Lily's Rock

The world is slowly crashing down around Lily Evans. The days are becoming darker and longer. Her friends and her family are becoming quiet and they all wear the same expression of hopelessness. Each day another person goes missing or turns up dead.

Lord Voldemort is on the move.

Lily's only in her seventh year at Hogwarts, but she knows too well what is going on in the world around her. Every day she sees people joining him. She's lost her best friend, Severus, to him. People are dying and it's all his fault.

So, every day she takes comfort in normalcy, things that aren't changing even as the world does. She still goes to her classes during the week days. She still goes to Hogsmede every other Saturday. She still fights endlessly with James Potter.

It's silly and she knows it. When she fights with him though, it makes her forget all of the awful things going on. She finds herself picking more fights with him; at least once a day.

She can't stop because it shows her that not everything has to change. He's been her rock, whether she knows it or not.

But halfway through seventh year it all stops. He doesn't talk to her anymore. He doesn't try to pick a fight. He cuts of communication completely. She has lost her rock and is losing what is left of her sanity.

So that is why she sits in the Gryffindor common room, on a rainy Tuesday night. Well, actually it is a Wednesday morning, 3 in the morning, and she weeps. She lies on the couch facedown in a pillow to quiet her sobs but the effort is futile.

That is the where Sirius and James find her. She doesn't hear them approach or speak to one another.

"Do something." James desperately ordered his best friend.

"Why should I? She's your girl." Sirius whispered back.

"No she's not, she hates me." James said, not meeting Sirius' gaze.

"Grow some balls Prongs. We can't just leave her like this." Sirius said and gave James a push before he went back upstairs to their dorm.

So James cautiously walked up to a sobbing girl, terrified out of his mind and said, "Hey Evans."

Lily jumped up so fast she nearly fell off of the couch. She readjusted herself so she sat cross-legged, hugging a pillow to her chest. She said in a shaky voice, "W-what do y-you want?" She sniffled.

"What's wrong?" He asked sitting down next to her and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Everything." She cried. "Severus. Voldemort. You." She felt miserable, but couldn't find the strength to run away.

"What did I do?" James asked slightly offended but he softened as he saw her lip start to quiver again.

"Y-you've b-been avoiding me." She couldn't believe she was actually telling him this. She couldn't even say that she had kept her pride when this was all over.

Then James did something so crazy and wild as he'd ever done. He hugged the crying woman to his chest and she cried his shirt to a soaking wet state, but James didn't mind. They stretched out so she was on top of him and miraculously, they fell asleep.

Lily murmured, before she fell asleep, "I love you." She didn't know James was still awake and she didn't remember ever saying it. But either way, it left James speechless. He didn't know if she'd said it because of her exhausted state or if she actually meant it. Eventually he learned she did mean it. And, after all, he was still her normalcy and her rock; it just shifted a teeny bit.

AN: So I enjoyed writing this fanfic to get rid of my writer's block for another story. Please review.