter. He’s everything I was against for so long.”
Mary shrugged. “He changed,” she said.
“Or I did,” Lily whispered.
“What’s so wrong with that?” Mary asked, looking at her kindly.
“I don’t know,” Lily said miserably. “I know why I didn’t like him initially, and I know why I do like him now, but I can’t remember when that started to change. What if I really misjudged him, for so long? What does that say about me? And…and what if I do like him, does that make me the kind of person who just…abandons all principles?”
“Okay,” Mary said, going to stand next to her. “Now you’re overthinking.” Lily gave a watery little laugh as Mary continued, “And you’re never going to figure any of this out without talking to him.” She gave her a little nudge towards the door. “So go. Or you’re just going to be thinking about it all holiday, and that won’t be good for anyone.”
Lily smiled at her thankfully. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
“Good luck,” Mary called after her, before flopping onto her own bed.
---
Lily felt as though her pulse was going to burst through her skin, it was beating so hard and so fast. The common room, when she reached it, was fairly full, crowded with people spending their last night before the holidays together.
Her heart leapt when she saw Remus and Peter at one table, but plummeted just as quickly when she saw that James wasn’t with them. She approached them, arriving just as Sirius swung himself into a chair next to Remus. All three of them looked up at her expectantly, and she blinked at them awkwardly.
Sirius rolled his eyes, but grinned at her. “This feels familiar,” he said laughingly.
She winced and opened her mouth to ask where James was, but Sirius beat her to the punch.
“He’s out there,” he said, gesturing to the grounds. “Again.”
“Thank you,” she told him, meaning it, and departed.
Once she was outside, it took her awhile to find him. For the past two weeks, students had been spending almost all of their time outside, but tonight, the last night before the end of term, almost everyone was inside, packing.
A flicker of movement caught her eye, and she turned to see James, standing at the edge of the lake, near the same tree that he had found her crying under, so many months ago. He was skipping stones in the still water, and she watched him for a moment before steeling herself and approaching.
She was a few feet away when he realized, and turned to face her. He went suddenly still, and she felt the tension crackle like sparks between them.
“So,” he said scathingly as she stopped in front of him, “she appears.”
Lily took a deep breath. “Look,” she said. “I know I haven’t really been behaving…rationally in the past few days, and I know I haven’t really given you an explanation, and you have every right to be mad at me””
“You’re damn right I do,” James said, turning away and flinging another rock into the water.
She hadn’t been expecting him to be quite this angry, and despite herself, her temper flared. “You could at least hear me out,” she said hotly.
He laughed mirthlessly. “Why?” he asked. “So you could tell me that you realized you made a mistake, that we can’t be friends? Are you even going to tell me what I did this time?”
“You didn’t do anything,” she said, frustrated now. “You didn’t, it’s not you, it’s…I’ve just been…”
“You can’t do that, Lily,” he said, and he was shouting now. He turned to face her, hazel eyes stormy. “You can’t just drop people without an explanation, you can’t just play with what they’re feeling!”
“And what are you feeling?” she challenged him, and for a moment, she couldn’t believed she’d said it. There was a very pregnant pause. Then, unable to take it anymore, she burst out, “I know those letters are from you.”
James scoffed. “Figured it out, have you? It doesn’t matter, Evans. Those were a long time ago.”
She’d known that, but still, for a moment, she felt like crying. Holding it in, she said with as much scorn as she could muster, “Yeah, they were. And it doesn’t really matter. I mean, I thought that they were from Severus at first, so””
“You thought they were from Snivellus?” James exploded, and she took a step backwards, shocked by the force of his anger. “That’s why you were crying out here, wasn’t it? You found out they weren’t from him? Well, sorry to disappoint, Evans, I didn’t mean to be your second choice.”
“You’re an idiot!” Lily yelled, and his eyebrows rose. “There’s nothing, nothing, between me and Severus. There never was. And the reason I was so scared to tell you that I knew those letters were from you was because I thought that, maybe, there could be something…between us.” James inhaled sharply, and she looked away. “But apparently,” she said, her voice quieter now, “I was wrong. You’ve made that perfectly clear lately. So excuse me, but I’ll be going now.”
She brushed past him, ready to run back to the castle, but he reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“You don’t get to be the one to walk away this time,” he said fiercely.
“Let go of me,” Lily said, pulling slightly, but she felt his fingers tighten, her pulse thrumming against his hand.
“No,” James said softly, and she looked up, their eyes locking for the first time in weeks. Something unreadable flickered in his gaze. “No,” he said again, as though deciding something, and then before she could say anything, before she could even think, he dragged her roughly forward and his mouth came down over hers.
Trickster by Willow Rosenberg
Chapter Notes: So this is the second-to-last chapter. Ah! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and keep your eyes peeled for the last chapter of "Trickster," coming soon!------------------