Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Angst
Spoilers: Not really
Summary: Adam, Eve, and the apple tree. SiriusLily vignette
Disclaimer: Ha! I only wish I owned Sirius (or Lily, for that matter).
Unripe
by msmetaphor
Not far from the shore of the Hogwarts Lake, a low little apple tree grows.
It is this tree that all the first years climb to gaze out over the Forbidden Forest, the lake, and the Quidditch Pitch. It is this tree under which Remus likes to read and Peter likes to sleep. And it's this tree under which Lily and James often cuddle and kiss on warm spring afternoons, where James once carved JP + LE into its dark, crude bark.
But this warm spring afternoon, Sirius sits under the tree alone. Before he falls into the grass, he plucks a pale green apple, plump and unripe, from the tree. He bites into its firm, juicy flesh. A bit too tart for his taste, but he eats the whole thing anyway.
"Hungry?" comes a low, feminine voice.
"Always," Sirius says, and tosses the core into the grass.
Lily rounds the tree and, now facing him, plucks another apple. Mechanically, she picks at it with her fingernails, waiting for him to go on.
"What's so important," she finally says, "that you insist on a clandestine meeting exactly…" She glances at her watch. "…thirty-two minutes before the Hogwarts Express leaves? Is this about James? Because I—"
He barks with laughter, but it's not a happy sound. "Why must it always be about James?"
"Why else…" Lily looks away, a flicker of something—maybe hope—in her face. But like a dying ember in a pile of ash, it vanishes as soon as it appears. "I hope you're not angry with me."
"Lil, we've spent seven years together at Hogwarts. You know me better than that."
"That's just it." She stabs the apple flesh savagely with her strong thumbnail. Liquid leaks out, trickling down her palm. "I don't. You're—you're James' friend, not mine. Oh, I don't have any illusions about what you think of me. I know you never liked me. You think I'm too goody-goody, too straitlaced, too much of a prude. You never wanted James to date me, and you still don't, do you? He's a marauder, and I cramp his style. I get in the way. I'm an interference."
A beat.
And then she says the uncanniest thing. "You've always fascinated me, you know."
"What?" Sirius stares at her, agape.
"It's true."
She always wants to know what's happening behind those incisive eyes. Like hot quicksilver, she thinks, they burn.
"Why are you tormenting that apple?" Sirius asks, smiling at the mutilated fruit in her hands.
"Oh. Sorry. Wasn't thinking."
Two steps forward, and he takes it from her. A fast, graceful arc of his arm; the apple is sailing over the stony beach. It hits the water with a definitive plop.
"They're not worth eating," he says. "Not ripe yet."
"Oh," says Lily again, at a little bit of a loss.
They stand awkwardly for a few moments, gazing at the lake and not each other. Lily shifts her weight from one foot to another. She doesn't like silence. James does a lot of talking, and if he's got nothing to say, Peter is usually the one to pipe up with some useless comment or suggestion. She's not at all used to the quiet.
(And, somewhere secret—in the hollow of her stomach, where thoughts are more bursts of pleasure or pain than coherent words and phrases—she rather hopes Sirius will say she fascinates him too.)
But he doesn't even look at her.
Eventually, she can take it no longer. "Well, I've got to go get my things—"
Hands like hot iron close on her forearms, pushing her backward, slamming her shoulder blades into the tree, the coarse bark scratching her skin through her light summer robes. It's the spot that says JP + LE. She can feel it.
And above her, there is Sirius.
Tall, slender, broad-shouldered, mercurial eyes, face sharp and pale like carved, polished ivory. And, of course, there's that clever mouth made for smart remarks, the ripest fruits, and fast, blistering kisses.
"Lily, I'm going to kiss you. If you don't like it, you had better run."
She doesn't have time to run—not that she cares.
So he kisses her, mouth plundering her like the fruit he plucked from the tree—their tree, Lily and James. He savors her freshness, her sweetness, the slight resistance before she yields and, like the fruit, splits open to his tongue and teeth. He takes all rich liquid from her lips that he can, and she devours his mouth with equal force, just as eager as he to taste of the unspoken frustration between them. It's better than any kiss he's ever had, and with his hands gripping her waist, her body molding to his, he doesn't know how he'll ever be able to stop.
But Sirius does stop—breaks away abruptly and stumbles backward. He presses a palm to his forehead. His head is still reeling, and try as he might, he just can't think straight. He doesn't know what to say, and she's just standing there, eyes shut and not saying anything. Eventually, he says the only thing he can.
"Goodbye, Lily," he whispers.
Then she opens her eyes, and he's gone. Her chest heaving, her lips stinging from the force of his kiss, she's left weak and sagging against the tree.
Utterly unable to breath.
From half a mile away comes a long, cheerful whistle—the Hogwarts Express! She jerks from her trance and stands upright, still a bit heady.
But before she takes off running towards the school, towards the train, towards home, and—and James, she pauses to stare at the engraving once more.
JP + LE
It makes her stomach whirl, and not in a pleasant way.
Reaching out, she presses her hand over the inscription, and thinks that if she hadn't just felt it beneath her back while it was Sirius' hands—and Sirius' body, and Sirius' mouth—pressing into her, then maybe she could pretend it didn't exist.
There are certain apples, she reminds herself, that you do not eat. They are poisoned, or rotten, or simply too green.
Finis