none so blind
After the incident at the lake, he finds her in the Common Room. Quite by accident, of course. He comes down, late at night, to get his Defence textbook so that he can pack it, and she is sitting beside the dimming fire in her dressing gown, staring blankly at it with a lonely sort of sadness in her face.
He hesitates for a second on the steps, then walks in, hyper-aware of everything; the soft thuds of his footsteps, the two seventh-years curled together in a corner that the struggling rays from the fire barely reach, the yawning portraits on the walls, the flickering candles that barely illuminate anything, the relative emptiness of the room, the silence that is hardly interrupted by the whispers of the few occupants, the light reflecting off Lily's red hair, the slight furrow in her brow, the tiredness in her eyes. The smallness of her figure, an inerasable but lone presence that draws his eyes like she's the only thing in the room.
His book sits in front of her, on the low coffee table. He approaches slowly, as if she is a wounded animal. When she looks up, her face falls a little, and he feels wrong. She shouldn't look at him like that. He gestures to his book, and picks it up with a hand on his wand, just in case she hexes him or something. Hesitating, he smiles slightly tentatively at her. She doesn't smile back.
"What-" Her voice is croaky. Clearing her throat, she continues. "What are you doing here?"
There are many things he could say. He could say 'getting my book', because that would be true, but it wouldn't answer the question she is asking. He could say that he wanted to talk about what had happened at the lake. He could tell her, honestly, that it really did hurt when she rejected him, and he just doesn't understand why. He could ask her out again, because he really does want her to go out with him, but he knows that that idea will probably end with his dismemberment. He could tell her that Snape is a git and she shouldn't be so sad, because something feels a bit off when Lily Evans is sad.
He could apologise. The words are on the tip of his tongue, just begging to be said. That's what needs to be said, isn't it? In the end, the thing that he needs to say most, beyond 'I really like you', 'Will you go out with me?', 'Snape's an idiot', 'Why don't you like me?', beyond all of that, is 'I'm sorry.'
But he's James Potter, and he's fifteen, and he doesn't really understand how much he likes this fragile girl who is tough as nails, and he doesn't really understand why, and he believes in things like the evil of Slytherins and Voldemort with no real comprehension of what 'evil' even really means, so he says 'Nothing. I was just leaving', and he turns around and walks back up the stairs, and for the first time in his life, feels like a coward.
And Lily Evans turns her head back to the fire, and spends the whole night there without moving.
At some time in the early hours, she lets herself cry.
x
He soon forgets the night after the lake incident.
Or, he doesn't forget it, but he locks it away in the box of things involving Lily Evans that he doesn't quite know what to do with. He prefers to ignore it and treat her as he normally would, and that's the end of that. He's more concerned with his friends and flying and generally having the time of his life.
But he does wonder, sometimes. And it's the seeds of a beginning.
x
They bump into each other by mistake on the first day of school.
"Sorry," she mutters, then looks up. Her face contorts into a grimace, and she looks away. He grins at her, but she does not see, and she does not want to see.
There is a boy who never showed up at her door during the summer, a boy who was absent from the playground and the woods and the streets, who stands between them.
But still, her eyes flicker up at his for a moment before she walks away.
x
He opens his mouth to ask her that familiar question a week later at breakfast, but he hears once again the echo of her words beside the lake on a sunny day not so long ago, feels the crush of the word 'coward' on his shoulders as he walks up the stairs to his dorm one summer night, so he asks her to pass the jam instead.
Maybe tomorrow.
x
She corrects his pronunciation without thinking in Charms, and he chokes down a number of witty remarks. Remus looks at him approvingly.
x
She sees him flying with his friends one Hogsmeade afternoon, as she walks back to the castle with Mary. For some reason, she is not struck by the usual wave of dislike, but instead is stopped in her tracks by how absurdly young and silly and alive he looks when he laughs. For an instant, he looks like a boy she could like, a boy she could trust, a boy she could befriend. Then his hand reaches toward his hair, the familiar smirk on his face, and she sighs, the illusion broken.
x
He notices her looking. Of course he does. It's her, after all.
x
Every evening, she gets to dinner before he does, and commandeers the giant flask of pumpkin juice.
He always arrives somewhat late, hair rumpled from Quidditch and his own fidgeting hands, and asks her for it, with that ridiculous grin. She passes it to him, and sometimes their hands touch, and it feels...something. Something strange and foreign.
(She likes it)
x
It's a bright November morning, and it is a day for contradictions and impossibilities.
He can still feel the crunch of the morning frost beneath his feet as he walks into the Great Hall after a dawn Quidditch practice. He's achingly tired-he was up until one finishing his Ancient Runes essay, because it's due in the day after tomorrow and tomorrow's full moon so he can't do it then-but still, he's whistling, a spring in his step.
She's there, a plate of strawberries before her. She's eating absentmindedly, a book open in front of her. He hesitates, then walks forward a few steps, then pauses again, before striding determinedly to sit before her.
"You like strawberries, Evans?"
She looks up, and blinks. "Yes."
She looks suspicious, as if he might steal one.
"I do, too."
She looks down at her book, ignoring him. He pours himself some cereal.
"Ready for the Charms test, then?" He's not entirely sure why he's still talking.
"I suppose so. It won't be too hard, I don't think."
"Hmm. You got an O in Charms, didn't you?"
She looks surprised. "Yeah, I did. I needed it. I want to go into the DMLE."
"Oh, same. I'd never have thought you would, though. You always struck me as a Healer."
"I can't stand the smell of hospitals. Anyway, I think that anyone who can become an Auror, should. Especially now." She gestures vaguely at the Daily Prophet, a copy of which has been abandoned in the seat next to her.
"Yeah, me too." He's impressed, he has to admit.
"Why?" She sounds genuinely curious, and he looks up, confused.
"Why what?"
"You're pureblood, right? It's not-you don't have to. Why would you bother?"
He looks at her strangely. "'Course I have to, Evans. It's everyone's fight. You can't just let people die."
She nods, looking not quite impressed, and not exactly surprised.
They fall into silence, and James barely notices when she starts to pack her books away.
He is just pouring himself some pumpkin juice when a small plate filled with succulent red strawberries slides into view.
"I always eat them on exam days. They're my favourite. They're good." Her voice is uncertain, and he smiles reassuringly, somewhat taken aback.
"Thanks."
A day of impossibilities, indeed.
x
She doesn't notice that he stops asking her out. It's not that he doesn't want to go out with her anymore. It's more that...well, it stings a little, the remembrance of his past attempts. Both his pride and something else, something quite deep down that he wasn't really aware existed before now and is somewhat wary of, something that feels like nothing he's felt before.
x
She catches him hexing a Slytherin one day, after weeks and weeks of calmness. She is angry, and oddly disappointed.
It's Potter, she tells herself. You knew it would happen eventually. You didn't honestly think he'd changed, did you?
Still, her returning jinx is particularly vicious, and she refuses to even acknowledge him for days.
x
He stops her one evening and demands to know why she won't pass him the juice anymore.
She scoffs at him, and tells him that if he has to ask, he won't understand.
He sulks, and vehemently denies it when Sirius, Remus and Peter ask.
x
The first time James becomes really, truly aware of the war is when he finds Mary McDonald sitting in a vacant corner of the Quidditch stands after a late-night practice, sobbing her eyes out because her Muggleborn godmother has just been killed. He is attempting to catch a rogue Bludger when he sees her, everyone else left already because they don't much like flying at night, something which continues to baffle him. The stars are out, and he almost falls off his broom as he jerks in shock. He briefly contemplates pretending that nothing happened and beating a hasty exit, but the Remus in him metaphorically swats him lightly on the head and tells him to go and see if he can do anything.
So he does, and Mary cries into his shirt for a while, and when she lifts her head and stammers out an apology and an explanation, he feels like he's turned to stone. Hard and cold and lifeless, because there's really a war, and he's signed up for it, and because Ellen MacDonald died, and because he really doesn't want to die, and because there's really a war. It's really happening. He'd known it was coming for years, of course; he's read the papers, and it's practically all that his father talks about. But he'd never realised...
See, he'd thought that fighting in the war would be something like an extension of being a Gryffindor. He'd thought that the same sort of formula would be needed; bravery, a pinch of recklessness (or a lot, really), doing things that are smart and stupid at the same time, coming out with hair singed but smiling.
This isn't like that, and James wonders for the first time whether he really knows what he's signed up for.
And later, his conversation with Lily will appear unbidden in his mind, and he'll realise with a heavy feeling-not dread, or disappointment, but more responsibility-that he simply has to fight. He'd told her it was everyone's fight, and he only realises the truth of his words now.
Besides, even though it's everyone's fight, it won't be James who will fight the hardest. It will be Lily, and the part of him that recognises that is the part that doesn't even consider the option of running away, is the part that faces up to the war even after getting an inkling of its terrible, monstrous side and says come at me, is the part that is inherently, essentially James Potter, is the part that he'll grow into so very soon, is the part that will be father and husband and fighter for a cause, is the part that will make a boy with a lightning scar truly, finally, utterly proud to be his son, is the part that will cause Lily Evans to fall in love with him.
(But not quite yet)
x
Mary MacDonald returns to her dormitory an hour after curfew, and her dorm-mates look relieved when she comes in, relieved and sympathetic and understanding but they don't understand and it drives her crazy, so she closes the curtains around her four-poster and only lets Lily in to sit on her bed and eat chocolate and talk, because after all they've done together it would be unthinkable to not share everything with her.
And she tells Lily about James Potter, and Lily looks thoughtful.
x
At Christmas, James goes home, because his mother wants him to. Lily, for the first time, stays at the castle, and she has a nagging feeling that something is not quite right throughout the whole of the holidays, because it's too quiet and too uneventful and too boring. Much as he irritates her, much as he just plain confuses her sometimes, it's just not Hogwarts without James Potter. There's something missing, and she doesn't dislike him so much that she can't see that.
She's quite surprised when the thought crosses her mind, but she actually quite likes him.
God knows why.
x
He runs into Snape, all by himself, and it's just the two of them.
His arm twitches toward his wand almost by reflex, and Snape already has his out, a hex on his lips. And James just feels so hateful towards him, that it's staggering. He remembers Lily's empty look, lit by the firelight, and the sinking cowardly feeling in his chest as he walks up the stairs. He remembers Remus, that too-bright morning two years ago, bruised and beaten and so, so small as he takes in what Sirius did. He remembers Mary in the Hospital Wing after Mulciber cornered her after Transfiguration, and then crying in his arms at night. He remembers Sirius, fists clenched as he doesn't look at his brother, huddled with Mulciber and Avery and yes, Snape, and he remembers the look of barely veiled satisfaction that was identical on all their faces at breakfast not three weeks ago, when the headline in the Prophet was You-Know-Who Gains Support: Three Muggles Killed in Latest Attack. He remembers it so clearly, and he just feels so-
-but then, he remembers Lily refusing to pass the pumpkin juice at dinner, and deflates because he did know why, really. He remembers his father, clenching his teeth but smiling at Barty Crouch, because he'd said that anger should be reserved for those who deserve it. He remembers his own voice, saying it's everybody's fight, so casual and he didn't know what it meant back then, but he knows now, and it's not this. It's not a petty spat with Severus Snape. It's not this...this meaningless thing that's been going on for so long he can't remember how it got started. It's bigger, and so will he be. He will be bigger than this, and so he turns and walks away.
Snape just watches, unfathomably.
x
In March, it's his birthday, and he has a party.
At this party, Mary MacDonald and Remus Lupin discover their mutual affection and that they like kissing each other very much.
Because Remus is not Sirius, and Mary is not Rhiannon 'That Slag' Crawley (so fondly dubbed by fourth and third years after watching her snog her way through most of the male population of Gryffindor at various Christmas and birthday parties), they do not wish to leave their newfound connection in the heat of the Firewhiskey-scented Common Room, and so they do the couple thing and go on dates and eat lunch together and hold hands on the way to Herbology and it's all very sweet and adorable.
(It doesn't last for long; Remus, in one of his angst- tormented moments, breaks up with her because he is suffering from what Peter calls his nervous werewolf complex)
But for the few months that it remains in existence, the Marauders find that they have extra members in their group, something which they are a little wary of at first, but go along with for Remus' sake.
Mary, of course, who is really very nice and is excellent at baking, so there's that.
And Lily.
Lily, who, as it turns out, gets along spectacularly with the lot of them. Who smiles reluctantly at whatever stupid pranks they do and wholeheartedly at the smart ones. Who sits down for spirited political discussions with Sirius and actually manages to make him raise an eyebrow, impressed. Who patiently talks Peter through non-verbal Charms and talks into the small hours with Remus about all sorts of different things. Who is the only person who can actually beat James at Wizard's Chess without breaking a sweat or looking smug at the end.
And it's probably a good thing, because the Marauders are nothing if not fiercely, overly protective of their friendship and are not keen on change and new things and new people, but every second James spends with her, he feels like he's balancing on this precipice, and the more he looks at her the more he feels like he's going to fall off, and he really does not know what will happen then.
And then there are the times when they discover that they have something in common, or they both find one of Sirius' jokes unexpectedly hilarious, or they both leap out of their seats cheering when they're all listening to the Falcons' game on the radio, and they look at each other, taken aback, and there's something so familiar in her eyes that he wonders whether he's not falling already.
x
As for Lily, she goes along, somewhat bemused, because she never expected to gain three extra friends who'd been nothing more than thorns in her side not five months ago, but sometimes she's quite certain that she has been friends with James Potter forever and it's startling to think about.
It's quite nice, though.
x
Maybe it's stress of exams, but for whatever reason, James can't sleep.
It's three in the morning, and he's down in the Common Room in pyjamas, socks and a jumper (because this is Scotland, after all, even if it's May), and really, he should be revising. Or he should be practicing his wandwork, or doing something productive because he won't have time in the morning.
But he's not. He's staring into the fire, half asleep but just awake enough that he can't give in to dreaming.
Light footsteps jolt him out of his daze, and he looks around blearily to see (who else would it be, honestly) Lily standing in front of him, smiling wryly.
"Wha-" And his voice is croaky, and goddamn deja vu just punched him in the face.
"I came to get my book."
He looks down at the table, and there it is. "This is sounding familiar."
She smiles, but it looks more pained than anything. "Yeah."
Instead of leaving, though, she sits in the armchair opposite his, and opens her book. Her eyes remain fixed on one spot, though, and he is seized with the strange thought that maybe he could-
Before he finishes the thought, his mouth is open. "Lily?"
"Yeah?" She looks up at him, and he just knows that she knows what he's going to say, and she wants him to say it, give her this last reason to forgive him absolutely.
"I, er. I just think...I wanted to say sorry. For that day. I shouldn't have provoked him like that. It was...it was cruel. I never wanted him to say that to you."
She smiles slightly. "I know, James. I never thought you did. I really...I did really hate you for a while, there. I shouldn't have. It-you didn't force the words out of his mouth. You didn't make him say them. Maybe I should have seen it coming, anyway."
"No, I-I really did screw up, Evans. I messed with him for too long, and it was stupid. It didn't have to go that far. It wasn't your fault. None of it was your fault."
"He hated you because of me."
"He hated me because I hated him. That-even if we hadn't met that first day, it was inevitable."
"Yeah, I guess so. I just-he made me feel so stupid. For not breaking off the friendship when I saw it start to, you know, start to become more about him complaining about things to me or justifying himself, and for even trusting him in the first place. I just wished-he was the first person who taught me about magic, you know? It's like-when I was in first year, I thought that being a witch would make all my troubles go away, that it would only ever be fun and happy and perfect. Turns out that really, I'd have been better off as a Muggle, because of this damn war, maybe even because of Petunia. But I can't change that, so I just wanted to keep being eleven, keep thinking that magic was the best thing that happened to me. Does-do you know what I mean? And I guess that Sev was the boy who, I don't know, represented all of that. And when he just-you know, when he, that day at the lake-"
"-yeah. Yeah, I get it." There is a short silence. "I still hate him, you know. Snape. I just think that there are worse people out there. Worse things to hate. So I should spend my time pissing those off instead of bothering with him."
Lily nods slowly. "Sounds like a good plan to me." She smiles crookedly, and he honestly feels as if this moment is the only thing that matters.
"And I'm sorry for asking you out, that day, too. I guess you could call that poor taste."
"Yeah, it was. I'm sorry for being so mean when I rejected you."
"Nah, I deserved it. Giant Squid was a nice touch, though."
"You think so? I was quite proud, myself."
"Yeah." A pause. "Lily, are we friends?" And he hates how his voice sounds, quiet and young and not like Suave James Potter at all.
She glances at him, surprised. "Yeah, course we are. Don't ask me how, though."
He smiles at her, and it's unexpectedly lovely. "I'm glad."
And the thing is, she is too. She really is.
x
He waves goodbye to her at the platform, and she smiles back, kind of warmed. Petunia, next to her, sniffs.
"Is that your boyfriend? Can't he comb his hair?"
She feels unfathomably cross, a disproportionate amount of anger welling up in her on James' behalf. "No, he's not, and honestly, Petunia, you can't make snide comments about boyfriends when yours looks like he ate the Titanic and everyone in it and polished off the iceberg for dessert."
They bicker all the way home, but what both amuses and slightly scares her is how willing she is to defend James Potter.
x
Summer passes, and she gets a shiny badge in the mail.
He writes to her, greatly amused, when he does, too.
x
There is a battle in Diagon Alley, and they find themselves in the middle of it.
Well, it's more of a skirmish, really, but still.
They were just shopping for school. It was the whole lot of them, too; James and Lily and Sirius and Peter and Remus and Mary, the latter two trying to avoid each other's gaze as far as possible. So it wasn't like they were in any real danger.
Nevertheless, they are in Flourish and Blotts buying their textbooks when something smashes the window and there are suddenly curses flying everywhere. It's fairly easy to piece together what is happening; there have been similar disturbances all over Wizarding London throughout the summer. This is the first in Diagon Alley, though, and the woman in the queue behind them shrieks, while her partner starts to organize everyone. Telling the group of teenagers to stay put behind the counter, he runs off into the fray, taking others from the shop with him. The shopkeeper trembles behind a pile of books, and they all look at each other for a second before Sirius says "Fuck that," and is off and into battle, James a half-step behind him. Exasperated, Remus follows, telling the other three to remain while he fetches his two idiot friends, and Mary and Peter are all too happy to oblige.
Lily, though, is not quite so willing, and so she very deliberately draws her wand and leaves, casting a Protego behind her as she goes that would protect the remainder of everyone who left.
When she reaches the edges of the battle, she pauses for a second before noticing a hooded man to her right beginning to cast a spell at the man from Flourish and Blotts, who is immersed in his own battle. Without even pausing to thing, she stuns him, and then after a second casts Incarcerous and takes his wand.
She casts a Disillusionment Charm on herself and repeats the process with every Death Eater she can, marvelling internally at how-well, how not terrified she is. She'd expected battle to be far more bloody and adrenaline-packed than this. Maybe she's not doing it right.
It changes, though, when she sees him. He's-it's not like he's dying, or anything, it's not like he's wandless or defenceless or losing terribly. He's doing okay, fighting back to back with Sirius, and there's a sight she could have predicted that first September day when they met. He's holding his own, but she is filled with something like panic that leaves her momentarily unguarded, because he's fighting Death Eaters and he could die and what would she do then? What would the world do, without a James Potter in it, because the space he fills is so completely, uniquely his that it simply has to be filled by him, and it would be worse than she could imagine, being at Hogwarts, being magic without him, and that by itself is frankly terrifying.
But at the same time, he looks so-so natural, almost, fighting with both a measured calculation and a gleeful abandon in Diagon Alley, like this is where he is meant to be, like this is where he truly belongs, and she thinks, well thank Merlin he's on our side. Because this is the thing about James Potter: he's a git, sometimes, but he makes up for it by being him, and being him means that he's going to fight for what he thinks is right, and maybe he'll die for it but he doesn't care.
(And come on, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't really quite attracted to him, because nobody couldn't be, not with that look in his eyes)
And this is the frankly inappropriate moment at which Lily Evans realises that she has a massive crush on James Potter.
And then, having resolved that, she ducks back into battle.
x
So they don't really see each other after Diagon Alley, because Lily has to hand over the wands that she pocketed to the Aurors, and Remus, having finally tracked down James and Sirius, Apparates them firmly home after the battle has finished, ignoring their protests because, as he puts it, 'monumental idiots do not have any say in anything from now on because they are idiots who don't even wait for their friends before they go rushing into bloody battle like idiots', and there isn't much arguing with that.
But on the Hogwarts Express, they have to draw up plans for Prefect Meetings and patrol times and all sorts of not fun at all Headly duties which makes the smile drop of James face immediately, and they can hardly avoid each other then.
Lily is not quite certain what to do considering her newfound feelings, so in the timeless tradition of teenagers everywhere, she shuts them up inside a box in her mind and sits on it quite emphatically, resolving to treat James as normal.
She's not quite sure whether it works, but James doesn't seem to notice, and so she breathes a sigh of relief.
x
He notices.
He thinks he's imagining it at first, but then it keeps happening. It isn't anything, really, but she seems to treat him more...carefully than normal. Making sure their hands don't brush when she passes him the pumpkin juice. Stiffening up when he leans against her in mock exhaustion during Defence one morning, before very consciously relaxing. Choosing her words with more care. It's odd, and he can't quite figure it out.
He asks his friends, and Remus looks at him pityingly, before saying something maddeningly obscure about figuring it out himself. Sirius shrugs, but looks at him sharply, and Peter says, 'Maybe she likes you.'
Which is stupid, obviously, and so he says so.
It's a mystery, but then again, when has Lily Evans ever not been a mystery to him?
x
It's Halloween.
They're doing rounds, and it's getting late, maybe approaching midnight. They're almost done, but they've developed the habit of popping to the kitchens and getting whatever delicious baked good is there that day and going and sitting in this abandoned old room on the second floor, which must once have been some kind of dressing room but is now abandoned because it's too small to take classes in. In any case, it's dusty and old, and there are some wooden, empty shelves on the wall, and a tiny little balcony, with a low, rough-cut wall that they generally sit on and talk for a while.
(This habit developed over time, because James claimed that patrolling made him hungry)
So this is where they are right now, with a bowlful of cookies and a sky full of stars hanging over their head. They're quiet, for once, and it's beautiful outside. The lake can be seen, just about, from where they are, and there is a pearly sheen of moonlight over it, causing it to glow dimly. The mermaids are singing, and in the quiet of the night, the melodies can just about be heard.
"Happy Halloween," says James, slinging an arm around her shoulder. She stiffens and then relaxes again, turning to face him.
"Happy Halloween," she agrees, smiling. "You know, when I was a kid, Halloween was always my favourite."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. We'd get lots of sweets and watch scary films all day. If it was nice, my mum would take us trick-or-treating. I used to dress up as a witch. Green skin, warts and all."
He laughs. "Really? Green skin?"
"Yeah. I was relieved when it turned out that I didn't have to go through cosmetic surgery to become a witch, I can tell you that."
He chuckles again, and glances at her. She's still looking at him, and it's still quiet, so quiet. Not even the owls are out yet. In the lake, a tentacle emerges, before retreating silently. And he's never felt like this before, and he just knows she feels it too. So it's not a surprise when she says, so soft he can barely hear it, "Can I kiss you?", and he doesn't think, "Yes," spills out of his mouth like it was waiting there all along.
And he swears he never really loved her before because god, how could he when he'd never felt this? He feels as if the doors to Lily Evans are swinging open and the world of her is before him, all her hopes and fears and dreams and loves. She's feeling a million different emotions, happiness and nervousness and affection and fear and contentment, and he can feel it, and that's never happened to him before. There's nobody who's ever been laid out for him like this, and he lays himself down for her in return, because honestly, he's helpless. She closes her eyes and lets out this little sound and this is the best moment of his young life so far, and between mates and Maraudering and Animagus and the pure exhilaration of flying, that is saying something.
And in three years, it will be gone, but between now and then they will create something so shining that it will last forever.
And people will mourn them when they die, but they would do it again and again and again.
Because this is the real beginning, this is the start of something magnificent, and it is perfect.