It was time to write the letter, she decided. Time to tell him how she
felt.
She had been feeling like this for a while now, and it bothered her to no end. She couldn't stop staring at him in the hallways, changing her route, being just five minutes late to class, just so she could follow him. She never expected to feel like this. Petunia advised her that if she confessed the truth, everything would be well and good. She hoped her sister was right.
Last night a letter had arrived by owl post. Her sister rarely used owl, but it arrived, in her handwriting, nonetheless. She couldn't enchant it, for she was muggle, so what other explanation was there? She had been adopted, that's what. Pet was seventeen. In just about eight months, she would go off on her own, but until then, she had to be in someone's custody. The orphanage was being demolished, and the nearest was about eighty miles away, way in Surrey. Being so acquainted with so many people, one of her close friends' parents had offered to adopt her "officially" just until she married or turned eighteen. Her close friend just happened to be her long-time fiancé. Lily couldn't understand how long "long-time" was, for they were both only seventeen after all.
As overjoyed as she was about her sister being adopted, she was even happier that she did not have to go back to that dump. Dumbledore had taken custody of her, and he would accommodate her until her last year at Hogwarts. For the period from whence she graduated from Hogwarts to her eighteenth birthday in September, she would be living in Spain, with her crush and his family, as well as her guardian. Things could get no better. Except if she had real parents, and Voldemort suffered a horrifically gory demise by her hands. Of course, one could not have everything.
So she grabbed her parchment, sand, and sun, and Carnival a flurry of thoughts in her head, and rushed down to the Common Room. She had never been out of England (unless visiting a deceased uncle's colleague in Edinburgh counted) and though she was knowledgeable, her view of the West was nothing short of distorted.
There sat the legendary Gryffindor boys, and in the center, the King himself. He looked at her dubiously and quickly turned away. Lily watched him intently; the way he folded his bottom lips with this left hand, drummed his fingers on the back of his foot, and talked in that distracted way.
Her mind carried her to distant levels of her imagination. The feelings that accompanied her venture were so disgustingly forbidding that she immediately reprimanded herself and jumped out of the deep reverie. Sirius Black, his chess partner shot her a suspicious look. She glared at him and turned back to her previous target. Black whispered something and stood up, and this time, so did the two other boys.
Lily gathered her clean parchment and unused quillpen and rushed out of the portrait hole. She noticed that the boys were walking faster and quickened her pace. She ran to the Prefect's Bath, which only she and her beloved yet knew the password to. It was only the first week, and they hadn't had their first prefects meeting. They were in charge of passwords, just herself and him. She sighed inwardly and began to run as the three boys began giggling. Obviously about how ugly or smelly she was. When she reached the mermaid, she mumbled the password and ran inside. She was safe.
She imagined, her dear James Potter walking inside, and embracing her. Embracing her! She imagined to her heart's content.
"Hey stranger," she would greet him. He would kiss her shyly in response and speak to her.
"What did I miss today in Potions? How many times did you kick Professor Rosier's ass?" he would ask her.
They would talk for hours, holding their hands tight. He loved Lily Evans; they were best friends. And when they spoke, it was just them in this world; No Petunia, no parents, no worries, just them. James would love her like he never had anyone else. And she likewise. Another curious thing was her eyes- they would be brown, and her hair would match her eyes. James liked her brown hair and brown eyes, because they were like his mother's.
She would meet his mother personally. In Brazil. Being a foreign diplomat, Mrs. Potter had many connections. She knew many people, like Petunia. She would introduce Lily as "Ms. Evans, her son's prestigious fiancé."
The extremely youthful and young Spanish diplomat would bubble over with curiosity. He admired her, as did everyone else. "Quienes tus padres?" He would ask her, and she would answer, "Queen Elizabeth. I am an orphan, of course, but I'm sure you know who she is?" Then, he would ask her to marry him. She would refuse politely. She was very much in love with James Potter, and he meant too much to break off things for even the King. Of course, he was her father, how could that be? She would laugh gaily and invite him to the Palace for tea. She would promise to come to Spain for her last summer at Hogwarts. That's why she was going to Spain, not because of some old man's charity like so many other unfortunate girls her age.
"H-Hey!"
What was that noise?
"Hey, redhead!"
There it was again. Lily craned her neck behind her, to the door. There were the three boys, and James Potter leading them. He smiled at her warmly. Her heart pounded in her chest, and intense fear made its way to her throat.
"What do you want," she asked. She couldn't believe that it was she with the horribly mean tone of voice. Potter's expression quickly changed into one of surprise.
"Why did you run away?"
"What business is it of yours, I can go wherever I please, thank you very much!"
"Well then, why were you staring at him in the common room?" the pudgy little boy said. She crinkled her nose and replied.
"I was simply following the chess game. Now get out before I beat you all into a pulp." To her surprise, James Potter took off his glasses and challenged her. "First one to lose conciousness owes a galleon or an explanation. No rules."
In that moment of indecision all that Lily felt was deep anguish, for herself or her ruined chance at friendship she didn't know, but in her anger she jumped on him.
Potter was an amazingly skilled fighter. She didn't imagine all of this, but there it was, an added bonus!
When she rushed at him, he didn't hesitate for a second, and pinned her hand behind her back. After fourteen years at a cheap muggle orphanage, Lily wasn't quite so bad herself. She elbowed him in the ribs, and saw that Remus Lupin took a step forward. Something cracked in her other hand as he pushed her and they both fell to the floor. A searing pain shot through her bad arm where Potter fell on her. She kicked upward and hit him between the legs, and he whimpered for a second.
At this point tears started pouring out of her eyes for no reason at all. She had a deep sadness in her heart. She furiously wiped her face and pushed him off of her. He tripped on the hem of her torn robe and fell on his back. She pounced on him, her nose running and hair askew and punched whatever part of him she could find with her left hand. She imagined herself making out with him, and all that affection that she had pent up within her: for him, for her sister and parents who had abandoned her, she pulled together all of it and fueled her anger.
James doubled over in pain, amazed that such a petite girl could fight so well. But soon, he sensed her punches getting weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether, and he found that he still hadn't passed out. He couldn't lose, he decided, and took advantage of her moment of weakness.
He bit the flesh that was nearest to him, just on her neck and smelled the peachy scent of her shampoo in her hair. There was blood on his lips, and it was salty-not just hers, but his own as well. Her fist connected once more with his eye, and his vision blurred. She was winning. He suddenly remembered a trick his brother had taught him and pinched her on one of her crucial nerves. She passed out instantly, and fell over on top of him. Unknowingly, he tried to stand up, but her weight together with his physical condition caused him to black out as well.
****
"Well, it's nice to see that the King of Hogwarts has landed himself in the Hospital Wing once more, eh?" "Why are you here, Malfoy, just spit it out." The tall figure of the aristocratic Lucius Malfoy peeped out in its full magnificence from behind the Infirmary Door.
"No respect for our elders, I am certainly shocked," he said. He had a spiteful smirk on his young face, and as he spoke, it did not disappear giving him an evil, almost maniacal expression. "The side of darkness brings you news. It is at the peak of its power, and I warn you, this is not the time to rejoice in the small battles. Inform your masters that to try to save the world from the power of the Darkness, when they hold so much unharnessed power, can bring about its own demise." With a pop, he disappeared, and James instantly wondered what the hell was happening. They couldn't disapparate on grounds.
"Alright Mr. Potter," he heard Madame Pomfrey's lulling voice, and opened his eyes, not realizing that he closed them again in his contemplation, "And Miss Evans, time for Breakfast!" she finished with a flourish, spinning around before she flicked her wand to set the meals on the respective beds. Who was Miss Evans? Suddenly, he remembered, when he looked at her green eyes. She was the one that landed him here.
"Hullo," he said peaceably to her. She smiled, but her eyes were cold. He had the impression that she was just doing it to please Pomfrey. Indeed it succeeded. She stared at the two teenagers.
"I don't understand why you were in such a great brawl when you act so amiable towards each other," she sighed rhetorically, "You may go back to your Commons before classes, it's barely seven. I give you the option to stay here or take a walk, the cold air will do you good, but the Fat Lady is still asleep, I think." Both decided that anything was better than the bleak Infirmary, and set off. James grabbed his things (that Sirius had brought for him) and Lily stared at him for a while before walking out herself.
Lily set off in the direction of the Head Tower, and gave not a second thought to James, who had mysteriously disappeared under something he took out from his bag. Of course he had an invisibility cloak, she thought wryly, and chuckled. James turned to look at her for a second, wondering if she was crazy, then resumed his "walk," vowing to stay out of her way forever. Had he been able to see the future, he would see that it was impossible. In both senses of the word.
Lily, who had rushed to the Head Tower, found the familiar room with ease. It was draped with yellow everywhere and occasionally, when she came to study or reflect, she would notice beavers flitting about the wall. Very few knew about this room, but the Head Students. She had been friends with the boy that graduated last year, who was the Head Girl's intended, and he showed it to her when they (he and Lily) used to date. He was her first, in more ways than one, way back in first or second year. Ironic that she couldn't even remember the ordeal. He dumped her as soon as he got what he wanted, and Lily wondered about this every time she came into the room. She never would have guessed that a Hufflepuff would not be so cruel, but soon learned that men were men, and it was so true that all was fair in love and war. She just wished that it wasn't so literal in its meaning.
It was true that very few knew about this room, but only one knew about the secret passage it held. She waited for the camouflaged yellow beaver that peeped out from the floorboard that met the furthest wall from the entrance. It was a heptagonal room, and there was only one pointy corner. When the beaver came, she said something to it that was barely discernable, and walked through the wall. To anyone else it may have looked like she was walking through the wall, and that was hardly a sight to be seen in the wizarding world. Anyone of ability could cast an exit spell and walk through to anything that led outside: unless there was a location on the other side, a place that was different from what was within the walls through which the caster walked, which in this case, there definitely was. Hogsmeade.
There were five passages to Hogsmeade from Hogwarts. Of course, we know three: The one-eyed witch that opened to the Dissendius spell, The Whomping Willow, Helga's Holding, and the two others: The one through the Chamber of Secrets that led out in the caves at the edge of Hogsmeade that no one had ever seen and survived but Salazar himself, and the last.was yet to be discovered.
Each entrance was made by a house leader, and the Whomping Willow was planted by Dumbledore, making him a part of Hogwarts History that he knew nothing of. The Holding was made by Helga for her best friend Rowena-a study room in tribute to her great deeds when she passed. The one-eyed witch was made by Ravenclaw for Godric-who loved Butterbeer more than life itself. Slytherin, of course, made the passage down in the Chamber. No one yet had found Gryffindor's passage.
When Lily walked through the secret door in the Holding, she ended up in the alleyway between Dress-Robe shop and the gift shop on Dervish and Banges. To her surprise, someone was there waiting for her already.
"James Potter, what are you doing here?" she asked, clearly surprised. He jumped and looked at her.
"What are you doing here? I thought I was the only one that knew about this passage. You scared me!" he said, and Lily stifled a laugh at his distressed voice. "What are you smiling about?!" he sputtered.
"I can't smile?"
He looked at her thoughtfully for a second, and opened his mouth to speak. Lily abruptly silenced him, holding up her hand imperiously.
"No, I will not walk with you, I will never tell you anything about Myra because I know you have a crush on her, We will never, ever, become great friends, or even brief acquaintances, and when we end this conversation, I hope to pretend that I never talked to you, and never knew you." She noticed his incredulous expression, but went on.
"I don't like you. I don't like your friends. You don't know me, and I don't want you to, because I know what that involves. Pain. For me, not you because you only want me for two reasons: information, and sex. I will give you neither," she would have gone on, but James gave a loud bellowing laugh.
"Sex? From you? Who landed me in the Hospital Wing for an entire two nights and two days? Oh believe me, I'm no idiot." Lily couldn't help but crack a smile. James studied her for a second and took hold of her arm. "Come with me," he said, "I'd like to show you something." Lily followed, amazingly, and cursed herself in her mind.
He led her to Honeydukes, but did not go inside. Lily's heart pounded, did he know? When her feelings for James began, in fourth year, she (in a burst of creative genius) drew a mural under the trapdoor that was the end of the secret passage. Of course he would know, she reprimanded herself, they were the legendary pranksters! The Marauders!
"I don't want to be here, Potter. I don't care what you have to show me," she said. He turned his astonished eyes to her.
"Was it you?" he asked. She didn't answer, but something in her eyes seemed to confirm it for James.
"It's beautiful." He smiled at her, and soon Lily felt that familiar feeling-all her insides dancing to some unknown tune. She broke free of his grasp and ran away, hoping for the second time that day that she would never see him again.
And they never talked to each other personally. He would give her a small smile sometimes in classes, or at meals, but otherwise, he stayed out of her way, and she stayed out of his. They never had to talk until they became Head Students, two years later. James was still going out with Myra, but his thoughts were constantly on someone else.
The days were painfully long for both of them, but Lily too had changed by then. She was always tutoring some first year, or helping McGonagall or the Potions Master, or even Dumbledore. Since she knew the teachers so well, and was so nice to everyone, so people from all houses and years (even Slytherins) would come to ask her favors, help with homework, or advice. In sixth year, Dumbledore even considered her as a Head Girl candidate. Her problem had not been in her grades-prefects were also supposed to help others, and hold leadership positions. Now that that problem was solved, and she was very outgoing in everything, why should she not be Head Girl?
Since James found out that she was the one that drew the mural, he began to develop some feelings for her, very similar to those that she had for him. She was so.different. Unique. But he thought, depressed, she vowed never to talk to him. Here was one thing his status couldn't get for him. Little did he know that that was exactly what would do the trick. It was time to go to King's Cross Station. He gathered his trunk and belongings, hastily bracing himself for his final year of schooling.
She had been feeling like this for a while now, and it bothered her to no end. She couldn't stop staring at him in the hallways, changing her route, being just five minutes late to class, just so she could follow him. She never expected to feel like this. Petunia advised her that if she confessed the truth, everything would be well and good. She hoped her sister was right.
Last night a letter had arrived by owl post. Her sister rarely used owl, but it arrived, in her handwriting, nonetheless. She couldn't enchant it, for she was muggle, so what other explanation was there? She had been adopted, that's what. Pet was seventeen. In just about eight months, she would go off on her own, but until then, she had to be in someone's custody. The orphanage was being demolished, and the nearest was about eighty miles away, way in Surrey. Being so acquainted with so many people, one of her close friends' parents had offered to adopt her "officially" just until she married or turned eighteen. Her close friend just happened to be her long-time fiancé. Lily couldn't understand how long "long-time" was, for they were both only seventeen after all.
As overjoyed as she was about her sister being adopted, she was even happier that she did not have to go back to that dump. Dumbledore had taken custody of her, and he would accommodate her until her last year at Hogwarts. For the period from whence she graduated from Hogwarts to her eighteenth birthday in September, she would be living in Spain, with her crush and his family, as well as her guardian. Things could get no better. Except if she had real parents, and Voldemort suffered a horrifically gory demise by her hands. Of course, one could not have everything.
So she grabbed her parchment, sand, and sun, and Carnival a flurry of thoughts in her head, and rushed down to the Common Room. She had never been out of England (unless visiting a deceased uncle's colleague in Edinburgh counted) and though she was knowledgeable, her view of the West was nothing short of distorted.
There sat the legendary Gryffindor boys, and in the center, the King himself. He looked at her dubiously and quickly turned away. Lily watched him intently; the way he folded his bottom lips with this left hand, drummed his fingers on the back of his foot, and talked in that distracted way.
Her mind carried her to distant levels of her imagination. The feelings that accompanied her venture were so disgustingly forbidding that she immediately reprimanded herself and jumped out of the deep reverie. Sirius Black, his chess partner shot her a suspicious look. She glared at him and turned back to her previous target. Black whispered something and stood up, and this time, so did the two other boys.
Lily gathered her clean parchment and unused quillpen and rushed out of the portrait hole. She noticed that the boys were walking faster and quickened her pace. She ran to the Prefect's Bath, which only she and her beloved yet knew the password to. It was only the first week, and they hadn't had their first prefects meeting. They were in charge of passwords, just herself and him. She sighed inwardly and began to run as the three boys began giggling. Obviously about how ugly or smelly she was. When she reached the mermaid, she mumbled the password and ran inside. She was safe.
She imagined, her dear James Potter walking inside, and embracing her. Embracing her! She imagined to her heart's content.
"Hey stranger," she would greet him. He would kiss her shyly in response and speak to her.
"What did I miss today in Potions? How many times did you kick Professor Rosier's ass?" he would ask her.
They would talk for hours, holding their hands tight. He loved Lily Evans; they were best friends. And when they spoke, it was just them in this world; No Petunia, no parents, no worries, just them. James would love her like he never had anyone else. And she likewise. Another curious thing was her eyes- they would be brown, and her hair would match her eyes. James liked her brown hair and brown eyes, because they were like his mother's.
She would meet his mother personally. In Brazil. Being a foreign diplomat, Mrs. Potter had many connections. She knew many people, like Petunia. She would introduce Lily as "Ms. Evans, her son's prestigious fiancé."
The extremely youthful and young Spanish diplomat would bubble over with curiosity. He admired her, as did everyone else. "Quienes tus padres?" He would ask her, and she would answer, "Queen Elizabeth. I am an orphan, of course, but I'm sure you know who she is?" Then, he would ask her to marry him. She would refuse politely. She was very much in love with James Potter, and he meant too much to break off things for even the King. Of course, he was her father, how could that be? She would laugh gaily and invite him to the Palace for tea. She would promise to come to Spain for her last summer at Hogwarts. That's why she was going to Spain, not because of some old man's charity like so many other unfortunate girls her age.
"H-Hey!"
What was that noise?
"Hey, redhead!"
There it was again. Lily craned her neck behind her, to the door. There were the three boys, and James Potter leading them. He smiled at her warmly. Her heart pounded in her chest, and intense fear made its way to her throat.
"What do you want," she asked. She couldn't believe that it was she with the horribly mean tone of voice. Potter's expression quickly changed into one of surprise.
"Why did you run away?"
"What business is it of yours, I can go wherever I please, thank you very much!"
"Well then, why were you staring at him in the common room?" the pudgy little boy said. She crinkled her nose and replied.
"I was simply following the chess game. Now get out before I beat you all into a pulp." To her surprise, James Potter took off his glasses and challenged her. "First one to lose conciousness owes a galleon or an explanation. No rules."
In that moment of indecision all that Lily felt was deep anguish, for herself or her ruined chance at friendship she didn't know, but in her anger she jumped on him.
Potter was an amazingly skilled fighter. She didn't imagine all of this, but there it was, an added bonus!
When she rushed at him, he didn't hesitate for a second, and pinned her hand behind her back. After fourteen years at a cheap muggle orphanage, Lily wasn't quite so bad herself. She elbowed him in the ribs, and saw that Remus Lupin took a step forward. Something cracked in her other hand as he pushed her and they both fell to the floor. A searing pain shot through her bad arm where Potter fell on her. She kicked upward and hit him between the legs, and he whimpered for a second.
At this point tears started pouring out of her eyes for no reason at all. She had a deep sadness in her heart. She furiously wiped her face and pushed him off of her. He tripped on the hem of her torn robe and fell on his back. She pounced on him, her nose running and hair askew and punched whatever part of him she could find with her left hand. She imagined herself making out with him, and all that affection that she had pent up within her: for him, for her sister and parents who had abandoned her, she pulled together all of it and fueled her anger.
James doubled over in pain, amazed that such a petite girl could fight so well. But soon, he sensed her punches getting weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether, and he found that he still hadn't passed out. He couldn't lose, he decided, and took advantage of her moment of weakness.
He bit the flesh that was nearest to him, just on her neck and smelled the peachy scent of her shampoo in her hair. There was blood on his lips, and it was salty-not just hers, but his own as well. Her fist connected once more with his eye, and his vision blurred. She was winning. He suddenly remembered a trick his brother had taught him and pinched her on one of her crucial nerves. She passed out instantly, and fell over on top of him. Unknowingly, he tried to stand up, but her weight together with his physical condition caused him to black out as well.
****
"Well, it's nice to see that the King of Hogwarts has landed himself in the Hospital Wing once more, eh?" "Why are you here, Malfoy, just spit it out." The tall figure of the aristocratic Lucius Malfoy peeped out in its full magnificence from behind the Infirmary Door.
"No respect for our elders, I am certainly shocked," he said. He had a spiteful smirk on his young face, and as he spoke, it did not disappear giving him an evil, almost maniacal expression. "The side of darkness brings you news. It is at the peak of its power, and I warn you, this is not the time to rejoice in the small battles. Inform your masters that to try to save the world from the power of the Darkness, when they hold so much unharnessed power, can bring about its own demise." With a pop, he disappeared, and James instantly wondered what the hell was happening. They couldn't disapparate on grounds.
"Alright Mr. Potter," he heard Madame Pomfrey's lulling voice, and opened his eyes, not realizing that he closed them again in his contemplation, "And Miss Evans, time for Breakfast!" she finished with a flourish, spinning around before she flicked her wand to set the meals on the respective beds. Who was Miss Evans? Suddenly, he remembered, when he looked at her green eyes. She was the one that landed him here.
"Hullo," he said peaceably to her. She smiled, but her eyes were cold. He had the impression that she was just doing it to please Pomfrey. Indeed it succeeded. She stared at the two teenagers.
"I don't understand why you were in such a great brawl when you act so amiable towards each other," she sighed rhetorically, "You may go back to your Commons before classes, it's barely seven. I give you the option to stay here or take a walk, the cold air will do you good, but the Fat Lady is still asleep, I think." Both decided that anything was better than the bleak Infirmary, and set off. James grabbed his things (that Sirius had brought for him) and Lily stared at him for a while before walking out herself.
Lily set off in the direction of the Head Tower, and gave not a second thought to James, who had mysteriously disappeared under something he took out from his bag. Of course he had an invisibility cloak, she thought wryly, and chuckled. James turned to look at her for a second, wondering if she was crazy, then resumed his "walk," vowing to stay out of her way forever. Had he been able to see the future, he would see that it was impossible. In both senses of the word.
Lily, who had rushed to the Head Tower, found the familiar room with ease. It was draped with yellow everywhere and occasionally, when she came to study or reflect, she would notice beavers flitting about the wall. Very few knew about this room, but the Head Students. She had been friends with the boy that graduated last year, who was the Head Girl's intended, and he showed it to her when they (he and Lily) used to date. He was her first, in more ways than one, way back in first or second year. Ironic that she couldn't even remember the ordeal. He dumped her as soon as he got what he wanted, and Lily wondered about this every time she came into the room. She never would have guessed that a Hufflepuff would not be so cruel, but soon learned that men were men, and it was so true that all was fair in love and war. She just wished that it wasn't so literal in its meaning.
It was true that very few knew about this room, but only one knew about the secret passage it held. She waited for the camouflaged yellow beaver that peeped out from the floorboard that met the furthest wall from the entrance. It was a heptagonal room, and there was only one pointy corner. When the beaver came, she said something to it that was barely discernable, and walked through the wall. To anyone else it may have looked like she was walking through the wall, and that was hardly a sight to be seen in the wizarding world. Anyone of ability could cast an exit spell and walk through to anything that led outside: unless there was a location on the other side, a place that was different from what was within the walls through which the caster walked, which in this case, there definitely was. Hogsmeade.
There were five passages to Hogsmeade from Hogwarts. Of course, we know three: The one-eyed witch that opened to the Dissendius spell, The Whomping Willow, Helga's Holding, and the two others: The one through the Chamber of Secrets that led out in the caves at the edge of Hogsmeade that no one had ever seen and survived but Salazar himself, and the last.was yet to be discovered.
Each entrance was made by a house leader, and the Whomping Willow was planted by Dumbledore, making him a part of Hogwarts History that he knew nothing of. The Holding was made by Helga for her best friend Rowena-a study room in tribute to her great deeds when she passed. The one-eyed witch was made by Ravenclaw for Godric-who loved Butterbeer more than life itself. Slytherin, of course, made the passage down in the Chamber. No one yet had found Gryffindor's passage.
When Lily walked through the secret door in the Holding, she ended up in the alleyway between Dress-Robe shop and the gift shop on Dervish and Banges. To her surprise, someone was there waiting for her already.
"James Potter, what are you doing here?" she asked, clearly surprised. He jumped and looked at her.
"What are you doing here? I thought I was the only one that knew about this passage. You scared me!" he said, and Lily stifled a laugh at his distressed voice. "What are you smiling about?!" he sputtered.
"I can't smile?"
He looked at her thoughtfully for a second, and opened his mouth to speak. Lily abruptly silenced him, holding up her hand imperiously.
"No, I will not walk with you, I will never tell you anything about Myra because I know you have a crush on her, We will never, ever, become great friends, or even brief acquaintances, and when we end this conversation, I hope to pretend that I never talked to you, and never knew you." She noticed his incredulous expression, but went on.
"I don't like you. I don't like your friends. You don't know me, and I don't want you to, because I know what that involves. Pain. For me, not you because you only want me for two reasons: information, and sex. I will give you neither," she would have gone on, but James gave a loud bellowing laugh.
"Sex? From you? Who landed me in the Hospital Wing for an entire two nights and two days? Oh believe me, I'm no idiot." Lily couldn't help but crack a smile. James studied her for a second and took hold of her arm. "Come with me," he said, "I'd like to show you something." Lily followed, amazingly, and cursed herself in her mind.
He led her to Honeydukes, but did not go inside. Lily's heart pounded, did he know? When her feelings for James began, in fourth year, she (in a burst of creative genius) drew a mural under the trapdoor that was the end of the secret passage. Of course he would know, she reprimanded herself, they were the legendary pranksters! The Marauders!
"I don't want to be here, Potter. I don't care what you have to show me," she said. He turned his astonished eyes to her.
"Was it you?" he asked. She didn't answer, but something in her eyes seemed to confirm it for James.
"It's beautiful." He smiled at her, and soon Lily felt that familiar feeling-all her insides dancing to some unknown tune. She broke free of his grasp and ran away, hoping for the second time that day that she would never see him again.
And they never talked to each other personally. He would give her a small smile sometimes in classes, or at meals, but otherwise, he stayed out of her way, and she stayed out of his. They never had to talk until they became Head Students, two years later. James was still going out with Myra, but his thoughts were constantly on someone else.
The days were painfully long for both of them, but Lily too had changed by then. She was always tutoring some first year, or helping McGonagall or the Potions Master, or even Dumbledore. Since she knew the teachers so well, and was so nice to everyone, so people from all houses and years (even Slytherins) would come to ask her favors, help with homework, or advice. In sixth year, Dumbledore even considered her as a Head Girl candidate. Her problem had not been in her grades-prefects were also supposed to help others, and hold leadership positions. Now that that problem was solved, and she was very outgoing in everything, why should she not be Head Girl?
Since James found out that she was the one that drew the mural, he began to develop some feelings for her, very similar to those that she had for him. She was so.different. Unique. But he thought, depressed, she vowed never to talk to him. Here was one thing his status couldn't get for him. Little did he know that that was exactly what would do the trick. It was time to go to King's Cross Station. He gathered his trunk and belongings, hastily bracing himself for his final year of schooling.