Soft droplets of rain fell to the ground, making a light 'splish' sound as they hit the concrete floor of the courtyard. The courtyard had long been abandoned, the dismal British weather forcing everyone inside for the sake of being dry.
Well, almost everyone.
Lily Evans sat alone on a bench on the far right side of the courtyard, her robe draped across the seat, as she stared blankly forward, as if focusing on everything and nothing all at once. She didn't appear to notice the fact that her clothes were thoroughly soaked, and that her hair was so wet it clung to her face and neck.
Petunia had gotten engaged.
Petunia was going to be married by the end of the year.
Petunia didn't want Lily at the wedding.
Lily knew that her and her sister were no longer close, but Lily always tried. It was Petunia that shut her out, pushed her away, repulsed by the magic that flowed through Lily, the magic that Lily could not give up, no matter whether she wanted to or not.
Then there was the issue of Severus Snape. He was a dickhead, an absolute bastard and yet she still couldn't find it in herself to hate him. God, she wanted to hate him, he hated her and every other muggleborn alive. So why couldn't she?
"Evans?" The deep, rich voice floating across the courtyard belonged to Lily's third (but by no means final) problem, but she didn't react to him. She carried on staring blankly forward, as if the rain would miraculously was away every worry and every piece of herself so she no longer had to deal with any of the problems and prejudices and misguidances that her world was built upon.
"Evans, come on, you gotta get inside. You're gonna catch a cold if you stay here. Can't have the best student spending time in the infirmary for doin' somethin' stupid, that's my role." Potter was suddenly right next to her, and if she'd cared about anything in that moment, she probably would have jumped at him getting so close in such a short amount of time. Instead, she just slowly turned her head towards him, and told him, "I'm not going anywhere." Then turned her head back around.
Potter sighed, before moving her robe to the side and settling himself down next to her.
"So, what are we looking at?"
"Nothing."
"…"
"Why are we looking at nothing?"
"Because nothing matters."
"…"
"Now, don't get me wrong, looking at nothing is really interesting, but don't you think we can look at nothing, you know, somewhere dry? Warm, perhaps?"
Lily turned to him slowly, as if any sharp movement would jolt her to the core, but her eyes had a hard gleam when she stared at him. "I didn't ask you to sit with me, Potter. If you're that bothered about getting dry, you're free to leave whenever you wish."
Potter looked at her, with an expression she could only describe as incredulous.
"You really think I'd leave you out here alone, so you could get hypothermia and potentially die alone? No, Evans, I plan on sticking this out and being your knight in, uh, soaking wet school robes."
Lily's lips quirked up slightly at that, though only for a second before she let her somber mood reclaim her facial features (but not before James saw). He smirked slightly, counting it as a win, before continuing.
"In all seriousness though, you didn't think I'd really leave, did you? I mean, I understand we're not exactly the best of friends, quite the opposite if we consider our history and the way you've practically always hated me, but I quite like you Evans, even when you're shouting your head off at me. I don't actually like the shouting part, mind you, so if you want to stop doing that I'd be quite content, but I do like you so I guess I'll put up with it if you decide to continue."
His words took Lily by surprise, and she looked over to him, shock evident on her face. "I was under the impression that you hated me, actually. You seem to have gone out of your way to avoid me this year, so I assumed that at the very least you disliked me a great deal, enough to warrant a need to see my face as little as possible. I mean, you leave a room almost as soon as I enter. It's not like you've been very subtle about it." She mumbled the last sentence, suddenly realising what her words signified. James' grin grew wider at her words, taking the opportunity to tease the thoroughly drenched redhead.
"You've been paying close attention to me, eh Evans? I didn't know you cared."
"Shutup."
Potter laughed, his eyes twinkling as raindrops fell on his glasses, distorting his view. "Actually, Evans, I've been avoiding you because you have made it quite obvious, in recent years, that you hate every single bone in my body, so I thought I'd make it easier on myself, and on you, and just avoid you. If I avoided you, I avoided a conflict with you, and we both avoided a situation that would make our moods plummet for the rest of the day."
Lily took in his words in what James deemed an awkward, unbearable silence. The longer she went without uttering a word, the more uncomfortable he felt, and the he started to regret his word more with every minute.
When Lily eventually spoke, her voice was no louder than a whisper, and in the pouring rain all around them, James had to really strain to hear her words.
"I don't hate you."
It was Potter's turn to be taken by surprise, as that was the last thing he expected to come from Lily's mouth. His smile immediately grew wider, even as he questioned the sudden change in attitude.
She explained to him that she had never hated him, not really, but Snape had hated him, so, by principal, she had to hate him too. That's what best friends do, of course. Originally, she had nothing against him personally, but Severus had always held a grudge and they had often gotten into arguments over the people Lily was friends with, so she had decided that the easiest route to go down was to hate you as well, to avoid more arguments with her then best friend.
"In retrospect, the fact that he was against so many of my friends should have been a warning sign that that friendship was not good for me. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say." She shrugged.
As they got older, and James started to play more and more pranks on Severus. Lily began to dislike him, because he was always picking on her best friend. She couldn't hate him for it, she admitted, because everyone, including herself, goes through a phase of wanting to pick on people, of being the bystander, but she wasn't happy that his main target just so happened to be her best friend.
After the whole fiasco with Snape the previous year, she hadn't liked anyone involved. She blamed Potter and Black, for provoking Snape, for making the situation worse, but she didn't blame them for what Snape did. Only Snape was to blame, no matter who he tried to pin it on.
She had come to the conclusion this year, that Potter and Black weren't as bad as she had previously thought, that they were just idiotic boys with too much testosterone ("What's testosterone?" "I'll explain later, Potter, just shut up for now.") and that she shouldn't hold their actions against them if they were trying to be better, and from what she had observed this year, they were definitely trying.
James had a massive grin on his face when she turned to look at him. "So the tables have turned huh? You hate Snivellus now instead of me?"
She shook her head softly. "No. I don't hate him." When James looked at her incredulously, she amended her statement. "I've tried so hard to hate him. He's an absolute bastard, the biggest dickhead known to wizard kind, yet I still can't hate him. Maybe there's a part of me hoping that the ten year old, pre-Hogwarts Sev is still in there, as stupid as that may seem. But my brain seems to believe there's something good left in him, so I can't bring myself to hate him. Though, just so we're clear, I do thoroughly dislike him."
James nodded, looking off to the other side of the courtyard, his eyes darting all over the place. "So, Snape's the reason you're out here, freezing your arse off?"
"No, not really. I guess, in part, he's to blame for my current situation, but I'm out here mainly because of my sister." At Potter's inquisitorial glance and the quirk of an eyebrow, she continued with a sigh. "You see, my sister and I used to be quite close. We would even plan our future weddings, where I would be the maid of honour for Petunia, and vice versa. She started hating me when I found out I had magic, and she didn't. She's been calling me a freak for around 6 years. Anyways, she's just got engaged. Well, she's been engaged for about 6 months but she's only just decided to tell me. I always thought, despite the fact that we no longer speak, she would still have me as her maid of honour. I'm her sister! But no, she doesn't. She doesn't even want me at the wedding."
Potter looked disgusted with her revelation, then, when she asked him why, he simply responded that he didn't like people who shunned members of their family simply for being different.
"Plus, Evans, everyone should invite you to their wedding. You're so beautiful that you could be a centrepiece."
Lily actually laughed at that one, which prompted James to start laughing with her, because it was Lily Evans and her laugh was contagious. The thought struck him that they looked like a right pair of lunatics, as they sat in the middle of the rain whilst their laughter got more and more hysteric by the minute. And in that moment, there was no where else he would have rather been.
After what seemed like hours, days even, but was probably only a couple of minutes, their laughter died down, and Lily went back to staring blankly ahead, though a small smile stayed on her face. James decided it was time he tried to get her inside again, seeing as he couldn't physically see anything due to the rain on his glasses. He stood up, held out his had to her (well, it was more to the space beside her but she leaned over and took it anyway, taking pity on the practically blind boy) and led her inside. At least, he led her the best he could. She had to manoeuvre him around some obstacles, but she let him lead most of the time.
She let go of his hand when they were inside the castle, and both felt the loss of contact keenly, though neither of them showed it. Silently, they made their way back to Gryffindor tower, the only time the silence broke was when Lily would warn James about certain things he was likely to trip over.
When they got back to the tower, James nodded at Lily, then moved to go to his dorm.
"Potter," her voice called him back. He looked her way, and she leaned over, whispered 'Thank You' in his ear, then kissed his cheek softly, before running off towards the girls dormitory.
James had never smiled so widely before.