The Cold, Hard, Stone
"I am not an ill-willed person."
He snorts at me and cusses under his breath while I glare with all my effort.
"You don't even know-"
"Just shut up, Potter! No one wants you to speak, right now or ever." My mind has sparks and flames everywhere, building electricity and getting ready for the electrocution.
"You should just stop talking, Evans," he hisses back, slithering over to where I am. I back up and end up leaning against the corner walls of the Gryffindor common room, in fright and frustration. His shadow blocks any chance of light and happiness, and the people who used to talk are now silent and leaving the room quickly, quietly, scared. As if we are going to destroy them! "You think you just love everything, and they all love you back. Well just shut up! Because you are not perfect. Get over it!"
He hunches above me, overpowering my sight with his stupid, messy, death-colored hair. The unkempt and disgusting lawn of it covers his whole forehead and I can barely make out his eyes. But even in the little sliver of sight, a black and fiery stare shines at me.
"Get out of my face, you filthy rotten, arrogant, know-it-all, show-offish-"
"No! I will do what ever I want to do, so save your breath." His jaw tightens, probably chipping every one of the white and perfectly shaped teeth, and he looks as if he is about to slap me. In fear, I cower against the wall but immediately regret my actions.
How he dares-
"I just can't believe you. You can't just- you don't even- Why the hell are you- Argh, Lily just stop! Please stop!" he ends up sighing pathetically. And all of my planned and practiced words get stuck in my throat.
I look up at him with wide eyes. "I'm sorry," I whisper back. "I shouldn't have. You know… and I know… and we shouldn't…" Gulping down my tumbling emotions, I lean my head back along the crack on the stone wall behind me.
"This isn't working out, is it?"
"No."
"We are just killing- Our emotions can't take any more of this shit. And it isn't fun anymore. I'm just an asshole to you… I sound like a fucking asshole all the time to you."
"You aren't. I mean, I must sound like a bitch." I sigh while James shakes his head, his jaw relaxing and his hands trembling as he moves them up to my face. I flinch away from his touch before realizing that he places his huge hands on the stone wall behind me, instead of my face.
"You know that will never be true. You aren't- I mean… Lily Evans is the most perfect person ever, so she can't ever be anything but angelic. It is only common sense."
I slump down some more, embarrassed and agitated. "Is that all you think of me as? A- a naïve, innocent person?" We stare at each other for what feels like an extremely long minute, the grandfather clock to the right of us ticking goodbye our time in the world as he thinks.
"N-no. No, I mean… well I never thought of perfection and the angels in the sky as bad things. But I guess it does have a sort of naïve feel to it, right? I'm not very good at showing how… just how god-like you are… You just… you are… Oh come on, Lily, you obviously see it in yourself and know what you are," he says, frustration everywhere on his angular, tanned face that moves away from my own.
"It's all in your head. This probably started as a bet made between you and Sirius, you asking me out in the 4th year. I was the only one to turn you down, and you think of me as some sort of saint? That's not right, Potter." James nostrils flinch and he bites his dark red and chapped lip while I look back to him, wide-eyed.
"We really are past the last name basis, don't you think?" James stares at me critically, biting his lip harder as a single drop of blood drips down. "We've- We- Jesus, Lily, I know that you sneak into the Room of Requirements every Friday night at ten o'clock to cry over your dead parents. I know that you love to write and be right. You are a no-it-all who also just happens to be the most beautiful person I have ever met. That locket that you always grab at your chest when you are nervous was given to you by your sister before you left Hogwarts in first year, and I know for a fact that the only person you have every truly hated has been her boyfriend. At least call me James."
"Why? Why does having someone know tiny, creepy, stalker-ish facts about me make me have to call to them as a friend? We get into arguments. We fight. We yell. We curse. The hell, Potter? We do no make sense. You fucking really don't make sense, Potter. And you reading off a script with your rehearsed lines is not going to change the way I feel. Maybe we should stop fighting, getting into awkward situations and always being wrong on an idea to the other side, but really, we cannot go from being enemies to- to being together!" I open my mouth and pull out my tongue, showing how disgusting the thought is to me. But then my eyes go wide again.
His eyes are red while I watch him struggling to keep a cocky grin. The skin around his mouth stretches as he grins, making me involuntarily shutter. His hazel eyes are possessive, big, and dull today. No glint of excitement or trouble at any point in their depths while he lets out a gust of air. What James makes out as a sarcastic laugh, I only hear a dreadful, dead, and grey chuckle. Another drop of rusty red drops down from his chin to the cold, hard, stone ground in between us.
I have to stop. His stare is too powerful and plain disgusting because James is not like this. He never has a sad face. There is never doubt when he speaks, when he smiles, when he laughs. And without James, where is my excitement? Now, with my transfixed and frightened eyes, I am in the direct path of death.
Is it possible to kill an arrogant asshole with words?
"Yes."
"What?" I ask, panicking. "No, that's not true. Common sense leans towards 'no'. But we are in a Wizarding community… so everything is possible, right? I'm sorry!"
James's lifeless eyes squint, while his thick black eyebrows furrow. "What?" There is a sound of pure sadness when he asks, as if he even knows that I murdered him with one sentence.
"I-I'm sorry for doing this to you. But you have to understand that I hate you so it would never work. And you don't know anything about me," I mumble numbly. James steps back, away from me and places a bulky hand to his forehead, as if to comfort his mind. "Yeah, you know facts." His hand moves to his long, chaos of hair, and his fingers tangle and knot into it, destroying any chances of keeping up what he is known for. He spins his index finger around and around a certain lengthy and black lock, pulling it lightly and making his finger a ghostly white as the rope cuts off his circulation. "But that isn't all I am made of! Facts do not form my-my personality or –well- me as a person. You've got to understand that all through my life you've been just been- been a stupid boy who doesn't have a life! And-and-" Another drop of his pain falls falls falls to cold, hard, stone ground, making a light plump as we watch. "-and just stop!!! James, what the hell are you doing? Why the hell are you doing this? Please just stop!?!"
I can't control it. I have cried only two times at Hogwarts, but once it comes I can never stop. It is an overflow of sickening, repulsive, clear saltwater, onto my scratchy white blouse, onto my itchy maroon and gold tie, and all over my tight grey wool pleated skirt. And what's worse is that it is uncontrollable, with gasps of air made by a huge, wide open white-lipped mouth.
And I can barely breathe because of my tears that I swallow and the stuffed up and dried out gunk in my nose. He watches as my lips stay spread apart and a snort issues from my slime-filled nose.
I don't care. I am not even embarrassed as all he does is look at me in shock. This is me. This is who I am. A complete mess of horrible unhappiness, because where will I get the happiness from? Schoolwork? My only family member? The friends that I have no idea how to talk to? The dark forces a mile away from my only real home? James, my beautiful distraction that I never take seriously and always take for granted, is dead. This is who I am. A person filled with memories and thoughts, just like anyone else by the age of one second.
I lean on the wall and slide down to that cold, hard, stone floor, not looking up to meet ugly James Potter anymore.
Gryffindors enter the common room through the portrait hole, probably stare wide-eyed at the scene in the corner of the almost-empty room, and speed up the stairs that lead to their dormitory while I curl up and watch the feet of James Potter, the part of him that does not seem to have changed dramatically in the last couple of minutes.
His feet are actually quite beautiful, barefoot on the cold stone floor. They are a bit hairy and white from the lack of sun, but they are clean and groomed and the size is about two times my feet.
"Lily?" he croaks quietly. I do not look up.
I hear a sigh, as his hands join my view, and then his shoulders, and then his very mature face. In front of me is a depressing man, and I cannot think to why I ever wanted him to be depressed in the first place.
"Lily, why were you crying." It was not even a question, but more a piece of his thoughts. Lily Evans, cry? Impossible.
He still waits for me to say something, but what, I have no idea.
"Why aren't you mad? Or angry? Or why haven't you walked away yet? This is just like any other fight we've had. I think I've acted the part, so what's wrong with you?" there is a sarcastic, nasty tone to his voice while he spits it out, sitting cross-legged with his hazel eyes staring, but not staring, directly into mine.
The single stare gives me chills all down my spine and I jut out my chin in disapproval. I am too angry to just sit there and stare, stare like we have been for the past year and a half! We are not getting anywhere as I break him and he pulls apart me.
So I slap him hard. And punch his chest. Pound down on his arm. Burry my head onto his shoulder and push him onto the ground. "You idiot. I hate you. You are ruining my life. And it is not fair! So just stop! With everything!!! Please?" I give him another punch to just wake him up, but he lies there, not even fighting back. "Why?" I yank his hands from the cold, hard, stone floor and place it on my leg. James Potter lies here as I search for any clues as to where he is, leaning into his form and poking and prodding his ridiculous, overly toned body. He just stares while I break his sadness and barriers, while I shred down the walls and kill the pain.
Then he stares at his hand that lies on my knee. I look also. For two minutes we stare at his hand, tiredly, but still in a strong trance.
And then I do something we both are shocked at, and yet have expected since we started eyeing James's hand. Shakily, I move my small and freckled hand to his, opening my fingers as I go. He relaxes everything while I slowly place mine in his, and when I lye down next to him on the cold, hard, stone ground, he wraps his fingers around mine, showing the smallest yet most meaningful of smiles.