“That is enough!”
Lily jumped as she whipped around to see Professor McGonagall striding towards her, sparks of anger flying from her narrowed eyes. Lily’s heart sank deep into the pits of her suddenly flip-flopping stomach and she stowed her wand away hurriedly, hoping her professor hadn’t caught sight of it yet.
“Potter and Evans, in my classroom,” McGonagall demanded, throwing open her classroom door with just a wave of her wand and pointing one slender finger inside. Her nose was flaring dangerously. “Now.”
A small crowd of students had begun to gather around. Lily didn’t dare sneak a peak in James’ direction to see his reaction, but she could sense him following her past their Transfiguration teacher and into the empty classroom she was gesturing to. From Lily’s peripheral vision she could see a few third years staring at the scene and giggling to themselves. Apparently she and James had put on quite the show.
Once inside, Lily clasped her hands in front of her and gazed at McGonagall fearfully. Next to her, James cleared his throat and ran a nervous hand through his already messy hair. His other hand was stuffed loosely into his robe pocket. He seemed surprisingly subdued, given how worked up he was only a few moments ago -although Lily could understand that; she was strangely quiet as well. As the door swung shut behind Professor McGonagall, Lily had the acute feeling that things were about to get much, much worse. McGonagall was standing there, staring at both of them with such anger that Lily could feel her knees threatening to buckle beneath her. James shifted awkwardly. Professor McGonagall just stared.
“Never,” she spat finally, “in all my years at Hogwarts have I ever seen anything as repulsive as what I just saw.”
Lily felt a giant lump rising uncomfortably in her throat as she saw where this was going.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” McGonagall continued in a hiss, “but both of you were in Dumbledore’s office not even three days ago with this same problem. Hm? Evans? Potter?”
A minute of silence passed as both Lily and James stared hard at the floor by their feet, feeling both scared and ashamed. Professor McGonagall let time tick by slowly as she continued to glare at the two of them unmovingly.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, sighing and moving towards her desk. “Very well then. You two leave me with no choice.” Lily chanced a glance up and saw McGonagall shuffling through some papers on her desk, piling up some of them in her arms. “The two of you,” McGonagall said, not looking up from her desk, “will be spending the rest of the day locked in my classroom “ alone. By the time you two leave, you will have hashed through every problem that lies between you or you will jinx each other into oblivion. Until you two have done either one or the other, you will be locked in here “ whether it takes all night or all weekend. I don’t have class until Monday, so it makes no difference to me. The choice is yours. Figure out a way to hold a professional relationship without having to resort to hallway spectacles or spend the weekend in a Transfiguration classroom. Either way, you two are going to finally work things out.” She snapped a drawer shut and finally looked up at the Head Boy and Girl. “Do either one of you have a problem with this?”
“Professor, today is Friday. I have Quidditch practice,” James objected quickly, stepping forward.
“That’s a shame,” McGonagall said, looking as if she couldn’t possibly care less. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you decided to act like a first year in my hall. Any other concerns?”
McGonagall’s piercing eyes met with Lily’s. Lily shook her head quickly, her green eyes wide.
“Good,” Professor McGonagall said, and she pulled out her wand from her robes and gave it a whirl in the direction of the door. The handle gleamed a soft purple glow. Looking content with her wand work, McGonagall turned to them one last time. “Your parents would be ashamed,” she said softly, still stern. Then she left, letting the door to her classroom click shut behind her forebodingly. Lily simply gaped at the door.
“I can’t believe she charmed the door,” she breathed, thoroughly disappointed. When no response came, she turned to see where James had gone. He was sitting in a desk by the far corner of the room looking depressed. His hands were lying helpless in his lap and he was gazing at them blankly. “Are you okay?” Lily asked, her eyebrows furrowing in interest. James didn’t respond, but instead sighed. Lily waited a few seconds before hesitantly walking over to sit next to him.
For some reason the expression on James’ face had intrigued her. She had never seen it before, was almost positive nobody else had, and it worried her. Lily let her green gaze settle comfortably on the dark haired boy next to her.
“We’re not going to talk at all then?” Lily asked, raising her eyebrows. “You want to stay in here all weekend?”
She watched as James’ jaw set. He remained unmoving. Lily sighed and turned her gaze forward. They sat there in complete silence for a solid minute before James finally spoke up.
“You just won’t stop, will you?” he asked. Lily turned to him in surprise and saw he was still looking down at his hands.
“What do you mean?”
“What is wrong with you?” he asked again, looking up at her for the first time. Lily felt herself cringe briefly at the expression on his face “ absolute frustration. Though he had worn some semblance of that emotion in the days prior, she had never witnessed such a concentrated version. Lily found herself speechless as James continued. “You just won’t stop making my life difficult until you’ve finally gotten your way. Because of you we’re stuck in this bloody classroom, and I’m missing Quidditch practice.”
“Because of me?” Lily erupted, her green eyes wide. “It’s not just my fault!”
“Of course it is. I haven’t picked a fight with you even once,” James said loudly. “You, however, cannot stop railing on my faults “ and apparently complaining about them to Dumbledore behind my back!”
“I do not complain about them to Dumbledore,” Lily said defiantly, but she turned red in spite of herself. “I just told him how I feel. You’re hardly Head Boy material, and you know it.”
“There you go again!” James said. “Why do you insist on insulting me at every opportunity? I get it. I wasn’t very nice in the past. But I’ve tried really hard to deal with your Merlin-awful ego since this year started and I’m getting really sick of it.”
“My ego,” Lily said slowly, her eyes narrowing, “is not awful.”
“It’s awfully big,” James corrected.
“Oh please,” Lily spat. “It’s nothing compared to yours.”
“I haven’t said or done anything all year.”
“Well considering the year is barely a month old, that’s hardly something to gloat about.”
“Evans, what the bloody hell is your problem with me?” James yelled, throwing his head into his hands.
“Where were you on the train to Hogwarts when we were supposed to be instructing Prefects?” Lily fired back. James looked taken aback.
“What does that have to do with anything?” he demanded.
“You must be joking,” Lily said in a low, dangerous voice, as though she couldn’t believe James could possibly bring such a holier-than-thou attitude to a situation where he was clearly in the wrong. “It’s a clear example of how you’re treating your Head Boy duties with absolutely no respect.
“And that one absence has inspired you to make my seventh year miserable?”
“No,” Lily snapped, growing increasingly frustrated.
“Then what in Merlin’s name is your problem?”
“Everything!” Lily erupted. “You have this constant need to think and act like you’re better than everyone else. You have this erroneous self-proclaimed notion that you’re equipped to make judgments about anyone you want just because you’re James Potter -”
“No,” James bellowed, towering over her and vaguely recognizing a small pool gathering beneath her brilliantly green eyes, “what is your problem with me? What did I ever do to you? You’re on this insane mission to make my life a living hell and I want to know why. What are you so hung-up over?”
“Hung-up?” Lily asked, blinking furiously as her voice broke.
“I’m not an idiot, Evans, as much as I know you’d love to believe that. I clearly did something to you that you consider unforgiveable, and now you’re trying to punish me. Either you can save us both time and spit it out now or you can be a selfish little brat and keep us here all weekend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lily mumbled, suddenly turning away and wishing the ground would swallow her whole.
“Lily, spit it out!” James roared, grabbing Lily by the arms and turning her back to face him.
“You ruined my friendship with Severus, you insensitive toerag! You made his life hell, you forced him into that horrible group of people he calls friends, you practically pushed him into calling me that “ that awful name...”
And Lily nearly collapsed from the sudden lack of James’ grasp holding her up. He had let go of her as if she had been set on fire and he stumbled backwards, looking at Lily as if he had never seen her before in his life. Lily threw out her right hand and let the desk catch her before she felt something wet streaming down her cheek. She slowly lifted her left hand and touched her cheek to find a teardrop. In absolute horror she glanced down at her finger and realized she was crying. In the hopes that she could wipe the tears away before James could see them, Lily swiped at her face. But it was obviously too late.
He was staring at her in complete shock and Lily rebounded as quickly as she could.
“What, you’ve never seen a girl cry before, Potter? I would have expected you to be used to it by now, considering the amount of girls you tend to treat like used tissues.” She tried to smirk, and felt her heart drop when she realized James’ expression hadn’t changed.
“I’m not doing this with you anymore, Evans,” he said quietly, pulling his eyes away as he sat back in his seat and continued to stare at his hands. Lily gaped at him.
“Doing what?”
“Arguing, yelling…screaming,” he said. His hazel eyes seemed bent on not straying from his fingers. Lily wasn’t sure what had just happened. She looked at her shoes for help. After a few minutes, James looked back at up her and waited for her to make eye contact with him. She did so reluctantly.
“I didn’t know you were so upset over that,” he said. Lily paused as she tried to digest the look on his face. It looked…apologetic, almost kind. It was maybe the first time she had ever seen him pull this expression. And Lily Evans wasn’t sure how to handle it.
“I’m not,” she said defiantly, rolling her eyes and sliding neatly into her seat as well. She took a deep breath and shook herself mentally.
“You just cried over it,” James pointed out. Again, Lily was surprised to hear the hint of regret in his words. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable with the way this conversation was turning out. She had never expected in a million years that she and James Potter would ever carry a civil conversation, let alone carry a conversation in which he pitied her.
“I did not,” Lily lied lamely, wishing desperately she’d been able to hide the tears better. However, in her defense, she had been so taken aback with the sudden surge of emotion that she hadn’t known how to handle it. She distinctly remembered the last time she had let her emotions get the better of her, and it had been years ago…on the last day she and Severus had ever spoken as friends. Shaking that memory out of her head quickly, she took a deep breath.
“Are you really trying to lie about it when I saw you not even five minutes ago wiping away tears?” James asked, raising his eyebrows. Lily looked at him sighed, feeling helpless. It seemed as if she had officially lost the battle.
“I guess not,” she breathed, turning back and mimicking the position James had been in minutes before. She studied her fingernails intensely and noticed her pink nail polish was chipped on her right thumb.
“Evans…” James said after a few minutes of silence, “I’m…er…”
Lily looked at him blankly.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, looking into her green eyes and swallowing hard. Of all the situations in the world, he had never thought he’d ever be participating in this one. From the look on Lily’s face, she probably didn’t either. James felt an odd comfort in their shared uneasiness.
Lily was currently trying to find the lost feeling in her toes as she stared wide-eyed at the boy she had hated for six years. Had he really just…? Lily was aware that her mouth was partially open. Closing it quickly, she looked toward the floor and tucked a lock of fiery red hair behind her ear. As she looked up again, she caught James glancing at her in a curious way. When he realized she had seen him, he cleared his throat and looked away.
“It’s fine,” she said, shrugging it off. James paused for a moment and then shook his head.
“It’s not. I didn’t know you felt that way. I…was an idiot.” James looked truly uneasy. Lily was unsure of how to respond. A few minutes later, James asked hesitantly, “Do you want to talk about it?” Lily looked at him as if he were crazy. “Right, never mind.”
Lily continued to stare at her hands for a few minutes. Tension settled around them like a thick fog. “But, uh…” Lily began, trying to find a way to break the awkward silence. “Thanks for, er…you know…asking…”
“No problem,” James responded, still not looking at her. Lily snuck a peak in his direction.
“May I ask you something?”
“Go for it.”
“How did you get so “ I mean…”
James raised his eyebrows at her. Lily glanced quickly at his expression and saw that he was trying to hide his obvious amusement. She felt herself falter.
“How did I…?”
“You just don’t seem as much of a selfish bugger as usual.” Lily watched James through her green gaze as his smile slowly vanished. A sudden pain washed over his hazel eyes and he took a deep breath before concentrating on looking away. He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed.
“Things change,” he said finally. He glanced in Lily’s direction and saw her nod; and for one of the first times since their first year at Hogwarts, he didn’t see a trace of judgment in her expression. She was looking at him curiously, her eyebrows lightly furrowed and her head tilted slightly to one side. He paused for a minute, considering her. “My Mum and Dad died this summer,” he said, not breaking eye contact with her. He saw Lily’s lips part in shock as her eyes grew wide and James in turn cracked a small smile in her direction. The last thing he wanted was for her to start pitying him because she thought he was miserable.
“I’m so sorry,” Lily breathed, unsure of what else to say.
“it’s okay,” James said, shrugging it off and turning back to look at his hands. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal,” Lily corrected, trying to ignore her throbbing head. She had felt as if someone had dropped a pumpkin over her head. Guilt tumbled around her as she remembered how incredibly insensitive she had been to him for the past few weeks. Then suddenly Lily’s heart stopped as a possibility hit her. “It wasn’t…?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” James said quickly, as though he knew what she was about to ask. “It wasn’t He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. My parents were fascinated with Muggles, everything about them. My dad actually built an entire car from the bottom up this summer. The first time they tried to take it out for a test drive…it didn’t go so well.”
Lily was now gawking at James’ profile, lost in the complete horror of that story. Absently, she registered the look on his face of feigned strength and Lily found herself swallowing hard.
“Car crash?”
James nodded slowly.
“When did this happen?”
“Over two and a half months ago.”
Lily was past the point of being able to formulate words. She simply continued staring at James, amazed at the way he sat stoically in his chair, unwilling to show even the slightest hint of emotion. His back was hunched over as he stared at the desk in front of him. His hands were resting lightly on his knees, as though he needed to brace himself up. Lily was struggling to keep her eyes dry, and she was blinking furiously as she looked away at the floor.
“Where do you live now?” she asked.
“Sirius and I still live in my parents’ old place, and our house elf, Dolly, is still there, too,” James responded, and Lily finally thought she heard a hitch in his breathing as he tried to hold back emotion. “It’s difficult, but now that I’m at school it’s easier to keep my mind off of what happened.” Lily nodded slowly, wondering if she’d ever be able to handle the death of her parents as well as James was obviously doing. She looked back up at James when she heard him shift his weight so he was facing her head on.
“You want to know why I’m suddenly taking thing so seriously? It was my Mum’s dream for me to become a responsible son. I never really lived up to her expectations nor followed in her footsteps of being Prefect or getting all my OWLs. When she died, though, I just felt like I should…do better. So I’m trying.”
Lily could honestly say she had never felt so horrible in her entire eighteen-year-old life. She felt morally and ethically equivalent to dung. She just nodded dumbly in James’ direction.
“I’m really sorry for how rude I’ve been,” Lily apologized quietly. She saw James smile in amusement and shake his head.
“Why, because you pity me now?”
“No, because I second-guessed your motives,” she admitted. “I was wrong. And I’m really sorry.”
“Well…for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too,” James offered quietly after a few moments of silence. “You know, about Severus. I really didn’t mean for it to blow up into what it did.”
Lily paused. “It’s okay,” she muttered. “It’s not your fault he became…what he became. That was entirely his choice. I guess I always just thought it would be easier to blame you than to blame the boy I once considered my best friend.”
James was staring at her peculiarly. “If you want,” he said with a slight grin, “you can continue blaming me.”
Lily felt herself laugh before she could help it and she shook her head. “No, that’s okay. But thank you.”
A large click from the front of my room caused Lily and James to both jump slightly in their chairs. Lily looked over to see that the door to McGonagall’s classroom was gleaming a deep purple. A split-second later and the door swung wide open. Lily blinked in surprise. She had almost forgotten why she and James were in there in the first place. She turned to James and saw him sharing a similarly curious look. Then almost simultaneously, they both smiled. A second later, James was pulling up a sleeve of his robe to check the watch on his right wrist. His face broke into a huge grin when he saw it.
“I can still make it to Quidditch practice,” he said happily, leaping up from his chair and swinging his bag over his shoulder. “I can’t believe the door actually opened.”
“Trust me, I’m as surprised as you,” Lily admitted, grabbing her own bag and joining James as they nearly sprinted out of the room. “I never thought I’d ever be able to be civil to you, let alone work things out.”
James stopped suddenly and Lily had to catch herself quickly before she ran into him.
“Potter, what are you doing!” she exclaimed, side-stepping him quickly and using a castle wall for support. She saw him looking down at her with an expression she had never seen before “ nor one she could accurately describe. His right eyebrow was raised slightly, and he had a lopsided smirk on one side of his mouth. His hazel eyes looked like they were trying to worm their way into Lily’s emerald ones.
“Is that what we did?” James asked. “Work things out?”
“Well…didn’t we?” Lily asked, suddenly looking as if she regretted her previous statement. James saw her eyes cloud with worry and was struck by the irony of the situation. Lily Evans was worried about not being on good terms with him…?
“The door did open,” James reasoned slowly, still staring hard at her expression. “It’s just weird to hear.”
“It’s weird to say,” Lily said truthfully. “Especially after I’ve spent so much of my energy these past six years hating you.”
“Ouch, hate is a strong word, Evans,” James advised as the two of them continued down the hallway.
“Then that’s a pretty accurate description of what my feelings were toward you,” Lily said. James chuckled in response.
“So…we’re…what now? Friends?” James asked, looking like he felt highly uncomfortable even suggesting that idea. Lily felt herself squirm uneasily.
“No,” she said quickly. “How about two students who don’t want to jinx each other into oblivion?”
“That sounds fair,” James said, glancing at the petite red-head next to him and finding himself oddly at ease with the new title of acquaintance.
“I thought so,” Lily agreed. She glanced up at him and they shared a smile “ one of the first few genuine smiles they had both shared together. At that same moment, Lily Evans realized something had shifted in her life permanently. There was something strange and almost intriguing about it. Oh, that’s right. James Potter was now a part of it.
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A/N: Review please :) I know the read count is high but I'm just dying to know what my readers like and what they don't - it's what I feed off of when I'm looking for inspiration for future chapters!