There she was.
There she was, when on this particular morning, he wasn't feeling up to it. He had tried flying around the Quidditch pitch for two hours—12 am to 2 am. He had jogged up and down the Quidditch stands from 2 am to 3 am, chanting, "We will rock you" and pumping his fists. Then, he had paced the breadth of the lake, whispering bits of "Lay Lady Lay" until the sun began to peak its way above the line of the Forbidden Forest.
Around 7 am, James gave up, and wended his way toward the dining hall. He had, after all, burned at least 5,000 calories that night.
And, of course, there she was. At the furthest edge from the doors, she sat with a book open and her head hunched toward it. Re: she had not slept well and wanted to be left to eat her toast in peace.
What did he not feel up to, you ask? Pretending he was fine with their "let's just be friends" status. She had kissed him by the lake around 8 pm two days prior. He had been playing over and over the events leading up to this momentous change in his life—the fulfillment of all his hopes, this one. Greater than winning the Quidditch cup in his last year at Hogwarts (please, please), grander than his wish to be deemed worthy of joining the Order without three years of Auror training, and exceeding even his wish that his mother would get well (don't share that one with anyone, he reminded himself, and immediately felt awful for even rating this hope among the others. Of course Mum would get well).
This, then, had been the pinnacle. The zenith. He had imagined kissing Lily Evans would be the height of his human aspirations and achievements, and sufficient enough balm to the heartsick despair that had been so profound that even Sirius would acknowledge that the years spent pining for her had been well spent (not bloody likely).
And it had been wonderful. Until she freaked out and tore off, down to the lake edge, ripped off her shoes, and began dancing in the water, like a maniac, and then spun toward him with wild green eyes, full of an ineffable quality of joy and wit that had made him love her for at least (at least) two years, mingled with (oh no) confusion and regret and fear.
He, that night around 8:01 pm, had felt his stomach deflate when she turned to him. He knew her well enough to understand that she was—how to put it delicately?—complicated. And he did not mean this in an unfeminist way, no no. She was certainly less troublesome and moody than Sirius, whose mood shifted depending on whether the wind was blowing SW or SWE.
She was magnificent in her complexity—the depth of her intelligence and compassion knew, he believed, no bounds. But when she turned to him in that moment with hesitancy, he could not help but feel as though he could have pooped his pants and bawled like an infant. She regretted it. Had he been bad?! Had he been bad?
He must have been, even though when she had kissed him, he had done all the things right, the way Sirius had said he should, and as he had practiced (hush) across many nights of intimacy with his pillow and the curtains magically sealed shut. He also, let it be known, had kissed two girls before Lily, and these two cases—the first, in second year, outside of a broom cupboard after a trip to the kitchens, and the second, in the summer before fifth year, with a Muggle girl he saw sometimes around the village where his parents lived—had seemed to go well. But it had been awhile. "Em, two and a half years?", he replied bashfully to Sirius's inquiry that evening, when he had returned to the boys' room and walked a beeline for the bathroom, glumly hanging his head and dully trying to avoid Remus's and Sirius's inquisitive glances.
Oh sure, they had been watching the whole thing transpire on the map. Lily Evans and James Potter had not moved from their spot on the lake for 10 minutes. Then, her dot sped toward the lake. His stayed put. Then, JP had sped off into the castle, while LE had remained by the lake. Yes, of course, they had watched his dot move all the way up to the dormitory.
He needed new friends.
And she still hadn't moved from the spot by the lake, and they had looked at him with a combination of awe and pity, and he had actually cried an actual tear in front of them, and said she "just wanted to be friends," and with that, threw himself into the bathroom and slammed the door.
But of course Peter had been in there taking a dump, which had been funny, he could admit now, two days later, but it had not been particularly funny at the time. It had been the realization of his utter debasement.
Since that evening, he had lain in a stupor for three hours, then slept for five fitful hours, gotten up, masturbated with great urgency and a shred of self-hatred, cried a bit afterward, gotten dressed and then tried to be, well, normal.
It hadn't worked, of course. He had bungled a Transfiguration spell and ended up sending poor Elsa Brown to the hospital wing. The whole class had laughed at him, including Professor McGonagall, who looked a bit askance at him even as her eyes twinkled. Later, he had ducked out of wretched Arithmancy, claiming a headache, because all the numbers looked the same to him, and she wasn't there—where was she?—and he went and hid in the dormitory.
With that 2 pm retreat to his dormitory, he had told himself, okay, tonight I will exercise Lily Evans out of me. If she wants to torment me, she can try, but endorphins will defeat her.
Except now, after all that damn exercising, there she was. He hadn't seen her since the kiss, and he didn't want to reveal anything to the few students who milled about the hall this early. Perhaps…she was upset, too?
Impossible. She looked as fit as ever. She was smiling a bit into her book, which had a weird design on it. A sheep? With the word "dick" in large lettering. Perhaps Professor Dumbledore's brother had written a Muggle novel?
Whatever. Be normal, James, Evans doesn't read animal pornography. Or maybe she does, in which case, you're better off just being her friend. With that ridiculous and utterly unbelievable notion, he felt another pinch in his stomach and glanced quickly around the room to make sure that no one had seen him staring at her.
He picked a bench which offered him an oblique view of her from his left peripheral vision. She was nibbling on an apple, as usual. Little bird, he thought affectionately, and his stomach plummeted further, if that was even possible. Then, he took stock of the provisions. Ah yes, the ever-stalwart Cornflakes, whole wheat toast, raspberry jam, and bacon. He poured himself a large glass of pumpkin juice, ignoring the war of emotion in his stomach. Maybe he could spoon jam into his mouth and no one would notice?
"Hullo, chap," came a friendly voice to the right of him, and a moment later he felt the familiar thump of Sirius's hand on his shoulder.
"Ouch," James muttered.
"Eh?" Sirius said, as he perched himself before the usual offerings, grabbing bacon, some more bacon, and drinking from James's own glass.
Sigh.
"Where were you all night, old man," Sirius asked, "sleeping in a ditch, dreaming of shagging Evans?" He winked at James and waggled his tongue out at him.
"Padfoot…" James started, but Sirius interrupted him, looking, Merlin's beard, caring and thoughtful in public.
"Look, Prongs, we've had a talk about you this morning. Moony and Wormtail wanted me to do the dirty work, so here I am. We're concerned. The Marauders haven't been marauding and dilly-dallying as usual. It would do you good to, what do you say, prank a first year?"
James scowled and grabbed back his cup of pumpkin juice.
Sirius changed tactics, lowering his voice and leaning toward James. "Perk up, lad, she said she wanted to be friends. That means you're in. You're in! We can finally confirm that she thinks well of you, something I, for one, have suspected for years."
James choked on the last bit of juice. "Come off it, Padfoot. I don't want to talk about this, and especially NOT in PUBLIC."
He glanced toward Lily, who had raised her head with those last words, which, he acknowledged, may not have been appropriately quiet to convey his desire to have no one in the Grand Hall pay any attention to him, at all, please and thank you.
Her eyes, her green eyes, connected with his and communicated, as always, a stream of thoughts about him and her, about what they had been through as Head Boy and Girl for the past two months, about beauty and the world outside and the future and hope and love and the sky and moon and clouds and soil. He felt himself leaning, against his will, toward her. His heart pounded. He could hear it echoing in his ears, throbbing in his fingertips. His whole being thrummed to her, and forgetting Sirius and the dribble of pumpkin juice on his collar, he stood up and moved toward her.
"Hullo, Lily," he said, with the same insistent drumming of his heart. He was sure she could hear it, just as she had two nights before. Then, she had placed a hand on his chest, and he had almost gasped. Now, he could feel his cheeks radiating heat. He didn't care—she was blushing, too. "What are you reading?"
He sat next to her and resisted the urge to grab her hands in his and begin kissing them.
She glanced at the book in her hands, as though trying to jog her memory, and said, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
He said, stupidly, disaster of disasters, "I don't know, do they?"
God, what was he doing, flirting?!
But…she laughed. Her eyes widened with pleasure and surprise, and she giggled.
Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her.
No, stupid, that would be a huge mistake. A tornado of idiocy. Kiss her, in public, after you've tried to exercise her out of you?
And then, an actual disaster hit. Thomas Titwit—ahem, Tittlemouse. Nope, James still couldn't think his name without wanting to reduce him to dust—Thomas Middleton placed his hands on Lily's shoulders, and she visibly tensed.
He had come out of nowhere. His stupid brown, wavy hair, which fell into place perfectly around his stupid, perfectly shaped head, and his stupid gooey brown eyes, which made most of the girls "swoon," as they say, and his stupid wide grin, and his stupid body. He had arrived.
"What's up, Evanssssszzz." Thomas drawled, reaching over her to grab the last piece of toast off her plate and chomping down on it.
"Thomas," she said, with difficulty, it was clear.
"Hey, Potter, what are you doing talking to my girlfriend?" Thomas laughed at his own joke.
"Ex-girlfriend," James corrected, before he felt, rather than heard, Lily's swift intake of breath.
She stood up—don't look at her body, he thought, and then promptly stared at the slender dip where her shoulders met her neck, Oh GOD, what am I doing?—and grabbed Middleton's collar.
"I said, 'Leave me alone,' Thomas, and I meant it."
Middleton smirked at her. "What, you think Potter is better than me? I bet he sucks in bed."
James heard a thump and a crack, both concentrated on Middleton's nose, and saw Lily turn away, wagging her hand and moaning in pain. Middleton backed away from her, screeching, "That ginger bitch just broke my nose! She broke my nose!" and tore off to meet his cronies by the Ravenclaw table. Once all three of the male Ravenclaws met and ran to the hospital wing. James scanned the professors' table. Amazingly, Professor Flitwick was not responding to the event at all. James thought briefly, with an intense fondness, of the small man's admiration for Lily.
Then he remembered what had just happened. James leapt up and grabbed Lily's hand. He had to help her. His head was racing with unanswered questions, questions which, in fact, he wasn't sure he wanted the answers to. Had she had sex with Middleton? Had she?! Is that why she wants to just be friends, because he is a virgin, and obviously, because he is a virgin, he can't kiss?
And then it hit him: he was holding Lily's hand. And she was moaning in pain. Back to reality, sir. Wonder about these things later, nay, preferably, discuss with Padfoot.
Green eyes met his. Merlin. "I had no idea it hurt so much to punch someone," she whispered.
"Ye-es."
"Oww."
"Aww."
They were staring at one another. She was staring at him. He was staring at her. He was still holding her hand.
"James? …. Could I, erm, maybe, should I go to Madame Pomfrey?"
He cleared his throat. "If you want, I can walk with you. Or I could heal you here."
She raised an eyebrow. "You can heal a bruise like this?" She smiled, considering, and then said, "Of course you can."
Was it possible for him to love her more, now that she had done his two favorite things: raise her eyebrow and smile?
Was it possible for him to remember the healing spell under extraordinary conditions like these?
As if from another universe, where a parallel James remembered everything at critical moments, he heard the spell and muttered aloud, "Reparifors."
The bruise which had been deepening in its richness of blue and purple rapidly disappeared. Lily moved her hand about (it was still in his), and his stomach flopped.
"Thanks," she said, quietly and almost imperceptibly moving toward her book, which was sitting on the table next to several droplets of Titwit Middleton's blood.
"I'm . . . sorry that he still bothers you, Lily." Courageous words, he thought sarcastically.
"It's . . . becoming a problem," she whispered, and he saw that her pupils had dilated slightly, as though she were (could it be?) afraid.
His grip on her hand tightened. "Lily, I . . . "
With his second use of her name, she returned to herself, saying firmly, "Never mind. It's fine. What do you say? Shall we do morning rounds separately, as it's already 7:30?"
He had no idea what to say. He wanted to beg, "Lily, please, let's walk together, I want to understand if you're in danger, or if you're just being bothered by an insufferable ass, who thinks he's God's gift to women. And who can blame him, he's handsome, but if he mistreated you, and says such mean things to you, I will make him suffer, at your command."
Instead, James heard himself say, "No, let's walk together."
Lily glanced at him uncertainly, a half smile matched with her simmering eyes.
"I want to hear more about these, whatcha call it, android sheep."
She giggled, and they moved together toward the light shining through the doors to the Grand Hall.