For dimitrisgirl18's Big/Lil' Sis Competition, using the prompts: Pairing: James/Lily, Word: tears, Quote: "It's always easier to say good-bye when you know it's just a prelude to hello." -Maureen Johnson
Also for Fire The Canon's May Fanfiction Tournaments Competition, round one. The story must be written in the Marauder's era.
His eyes are wide with terror.
Hers are closed, unfeeling.
His heart beats ten times faster than usual.
Hers has stopped altogether.
He's crying, the tears streaming down his face silently as he shakes his head, whispering "No" over and over.
She's silent.
Shaking his head, he falls to his knees and touches her face, gently brushing his fingertips across her lips. He doesn't know when it happened. She was still sleeping when he woke, so he had walked down to breakfast with Sirius and the others, joking as always. Lily hadn't come down. After the meal, he had gone into the Heads' Dormitory to find her slumped on the ground, her body pale and lifeless.
He hasn't moved since. For a long while, he simply stares at her, disbelieving. Who could have gotten into the Head's dorm? No one would know the password, he reasons. But no matter how rational he tries to be, he can't help the tears falling from his eyes, and his heart from beating uncontrollably. It hurts. It truly, physically hurts him to see her gone, dead, empty like this. Even after only a month or so of dating, James knows that he was completely and hopelessly in love with her. But now, he knows it was all in vain, because there is no denying the fact that Lily Evans is dead, as dead as the once-golden dandelion wilting in her hair.
"A dandelion?" he had mocked her as she tucked the small flower behind her ear, "Behind the ear of a Lily? The irony is killing me." She had smirked- the smirk he had grown to love- and elbowed him, laughing. Taking James' hand, she pulled him along toward the castle, her lips tickling his ear.
"Come on," she had murmured. "We have to get back inside. It's getting late." Once they reached the dorms, she had kissed him gently before walking toward her room. "Night," she called over her shoulder.
"Bye, Lils."
He winces now to think how casually he said it, as though it were just another goodbye, no more significant than any other. And at the time, it wasn't.
But things don't always turn out the way they should; James understands this now. And goodbyes are always easier when you expect them to be followed by countless more hellos.
Maybe, James realises, we don't always know what we're saying when we say goodbye. Maybe we should treat every goodbye like it's the last. After all, things happen, and sometimes, the end comes quicker than it should.
James sighs, annoyed with himself. He isn't going to become a sappy romantic overnight, just because something bad happened to him; the other Marauders would get sick of that pretty quickly, and truth be told, so would he. Still, he figures it's a good point. We never really know when "the end" is; we usually just deny that life will end. And we waste the moments because of that. He wishes he could say goodbye just one more time, a real goodbye instead of simply a see you later. But now he has to say goodbye for real.
It was so much easier when it was simply a prelude to hello.