James Potter had not looked at the Marauder's Map in ages.
When he, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had made the stupid thing, they had sworn as solemn of an oath as teenage boys could that they would use it purely for mischief and that they would use it often. But lately, James couldn't look at it without making himself nauseous.
At night was the worst, because that was when he was most likely to see Lily Evans's dot locked inside a broom cupboard with some idiot bloke from another house. Last week it had been Adam Kearn from Hufflepuff, the week before it had been Justin Ferrah from Ravenclaw, and the Ravenclaw Seeker Kent had lasted a solid week and a half. At this point, James was somewhat used to being in love with someone whom the whole rest of the school deemed a slut, but it still gave him a sharp pang in the chest when he saw Lily's name next to (or rather, on top of) someone other bloke's name.
It had begun with the fifth year post-exams incident, he decided. Lily had been teetering on the edge of a large change, and she decided to go all in. When she came back from the summer holidays, she was doused in dark eye makeup and eternally grumpy, and she had been a "bad girl" ever since. She disrespected teachers, broke rules, and didn't have the cleanest mouth, the nicest manners, or the modest behavior that she used to have.
James was still bloody in love with her, but he missed the old Lily Evans.
Which was why he was so hesitant to look at the Marauder's Map on the night of November 16, 1977. "Prongs!" Sirius insisted, trying to drag him away from his Transfiguration book in the common room. "I'm serious, you've got to look at the Map, it's bloody ridiculous, I can't believe it and you've got to come now-"
"Padfoot, if it's another stupid bloke Evans has got wrapped around her pretty little finger, I'm not interested."
"But Prongs, it's not just any bloke!"
"Then who is it?" James demanded, slamming his book closed angrily and fearing somewhere in the back of his mind that Lily had managed to seduce Peter.
Sirius ran his fingers through his hair anxiously. "Snivellus," he admitted quietly, and James was out of his seat and through the Portrait Hole before he could say Snape.
The whole thing was bloody insane. He had called her the worst offense imaginable, he had devoted himself to the Dark Arts, he was practically a Death Eater already! How could Evans be so blind? How could she take him back after all of this? And not only as a friend, but as something more?! She would get hurt, so hurt, and he couldn't watch it again. That day in fifth year was the only time James had seen the way Lily's eyes got when she was hurt, and they had looked absolutely empty. That emptiness had been in the back of her eyes, hiding under all the fake brightness, ever since, and James couldn't stand to see it come to the forefront again.
When he approached the classroom where Sirius had seen Lily and Severus on the Map, he stopped in front of the door. Hearing nothing, he assumed they had cast a Muffliato charm and barged in without knocking.
"What the hell?" he demanded, but his shouts were just white noise in the background of even louder ones.
"Severus!" Lily was demanding. "I am my own person now! You cannot control me like you used to!"
"I never controlled you!" Severus shouted back. "You controlled everything I did! I was bloody in love with you and you manipulated it!"
"Manipulated it?!" Lily's laugh was a sharp, cynical bark. "You were so in love with me that you called me a Mudblood, is that it? You worshiped the Dark Arts to prove how good you were for me? You are completely mental, you ugly conniving git-" The rest of Lily's words were lost in the ensuing scuffling noises as she lunged for Severus, punching him repeatedly but without making much of a dent. James surged forward and pried her off as she kicked and screamed and looked around frantically for the third party.
Severus sputtered and leaned against one of the desks, staring incredulously at the figure that had just entered the scene. Lily finally stopped wriggling, pulled down her sweater that had ridden up, and whirled around to face whoever the idiot was that had prevented her from strangling Severus.
"Potter!" she practically spat. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Sirius saw you two on the map," James explained, suddenly sheepish. "And I… I thought that you had, er…" The realization of his prior assumptions dawned on Lily as she gave him a hard smack on the arm.
"James Potter, you are completely mental." He rubbed his tender bicep but said nothing. "And as for Severus," she continued with a dramatic flip of her head toward the greasy-haired git in question, "I can handle myself."
"Lily, I don't think you should be by yourself with him."
"Why?" she shot with another dramatic turn of the head. "Afraid I'll have a change of heart and we'll suddenly start snogging, is that it?"
"No," James explained, annoyed, "I'm more afraid of him using a Death Eater curse and you waking up in the Hospital Wing with half your limbs missing."
"Oh, please," Lily dismissed him. "I don't need your protecting."
"You may not need my protecting, but you definitely need some help," James snorted.
Apparently that crossed some sort of line with her-little did James know that Lily had snuck back into Hogwarts after her mum threatened to take her out and put her in a mental institution-because her green eyes turned steely with fury. "Get out, Potter," she said threateningly.
Severus had remained oddly quiet throughout the whole experience, but he seemed to have regained his composure. At this, he strode over to Lily's side and nodded enthusiastically. "You should leave, Potter," he added in agreement, and Lily turned her fury on him.
"Do not," she warned.
"Do not what?" he asked, his dark eyes narrowing as he stared down at her.
"Just don't, okay?" Severus didn't argue with this, and the conversation seemed to be put on pause for a few tense seconds. Then Lily took a few steps back, stared at the boys, and turned on her heel. Stomping out of the room, she screamed something like she had never met bigger idiots in her life and they should never speak to her again unless they wanted to be the victim of a particularly vicious Bat Bogey hex. And James and Severus were left in silence.
Fortunately, the latter left just as quickly after Lily, and James didn't have to deal with an impudent Snivellus on top of an irate Evans. He walked very slowly back to the Gryffindor Common Room, temporarily forgetting his privileged position as Head Boy and praying that no teachers would catch him. When he arrived, heads swiveled toward him quicker than Snitches. Apparently, everyone had heard the news, but he didn't quite feel like explaining as he marched up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. (Even Peter had figured out how to get past the boy-repellant charms the staff placed on them.) He marched straight into Lily's dorm without knocking, stopping for only a split second to convince himself that she probably wouldn't be changing.
"Marlene, I'm fine," Lily croaked from where she sat, head in her hands, on the bed.
"I'll be sure to pass on the message," James said dryly, clicking the door shut behind him and casting a Muffliato charm over the room for fear that things would escalate to a screaming match. Upon hearing his voice, Lily shot up from her hunched position and stared straight at him. Her dark makeup was running in lines down her cheeks, and her hair was in a rat's nest on top of her head, but she didn't seem to notice.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, wiping the lines of smudged makeup away. James stuttered for a moment trying to think of an answer, but didn't get a chance to vocalize his feeble response before she cut him off. "Oh, never mind that. I've got nothing to say to you, so you might as well leave," she said, looking down at the quilt.
"Lily, this needs to stop," James said firmly as his emotions finally bubbled up into coherence.
"What needs to stop?"
"You… shutting people out and yelling all the time and just being generally mean." Lily looked outraged at this, but he went on. "You're not Lily anymore!"
"I am too, Lily! I can be whoever I want, Potter, and it's not your job to decide who that should be!"
"What are you fighting? I cannot figure out what could possibly make you this constantly angry."
"Stop trying to control me!"
"I'm not trying to control you!"
"Oh, really? Because what you're saying sounds a lot like a command to change."
"I am not commanding you to change; I'm asking you to just let yourself be who you are! I am asking you to become the Lily I know you can be! I've seen her before! I fell in love with her hard and fast, and now she's gone and I need her, okay?"
"Well, sorry to disappoint, but she is gone for good. I am not your plaything, Potter! I am my own person!"
"I never said you weren't!"
"UGH!" Lily screamed, raking her fingers upward through the tangled mess on her head and pulling. She looked up at the ceiling of her four-poster for a moment to regain her composure. When she resumed the argument, her voice was soft but still full of fury. "This is the person I am now. Take it or leave it."
"Well, obviously I'm not leaving it."
"Why not?!" she groaned exasperatedly. He marched over to the bed and leaned to where his face was just inches from hers.
"Because there's something you're not telling me. And I'm going to figure out what it is and you are going to be Lily Evans again." Lily rolled her eyes and looked down at her scarlet quilt again.
"Just leave, Potter," she mumbled. He appeared to be on the verge of arguing and part of her hoped that he would, but he seemed to think better of it. As he turned for the door, a single tear slipped down Lily's cheek.
The next morning was a tense one as Lily nearly broke a plate at breakfast while passing the biscuits to James, but it definitely wasn't worse than the Prefects' meeting that night. James, unable to control his temper, started it off by telling all the Prefects that Lily would be handling this meeting on her own because she was her own person and didn't need anyone else in her life. At this, Lily demanded, "Potter. Corridor. Now," and stomped outside. They proceeded to have a brief screaming match in the hall which concluded only when Finch-Fletchley, a seventh year Hufflepuff, came out and reminded them that it was nearly time for supper and patrol schedules still needed to be composed. Lily and James argued passive-aggressively throughout the entire remainder of the meeting, but once the schedules were done, so were they.
Lily skillfully avoided James for the next few weeks while simultaneously shagging more boys than even Sirius could count. Some thought she'd beaten Black's record (her shagging blokes, him shagging birds, to clarify). One thing was clear: Nothing was going to get in between Lily Evans and whatever she wanted.
The weeks passed and all of a sudden, the Christmas holidays were upon them. Lily would be heading home to visit her sister and her parents as they prepared for Tuney's upcoming wedding, and the Marauders would be heading to their respective homes with the exception of Sirius, who was staying at the Potter mansion.
James couldn't let the holidays start with things the way they were between him and Lily, though. He worried that time apart would cement their current state as permanent, and he couldn't bear that. So when the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station, he shouted after the redhead all the way through the crowded compartment. Eventually all of the surrounding chatter stopped, and the only sounds were the hooting of ruffled owls, clunking of trunks, and James's shouts.
Lily, however, had gotten used to completely ignoring James. She brushed him off without so much as a backward glance, and he was left looking like a shouting lunatic. After they got off the train, he lost sight of her in the crowded chaos of Platform 9 ¾. Knowing full well that a letter by owl was not the best the way to manage these things, he sighed grimly to himself. Making things up with Lily would be a lot harder than he had hoped.
The drive to her home in Kent took longer than expected, which was unfortunate because Tuney kept shooting Lily death glares every five minutes. Lily was glad to get away from London, and more importantly, a certain messy-haired Quidditch Captain who so happened to reside there, but her sister's hatred put a bit of a damper on her Christmas spirit.
Still, it was the holidays and she had gotten her dad the most excellent Christmas present and holiday jumpers were just so adorable. The food would be grand. The tree would be decorated gorgeously.
But though all of this excitement could overcome her sister, it just couldn't overcome her mother.
Lily had forgotten the incident in which she left a note explaining her Hogwarts attendance and snuck off on the morning of September 1, a rebellion completely in opposition to her mother's wishes. Ever since Lily had gone on her rebellious streak, her mother had been campaigning to land her in a madhouse, and Lily had just narrowly avoided it by "borrowing" the car and stowing away on the Hogwarts Express. And though she had forgotten about disobeying her mother by sneaking off to school, Mrs. Evans certainly remembered.
The coldness which was evident in her first greeting to Lily remained throughout all that day and the subsequent ones. Lily would be at breakfast and ask for some jam for her biscuit and her mother would remark sarcastically that the jam at Hogwarts must be much better; she would be reading and her mother would ask sardonically if it was one of those fantastic spellbooks. Lily was accustomed to this kind of behavior from her older sister, but not from her mother, and especially not during the holidays.
On Christmas things took a turn for the worse. Apparently Lily's mother couldn't handle the holidays being tense, so she wanted to try and resolve everything. Lily was absentmindedly flipping through a magazine in her bedroom after the morning gift exchange when Mrs. Evans came in asking for chat. Though historically, those hadn't ever gone well, Lily relented and her mother sat down on the bed.
"Lily… I wanted to say I'm sorry for how I've treated you the past couple of days. It wasn't right, but I'm sure you know why I did it."
"You wanted to lock me up and I wouldn't let you." Her mother visibly winced at this dry remark, but Lily showed no emotion. "It's the truth," she reminded her. "It's what you wanted."
"Lily," her mother began, reaching for Lily's hand, which she pulled away. "I never wanted to… to put you away." Lily rolled her eyes inwardly as her mother began getting emotional. "I just… I want you to be better, sweetie."
"Mom, I'm fine. Absolutely, one-hundred percent sane."
"I'm not trying to say that you're crazy… you've just… changed, Lily. A lot. And I don't know how to handle this new Lily. I want the old one."
Lily stood up from the bed and threw her magazine down angrily. "Why does everyone keep wanting this old Lily back?!" she shouted. "She's gone!"
"Lily, sweetie, please stop shou-"
"No, Mom! Why? Why is it that everyone around me keeps looking at me like they expect that innocent little fifteen year-old to come back out? I have gotten rid of her. She's not there anymore. Why can't you just learn to love new Lily?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe old Lily wasn't so moody?" her mom shouted, rising from the bed as well. "Maybe old Lily was actually nice to people? Maybe old Lily was fun to have around?"
"Old Lily was a virgin," Lily offered up with a small devilish smile just to push her mother's buttons.
"Lily Evans, you will not speak of that behavior in this house!"
"You wanted to know what I was up to at Hogwarts, and I'm telling you: a whole lot of shagging!"
"Why are you doing this?!"
"Because I am in control of my own life! Me!"
"But why? Why has it gone this far?!" Mrs. Evans screamed. The pair fell silent.
In that moment, Lily could not remember why she'd ever started on her rebellious streak in the first place. She had no idea how she had gone so far down the road that she'd shagged every eligible bloke at Hogwarts and broken nearly every school rule. All she could remember was that the day Severus called her a Mudblood, something snapped. As their friendship was terminated, she was forced into so much reflection, and it made her come to the realization that the only thing he had ever done was manipulate her.
He had taken advantage of her weakness and how unwilling she was to stand up for herself. He had used that to force her into the continuation of a friendship which should have ended the instant he expressed interest in the Dark Arts. It had continued practically until he was initiated as a Death Eater, and all because Lily had let him be in control of her.
The only solution was to be completely in control of herself.
And so she had cut her hair. She got bangs. That was the first sign of her rebellion, a new and more ragged hairdo. And it had only gone downhill from there, with the black leather clothes and the dark makeup and the nearly failing grades. And all of it was so she could prove that no one could control Lily Evans but herself.
But had she become the girl she wanted to control?
How far had she gone in the name of self-governance? Had she turned into someone that she didn't want to be?
Lily was jarred from these disconcerting revelations by a thud and a shout from downstairs. "Evans! Evans!" came the particularly loud and incredibly obnoxious voice.
"Potter?" she shouted before hearing heavy footsteps running up the stairs. She appeared at her doorway at the same time he appeared at the top of the steps. "Potter, what on earth?"
"Evans, we've got to get out of here," he cried, rushing forward and grabbing her hand. She resisted him fervently.
"Potter, where are-"
"Anywhere but here. Please, just come with me!"
"I will if you just explain things!" she protested as she nearly tumbled down the stairs, propelled by Potter's insisting pull.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs and ran one of his hands through his hair, but refused to let go of her hand with his other. "Death Eaters," he said. "Death Eaters in Kent."
Lily froze on the spot, and no matter how hard James tried to get her to leave, she couldn't even think about moving. It took all of the energy within her to remember to breathe. Finally, her thoughts collected themselves enough to speak. "What do you mean, Death Eaters in Kent?"
"I mean, there are literally Death Eaters in your town square and they are attacking people. Lily, you and your family have got to leave!"
She gulped. "What about the Death Eaters? Who'll stop them?"
"I don't know," James said, exasperated. "The Aurors! Someone! Right now all we need to focus on is leaving." But Lily had all but tuned him out. The gears in her head were turning and, no matter how hard she tried, she kept coming up with the same conclusion.
"I have to go help," she whispered, more to herself than to James.
"I was afraid you were going to say that," he grimaced.
"Where can my family go?" Lily asked. After James's assurance that they could easily Floo to his manor in London, she shoved her family into the fireplace using the emergency Floo powder she kept under her bed. It took rather long to get Petunia to agree, and Mrs. Evans was still intent on finishing their argument, but at long last, Lily and James succeeded. "Come on," Lily said once they were all gone. "I fancy a trip into town."
The pair Apparated into the square and all they found was chaos. Muggles were running and screaming and clutching their children to them. The square was hazy with smoke and hot with the flashes of spells. Screams of torture rang out from all sides.
Lily and James barely had time to take it all in before Death Eaters turned Dark magic on them. Mustering up memories of every Defense Against the Dark Arts spell she could think of, Lily dueled with several different, intimidating figures, all masked and cloaked in black. At times, she could hear James's shouts from next to her. At other times, she was completely alone.
Pops of Apparition were heard at regular intervals as more Aurors arrived at the scene. Most of the Muggles had left or boarded themselves up in shops by now, so all that was left was the dueling witches and wizards. Lily had no idea how long it was that she stood turning, waving her wand, shouting, turning again to face new threats. It felt like minutes, it felt like hours, it felt like days.
And then she saw him. You-Know-Who. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Voldemort, there, in the flesh, in Kent, on Christmas. He had a distinctly snakelike look as his red eyes glowed from his pale face. Lily's breath hitched in her throat as she cast her first spell at the Dark Lord.
He retaliated with expert skill and overwhelming power, flinging Dark Curses at her that she dodged by inches. Her Protego charms were slipping, her jinxes and hexes missing their mark. She realized quickly that he was too powerful for her, and she was going to lose, and she was very probably going to die.
And then a mop of messy black hair appeared next to her. James was shouting his own spells and though Voldemort was able to counteract both of them at the same time, he was no longer winning the duel. Two against one, and it was tied.
"I don't need your protection!" Lily shouted at him to cover up her embarrassment at not being able to handle the duel herself.
"I'm not protecting you: I'm helping!" he shouted, and the pair turned their full attention to the duel once again.
Eventually the Aurors managed to subdue (or possibly polish off) several Death Eaters, and the remaining ones began to flee. The Aurors started to turn more of their force on Voldemort himself, and as the Dark Lord looked around him, he saw that he was not receiving sufficient backup. Just a flash in his eyes, a glance of panic or anger or fear or all three, and then he was gone and the rest of the Death Eaters with him.
They had done it. They had won.
In the following hours, Lily received treatment for her minor battle wounds, gave a brief interview for the Daily Prophet, and collected her family at the Potter mansion. It was like every nerve in her body was on fire, but at the same time her senses were dulled; all of her emotions were as alive as ever, but her brain was slow to pick up on all that was going on around her. The trauma had lit her up and tied her down all at once. Suddenly, it was nightfall, and she was being tucked into bed after an exhausting day.
But she couldn't sleep. The day's earlier argument kept replaying in her mind, alongside one of Potter's remarks that had thrown her off: "I'm not protecting you: I'm helping."
She saw now that she had gone too far in her attempt to become her own person. She was absolutely in control of someone whom she had no desire to be. That had to change.
But alongside that realization was the question of what Potter had meant when he differentiated protection from help. When Lily had gone on her rebellious streak, she had starting pushing people away. She didn't want them manipulating her, controlling her, or trying to own any part of her. Since then, she had taken up arms whenever anyone came trying to interfere in her affairs. But when Potter had come along to fight with her and she had responded defensively, he asserted that he wasn't trying to control her or manipulate her or even to protect her. He was just there to help.
What if it wasn't so bad to get help from people? Was that what relationships, be they friendships or family or romances, were meant to do? Each helps the other. They don't control, they don't manipulate, they don't own. They help.
What if she didn't have to be alone to be her own person?
The next day she woke up and dressed in the lightest clothes she had allowed herself to own, making a mental note that she needed to go shopping for a new wardrobe. Putting on a light dusting of makeup, she went to breakfast cheerfully. The next day, she didn't yell at her sister when she stole the telly remote. The day after, she apologized to her mother. She chose to be happy. It was still her own choice, but it was a much better one.
The rest of the holidays passed in a happy blur as they usually did. Suddenly, after many days of slow and steady progress toward making herself whom she wanted to be, there Lily was at King's Cross in a brightly-colored jumper and blue jeans. Platform 9 ¾ had never looked so crowded or busy, and yet she had never remembered enjoying it more.
Then she saw that messy bespectacled head of black hair, and she knew that a conversation had to happen. "James!" she called out, and when he saw her his jaw dropped.
"Wow, Evans," he exclaimed. "You look… different."
"I've made some… changes," she explained sheepishly. "Can we talk?" He complied, still a little shocked, and the two retreated to an empty compartment aboard the train. Once they both sat down, equally uncomfortable, Lily began awkwardly. "First, I just wanted to say thanks for, you know, Christmas and all. You… er, you saved me and my family."
She paused, hoping for a response. "You're welcome," James said after a moment, still flustered.
"And then, er… you were right about 'old Lily.' I realized over the holidays that I was trying so hard to become my own person and to not let anyone else control me that I became someone I shouldn't ever have been. And I… I realized that letting other people close to me isn't the same as letting them control me. So I'm… I'm sorry for pushing you away, and for pushing everyone else away, and for… just about everything that I've done in the past year and a half. I… I wouldn't say I'm back to 'old Lily' or whatever, because I'm still different. But… this new Lily is much happier than old new Lily." She finished with an awkward giggle and a shy smile.
An enormous grin had been spreading across James's face throughout her speech, and at this finish his face positively lit up. He stood up from his seat and reached forward for Lily's hands to pull her up from hers. "I like new new Lily," he said.
"Me too," she said, and as they left the compartment to join their friends he put his arm around her good-humouredly. She let it stay there, glad that she had let James Potter in as her friend.
Friend. Right?