He had changed.
She can't quite put a finger on him now, which is strange since she has never wanted for unpleasant adjectives to describe him. But he certainly isn't the boy who had boarded the Hogwarts express for home at the end of sixth year. He has lost that certain boyish effervescence, that youthful joyfulness, replaced by a more intelligent, quieter charm.
This hits her one Tuesday at breakfast in the Great Hall. She puts down her glass of pumpkin juice, struck by the randomness and the truthfulness of this realization. Not sure where it's coming from, she swallows her toast and wipes the crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
He doesn't hang out with the Marauders as much as he used to. Previously, they had been this force, an irrepressible mixture of merriment and excitement and danger. Everyone lived vicariously through them, and when they walked down the hall together, people turned, moved out of the way, smiled at their antics and called out greetings in laughter.
Now, he walks the halls alone a lot more. Studies with Remus. Plays chess with Peter. But of course they all still gather, center stage, in the Gryffindor common room each evening. Sometimes, it's like the old days, with games of exploding snap and uproarious laughter and empty sweets wrappers littering the floor like colorful blossoms spouting from the carpet. But sometimes, they're serious. Somber, even. Heads bent over the fire, talking intently and quietly.
She cannot recall ever seeing Sirius Black brood before, and the sight of it creates an uncomfortably foreign lump in the middle of her ribcage. They are growing up, becoming men, actual men, men with responsibilities and burdens who make sacrifices and do the right things and it scares her. She wants to keep up with them, but she doesn't want to change. Time slips through her fingertips, and the decision is not for her to make.
Soon they will all be out in the real world, out in a real war.
It is all rather heavy contemplative material for breakfast, and she hoists her bag over her shoulder, tucks a book into her elbow, and heads for the greenhouses.
Looks like rain today.
His dating habits have changed too, she realizes suddenly, while harvesting pulsing pods of medicinal pus from writhing ropes of magical ivy. Last year, he'd bothered her for a date every week, but in the meantime he'd gone out with other girls. Deanna Abbott. Eun Jun Kim. That pretty Hufflepuff in the year below them with the golden curls, Margot something.
But this year, he hasn't acquired a single new girlfriend.
And he hasn't asked her out once.
She stands in the middle of the greenhouse, bucket of pods aloft, contemplating this, so preoccupied with the notion that she doesn't notice the Venus flytrap sneaking up behind her until it begins gnawing viciously on her shoulder. She shrills, pods flying everywhere, and falls over with the Venus flytrap landing happily on top of her. Class is disrupted for ten minutes as Professor Sprout and a few boys wrestle it away, and by the end her shirt is missing a sleeve and the back is in tatters, and she has sustained several unsightly cuts to her arm and torso. Professor Sprout lends her a burlap sack to cover up and sends her to see Madam Pomfrey.
"And, let's see… Mr. Potter! Would you be so kind as to escort Ms. Evans to the Hospital Wing, please?"
He removes his gardening globes, calmly gathers his supplies and leads the way.
They are quiet until the front doors.
He glances at her as they ascend the stairs. "You alright?"
"Y-yeah…" she says, awkwardly clutching the burlap around her shoulders, more embarrassed than hurt. The blood on her fingers is dry now and she doesn't want to tell him that she's been thinking about him all morning.
"You look good," he says. "Potato sacks are a good look for you."
She looks at him.
His mouth twitches.
She lifts an eyebrow. "I should wear it more often."
"Maybe without the blood stains next time," he answers, swinging open the door for her gallantly.
After dropping her off at the Hospital Wing, he promises her his Herbology notes and bids her goodbye. As Madam Pomfrey runs her wand over her cuts, healing them instantly, she thinks about him some more. Last year, if James Potter had been asked to walk her to the Hospital Wing, he would have stayed and teased her, demanding a kiss in exchange for her safe delivery. This year's James Potter left to meet his friends for lunch.
Huh.
"So what's wrong with him going to lunch?" Alice asks around a forkful of mashed potatoes. She stops her perusal of the latest Madam Malkin's catalogue and gives Lily a look. "Why do you even care?"
She should have left it alone instead of confiding in her friends. "No reason. Well, I dunno, really," she amends honestly. "I've been mulling it over all day. It's just that he's bothered me all my time at Hogwarts. And now, suddenly, nothing! Doesn't that seem strange?"
"At least it's not the other way around, and he's gotten more annoying," Alice points out. "He's finally leaving you alone. You should be happy. Sixth year Lily would be ecstatic right now."
Lily does not feel like she's just been granted a wish seven years in the making. Her reaction to his change is much more alarming than his actual behavioral change.
"But we've never left each other alone before," she tries to explain, as they rush to the dungeons. Peeves made a surprise appearance at lunch, flying up and down the four long tables and flinging spoonfuls of jam at students. And it's true. They've insulted and argued and challenged and bothered and angered and told the truth but they've never ignored each other.
She dabs absentmindedly at a spot of jam on her collar (Peeves' aim has improved of late), and lifts her fingers to her nose. Peach. Possibly apricot. One shirt shredded and blood-stained in Herbology, another sticky with poltergeist jam. Rather a poor day for her wardrobe. Suddenly, she's aware that Alice is nudging her insistently under the table. She turns, puzzled, to find the entire class and Professor Slughorn staring at her.
"…My dear?" Slughorn prompts gently. "Would you like me to repeat the question?"
"Erm…" Lily flushes, her traitorous gaze flickering automatically to James' table. James looks directly back at her. She focuses on Professor Slughorn. "Yes, sir."
"You seem a little distracted, my dear girl," Professor Slughorn says, as she walks up to his desk to deposit her essay at the end of class. His eyes twinkle. "Studying hard for the N.E.W.T.S., I'm sure?"
Lily feels herself blushing for the second time in an hour under his gaze. "No, sir. Inconvenient realizations, that's all." In response to his curious regard, she adds hastily, "And also, I was attacked by Professor Sprout's flytrap earlier."
Slughorn chuckles, "Very well. But you know, you can talk to me any time, about anything at all. I'm an expert in affairs of the heart!" he calls after her retreating back.
Lily attempts to pass her wince as a reassuring smile, and ducks out of the room.
She's always been a straightforward, honest girl. And her relationship – no, wrong word – her interactions with him have been, if nothing else, brutally honest to the point of being hurtful. So after spending an evening sitting in a quiet corner of the common room, chewing a Sugar Quill and thinking about him, about his behavior and his eyes and the way his shirt stretched around his torso when he shifted, she feels highly disgusted towards herself and decides to do something about it.
"Potter," she calls confidently as he appears through the portrait hole with the Marauders.
He waves the others onto the dormitory steps before him and looks at her expectantly.
"Erm," she says, losing her nerve. "Erm… Your Herbology notes?"
"So," she begins in a pitch much higher than normal as he sits down across from her and begins rummaging around in his book bag. "How… You know… How are things?"
"Fine," he answers, handing her several leafs of parchment covered in scratchy text and bordered with doodles.
She takes the notes, spends a moment collating them while spurring her brain to come up with some excuse to detain him, talk to him. "Well…" she says, avoiding his eyes. Nothing. Seven years of magical education supplemented by extensive recreational reading, and she's got nothing. "Well… goodnight, then!"
And with that she hurries to the staircase of the girls' dormitories.
Gryffindor courage, what utter bollocks.
"Wait, Lily," he calls after her, his voice deep and rich.
She freezes, turns, filled with a kind of inexplicable hope. What she is actually hoping for, she can't put words to.
He rubs the bridge of his nose, and when he stops his glasses are askew. "We should talk about the Prefect meeting tomorrow."
She blinks stupidly. "Oh."
"I'm free after Quidditch practice at ten."
"Oh," she recovers ungracefully. A beat passes and she realizes that he's waiting for a response. "That should be fine."
"We'll meet in the usual?"
"Yeah," she watches as he stretches out his legs in front of him and ruffles his hair, looking exhausted. "Goodnight, James."
He's already pulled out two books and a quill. "'Night," he says.
Thanks for reading! Please review. :) I haven't written fiction in a while, so it may sound slightly rusty. This will likely be cranked out in the next several weeks, and consist of four or five chapters.
Enjoy!
- Z