We've got the dreamer's disease (HPFF - Lily/James) - Prologue
Hello, readers. I've been reading fanfiction for years, but I've yet to write an actual story. This is my first fanfiction. It's pretty rough, but I hope to keep up with it. Read and review! :-)
Summary: Set in an age where mixed blood relationships are looked down upon. When James calls it quits, Lily moves on. Five years later, James, now a famous Auror, and Lily, a well-respected Healer, have to work together. Will sparks fly?
"Don't give up.
You've got a reason to live.
Can't forget, you only get what you give."
- New Radicals "You Get What You Give"
Lily sat perched on the windowsill, legs swinging loose in the humid late-May air. She was several stories up, but the height didn't frighten her in the slightest. She liked to come up here to contemplate her day, or just to get away from it all. It was a good spot. Hardly anyone ever came this way, as it wasn't located near a common room or close enough to any one classroom for students to walk by on a regular basis. Pity that. The window was located in an otherwise airy corridor and had an excellent view of the grounds.
She had found this secret spot of hers Second Year. As she could remember, she had been upset that particular day, after a certain raven-haired boy called her Carrot-Top during lunch. She had been so angry; she poured her goblet of Pumpkin juice over the boy's head and stormed out of the Great Hall. Blind in her anger, vision obscured by tears, she hadn't been paying any attention to where she was going and winded up at the window.
The view had left her breathless, caught the next sob before it could exit her throat. Under the burnt-orange glow of the setting sun, Hogwarts had been more than just beautiful; it had been awe-inspiring. Long shadows stretched across its lush green lawns, ending abruptly at the Forbidden Forest. The view was striking.
Ever since, whenever Lily was depressed or bored or looking for an escape, she'd make her way to the window. Regardless of time of day, she had always found the view picturesque, almost therapeutic.
Lily certainly needed her window today. While the sun was slipping through the clouds, lending to a demure Sunday, her insides were churning. She had been sitting in the same position since the crack of dawn, coming down from a liquid high. Her head was pounding; her thoughts were muddled, her brain tirelessly trying to organize them into a justifiable conclusion. Thus far, she had come up empty.
It had all started early Friday morning, at breakfast.
"That whore," snipped a voice from a table over. "Who does she think she is… making eyes at him like that, like she's just going to devour him the second she gets the chance? It's disgusting!"
"Seriously! I bet you can get a STD just from looking her in the eyes. Best warn Potter, before that Mudblood scum pounces on him again."
"Poor bloke. He must've had to have gone to the Infirmary after she attacked him like that yesterday. Revolting."
Lily didn't need to turn her head to know who the voices were talking about. She had honestly only looked at Potter twice since she entered the Great Hall, but she had expected the rumors. A "Mudblood" like her didn't just kiss a Pureblood like him, much less out of the blue like she had, and not expect gossip. It just wasn't possible.
Regardless, she was getting a little tired of the feedback. She took one long, last, delicious sip from her pumpkin juice, slammed the goblet down on the table (to illustrate her point), and clambered to her feet. She would find solace elsewhere.
Her elsewhere.
Not too many minutes later, he found her at her window. Pity she had told him about it.
"Lily," he said, out of breath from sprinting up flights of stairs after her. "Don't let them get to you like that. They just like to gossip. They'll be talking about something else by lunch."
Lily kept her eyes on the horizon, trying to smother the anger that was threatening to cloud her mind.
"It'll all blow over soon. Come on."
She felt his hand on our shoulder, and that did it. She turned to him, eyes flashing.
"It'll blow over?" she said between clenched teeth. "Yes, I imagine that it will blow over, James. I'll just forever be painted as the ugly Mudblood girl who threw herself at the rich, ever impressive James Potter. Blow over, my arse. I'm going to be ridiculed over this until the day that I die. Don't tell me how to feel."
She attempted to make her way past, but he grabbed one of her wrists and swung her to face him.
"You kissed me, remember? If you had just waited like I asked, none of this would ever have happened."
"So it's my fault, then?" she spoke lowly, trying to free her wrist from his grasp. "If I had just kept everything under lock and key, then everything would be okay? I am your girlfriend, James, not some damn harpy! I'm tired of waiting in the wings."
"Lily, we agreed on this. It's far too complicated -"
"We've been together four months, James. Tell me, when is not going to be complicated? Or did you just plan on keeping me a secret forever?"
"Lily, don't be irrational. I-"
She pretended to not hear him.
"And now that I've kissed you publicly, you just want to sweep it under the rug, dismiss me as some whore, some poor, hormone-driven Muggle-born that just couldn't keep her hands to herself. Well, I won't stand for it. I-"
James mashed his lips against hers, and for a moment, Lily felt her anger ebb, felt herself fall into the kiss - before her anger returned full-force and she slapped him upside the head.
"Get off of me," she hissed.
She retracted her wrist from his grasp and stumbled back a few steps.
"Lily, you know that you mean more to me than that -"
Underneath his pleading tone, Lily could detect a faint trace of irritation beginning to boil. It wouldn't take long for that irritation to surface, she knew. Their relationship was built on arguing, built off opposing ideas. She didn't know why she thought they could work. They were too different.
"Really? If you had any respect for me at all, then you wouldn't insist on keeping this a secret. If you gave a damn about me, you would listen what I had to say, instead of forcing yourself upon -"
"If you gave a damn about me, you'd know how hard this has been on me, too-"
"On you? You're unbelievable, you know that? You were born into the highest tier in Wizarding society. You were handed everything in life, while I had to work for –"
"I don't hold where you're from against you. That's low, Lily, and even I know it –"
"You can bully first years and pull pranks on Slytherins, but when it comes to the important stuff, Potter, the stuff you claim to believe in, you wuss out."
On that note, Lily made to flee again. This time, it was his words that stopped her. "Well, it takes one to know one."
"Excuse me?"
She turned to face him, her hand itching for her wand.
"You can call me a wuss, a hypocrite, but why don't you try looking in the mirror some time? You might not be so pleased with the image that stares back."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You took no consideration of my feelings with that kiss. You knew that I wasn't ready for us to go public, but you decided to take matters into your own hands and make a public spectacle out of –"
"We're going to be public spectacle no matter what, James. You might as well face it now. No one is ever going to accept us as a couple. When will you get that?"
With that statement, tears had sprung to Lily's eyes, and she had turned and walked away. James made no move to stop her. He stood as still as a statue and said nothing. She hadn't been in contact with him since. She had expected him to say something to her Friday night at the latest, but he hadn't; he seemed to be avoiding her. By Saturday night, Lily took his avoidance as a sign that he did not want to be with her (why would she want to date someone like that anyway, who wanted to keep their relationship secret?). She took the secret passageway to Hogsmeade that he had shown her and got disastrously drunk. It had been an ineffective distraction. She had stumbled her way back into the castle, and instead of seeking much needed sleep, she had found herself at her window, the events turning over faster in her mind.
Sure, she had been and still was pissed at James, was livid, in fact, but she had not expected him to give up so easily on her. Maybe he had been looking for an excuse all along and this had just been a convenient time to break up with her. The thought sent a pang to her heart, but before she could fall into that trap, Lily stopped herself. She had spent the past two nights concocting different versions for why James had not approached her, why he had been avoiding her. She had essentially ended it between the two of them, but if he really wanted to make it work, he would've tried to talk to her about it by now, wouldn't have he? If he had loved her at all, he would've announced that they were together months ago, instead of hiding her, being furious with her when she had kissed him in public. He would want to be with her, no matter the cost, no matter the public outcry.
With the burning sun climbing higher into the sky, Lily turned her thoughts from the past and to her future. James had obviously made his decision. She was nothing to him, and she wasn't going to sit there like a baby and waste time crying any longer than necessary. There were less than two weeks to graduation, and then Lily would be out in the real world. Her turbulent romance with James had thrown a wrench into her future. She had thought that they'd be together forever, and it took two nights and a pounding headache to realize how clouded her judgment had been. Even though he had kept their romance a secret, she had planned a cookie-cutter life for them, sacrificing her own desires to be with him. She had planned her future around him, deciding to take job writing at a local paper while he went through Auror training. She had always been the one to sacrifice herself to make their relationship work, never James. It was a little unsettling, to have that all ripped from underneath her, but Lily was a strong girl. She would go home for a few weeks, until she got back on her feet. Her future was a blank slate; and as the birds began to wake in their nests, songs filling the air, Lily was uncertain, but determined to get over James and make something of her future.
It's rough, pretty short, and perhaps already done, but read and review, please!