ALWAYS

Author: Queen Nightingale

Rating: M

Pairing: JPLE

A friend is someone who knows all about you, and still loves you.

- Elbert Hubbard

He's thin, maybe 5"11, but he's not an exceedingly popular boy. He lurks in the back with a couple of his friends, pushing his circular glasses up the slope of his thin nose. You're surrounded by female admirers and you dangle your feet from your chair, pretending not to notice him and his book bag, loud laugh and smooth, smooth walk. There's something about him that you've always been attracted to, something indefinable, and you decide you want him. You decide you'll have him.

There are three others with him, always – you know Sirius Black, his best friend, the trouble maker, but the two others you can't place, can't put names on their quiet figures. You're sitting at a large table during Divination, and he's across from you, and you're staring at his glasses and his down-turned eyes, sneaking glances every so often. He seems enamoured with his hands.

"You may begin discussion on the class concepts now!"

You burst into light, radiating sunshine across the table and laughing a little too loudly, trying to drag his attention away from wherever it is, bouncing around in outer space. There's another girl sitting beside you, and you notice him glance at her tan skin and blue blue blue eyes, but you grit your teeth mentally and eclipse her with your radiance.

The Ravenclaw sitting across from you is looking at you the way that you want him to look at you, and his green eyes are matching with yours and you're trying not to vibe too hard because you want Potter to glance over at you because you are intrigued with the way he pushes his glasses up his nose.

"I'm not sure if that's totally correct," you deflect the Ravenclaw, batting your fire lashes and spreading your lovely wide lips across your face, a Cheshire cat with freckles, turning your attention on James, "What do you think, Potter?"

He looks a little bit startled that you've picked him, but suddenly his eyes flash up and meet yours for a second. You feel nothing but the pounding in your throat.

"Uhh, yeah," he laughs, and you are in love, instantly, with the planes of his throat, the tilt of his adam's apple, the sharp bridge between his eyebrows, "I agree."

The rest of the table continues the discussion, and suddenly he is included because of you, and he's smiling and smirking, always fucking smirking, and you're completely recklessly captured by the white pearls he calls teeth.

After class you see him picking up his books, and you dart over, shooing Marlene and Dorcas away like flies. He looks up and seems surprised but pleased to see you hovering over him.

"I'm Lily," you say, almost breathlessly, sticking your hand out into his face. Taken aback, he almost falls over, but quickly regains his balance and grabs yours firmly, ending the gesture before you can even squeeze properly.

"James," he replies, grinning with his canines, "James Potter. You're in Gryffindor too, right?"

You've managed to get the hatch open, and you're clambering up onto the roof of the Observation Tower, James following behind you. You're self-conscious of your thin body and your less than overwhelming ass, but you make it to the top and turn around, your grin the size of China.

"Do you like it?"

The wind is ruffling his black hair and your eyes are searching his face as he looks around, calmly.

"It's alright."

You roll your eyes and sit down on the top of the world, patting the ground for him to lie beside you. You shut your lids and run your hands against the roofing, head back, legs asplay. He's sitting beside you, upright, never letting go.

You ask him questions, the words streaming out of your mouth, your hand against your eyes to shield your body from engineering the Sun. You're captivated by the way that he turns from you when he answers, always so eager but hiding his happiness, you're convinced in a box deep within his skin.

You can't explain it. He's talking and you feel like sobbing, crying, and you're just watching the muscles move by his jaw with his sharp profile in the wind. The lashes on his eyes stretch out miles upon miles upon miles, and you can't help yourself, so you reach up and trace your finger along the edge of his chin. He laughs suddenly, darting back to reality, and bats away your hand, you turning and giggling and exploding at 2 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, your arm swung over your forehead, twisting and writhing and metamorphosizing into a quivering bundle of soul.

It's two out of six billion, and even when you're with him, you miss him.

It's late at night on a Saturday, and you're sprinting out into the grounds, James by your side, both of you snickering and laughing because you're weird-in-love best friends. You're breathing hard and you're panting and suddenly you're laughing so hard that you're falling onto the wet forest ground and he's collapsing beside you and there's a light in the distance and his profile is lit up, on fire.

"Lily, Lily," he says, gasping out for breath, a twinkle of burning happiness in his eyes, "Lily, you know I love you, right?"

You're freezing, because you've always loved him, and he's looking away from you into the distance, and something warm and slow is trickling through your veins.

"James, I've always loved you. You knew that before me, of course I love you, of course I do."

And he's happy now, and you're happy that he's happy, so he's up on his feet and racing across the forest floor, and you're dancing behind him through the trees, and you feel like something has clicked in your chest, clicked in place, and you're whole.

It's late at night, and you're working on that Divination project again – this time with just him, because the Ravenclaw boy and his friend have dropped out – and you're alone in a classroom, and your heart is bursting out of your ribcage with wings.

"Take off your shirt," you say, giddy with ecstacy, lying out languidly on a couple of stacked together chairs, "Prove it."

"My nipples are genuinely the smallest that you will have ever seen."

"I don't believe you! Prove it!"

"I'll only do it if you do."

"One day, James, one day. I'm not the one with the abnormal nipples!"

He's laughing and suddenly he's standing up and ripping his shirt off with laughter, your giggles echoing through the ceiling. His hair is askew for once and his glasses are lopsided, and his chin is perched on his collarbone as he tries to glance down at his chest.

"See?!" He says dramatically, pointing with a flourish at his dark ruby nipples, "Look at them!"

And you're howling with laughter, your stomach constricting, the best type of happiness that you can explain, not able to breathe with tears brimming at the edges of your eyes. Because he's standing there with his chin tucked in looking crazy with cross-eyes and pointing at his nipples and you can't handle the feelings ricocheting through your body.

"You're so weird!"

Suddenly there is a loud bang and Slughorn has smashed his way through the door and catches a glimpse of the two of you, you with the laughter still burping out of your lungs, him with his finger on both of his nipples.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?"

You can't breathe for the ecstasy bubbling in your diaphragm.

In your mind, you crucify his slim figure in swimming pools of gold. You don't care about his face, you're just so in love, so in love.

"What did you think about me when you first met me?"

"I thought you were just ... I don't know. This super-cool girl, super-chill. I don't know, I just thought you were rad. Plus, you were always hanging out with all the popular kids, so I wanted to be friends so we could all party together. I can't explain it."

"What do you mean?"

"You just ... you just ... you just were awesome. I thought you were awesome."

He pushes his glasses up his nose and you want to drag your lips across his cheekbones.

"Lily, you're the best friend I've ever had in the entire world. You're the greatest friend I've ever had. I've had the greatest times of my life with you, and the worst. You mean so much to me."

You forget pretty boys are brilliant, brilliant, with their words.

He's standing at the edge of your dormitory looking angry, and everybody else is gone out to Hogsmeade, and you're in your Muggle pajamas staring up at him with wide eyes.

"What are you talking about in this?" He's asking loudly, looking at you with a hint of rage, shaking the parchment that you slid under his door the night before, "What is this? Do you not want to be my friend anymore?"

Something is in your throat, and the words aren't coming out right. He flings on his leather jacket (you know it's the one that Sirius bought him, in the Muggle fashion), and he marches you down to the empty common room and tells you that you are crazy, you aren't going to fall in love with him, you don't know that for sure, how can you know that, people don't fall in love if they don't want to.

You stutter and stumble because you're kind of thrilled that he wants you as his friend but you know that this can't last because you're on different pages. You're tired of being so in love with your soulmate, who doesn't want you back.

"I can fix this," he says, throwing a quill across the room in anger, you standing there, tired, "I can fix it. Lily, you mean so much to me, you're my ... you're one of my best friends. I can't let this end. I just can't, this means too much."

"It doesn't mean anything."

"Yes it does, it means so much, I can't let a friendship that means this much slip through my hands."

You rage.

"If it means nothing to you then WHY did you get so mad at Snape for simply asking me out, why did you HUMILIATE him like that with Sirius?! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!"

"What do you mean it means nothing to me?" His eyes are wide and he's actually looking at you for once and you feel like ripping out your hair because you can't explain how you know what will happen, "It means a lot to me – as a friendship! That's all that it is, we are the greatest of friends, and we are inseparable. I don't consider this to be anything more than that."

"NEITHER DO I!"

"Then WHAT IS THE PROBLEM, LILY?"

"I'M GOING TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU.

"Lily, you don't know that. How can you say something that you don't know."

"Because I can feel it vibrating in my bones, James."

He scoffs, and you place your head in your hands.

He starts dating some slut from Ravenclaw who is two years younger, and you wind up in the girls' showers in the fetal position, crying on the tiles, breathing in the water droplets.

You don't know why. You don't want him sexually. But you want him for yourself.

They break up after two months and he comes back to you and tells you that she thought there was something going on between the two of you and that was why he ended it because he just couldn't handle people insulting his friends.

You roll, roll, roll your eyes.

You're at a Charms tutorial and he arrives a little bit late and quickly drops his bags, sprinting over to where you're standing because everybody knows that the two of you are like peanut butter and jam.

Completely different, but inseparable.

You're practicing the J shape of a spell with your wand, and he's watching you, then it's his turn. And suddenly something happens that only seems to occur in those Muggle films that Petunia is obsessed with, you can't explain it, the world just fades. The noise dims around your ears and your eyes are focused on him and he's laughing and talking to you without looking at you, as always, and there's something breathtaking, heartbreaking, in the way that his wrist is swivelling and his canines are flashing and his glasses are dropping down his nose.

You feel blessed to have known him, and the feeling frightens you.

Tears are exploding through the spaces behind your eyes and you blink three times and suddenly you're back. He's turning to you now, eyes on yours, and you find yourself smiling, sadly.

He grins.

"Your turn, Lils."

It's Quidditch match day, and Gryffindor wins. You cheer with the rest, but your eyes are always on, always tracking the boy with black, ruffled hair, and circular glasses hurling score after score through Hufflepuff's defence.

You know that there's sadness in the air because you woke up with dark circles under your eyes and you miss Severus and you looked at yourself in the mirror and didn't recognize the girl with burgundy curls staring back at you, water echoing around her eyelids.

Everyone's gone in now, but you've called him outside, and he's sitting beside you not looking at you, and there are tears trickling down his face. And there's an ache under your chest, and ribbons of gold are spewing out of your mouth, sapphires on your eyes and silver coating your tongue, a feeling that you can't seem to shake.

"I love you," you're saying, and your mind is shuddering, and it's as if you're watching the scene from above, and somebody is pulling your arms and your legs like a puppet, and you're trying to rip your body off of the strings but it's just too fucking powerful. "I just love you."

"I know that."

You place your face in your hands and there's salt dripping down your cheeks and you're sitting on the stands with the lights beaming down and he's a mile away looking at you on a different seat.

"I just ... I just don't love you."

"I know."

You're shuddering and shaking and there's that fucking stabbing sensation right under your rib-cage, and your face is in your knees and you can't breathe, can't breathe properly and you're trying to control the tremors but you're tired of him hurting you, over and over again.

"I'm sorry! I don't know what else you want! I'm telling you the truth!"

You want to scream at him YOU DO LOVE ME, YOU DO LOVE ME, but you gave up long ago on convincing him to believe in himself, to believe past appearances and age and anything else. So you sit there and sob and fireflies are buzzing around your ears and you can feel him gripping the seat tightly with his broad hands.

"I hate you. I hate you so much. I hate you for not letting me go. I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't know why I can't let go. I love you so much and I never wanted to."

"Are you saying you don't want to be my friend?"

Your mouth closes over your teeth and you are grappling with the words that you're trying to say, trying to shake reason into him that you are the only one, the only one who he will ever feel this way about. Soul animals. You can't remove him from your memories now, and you're filled with hate, hate that you care.

"... No! Kind of! I don't know!"

"Stop it. Stop crying. Just stop."

And he's right beside you and his arm is slung over your shaking shoulders now and you're just full out sobbing into your knees, crying and crying and crying because you love him, can't he see that? And he loves you, he just won't admit it and you're screaming in desperation because you were the one who didn't want to love him in the first place.

"I can't! You did this to me! I didn't want this to continue! But you fucking did this to me, you had to have known, you did this to me and I hate you for it."

"Did what to you? What did I do? How did I do anything?"

"Do I really need to explain?"

"Lily, it's a curse. That's all it is. It's a curse on both of us."

"James, I CAN'T HANDLE IT BY MYSELF ANYMORE."

Even the word sadness doesn't sum up the mountains of pain swelling through your body. You want to run, and leave so you do, pushing his arm off of you and standing up and walking away.

After that you're still friends because he's James and you're Lily and you can't seem to go for long periods of time without missing him. Even though he's moving on and you can feel it, once again, in your bones.

You write him letters throughout the summer through the owl post, and when you're kicked out of your house you wander the streets cold and afraid but there's a memory of him that keeps you warm at night. He never replies – or replies late, with one-word answers.

You're terrified that you've broken him.

There's nothing more. Something that started so beautiful and rampaging and riotous dissolves into humming crickets and burning, cold stars. You no longer ache under your ribcage but you feel as if you should. You want to take the words back, take back the 'i love you's' and the soulmate shit that both of you have spewed out through the year – but you can't.

There are other boys – of course there are. There's one of James' muggle friends who you date for the pure satisfaction of saying that you did. You only go on one date, and it's fantastic, but you feel guilty and never talk to him again. There are hollow eyes and blank faces and drunk angry nights – but you always go home in the early morning and crawl into bed with a taste of firewhiskey on your tongue and wonder if the drunken memories can ever replace him.

Every time you trick yourself into thinking that you're done with him, rid of him, somehow your love for him pops into your head like a balloon made of concrete. It weighs you down until all you can do is write him in your scrawling, large calligraphy, tying a message to your owl and sitting by your window, rolling your eyes at your own wretched excuses and pathetic strength.

You meet up with him, multiple times, but the spark is gone and you can feel yourself just going through the actions, the anger and resentment buried deep into the marrow of your bones.

But you can't get rid of him. It's your last year at Hogwarts and you're still 'friends' with him and there's no more lightning and firecrackers – instead it's pretend and dress-up politics. You're a prince in drag standing at the top of a sand castle and your princess is locked in a cage that she's created for herself.

You want to burn life back into his veins, but have no idea how to.

So instead you decide to always be there, so long as he wants you.

Always.