I ducked into a secret passageway, hoping to avoid the winding corridors that normally led to Gryffindor tower from this spot in the castle, cut down the time it took me to get to the common room, and go to bed as soon as possible. It had been a long day: Transfiguration had fried my brain, and I had several rolls of parchment in my bag on which I had just finished writing my various essays. The prospect of sleep had been the only thing keeping me alive through the day.
My mind was whirring away, jumping from one thing on my to-do list to the next. As I continued down the passageway, however (a cool stone one lit by magic torches; the Marauders supposed that it was built by the founders of the school, since it was inside the castle), I heard a strange, small gasp somewhere up ahead and to my right.
Looking closer, I saw that it was someone hunched against the wall and shaking. It was a boy, and his head was buried in his hands; he appeared to be crying. The situation made me nervous; how could I approach the boy without making things awkward?
Running my hand through my hair with uncertain nerves, I, being me, accidentally resolved my problem; I knocked a bobby pin out of my hair and it clattered to the ground, the usually minuscule noise echoing in the empty hall. The boy looked up and I let out a little gasp.
It was James Potter.
"Evans," he said quickly, "what are you doing here?"
"Remus told me about the passage, and I... er... thought I wanted to take the short way today..." He looked away and tried to wipe his eyes.
Something inside me woke up (kindness? pity? forgiveness?) and I was compelled to ask him what was wrong. Normally, I hated the stupid git and his smirk, but now, I felt nothing but compassion for the boy who had accidentally shown me, the girl he had been chasing after for years, his weak side. "James?" I half-whispered. "What's wrong?"
He looked at me for a second, uncried tears still glistening in his eyes. "It's my mum. She was killed... yesterday... on the way to work." He started crying again.
"Oh, James... I'm so sorry," I whispered as I walked over, sat down, and put my arm around him, somewhat awkwardly but hopefully in a comforting way. He paused his tears to blink at me, confused.
"You've never called me James before." I contemplated his observation and realized that it was true; I hadn't noticed that I had used his first name just then, and had no idea what had made me do it, but it didn't seem too terribly important.
He continued crying into my shoulder for a while, and I worried about the best way to comfort him; we had never had any serious interactions, and I didn't want to intrude on his privacy. After several minutes, he pulled away and I asked him if he wanted me to leave.
"No, no," he frantically assured me. "You may not need me, Lily, but I need you. Please, just stay a little."
"Of course. I only thought... you might've wanted privacy or something..."
He chuckled. "Why would you think that?" he mumbled sarcastically. "I've always wanted you, of all people, to see me crying."
"I don't mind, really," I told him. "It's actually... er... you actually have... emotions." Though it sounds simple, I had really only just seen that he had actual feelings; usually, with his cocky laughter and arrogant jokes, he seemed to me like there was nothing underneath. He chuckled again, then wiped his eyes with a certain finality that told me he was done crying. He sighed.
"Thanks for everything, Lily... We should probably get back to the common room now before we start patrolling."
"Agreed," I mumbled. He rose quickly, offering me his hands to help me up from the ground. I obliged and we set off down the passage together.
Upon climbing the stairs and walking the short remainder of the corridor, however, we found we couldn't get through to the other side. Though James pushed his hardest with all his Quidditch muscles (though I hated to admit it, they were definitely there), the door wouldn't open. All of a sudden, a realization hit me almost as jarring as my epiphany moments earlier about James Potter actually having emotions: The construction.
"James?" I asked frantically. "Didn't Dumbledore say that they were remodeling the corridor on the other side?"
"Yeah, so?" He was still pushing against the wall, which remained stationary despite his best efforts.
"So they might've moved something heavy against this wall." He slumped against it, defeated.
Staring at the ground, something else seemed to hit him. "And this is a one-way passage. The other door doesn't open from the inside." That possibility hadn't occurred to me.
James moved over so I could try a few spells on the door, but none of them seemed to be working. Apart from blasting the door open, which I was sure would mean a change in Head Boy and Girl, there was no other spell or charm I could think of. As I tried to contemplate the options, I realized with a sudden feeling of panic that there were none. I was stuck in this hidden passageway with James Potter.