Hello. I am back with a Jily-short story. This will not be very long, probably only two or three chapters. Just an idea I had of two important Jily-events that I wanted to tie together to one story. Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! :)
Summary: I have always thought about how lily would find out about the animagi-secret, as well as how her and James got together. What if those two stories could be tied together somehow? This is just a little light short story with pieces of humour, misunderstanding, forgiveness and love between the best pairing and the best group of friends in the history of literature.
Chapter one: "Reserved for Moony"
It had taken him the heavy amount of six full years to turn that girl around. That one headstrong girl, or rather young woman who had taken up space in his mind (and heart) for all of his years at Hogwarts had finally decided that he was worth a chance. That past Thursday (exactly six days, eleven hours and forty-three minutes ago - not that he was counting or anything because that'd be weird), his perseverance had finally paid off and she had said yes to his 458th offer of going to Hogsmeade together. She had agreed… and she had not even frowned at the suggestion. With only the condition of the date being quite casual with no guarantees of a continued attachment if the date did not feel right at the end of the day, had she met with him at the gates of Hogwarts. But the lovesick James Potter who accepted anything he could get from her, and as hard as it had been since then, had not pushed her for an answer whether she would like to go on another date with him. In a way he was still running high on the exhilaration the previous weekend had awoken in him.
Even his friends were starting to get worried about his high spirits, as they were not sure that it was completely healthy to walk around on a cloud of undying bliss for as long as he now had. The higher that cloud would ascend the heavier the eventual fall would become.
"Seriously mate, you need to pull yourself together." Sirius demanded that day at lunch as he nudged his friend's shoulder after they had sat down. "Full moon is soon upon us and you need to focus on that now", he then whispered. "There is one day every month reserved for Moony you know and you need to remember that!" he added.
Remus, who sat on the opposite side of the table, could not help but smile at how his friend had almost completely lost the game. Although, he was not worried, for he knew that when it came down to it James would keep his head the night of the full moon, as he always did. "Sirius, let him enjoy it for another day. You know he will come down from his high and be his normal self by tomorrow night."
Sirius shook his head at his friend's insanity and Remus' encouragement of it, as he grabbed a handful of chicken wings whose bowl was just as soon filled up again.
Someone sat down on the only remaining spot in their part of the long Gryffindor table, which was on Sirius' other side and was greeted civilly by him. "I don't know what it is you have done to him Evans, but it's like he's been going around sipping amortentia all week long. Do you have an antidote or some kind of counter curse to the spell which you have put him under?" Sirius felt a slap on the back of his head. "Shut up, you git." Those were, as Sirius were sure, the first sober words uttered by James in almost a week. Sirius grinned and turned to his friend again. "Whoa, you are back. Took you long enough, mate." James glared at him. "Sod off!"
Sirius then stood up and pushed James towards the place where Evans sat, and relocated himself to sit on James' right side. James and Lily fell into a light conversation that he couldn't even be bothered to listen in on. It wasn't until he felt Jams poking his elbow after having turned to look at him, that he returned his attention to his friend. "She has agreed to go on another date with me!" James whispered excitedly, with a smile that could probably cover most of the British isles. Great. Now he is going to walk around on that cloud for another week, Sirius thought. "That's awesome, mate", he said and slapped James playfully on the back. "But do not forget tomorrow", Sirius said and gave his friend a meaningful glance. "Never!" James assured.
That afternoon James kept going on about the exact words of how Lily had told him that she could agree to another date with him and he kept his friends awake for hours that night with hopes that they would help him come up with a plan for the ideal date to take Lily on. After several repeated 'Shut up's and 'Go to sleep's Sirius was so tired of his endless chatter that he cast a silencing charm on his friends' bed, letting him talk to no one but the eager ears of his bed curtains.
The next day went on just as those of the previous week. The four boys would go to their classes, and James would take every chance to jabber on about how he loved that little curve of Lily's upper lip when she smiled or how the green stones of the earrings she was wearing were the exact same colour as her eyes.
Sirius, Remus and Peter were sure that their ears would soon bleed from the soreness they got from listening to the lovesick idiot they called their friend, but out of respect for James – and with great hopes he would put his feet on the ground again soon – they pretended to listen and give him a nudge of support here and there.
Around dinnertime, Remus' prediction from the lunch the previous day seemed to come true. James had pulled himself together alright and was all clear of mind, with a new focus on the upcoming night's activities. He even remained rational when Lily Evans joined them at their table, by being kind, polite and smiling at the occasional joke or anecdote that she willingly shared with him, without letting the fact that she talked to him so eagerly get to his head. He could not afford that at the moment, using his friend's words from the other day as a repeated mantra in his head: One day each month reserved for Moony… remember that…
After dinner the boys walked together with Lily back to the Gryffindor tower where they spent a few hours of the early night just hanging out. Remus and Peter playing a round of wizard's chess, Sirius laying sprawled across one of the couches doodling on a piece of parchment, secretly trying to figure out how many dung bombs could be set off in the dungeons at the same time and James and Lily sitting, facing each other on the other couch, laughing and having fun together.
When the clock approached nine, Remus, who had won three rounds of chess by then (all against different opponents) slowly stood up, telling his friends that he did not really feel well at all and was going to go to the hospital wing to ask for help from madame Pomfrey.
Lily, the kind hearted but snoopy extraordinaire (what she didn't know about her fellow students was not worth knowing) offered to go with him, an offer which he politely declined. She already knew about his condition, since she had figured it out in fourth year and confronted him about it, but if she could not put the pieces together and relate his current condition to the fact that tonight was a full moon he was certainly not going to remind her of it.
The boys said their goodbyes to each other and Lily and everyone left the common room to go to their separate places. After Lily had given James a kiss on the cheek before they parted, he had returned to that cloud of bliss for a few moments before he pulled himself to the ground again… yet, that spot still burned when he hours later quietly tiptoed down the stairs with a piece of parchment in on hand and wand in the other, followed by his two friends who were hidden underneath his father's old invisibility cloak, although one of them currently in the shape of a rat resting in the other's pocket.
Despite their best efforts of being quite as mice (pun fully intended), another sound of an individual could be heard coming down the stairs just as James had requested the sleeping fat lady to open the portrait hole, and a shadow approached him just as he was about to walk through it.
"What do you think you are doing?" Lily asked as soon as she saw what he was about to do. "You are sneaking out, that much is obvious. What are you up to?"
James gave a discreet nod towards the spt where he suspected his friends were staying, as to tell them to walk out through the portrait and let him handle the unsuspected situation as quick as possible. While all that happened, and James felt sure that his friends had left the common room a few moments had passed, and the look on Lily Evans' face had turned into one of annoyance and demand.
James bit his lip. "Can't tell you, unfortunately. I wish I could, but I can't. That's all there is to it." Before those words had barely left his mouth she asked him something that hurt his very core. "Are you seeing someone else on the side, who you venture off to for late night meetings?" Those words burned him like he imagined a rusty knife would do on his skin.
"I can't believe you just asked me that, actually. Is that really what you think of me?" He spat, although with a low voice, as to not wake up anyone else. "That I would spend six years trying to deserve someone, just to blow that up in such a way?"
"Why do you have such trouble telling me then?" Lily retorted. "You are keeping something from me deliberately, even though I told you I didn't want any secrets between us if we were going to do this."
"Because this is not just my secret to tell, Evans. I was planning to tell you one day when the time was right, but not tonight. You can chose to accept that or not, but I still can't tell you right now", he concluded.
"Obviously you do not trust me enough", Lily sighed. "And apparently I cannot trust you to be open with me. I can't build a relationship with anyone without trust", she said. "So maybe we should not do this after all."
James was starting to feel stressed now, and was at loss of words for anything to say. To be honest, he thought that Lily was a tad bit overdramatic and that they could have sorted things out in the morning when he didn't need to rush to meet a full moon that twisted both the mind and bones of his dear friend.
When he did not answer her quick enough and she saw how stressed his face was to get away to do whatever it was that he was about to, she nodded curtly. "Well, I guess we should cancel that date next week then. Good night!" she said and turned on her heels to go back up the stairs to her dorm.
Meanwhile, the skin and bones that held him up carried James out the door, but his insides had started to fall apart. It felt like every cell, every piece of tissue inside his body had started to implode to eventually end up as a large empty whole inside of his body, adjoining the already made hole in his chest which had been torn apart when he had to make the choice between the Moony he loved and the woman he loved.