Round 9
Written for the QLFC, Season 5, Round Nine.
Position: Captain
Position Prompt: Hoops: Write about someone [known Quidditch player] meeting a goal.
Title: Stag
Word Count: 1,000
Beta(s): AelysAlthea (Thank you!)
Go Wanderers!
"Where's the jeweller?" James Potter whispered, his hazel eyes unfocused behind the fog on his glasses. His brown skin was ashen and his usually uncontrollable hair seemed subdued. It was unnerving.
"What's that, mate?" Sirius Black asked, summoning a tissue from thin air and handing it to their wan friend, Remus Lupin.
"Thanks," Remus mumbled, accepting the item and wiping his nose, which had been pinched pink by the December air.
"The Jeweller," James repeated, his voice shrinking further.
"What's the next step for you, James? I understand that magical jobs are based more on training in the workplace than further education, is that correct?"
James turned to Lily's mother and tried to smile, but it felt tight. He'd never learnt how to say the right thing. He could feel Lily's eyes on him.
Where had it all gone wrong?
Sirius clicked his fingers in front of James' face as the first snow of the day began to fall onto the streets of Horizont Alley around them.
"We've lost him," Peter Pettigrew said, checking his watch and glancing around for the third time in as many minutes.
"I'm an activist, Mrs. Evans, at least for now."
"For now?!" Mr. Evans asked, scratching his ginger beard. "I never thought I'd hear one of our Lily's fellas say 'for now'. Where does that fit on the ol' calendar, eh, Pudge?"
"Calendar?" James asked, poking at the casserole in front of him before remembering Lily had warned him not to play with his food when at the Evans'.
"I threw that thing out years ago," Lily said, tossing a side long glance at James. An unmistakable flash of green.
"I think I remember: St. Mungo's application, May '77. Summer program start date, June '77. Second round of applications Jan '78. Oh, Harold, you remember," Mrs. Evans insisted, gesturing for him to continue.
"Of course! Move to East London with Alice in July, Medi-Witch training start date—"
"—Ah yes, it's all come rushing back. Thank you for that. Is this Aunt Carol's recipe?"
"There's a jeweller back on Diagon Alley, but James, are you alright?" Remus asked, folding the handkerchief monogrammed with the Black family crest and tucking it into the sleeve of his cardigan. "You seem a little…"
"Like someone's died."
"Oh, only my hopes and dreams for the future."
Lying in bed with her last night, not in East London but in Godric's Hollow, James watched her write in her planner.
Reading the date on the page, he cleared his throat.
"Is that a plan for the first week of March next year?" James asked, trying not to sound accusatory.
"Well, it wouldn't make much sense to schedule in an appointment for March seven months ago, would it?"
"I didn't know you wanted to apply for Mungo's."
"Things change."
"You didn't want to join the Order?"
"Nobody plans to join the Order, James. But I have, so there's no point in making plans for now."
"Can't you do all your Christmas shopping on Christmas eve like a normal person?" Sirius complained, as the silver shop bell for 'Ring Around the Rosie' rang over head.
"I don't think he's looking for a present, Sirius," Remus muttered as James made a beeline for a display of rings.
"Woah! No, Prongs! Hold your Hippogriffs! Have you gone barmy?" Sirius asked, reaching out and dragging the other wizard back by his cloak.
"She doesn't see a future with me."
"Lily?" Remus asked. "I thought we'd jumped this hurdle of panic when she asked you to move in with her."
"You don't understand. She's got all these calendars, all these planners, and bloody diaries, and I'm not in any of them. Even when she asked me to move in, that day all she had planned was 'visit bank, return Alice's lamp'."
"Mate," Sirius said, putting his hands on either of James's cheeks and turning the man to look him dead in the eye. "You are now, and have always been: a stag. No woman as sensible as Lily is expecting a proposal from the stag, and rightly so. Now, let's just go to the pub, and put this bit of insanity behind us."
"Things aren't that up in the air, love."
"Only someone as obsessed with Quidditch as you could call our lives grounded," Lily said, and closed her planner. "Some things can't be tied down, they're just too unpredictable."
"Do you mean me?"
Lily paused, and smiled down at the little book in her hands. "No comment."
"Lily!" He complained, half-joking.
"There's no winning with that question," she laughed. "It's a trap. I'll answer it when you've figured out what you want the answer to be."
"No!" James said. "I need her to know that I can be committed."
"You don't want to do this for the wrong reasons," Remus said, adjusting his scarf as if to head back outside. "She might think you're rushing it because of the high alert at last week's meeting."
"And she'd be right," Sirius grumbled, his hand already on the doorknob.
That evening James and his girlfriend lit a fire.
"Lily, I need to ask you something."
"Sounds serious."
"It is," James said, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
Lily fiddled with the fray in her jeans. "Oh."
"When you see your future, what does it look like?"
"I don't know."
"Does it look like this?" He asked, gesturing around a home he thought they'd been building, building toward something. A life.
"I don't know."
"A dozen diaries and three hanging calendars, and you don't know?"
"Those are just plans, James." Lily shrugged, but to his surprise there were tears shining in her eyes.
"Tell me what it is love, you can't wipe away tears if you don't shed them," he reached out a hand and caught the first drop to fall.
"I can't bear it," she whispered, and her whole composure broke like a dam. Words flooding forth. "I can't stand the thought of losing you now. How will I survive it if I plan this whole future, our whole future, and then I have to go through it alone?! I can't lose that aswell."
He reached into his pocket. "I'm not going anywhere without you," he said. He'd started to cry now, too. "That's the plan, alright? That's the plan."