SUNSHOWERS

Author: Queen Nightingale

Rating: M (Language)

Pairing: JPLE

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Sometimes your bones ached, and you didn't know why. You wandered through the red carpeted hallways with the ferocity of a hawk - drifting from class to class with as much purpose as a restless sailboat. You loved her, you loved her, you loved her, but her eyes never met yours.

"Lily?"

She's in front of you now, walking to Herbology class, and your feet are under your soul and you are chasing.

"Yes, James?" She replies without even turning her head, and you are beside her, looking slightly down at the thin waifish figure that she emotes.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

You watch her swallow nonchalantly, her Adam's apple dropping up and down like a child bobbing for candy on Halloween. You want to press your fingers against the cartilage of her nose.

"I really liked your answer in Charms class today. I thought it was fantastic."

She smiles quickly, looking past you with a gaze of boredom.

"Thanks Potter. I thought it was great too."

You stop walking then, and she sashays forward, not bothering to stop for you. You want to memorize the image of her fire-red hair melding into the translucent sunset dripping down from the sky, the way that her slim hips purposefully move from side to side.

You can't repeat the past. But you're convinced that you can repeat a dream.

There's a figure running down the corridor past you, and you misstep and nearly get your knee cap taken off by the girl wearing fire around her head.

"What ... What? Evans?"

You're on duty so you turn on your heel and race after her, your cape exploding behind you like ink dropping into a water basin.

"Evans, you shouldn't be out after dark!"

She's stopping in front of a broom closet and she is turning to face you and her eyes are not full of tears as you expected - but are cold, colder than any weather you've ever experienced before.

"Go away, Potter. Now."

"What? Why? You know you shouldn't be out this late Evans, I can probably make an exception though, I mean you're a really good student so McGonagall shouldn't even have any problem with it, so I can probably actually not write you up for this, you shouldn't be angry at all Evans, really."

You slowly start to realize that there is the sound of footsteps racing behind you down the hall and you are turning your head but suddenly she has grabbed you and suddenly you are tugged into the broom closet, shoved into the narrow space with Lily slamming the door shut and breathing deeply into your chest.

"Where did she go?!" There's a snarling voice that erupts in the thin space outside of your hiding spot, and you feel Lily wrap her fingers around your mouth, gently, "Where the fuck did that mudblood bitch go?!"

You are frozen. You taste your heart on your tongue.

"She probably apparated or something," a thinner voice explains, "Lily is a great witch."

"For Merlin's snake Severus, she's not a great Merlin-damned witch, she's a mudblood!"

There is something thick like tension knotting around your neck, and you start to move your head but Lily presses you back. You watch her press her mouth against her shoulder and look at the ground.

"Where the fuck did that other girl go, then, Severus? He wants two of them, you know this!"

"Of course I know this."

"Well then why can't we FIND HER?!"

"She's a good witch, I told you this much. She probably apparated."

A deeper voice suddenly speaks, and you feel Lily start to shake.

"You can't apparate on Hogwarts grounds, you idiots."

You pull Lily's hand off of her mouth and pull her into your chest, her hands gently resting on your collarbone. Her eyes meet yours. You start to reach for your wand but you watch her eyes widen, so you freeze and hold her to you instead.

"She's somewhere around here." The deeper voice continues, "And you idiots really think that she apparated?"

"How do you know that she didn't apparate though," The thin voice (you now recognize as Snape) retorts back, quietly, "How would you know this? I bet she apparated."

"Stop wasting my time!" There is a roar and then the sound of a smash as two bodies hold another against the wall beside the closet. You press your lips to Lily's forehead.

"I know you had a little crush on her, Snape, but now is not the time. You know just as well as I do what is at stake if we can't get two."

"We shouldn't get her, then," Snape's voice rasps, "We should find another."

"Who is even supposed to be monitoring this hallway right now?" The second voice asks.

The three fall into silence, and you feel Lily shift. Your eyes have not left hers. You watch her blink.

"Fuck!" The deeper voice roars, and you unconsciously flinch, "Is it Black? How have you retards not checked this? Dolohov, I thought you said it was Lupin!"

"We did! We thought it was Lupin or Pettigrew! Yaxley, it's not Black!"

You look at Lily with wide eyes and mouth 'Yaxley? Dolohov?' She looks back at you and you find yourself pressing a kiss to her forehead. She raises herself up again and looks at you with scornful eyes and mouths 'What are you doing?' and you just grin.

Suddenly, you have flung the door open and smashed it into Dolohov's nose, the thin boy recoiling and shrieking as blood starts to gush from his nostril.

"Hello, gents."

Snape is staring at you with wide eyes and quivering hands, his gaze darting between you and Lily. You can sense relief and jealousy - but Yaxley, the dark, tall boy, is staring at you with what looks like disgust and hatred.

"Potter. Blood traitor." The dark boy spits at you, yanking the injured Dolohov behind him. You spot Snape's hand darting towards his wand.

"What a beautiful little bunch of fools we have over here."

"Look at you, thinking that you're so great, with your new money and your filthy parents and the way you walk around with your pompadour friends and their scumbag cash," Yaxley sneers, stepping towards you so that your spine stiffens and your eyes narrow, "Thinking you're all new wave rich, Merlin's shit. Money is in my blood, you can't get that stench out - and you certainly can't get it in, either."

"You're a dumbass, Yaxley," you reply, pulling Lily slightly behind you, "It doesn't matter where you make your money."

"It doesn't matter where you make your money?" Yaxley replies, incredulously, and you watch Dolohov burst into sarcastic laughter, clutching his cape to his nose on the other side of Yaxley, "It doesn't matter where you make your money? Why, little boy, that's the only thing that matters in this world. Cash, honour, and name."

"None of you look like honorable lots to me. Get the hell out of Gryffindor's territory."

The three boys cackle, and Dolohov makes 'ooh'-ing noises in the corner.

"Think we're scared of the big bad Gryffin with his dick wrapped around a mudblood's pinky finger?" Yaxley snickers, turning back to look at the two Slytherins, "Your little slut over there owes us something."

"I owe you nothing," Lily hisses from beside you.

"Why you do, sweetheart," Yaxley deepens his voice, bending down and putting on a nice face, "You owe us a lot. See, you don't deserve to be in this school, with your dirty blood and your sad name. That's a blood debt."

"That's enough, Yaxley," Snape mutters from behind him, and you watch Yaxley's face darken a shade. He stands up again and suddenly his face is right by your face, and you exhale aggression out of the small of your back.

"You better watch out, Potter."

"I'm deeply frightened, Yaxley."

You stare at him for a good two minutes until the other boy takes a step back, motioning to the others to follow him down the hallway. They lope away, and you breathe for a couple seconds and then turn around to talk to Lily.

"What the hell was that about, Lily?"

She's gone.

The corridor echoes with your thoughts.

"Lily, Lily, Lily!"

She's walking to Herbology class again, and you can feel her spine stiffen by the way her back arches against her cloak.

"Lily!"

You are beside her, slinging your bookcase over your shoulder and motioning to your boys to stay back.

"What was that all about, that other, that other night there?" You whisper, turning towards her. Her profile is sharp and jagged against the cool spring breeze.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Potter."

"Lily. Three nights ago? When I was on duty?"

She stays silent, walking beside you. You feel like you are walking through a minefield.

"For Merlin's sake, Lily," you quietly murmur into her vicinity, "I didn't tell anybody, alright. I just want to know what's going on."

"What's going on?" She laughs suddenly, loudly, and you look around, the other students glancing over at her high pitched voice, "What's going on?"

"Lily, stop it."

"Little boy Potter wants to know what the big kids are up to, is that it?"

"Lily."

She whirls towards you and suddenly you are pinned like a butterfly in a museum, your classmates walking around you, Sirius giving you a strange look but still walking past.

"You have no idea what it's like, do you. It's all a game, Potter, it's all a game. Except in this game," she whispers, motioning with her hands towards the teenagers marching around you, "You have no idea who the enemies are. It's all masks and shadows. Do you know what they call them, now?"

"Call who? Call who what?"

"They call them death eaters, Potter."

You look deep into her light green eyes and feel something sink through your esophagus.

"There are no death eaters at Hogwarts, Lily."

She raises her eyebrow and stares at you, then turns back around and starts walking past you towards the class.

You turn away and breathe for a second, tilting your head back and staring at the castles in the sky that some God beyond your conception decided to decorate the firmament with today. You wonder if anybody has a ladder that can take you up there, into that new kingdom, away from all of this.

You slam down into the seat beside Evans in Herbology, grinning widely at a very pissed off McKinnon, who glares at you and is about to open her mouth before the professor begins to speak. You pretend to open your notes but really just stare at the words, trying to unravel the mess inside of your head.

Group work starts, and you turn in your chair towards her, placing your large male frame around her chair and draping your arm across her back.

"Have you told anybody about this?"

"Who would I tell, Potter." She sighs.

"Well, McGonagall. For one. Or ... or ... we could tell Dumbledore!"

She glares at you suddenly, not moving her pen, and then angrily pushes your arm off of her chair.

"Do you honestly think, Potter, that they don't know."

Your world has shifted on its axis and you are stuck between reverse and drive, unable to move the stick-shift of your life back into place. You walk into the Main Hall and glance at the Slytherin table with eyes that feel as though a fog has been lifted. Suddenly the colour at your table is gauche and Sirius' laughter is grating and you look down at Lily, who is watching you with a gaze that feels a little like sorrow.

It's Wednesday, so you're walking to Herbology along the same path that you always do, but this time you don't call her name out, because you don't know how to feel about living in a world where you can't be a knight in shining armour.

"Potter?"

You're sitting in the library in an armchair by the stained glass window, and you turn around to glance at the tall, thin frame of a beautiful girl that you know.

"Hi, Lily."

She puts her books down on the same table as yours and turns to staring at you, you not meeting her eyes, still looking out the window.

"I don't like this."

You don't reply.

"See? I don't like this. I don't like this whole moody James thing that you're pulling right now."

"I'm not moody Lily, I'm just tired."

"You're tired? Why are you tired, James."

"I don't really know." You reply, and look up at her eyes, watching them widen, the dark freckles in them shining out like sunspots.

She stands there for a couple seconds, you staring at her, before you sigh and shift in your seat.

"You know why I always liked you, Lily? You know why I thought that despite how beautiful you are, why I thought that I had a chance with you? Because of how you are around your friends, the way you act and all." You go quiet and turn back to the window for a second, and then start speaking again. "But now I look back on the way you acted, and I get it. You were like a sunshower. You weren't just smiling."

"James, I have to act this way. It keeps my sanity."

"All of that - all of the way that you would walk ahead of me and not reply, all of those hidden smiles - you aren't just some popular mean girl. You recognized my voice, every single time. It was all an act."

"James, I can't get close to anybody." Her voice is pleading.

You turn to her and you watch her mouth widen slightly. She looks scared and despite yourself you want to wrap your hand around her neck and kiss away her fear - but then you remember that this is a Medusa, not a Betty Cooper.

"How do I know that you aren't acting now?"

"Because I'm NOT - for Merlin's sake, I was doing that for you, alright? I can't act like I fucking care about anybody right now except a small group of friends that they expect me to care about. The more people that I care about, the more people that could get hurt."

"Did Snape tell you that?"

"Leave him out of it."

"I'm not leaving him out of it. He's a scumbag for a friend and you and I both know it."

There's a loud shushing noise from the bookcase in front of you, and you fall silent, staring at the books piled up in front of you.

"James, please."

"I liked somebody who wasn't real."

"This isn't true, James, stop it."

"Why do you even care right now?" You hiss back, turning towards her, "It's one thing to be a crazy girl and for me to try and accept it and chase after you. But you let me pursue you like that! You let me act like a fool towards you! And I fell for every single action! Is that why you did it, because you needed a powerful boy to protect you?"

She scoffs suddenly and you watch the stench of anger spread up her arms.

"A powerful boy? Those are opposites, James. You can't protect me."

"I can't protect you?!"

"Not against people who hate me for the composition of my bloodstream."

"It's no different from mine."

"Not to them. You have no idea what you're up against. I acted that way because I needed to keep distance from everyone. I didn't know that you were the type of boy who liked girls who don't care."

You stand up suddenly, and even though she is tall you are even taller, bending your head to glare at her frame.

"I don't like girls who don't care. I like - liked - you. I liked the way that your smile curved up at the edge of your mouth. I liked the way that your eyes laughed. I liked the way that you lifted your hand up as high as possible to answer each question, even when you didn't know the answer. I liked the way you waited for a little bit too long after class just so that I could talk to you. I liked everything about you ... and now I don't even know who you are."

She is silent, batting her pine needle eyelashes at the ground.

"James ... "

You suddenly move, and shove your books into your bookbag, angrily.

"James, stop it. James! James, stop it."

You are trapped between her and the bookshelf, fighting back the sadness fizzing up through your vocal chords.

"You should probably go find some other boy's dick to wrap around your pinky finger."

Lily looks down, and you feel her hands clench on your shoulders.

"No."

Her lips are the answer, the one that you didn't know you were searching for.