James reacted almost instantly; his arms went around her, pulling her tightly against his chest. Lily, who had not been expecting this, gasped slightly, and then her fingers were in his hair, his hands warm against the small of her back, his mouth moving insistently against hers. It was only the second time they had really kissed, but it was markedly different than it had been in June”fiercer, somehow, faster, and with just the barest edge of desperation…
But then, just as suddenly as he had started, James stopped, pushing himself roughly away from her. “Oh, Lily,” he said quietly, almost sadly, “what are we doing?”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Well,” she said, a little caustically, “if the obvious answer doesn’t immediately spring to mind…”
James shook his head, looking around the deserted village helplessly. “No,” he said. “I mean, we’re in the middle of…something, here, something that’s way bigger than us, and we don’t even really know what’s going on, and…” he trailed off, still blinking into the distance, before, finally, turning his head and looking directly at her. “And I don’t want to kiss you unless I can do it again.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, her voice barely rising above a whisper.
James shook his head. “I know that was just because you thought, for a moment, that I was dead or hurt or something, and that was all, but I told you before, it’s all or nothing, and I just””
There was a noise behind them, the sound of someone running, and they both turned instinctively, raising their wands. A second later, Sirius burst around the corner, a long, shallow cut on his face, his normally sleek hair sticking up as badly as James’s always did. He looked exhilarated.
“There you two are,” he said, catching his breath. “Most of us got ambushed closer to the train. Moony showed up a few minutes ago with Dumbledore and some of the other teachers, it’s all over now”pity you missed all the action.”
“Not all of it,” James murmured. Sirius looked at him quizzically, and James quickly asked, “Was anyone hurt?”
Sirius shrugged. “Not really,” he said, sounding slightly proud. “The younger kids are all safe on the train”they barricaded it, but they didn’t need, to, whoever those people were, they didn’t past us. A few of the fifth and sixth years who fought just got taken to the hospital wing, but not with anything too serious. The rest of us, just bumps and bruises.”
It was only as he said this that Lily began to feel her own”bruises sinking deep into her arms, a tender spot at her temple. As though sensing this, Sirius looked over his shoulder at them. “You guys?” he asked, his brow furrowing slightly in concern for the first time.
“More or less the same, I think,” James said, and Lily confirmed this with a nod.
“Good,” Sirius said, sighing. “Looks like the fun is over”everyone’s pretty much being sent back to the castle now, Dumbledore just sent me out to find you two.”
Worrisome as she found Sirius’s idea of “fun,” Lily said nothing for a minute, thinking, instead, back to the strange masked man who had fought her. You’re one of them, he’d said, and she felt a chill just remembering that.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Sirius said to her as they approached the train, now dormant, and the last of the horseless carriages to take them to Hogwarts.
“Just thinking,” Lily said vaguely. “We’re the last to go back?”
“Yes,” Sirius said patiently, “although I already told you that.”
“Where’s Moony and Wormtail?” James asked suddenly.
Sirius winced. “Oh, well, Remus went back with some of the younger kids”keeping an eye on them, you know. And, uh…”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, slightly trembling ball of fur. “Peter got a little scared,” he mouthed.
James raised his eyebrows, then nodded once. With a wink, Sirius slipped the rat back into his pocket as they approached the carriage, then swung himself inside. James followed him quickly, then turned to Lily, offering his hand.
“I’m perfectly capable of climbing up myself,” she snapped, and he rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I know you are,” he said, retreating into the carriage as she clambered in, settling herself on the bench opposite the two boys, her arms folded.
Sirius eyed them both warily. “Oookay,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but””
He was interrupted as someone at the entrance of the carriage cleared a throat softly. Looking over, Lily was surprised”and slightly mortified”to see Professor Dumbledore hoisting himself inside, with infinitely more grace than she had managed.
“Good evening,” he said, surveying them calmly, and nothing about his voice or demeanor suggested that anything unusual had happened, or was still happening.
Lily and James were both momentarily speechless, but Sirius unfolded his arms and said jauntily, “Hiya, sir!”
“Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said, inclining his head at Sirius, and Lily thought she saw him wink. “I see you found our missing Head Boy and Girl.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sirius said breezily. “I sniffed them out eventually.”
James aimed a glare at him as the carriage trundled along through the growing dark. Lily looked around them, out the window to where the lights of the castle were now visible. Somehow, despite everything that had happened, just being so close to Hogwarts again made her feel safe.
Dumbledore, after a few moments, turned his clear blue gaze back to the three of them. “When we arrive,” he said, “Mr. Potter, Miss Evans, if you could accompany me back to my office? Mr. Black, I trust that you can make your way back to Gryffindor Tower on your own.”
Sirius grinned again as the carriage slowed. “I think I’ve got it figured out by now, sir,” he said, and swung himself out the door before the carriage had completely stopped.
Left alone with James and Dumbledore, Lily felt once again uneasy. As Dumbledore gracefully departed the carriage, James, behind him, looked over his shoulder and met Lily’s eye. She saw in that and in the tight tension of his shoulders that he, too, was wary. For a moment, again, she felt the same thing that she had felt when the two of them were standing in front of the Hogwarts Express barely an hour earlier”that they were more, somehow, than just themselves. That they were stronger, more important, than just two students.
She clambered out of the carriage herself, silently following Dumbledore across the grounds and through the castle, half a pace behind James the whole way. The headmaster said nothing until reaching his office, at which point he murmured, “Fudge Flies,” ad the stone gargoyle slid away. Lily hesitated for a moment”James, to her right, did the same”and then they both followed Dumbledore up the spiral stairs.
Once in the office, Dumbledore sat down behind his desk, surveying them both over his half-moon spectacles. “Mr. Potter,” he said finally, “Miss Evans. What can you tell me about what happened tonight?”
Squaring his shoulders, James glanced fleetingly at Lily, who furrowed her brow. “Well,” he said, “we were hoping you could tell us, sir.”
For the first time, Dumbledore smiled slightly, although his tone remained grave. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I don’t know much more than you do. I have my suspicions, of course, but the biggest part of the story remains a mystery.”
He sighed, glancing out his darkening window, and Lily was struck, for the first time, by how old he looked. Despite his obvious age, she’d never really thought of him as an old man before”he’d always seemed completely timeless.
“Now for what I do no,” Dumbledore said, swinging his piercingly blue gaze back to them. “They are called Death Eaters, the wizards who attacked you. They operate underneath a man I know you’ve heard of”a Lord Voldemort.”
Lily blinked. At her side, James flinched visibly. “Sir,” he said cautiously, “shouldn’t we”I mean, people don’t really refer to him by…by name, they haven’t for years now…”
Dumbledore inclined his head slightly. “Of course,” he allowed. “Fear is catching. It comforts people, I believe, not to hear the name…makes them feel safer.”
James nodded, but Lily scrutinized the headmaster. “But you don’t agree, do you, Professor?” she asked.
“I do not,” Dumbledore said, again smiling faintly. “Indeed, sometimes I wonder if it does more harm than good.”
Lily glanced over at James as silence fell again. He was looking at her, his brow furrowed, and she bit her lip, deep in thought.
“Sir,” James said again, turning back to the headmaster, “I was separated from everyone earlier, during the fight, and one of them”the Death Eaters”he said something about how I was…one of ‘them.’”
Lily looked at him in shock. “Me, too,” she said, startled into speech. “They said that to me, too. I didn’t know what it meant.”
James shook his head. “Me either,” he said, and, although she wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination, Lily thought he looked, suddenly, a little relieved.
“Do you, Headmaster?” Lily asked Dumbledore, who was looking closely at them both.
“I don’t, I’m afraid,” Dumbledore said. “But thank you, both of you, for telling me. I’ll be keeping an ear out from now on.”
He folded his hands on his desk, and Lily, confused as she was by the events of the day, recognized this as their signal to leave. James picked up on it as well, and they both turned to go as Dumbledore said, “If either of you hears anything, don’t hesitate to come to me.”
“Yes, sir,” they both said, before leaving him behind.
For the first half of their walk back to Gryffindor Tower, neither of them spoke. James thrust his hands into his pockets and looked straight ahead, while Lily pretended to be overly interested in the paintings on the walls.
She was thinking about the fight, of course, about the Death Eater who had been dead-set on taking her with him before Leda had appeared, and the one who seemed prepared to do the same to James. But even with all that, her mind kept drifting instead to what had happened after, with James. Looking back, she couldn’t believe she’d kissed him like that, foolishly under the circumstances, and even more so because of the way he’d reacted, pushing away from her, like she hadn’t meant ever second of it.
“What did it mean?” James asked suddenly.
Lily started, sure for a moment that he had read her mind.
“The Death Eater,” James continued, staring off down the corridor. “About us being one of something.”
“Oh,” Lily said, half-relieved, half-disappointed,” that. I don’t know. We’re Head Boy and Girl, that may have had something to do with it””
“Why would that make them want to abduct us, or kill us, or whatever they wanted to do?” James scoffed.
“I don’t know,” Lily said, irritated and defensive. “It was the first thing I thought of. I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas, though.”
“Hey,” James snapped, “I was just thinking out loud, calm down””
They had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, and James turned to face Lily, folding his arms.
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” she hissed. “Today of all days I have the right to be upset about something.”
“Is this just about the Death Eaters?” James demanded suddenly, catching her off guard.
Lily, prepared to deny whatever it was he was implying, suddenly found herself saying instead, “Of course it’s not just about that, you idiot.”
Whatever James had been expecting, it wasn’t that. At a loss, he blinked at her for a moment, before finally, quieter now, saying, “Then what?”
But before she could answer, the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open, and for the second time that day, Sirius interrupted them.
“Oh, there you guys are,” he said, looking back and forth between them. “I was about to come looking for you again, you’ve been gone forever…get in here, everyone’s curious.”
Carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, Lily and James climbed in behind him. The common room, though crowded, was unusually quiet; the Gryffindors were clustered in small groups, speaking in undertones. Lily gave a quick, cursory glance around the room, but she didn’t see Leda anywhere. Annabelle was absent as well, and Lily wondered briefly if they were together somewhere.
Mary, however, she saw sitting at a table with Remus and Peter. Amelia Bones was there too, looking especially sober, and Lily remembered with a jolt that Amelia had lost family last year to the Death Eaters, and You-Know-Who”Voldemort”himself.
Lily, James, and Sirius all sat themselves around the table, and it was only as she really looked at them that Lily saw just how worse for wear everyone was. Sirius, who Lily had last seen fresh from battle and full of adrenaline, now looked haggard, his eyes heavy, a bruise blooming on his cheekbone, around the cut. Even Remus, who had only fought at the end, after finding the professors, sported a long gash on the side of his neck. Peter, for his part, looked even smaller and more scared than usual, while Mary was, characteristically, fretting over a split lip while completely ignoring the large burn on her arm. Lily could only imagine how she herself looked.
“So did Dumbledore have any information?” Remus asked in lieu of a greeting.
Lily shook her head mutely as James said, “Not really. He says You-Know-Who sent them, but he doesn’t know why.”
Remus sighed, placing his chin in his hands.
“We figured that much,” Sirius said dejectedly. “But there’s nothing we can really do with that information”I mean, we don’t even know why they attacked.”
“Do they really need a reason?” Amelia asked darkly, speaking for the first time. “You-Know-Who, he kills for sport. That was just fun for them.”
“They didn’t kill anyone, not tonight,” Remus said sharply.
“Amelia looked up at him, her eyes empty. “We were lucky,” she said simply.
Remus shook his head. “No,” he said decisively, “no. This wasn’t random. This was planned. They cleared the village. They knew exactly when we were going to arrive. They were there for a reason. They wanted something.”
Us, Lily thought, and she felt rather than saw James stiffen in his chair. They wanted us. But she said nothing, and neither did James.
“How would they have known?” Mary was saying now, sounding more serious than Lily had ever heard her.
“Known what?” Remus asked.
“Well, I mean, how would they have known when we got there? To Hogsmeade? Unless they just got lucky too.”
“They knew,” Sirius said. “They had to have.”
“But that must mean…” Remus said, trailing off, and Sirius looked up, locking eyes with him.
“That they have someone on the inside,” Sirius finished for him, and Remus nodded.
“What?” asked Peter, sounding panicked. “What does that mean?”
“There’s a spy,” said Remus. “Someone in Hogwarts who knew when students would be coming back. Probably someone who was on the train.”
“You mean…you mean like a student?” Peter said. “One of us?”
Sirius nodded.
“But…it could be anyone,” Peter said quietly. “Or at least, any of the Slytherins.”
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “But no way was it just a coincidence.”
“But there’s nothing we can do about it, either,” Lily said suddenly. “We’re as safe as we can be in Hogwarts…and it’s getting late. Don’t forget, classes start tomorrow.”
Sirius groaned. “Ugh, classes,” he said. “I had forgotten.”
Remus shook his head. “On top of everything,” he mused, “this is our last term.”
“Hello, real world,” James said grimly.
“Stop that,” Sirius said, bumping him playfully with his shoulder. “I don’t want to think about that.”
The common room was emptying along with them. The boys headed up the stairs to their dorm and Lily followed Mary and Amelia up to theirs, not thinking, again and despite everything, about the attack itself, but instead about everything after.
---
James couldn’t sleep.
He had been lying in his four-poster, staring at the ceiling, for several hours now, each one longer than the next. He could barely believe that, less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d been at home, that it had been weeks since he’d been at Hogwarts. The last time he’d slept in this bed, he and Sirius hadn’t even been speaking, he’d been dating Leda, and Lily hadn’t looked at him in weeks. And now…
He was concerned about the Death Eaters, he was, and about the one in particular who had almost captured him. But here, warm in his bed, in the still-somehow safe darkness of the castle, it was hard to think about that. He was thinking instead about Lily running towards him, worrying about him, looking at him the way she had…Restlessly, James flipped himself over in bed so he was lying on his side, clenching his fists in his pillow. He couldn’t figure her out. What had that meant? What did any of it mean? Why had she kissed him like that if she was only going to walk away, like she had before?
He heard the door to the dormitory creek open and then close again, but he ignored it, assuming it was just Remus, who he knew was a restless sleeper, getting up to clear his mind. James closed his eyes tightly, willing himself to fall asleep, when suddenly he heard a soft, familiar voice say, “James?”
James swore, sitting bolt upright, clutching his bedcovers around his chest, his heart racing.
“Calm down,” Lily Evans whispered, peering around the hangings of his bed. “You’re going to wake everyone up.”
“What are you doing in here?” James hissed back, his pulse still drumming beneath his skin. “Merlin, Lily, you scared me half to death.”
Lily glanced away from him, looking slightly uncomfortable. Then she said, “Move over.”
James, who was still startled enough to comply, scooted to the other side of his bed, still confused as Lily hopped in with him, closing the hangings again and sitting down cross-legged, looking at him.
She was wearing the same bright green pajamas she’d been wearing at his house on Christmas”although this time, he was sad to see, without the fuzzy bunny slippers. Half-convinced he was dreaming, James frowned at her and asked again, “So…what are you doing here?”
Lily shrugged, tugging at a loose thread in her sleeve. “Would you believe me if I said I didn’t want to be alone?” she asked.
“Yeah,” James nodded. “Absolutely. But I don’t understand why you would come to me.”
“Because,” Lily said, still not looking at him, “because I have to tell you something.”
James leaned forward. “Is it about the Death Eaters?” he asked, still speaking in an undertone, but quickly now. “Do you know something that you didn’t tell Dumbledore?”
Lily laughed quietly. “No,” she said. “No, not that. And I know that’s what I should be thinking about…that’s what’s important and everything, but no. It’s actually…it’s about us.”
“Oh,” said James, sinking backwards against his pillow. “Right, well, you know, don’t worry about it. If you want to pretend it never happened, I’ll pretend it never happened.”
But Lily was already shaking her head. “That’s not it at all,” she said. James opened his mouth to say something, but Lily held up her hand. “Wait,” she said, “just let me say this. I’ve regretted not saying anything since October…”
She trailed off. James, who had no idea where this was going, didn’t say anything at all, just looked at her. The silence stretched on for a long moment, and James, listening to nothing but the sound of their breath in the dim light felt almost as though they were the only two people in the world, the only real things, until Lily, as though she couldn’t take it anymore, opened her mouth and spoke all in one breath.
“I’m in love with you,” she said, her eyes wide and open, “completely and desperately. Only you. I know…this doesn’t make sense, with everything that’s happened, but it’s true. I should have said something before, I know I should have, but being with you, it would change things, and I was scared. So I kept waiting and waiting but after today I realized that the only thing I’m really scared of is losing you. So I just…I had to tell you.”
It was not what James had expected, not what he had ever expected, and he said nothing, just continued to look at her. She stared resolutely back at him for a while, but a flush began to creep up her neck as he continued to say nothing. James knew the odds, knew their history, wondered again if he was dreaming, but still, still, he believed her. He believed hr, and he could barely breathe.
“Right,” said Lily, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “Well I just…I just needed you to know, but I think I’ll be going now…”
She moved as if to draw back the hangings on his bed, but James reacted almost instantly, reaching out and gently touching her wrist.
A light pressure was all it was, but she turned to look at him anyway. “Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to be alone either.”
Lily looked back at him, as though, maybe, for the first time, she was really seeing him, and he was seeing her. Then, slowly, he slid his hand down into hers, looping their fingers together, and finally, she smiled.
They didn’t kiss, or speak. Instead, almost shyly, she stretched out beside him, her cheek against his shoulder, their joined hands resting between them. James shifted a little closer to her, curving his other hand around her side and closing his eyes”and there, somehow, with her breathing against him, he was able at last to find his way into sleep.
---
It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when the hangings of James’s four-poster were once again wrenched open, but the bright light streaming in through the windows told Lily none-too-gently that it was morning already.
“Come on, Prongsy,” she heard Sirius say jubilantly, “up, up, up! Don’t want to be late to classes on the first day, time to””
Sirius stopped speaking abruptly, evidently catching a glimpse of them for the first time. Lily blinked blearily, rubbing her eyes. Beside her, she felt James stretch, yawning. When she looked over at him, he was smiling a little sheepishly.
“Hi,” he said softly, and she felt her face break into a smile.
“Hi,” she whispered back.
“Well,” said Sirius loudly. “This is interesting.”
They both looked over at him; he was standing at the edge of James’s bed, holding a violently purring Jinx, smirking down at them.
“I’m going to go,” Lily said, ducking her head, but unable to stop grinning. Sirius, she could only imagine, was dying to talk to James. “I’ll see you two downstairs.”
It was only once she was back in her own dorm”which was mercifully empty, her dorm-mates, she assumed, having gone down for breakfast”that she thought of Leda, and wondered, for the first time, how the other girl would react once she found out about Lily and James.
I’ll worry about that later, Lily thought, unable to worry about anything at the moment. It can wait.
A quarter of an hour later, she walked down the stairs to the common room to find James waiting for her by the portrait hall. He’d tried, she saw, to do something to his hair, but it was still sticking up uncontrollably, and she smiled.
He watched her walk towards him, grinning almost timidly. There were people in the common room; she saw Remus coming down the stairs and Mary by the fireplace, and other students milling about getting ready for class or for breakfast, but they may as well have been a thousand miles away.
“Hey,” James said, looking down at her as she reached him.
“Hi,” she said for the second time that morning.
“So,” he said, smiling crookedly as they both turned towards the portrait hole, “now what to we do?”
“Now?” Lily asked, and reached over to slip her hand into his. She felt his fingers tighten around hers. “Now, we walk to class.”
Stars Apart by Willow Rosenberg
Chapter Notes: This is a bit of a bashful update. Okay, so, good news/bad news really, the bad news being midterms/finals/life in general. The good news: I'm alive again! Temporarily. Better news: about five weeks from now, life calms down a whole lot, and you can probably count on weekly updates again. Until then, I'm not really sure, but I'm writing when I can.It may be a little too soon to tell, but it's looking like there's maybe about eight chapters left in "Stars Apart," and then I'll start the third and final edition of this little trilogy here. I know I've been behind, but thank you, everyone, for reading, and thanks for your patience!
Now to chapter 15.
------------------------------------------------------------