Author's Note: This is the first story I've written for here in years. I was experiencing a bit of writer's block and decided write this. I have a ton written already, so I will be posting fairly frequently. Enjoy!
Lily stared out of the window, watching the scenery blur past. She was exhausted after spending most of the night giggling and chatting with her closest friend and fellow Gryffindor, Marlene McKinnon. She sat in her compartment alone, Marlene making her rounds. She was quite content in the quiet, her eyelids hanging heavily and great yawns escaping every few minutes. She was anxious to return home, to sleep on her lumpy old mattress for the first time in months, to see her gentle and kind mother and father, and even her uptight sister. She was just starting to doze off despite her valiant efforts to stay awake when she started at the hiss of the compartment door opening.
"Took you lot long enough," she began, turning towards the sound, a smile just beginning to curve her lips. "Oh, it's you." Her gaze froze, ice cold, and her mouth pinched into a tight frown. "Please leave."
Severus Snape's eyes met hers with a look of longing and desperation. His face crumpled at her expression. "Lily, please. Just let me –"
"Out!" she cried, voice on the verge of shrill. She was exhausted and quickly becoming in danger of losing her shit. She willed herself to just calm down. She didn't want the whole ruddy train to come looking for a show. "All bloody year I've told you to just leave me be. You've chosen your path – you've made that very clear – and I've chosen mine. You've had your chance to prove me wrong. I don't want to hear anything else you've got to say." She pulled out her wand, eyes hard and determined. "Leave." If he wouldn't go on his own, she would force him.
He hung his head, shoulders slumped, and left muttering inaudibly. Lily felt guilty, if only a little, as she watched him walk away. He had, after all, once been her dearest friend. After their very public falling out at the end of fifth year, however, they had hardly spoken. The first time he had tried to apologize, she had tried to hear him out, but the slur he had hurled her way after she had defended him from James Potter and Sirius Black – again – really had been the last straw. She had tried for years to ignore his fascination with the dark arts, his pureblood supremacist friends, and his distasteful views of Muggles. She had tried very hard for too long. So when that foul word had slipped past his lips and slapped her across the face, and he made it clear that he had chosen his dark arts and sadistic friends over her, she cut ties with him completely. Potter and Black, despite their age old lineage and pure blood, had roared at Snape's affront that day by the lake, demanding apology. However much Lily loathed their bullying and arrogance – as she reiterated then – she had to admit that they weren't all bad. They were two of the too few and far between that openly (and loudly, for that matter) supported Muggle-born rights. Immature they might be, but she had to give them that.
Speak of the devil, Lily thought ominously. Potter, Black, and their other best mates, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, had just been about to pass by her compartment when they noticed her.
"All right, Evans?" Potter drawled, a smile tugging at his lips as he leaned against the door jam, his friends behind him.
"Never better," she lied, hoping he didn't noticed that her eyes were just a bit too shiny, no doubt glistening with the tears she was desperately attempting to hold back. As convicted as she was about Severus, an encounter with him never failed to mess with her emotions, to make her angry enough to curse everyone in her path, to make her grieve the love and friendship she had lost.
His brow furrowed and a mass of black caught his eye scurrying down the car. Snape. He frowned when he recognized him, realizing he must have come to harass Lily some more, as he had been all year. Sirius followed his gaze, and presumably his train of thought, before emitting a low growl. Sirius loathed all of that pureblood mania bullshit just as much as James, if not more.
"Mind if we join you? Everywhere else is full." It was his turn to lie. He didn't want to leave her alone, not when she looked as though she were about to burst into tears any second, and definitely not with Snape lurking about. A year ago, he would have chased after Snivellus and hexed him eight ways from Sunday for affecting her this way. He still wanted to – oh, how the rage boiling his blood begged for it. But he knew it would only upset her more, and he had spent all year trying very, very hard not to upset her (over anything that was actually important, at least – he still lusted after the fire that glinted in her eyes whenever he had truly pissed her off). Honestly, he felt rather guilty for the part he played in the downfall of her friendship with Snape, despite how pleased he was that she had finally cut him loose. He knew it would have happened eventually, Lily was just too good to be suffocated by the obsession Snape harbored of the darkest magic, but for it to happen like that, with such a hateful word and shameless disdain. It disgusted him, and he was disgusted with himself for pushing Snape too far.
She sighed, knowing it wasn't worth the argument as he flopped into the seat beside her, followed closely by Sirius, Remus, and Peter.
"Happy to be going home, Lily?" Remus asked after he had settled into a seat beside Sirius.
Remus and Lily had always gotten along well. He didn't have a single drop of the arrogance that James and Sirius shared. She had attributed this to his condition. Lily had deduced Remus' lycanthropy towards the end of their first year (a feat she was quite proud of, considering his best friends didn't connect the dots until the following year), though she didn't let on that she knew – what business was it of hers if he went through a gruesome transformation once a month? – until they became prefects. After receiving their patrol schedules and noting his panic, Lily had leaned over and whispered, almost inaudibly, "Don't worry – I'll cover for you." Of course, his panic did not subside until after she had taken him aside and reassured him (about thirty times) that she didn't give a hoot what he turned into once a month. "After all," she had said with a wink, "I turn into a monster once a month too." He had laughed quite loudly at that and they had remained close since.
"Very happy," she nodded, her eyelids drooping even more. James noted her exhaustion, not to mention her reluctance at the intruders of her solitude, and began chatting with the rest of the Marauders as Sirius and Peter settled into a game of chess and Remus pulled out a novel. Sometime during their first game, Lily fell asleep with the comforting sounds of the Marauders surrounding her and her head resting uncomfortably against the window. Sometime during their second game, Lily's head ended up in James' lap. He was grinning so widely, his cheeks hurt.
"Careful there, Prongs," Sirius laughed. "Wouldn't want your face to get stuck like that – you look deranged."
James rolled his eyes, but didn't even attempt to remove his smile. James had been infatuated with Lily Evans for six years. At eleven, James hadn't realized what exactly it was that drew him to her. All he wanted to do was be close to her. Though, as an eleven year old (self-proclaimed) mischief maker, the only way he knew how was to tease her. He would tug on her braids, jinx her, and engage in monstrous shouting matches. Even hexing the Slytherins – self-righteous bastards – didn't bring him nearly as much joy as sparring with Lily, whether it be verbal or with their hefty arsenal of hexes and jinxes. This continued until their third year, when James realized that not only was Lily fun to play with (because, to him, that's all it ever was – good-natured fun) but she was brilliant and undeniably beautiful as well. Once he grasped the reasons behind his attraction, he did the only logical thing he could think of – he asked her out. When she declined, he asked again (maybe she was just playing hard to get – his mum seemed to think so anyway). This cycle repeated, however, until the end of fifth year. Each time she refused, he was devastated, though he tried his damnedest to never let it show. He didn't understand why she was so reluctant to let him show her how much he cared for her, how much he wanted to get to know her. He knew he was handsome, witty, and just as intelligent as she (though decidedly less diligent with his studies). Maybe that awareness made him self-centered, or conceited, but he didn't see it that way. As far as he was concerned, they were just facts. And the fact of the matter was that they would be perfect together. He just knew it. Why was she so adamant in ignoring it?
Remus pointed out last summer, after one of James' many Lily-centric soliloquies, that she had said on many occasions that he was too arrogant and too much of a bully. James had waved it off, but the notion stuck with him. He pondered it all summer. Sure, perhaps he was a touch arrogant, but he had a right to be, didn't he? In all honesty, he was talented, in both Quidditch and all of his studies. Was he supposed to pretend that he didn't know that he was? That seemed an awful lot like lying, something James wasn't exactly comfortable with if he didn't have a good reason (such as Moony's furry little problem). He said as much to Remus, privately of course – Sirius would have taken the mickey out of him if he'd heard. Once again, Remus had given James another invaluable bit of advice.
"You don't have to pretend that you aren't talented, Prongs, but don't let it overshadow who you really are. We know that you're kind and supportive and unfailingly loyal, but has Lily ever had the opportunity to see that? Has she even been shown how helpful you can be or how thoughtful? Your abilities with your broomstick and your wand, I think, would be only secondary to her compared to that."
Thank Merlin for Moony. James had taken his words to heart and spent all of the past year desperately attempting to rectify his behavior. Now that he thought about it, he could see why she hadn't been able to look past his actions to see the man he truly was – he had never given her the chance to. He found that life was a bit easier this way, without all the dueling and snide remarks. He certainly spent less time in detention – who knew how much free time you could have when you didn't spend all night scrubbing the castle the Muggle way? But it seemed to all be in vain. Lily continued to treat him with indifference at best – and outright scorn at worst. Though now that he thought of it, they had barely rowed since the start of sixth year. A year ago, if he had invited himself into her compartment, she would have gone red in the face with all her shouting. Today she had merely sighed and fallen asleep on him. Perhaps he was making progress after all. He hadn't even asked her to Hogsmeade since the incident with Snape. He had decided to hold off as asking didn't seem to help his case any (and had never failed to light her up with fury). In any case, the next time he asked her out, he wanted to be sure the answer would be yes.
He ran a hand through his already tousled hair, unsure of what to do with the sleeping girl in his lap. A rather large cluster of butterflies twittered about in his stomach as he studied her. She was stunning, truly. Her dark red, loose curls were fanned across his lap, some sticking to her face and neck at odd angles. Her lips were parted slightly and he could hear the barest whisper of a snore. She looked so peaceful. If he was being honest with himself (often he tried not to be – it was usually too painful), he could picture spending the rest of his life with her. He could see her, this, being a permanent fixture in his life. He could imagine studying with her, eating with her, watching her wake in the morning and fall asleep at night. He could see them moving into a flat together, buying a home. He could envision them cooking dinner and keeping up with the housekeeping. He couldn't think of anything he wanted more.
Lily shifted several times as she slept, but never strayed from James' lap. James kept his friends from getting too rowdy, desperate not to wake her. He didn't want to anger her in an attempt to continue their precarious civility, but the longer she slumbered, the greater his desire to touch her became. His will power soon left him, and he ran his hands through her hair, rubbed soothing circles on her back, trailed his fingers over her soft arms. He couldn't help himself. His skin thrilled at the feel of her. All too soon, however, the train began to slow, eventually stopping and alerting all but one of its passengers to their arrival at King's Cross.
"Lily?" James murmured, lips close to her ear. "Lily, it's time to wake up. The train's stopped."
She merely groaned in response.
"Lily, you've got to wake up."
"No," she grumbled.
"Yes, love. You've got to get up."
"I don't want to," she whined.
"Come on," he chuckled. "Don't you want to see your mum?"
At this, her eyes popped open. A moment later, she was upright, back straight, and tense as can be.
"James." His names was a strange mixture of a gasp and accusation.
It was the first time she had ever used his first name.