A little 6th year action. I was going to add this to The One, but decided to let it stand alone at the last second. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!
"That ice cream will replenish itself, you know. You should take smaller bites. Or deeper breaths." Cassidy MacDougal observed, eyeing Lily with just a touch of disdain.
Cassidy was the kind of blunt that not many girls wanted to be mates with, but at the very first Slug Club party Alec Mulciber had called her a prude, and she'd promptly declared "bugger off, toad" and stomped on his foot. Her and Lily had been friends – reluctantly at times – ever since.
"Well," Lily began, dragging her spoon through her dessert so that it clanked noisily against the glass bowl, "as far as meet and greets go, no one is meeting me or greeting me, so I figure I should at least enjoy the meal, yeah?"
"Try not to take it personally." Cassidy offered.
Lily stopped twirling the spoon and lifted her head, an ironic smile on her face. "What about this isn't personal, Cass?"
For all her gumption, though, Cassidy lacked a fair bit of tact – and that was unfortunate.
"Technically, no one is ignoring you based off of your intelligence, or your personality – or..or your morals—."
"No," Lily cut in sharply. "Just my blood. My heritage. My family. Nothing personal."
The other girl crossed her arms. "Sitting here in a foul mood isn't helping your case any."
Lily took a moment to soak in her fellow Prefect's pitying look, and then another for her casual demeanor – the way she still surveyed the room eagerly and with a certain degree of self-assurance. And suddenly she couldn't agree more.
"You're right. I need some air."
Without another word, she slid her chair back, stood, and smoothed her skirt. She breezed past Cassidy, a number of Slughorn's most elite professional colleagues, and even Severus Snape. She briefly caught the gaze of the latter, whose dark eyes locked with Lily's bright green for merely a few seconds before she directed her focus squarely on the exit ahead. She pushed it open as swiftly as she swept the thought of her former best mate from her mind, and only started really and truly breathing again once she could feel the night air in her lungs and the cool iron door at her back.
Closing her eyes, she heaved a great sigh.
"Are these things always this stressful?"
She blinked several times, quickly processing that this familiar voice belonged to exactly whom she thought it did. The intruder in question was sitting with his legs dangling off the hand railing – a fact that put Lily on edge nearly as much as his identity. And yet she wasn't quite sure why she was so affected. They'd been on decent terms for the better part of the year, and the boy was bloody everywhere lately, so why was her heart back to racing?
"What are you doing here?" She tried her best to conceal her shock with annoyance.
"Moon gazing." He answered simply, grinning and turning his head back to the sky.
"Moon gazing?" She repeated back lamely, choosing to ignore – for now, at least – that this did not particularly answer her question.
He glanced back again, shifting his body to an even more nerve-wracking angle, one that he didn't seem to be bothered by in the slightest. "It's in my favorite phase. Waxing gibbous. The first phase of the second half of the lunar month. More than half of the moon is illuminated, so it's bright and – y'know, big – but it's not a full moon."
She was only half listening. "Can you climb down, please? You're giving me anxiety – sitting up there like that."
"I'm not what's giving you anxiety, Evans. It's like I said—." He tilted his head briefly toward the inside. "future—stressful."
"Yes, well, I came out here for a breather and I'm having rather a lot of trouble with that while you're practically dangling off the edge of the castle! Come down, Potter."
"Are you afraid of heights, Evans?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you afraid of the ground? You don't seem to want much to do with it."
"The ground? Nuh-uh. No complaints here. Sturdy. Dependable. Overall quite walkable."
"Merlin, James, can't you ever just—."
"Hey—" He cut in, " You called me James."
She paused, swallowing. "That's neither here nor there. Could you please just—."
And he jumped. Not off, that is, but down.
"Better?"
And she was, a bit. Strangely enough. She nodded.
"Er, remind me why you're here again. As in, at this party. At this party that you've been dodging like a bludger for the better part of three years."
"I don't dodge. But I appreciate the metaphor. I've just been busy."
She raised her eyebrows. "Busy? Two weeks ago Slughorn asked if I thought you and Black might be finished your tutoring session in time to show. The pair of you were playing Gobstones in the Common Room when I'd left."
James was unfazed, nodding along. "Sirius is rubbish at Gobstones. If a friend asks you to bestow knowledge upon them, couldn't one describe that as tutoring?"
Her lips twitched. "How about when you had to stay in the dorms because 'Peter was sobbing into his pillows and needed a dry shoulder and a spot of tea'?"
"Jan Hastings stood him up! Granted, it wasn't the first time, but a bloke never gets used to waiting alone in a broom cupboard for three hours." He stroked his chin. "And I'm nearly positive I drank tea that night. I drink a lot of tea, Evans, stop judging me."
She cocked an eyebrow. "What about last month when you cancelled last minute because your beloved tea leaves predicted a night of uncontrollable vomiting?"
"That was hardly the tea's fault – I'm rubbish at Divination." He paused, grinning. "Sirius is going to tutor me. At an unspecified but likely spontaneous time and place, mind you."
"Oh, naturally." She drawled, not quite giving in to the urge to smile. "And the one and only other time you came and left early because you were having a severe allergic reaction to Slughorn's cat?"
His eyes widened in innocence. "What about it?"
"You have a cat, Potter. I would know because you tried to gift it to me for my birthday last year."
"All cats are different! Perhaps Wimby is hypoallergenic. And that has to be rare, Evans, so can we both agree that that was a major loss on your part?"
"Your cat isn't—. Nevermind." She took a deep breath and massaged her forehead. "It's almost uncanny how quickly you can give me a headache."
"It's not my proudest record, I'll say that." A pregnant pause, and then: "I'm not…I wasn't trying to…I like to be distracted, all right? If I'm feeling…unsettled. I thought we might...have that in common. But apparently not."
She looked up and noticed immediately that he'd shoved his hands in his pockets and was arbitrarily scuffing his trainers against the stone floor.
"I thought that – I dunno – you needed a chat. But if I'm being a prat, which I clearly am, I can go back—."
He had begun to walk forward but Lily halted his movements with the raise of her palm. She appeared to be processing something very quickly and it took a few moments of slight awkwardness to prompt her.
She blinked at him. "Do you think that I could rage at you for a couple of minutes without you taking it too personally? I just need to get something out and you're…"
She faltered, blinking slowly again, and he sent her a sort of half-smirk.
"I'm someone who inspires headaches at an alarming rate and is standing ever so conveniently in your war path?" His tone was not malicious, though, but actually surprisingly light.
She bit her lip and nodded, apologetic but not hesitant. "Well, yes."
"Am I going to want to turn around for this, or?—"
But she was already letting the thoughts roll off her, pacing in place and speaking at a much quicker than normal rate: "It's just that…everyone in that room wants to talk to you. All of them. Go and pick one person and I guarantee they'll hang on your every word like you're the bloody king of the world! And why?"
He opened his mouth to answer, but this was apparently a rhetorical question.
"Why? Because you can just spew loads of shit and for some odd reason people find it charming! It doesn't matter that you don't deserve to be here – that you've done nothing to earn their respect! Hell, that you don't even want their respect. Everything is so damn easy for you and it's not fair! How come you care so little and I care so much and that means nothing?
Again, he tried to cut in and was swiftly interrupted.
"You have all these opportunities and you'll just piss them away. Do you know what it's like to just sit in there and be ignored? To know that I've tried my hardest and performed at my best ability and that none of them care? I've worked so hard and now…I'm worried, Potter, I'm very worried that it's all for nothing. That I'll leave school with no promise of a future and…and nothing waiting for me in the past. Do you…do you know that Mary told me last week that she's thinking of going to university after we graduate next year? She's afraid of what our world is becoming and she thinks that maybe that what they're saying is true. Maybe she doesn't belong here. Maybe I don't belong here."
Her voice had cracked at this admission, and James seized the opportunity.
"Fuck this, Lily. If you think I'm going to just stand here like a bloody mime for one more fucking second and listen to this—."
She looked even more pained. "You didn't deserve to be insulted, I—."
But he wasn't listening anymore and she was far off the mark. "—absolute load of dung about you not belonging here? Are you fucking kidding me? I watched you brew a Dreaming Draught in six minutes on Tuesday. And Slughorn said the quality was on par with anything he could make! Not to mention that you're the only Prefect tutoring in six subjects, every teacher bloody loves you, y-you lend Remus all your notes when h-his mum is ill and you don't even doodle in your margins…I know because he used to love my doodles until you and your bloody clean margins came around! 'Look, Prongs this is what words look like.' Pah. And r-remember when you wrote eight scrolls in History fourth year when Binns only asked for four—which granted, at the time, I called you a swot over, but that's—as you would say—neither here nor there. You're brilliant, Lily, and it's not any kind of a stretch for me to say that everyone around here knows it! And you're not some meek little mouse who waits in the corner for some stick-up-his-arse potioneer to bloody notice her; who runs outside and weeps 'poor me' to the bloke she despises."
And if she was expecting him to be embarrassed over this display, she would once again be mistaken because, though his cheeks had reddened with sheer effort, his chest had puffed out somewhat proudly and his eyes blazed with conviction.
And if he, in turn, was expecting her to rage back at him, or worse break down even further, he, too, would be very wrong.
Eyes wide, she let out a soft breath. "I don't despise you. You frustrate me, Potter. Merlin, you really truly frustrate me sometimes. But it's not…I don't….I just don't, okay?"
He let out a breath as well. "Okay."
And then she surprised him again. "Is that what you're like on the pitch?"
His brows furrowed. "Excuse me?"
"The Quidditch pitch," she clarified. "I always thought you were captain because you..your arm is rather good and you can dive so quickly—and, and turn and swoop. But that…that was like rebel rousing, Potter. I'm impressed."
His lips spread into a grin. "That's new."
At last, she cracked a smile in return, hugging her own middle. "Take the compliment, James."
"That's the second time you've called me that. Twice in one day? Hell, in one conversation? Are you sure you're feeling well?"
She rolled her eyes. "It is your bloody name, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, but I didn't know you knew that."
She narrowed her eyes at him for a minute, but some small part of her must have rebelled against this action because before she even realized that it was coming, she began to laugh.
"Merlin, I really must be sick or something. Think I should escort myself to the hospital wing before the unthinkable occurs?"
"Possibly. At this rate, another few minutes could have you thinking I'm a halfway decent bloke." He scuffed his trainers against the stone once more, looking at the ground and then lifting his head back up a fraction to reveal another grin. "Can't be having that."
She smiled again. "No, no we can't." A pause. "Thanks for letting me yell at you."
"I'm very much used to it. Did I mention that I had a condition, though?"
"I don't believe so. Do those still apply after the fact?" From deep inside somewhere – probably in the same traitorous part of her mind that had her laughing at this random encounter with James Potter of all people – she acknowledged that she was flirting a bit. With James Potter. Potter. Just Potter. She pushed these thoughts away as soon as they surfaced – she had enough rubbish on her plate at the moment, enough to be getting on with without the additional worry of whatever in Merlin's name this was.
"Unfortunately, yes. Pomfrey will have to deal with this sudden illness of yours tomorrow. For now, you're coming back inside with me."
"I don't particularly want to." She admitted, averting her eyes so that she was staring up at the moon. "I…er…I would like to moon gaze."
He let out a hoot of laughter. "No, no, no, no….we're going back inside. Both of us. I've decided it."
She crossed her arms. "And since when exactly do The Laws of James Potter reign supreme?"
He straightened then, readying himself, and she noticed for the first time how tall he'd grown in the last year. She barely came up to his shoulders anymore. When did he get so tall?
"Thing is, Evans, you've got me all riled up now. And no, I don't particularly want to go back in either." He stepped closer now so that there was only a foot or so of distance between them. "Truth is, I have to go back in at some point. My godfather – Charlie Ogden – he's MLEP…didn't know he'd be here until Dad wrote me last night, but, anyway, told him I was off to the loo over a half hour ago. Reckon he's going to give me another ten tops before he calls in the search party."
"Is Ogden the good looking one in the vest?"
"Oy, Evans, that's practically my uncle!" He wrinkled his nose. "Fancy older blokes?"
"Not exclusively." She grinned, and felt herself suppressing the strangest urge to flutter her lashes a bit. Quit it, head, that's quite enough.
Potter shot her a lopsided smile, his head tilted and gaze considerate. He opened his mouth to reply, but must have thought better of it and shook his head, the action seemingly directed inward rather than at Lily.
"I just want to play Quidditch." He stated abruptly. Though this was rather random, she was certain it wasn't what he had originally intended to say. Regardless, he continued: "That's…that's selfish, yeah?"
She studied him then: a tad flushed and unfamiliarly – disconcertingly – self-aware. What an odd pair they made tonight.
She shrugged. "You're sixteen, Potter. Knowing what you want in the slightest is rather good enough, I'd say."
He met her eyes straight on, his gaze piercing and engaged but now holding that usual hint of mischief. "S'pose it is." He closed the distance between them, and just as Lily's heart accelerated once more with the prospects of this proximity, she realized that he was merely brushing past her, playfully knocking her right shoulder with his own.
He spun so that he was walking backwards toward the door, and she turned to regard him.
"Are we Gryffindors or aren't we, Evans?"
"S'pose we are." She stepped forward, a hesitant smile playing on her face. "You better be right. I figure there's a first time for everything."
He laughed. "And Lily?" He grasped the door handle and held the entrance open with his left arm. "If I'm wrong, I hear that cat allergies can be contagious."
She joined in his laughter, and they re-entered the party together, chattering away in a show of camaraderie that would turn the heads of several peers.
And the night would end much better than it started. She'd walk right up and introduce herself to many of the esteemed professionals who hadn't spared her a second glance earlier on, confidently engaging them in a conversation about their expertise and unafraid to present herself in a manner that was bold, and witty and a bit brave (if she did say so herself). Sure, there were those who turned their heads when she spoke in a group, and even one who made a rather rude remark (after which a sniffing James Potter had appeared at her side and loudly inquired if there were any cats around), but that was okay.
She'd notice later on that the aforementioned wizard was gazing longingly at Wimbourne Wasps' player Chuck Herold while sandwiched between Charlie Ogden and a Prophet reporter. Excusing herself, she'd casually walk over and inquire, "Do you hear that?" The boy would give her a funny look, and she'd cup a hand to her ear. "Sounds like…sounds like Peter Pettigrew is crying." He'd let out a guffaw of laughter and Charlie Ogden would eye her strangely, but that was okay, too.
By evening's end, Imelda Marsden, author of one of her favorite books, would propose that she'd accept a two-week fellowship that summer to brew with her at an experimental symposium. Slughorn would make quite a deal of it, promising his own attendance and regaling the woman with tales of Lily's brilliance in class. She'd blush, and feel a knot in her chest loosen. She'd beam at Imelda and thank her gratuitously, and the woman in turn would ask about the merit of Lily's evening. She'd promise – not dishonestly – "I'll truly never forget it." And indeed, Lily would go on to remember this night quite vividly, and quite fondly…but perhaps not for that reason at all.