Her hair was frizzing up all around her face. Tears had formed a river down her cheeks. Her green eyes were swollen and puffy and red, just like her hair. Her tie was undone around her neck, her socks slipping slowly down her calves.
He stood opposite her in the empty room, staring at his shoes. He had nothing to say. He had tried and tried and tried to apologize, but then she started yelling and then she started crying and he had made Lily Evans cry. A million things were bursting on his tongue, a million I'm sorrys and it just slipped out's and an I love you that he had never quite had the courage to say.
She put her hands up to her face because she just couldn't bear to look at him anymore because he looked just the same and he wasn't and how on earth had she been so stupid? How had she let it get this far when she knew, she knew! what he was? Hadn't everyone told her? Hadn't she been looking him in the eye when he said it and hadn't she seen that he meant it?
He looked at her as she wept and wept and Lily Evans never wept because she just didn't, but he had made her. He had nothing to lose, because she already hated him and he had wanted to say it and she should know, shouldn't she? She should know that he did because she knew everything. So he said it, and what had been on the tip of his tongue for so long jumped and hit the floor and why did he say it?
Oh, god, what was he thinking? She knew he loved her, and she knew he knew she knew, so why did he have to tell her and make it that much worse? And she didn't and he knew it and what was she supposed to say then? So instead of saying anything she slipped to the floor and said nothing and cried even harder and why won't he leave?
He had ruined it and there was no fixing it now. So he did the only thing he could do: he left. He walked slowly and deliberately towards the door, giving her a chance to say something, anything, but she didn't and Severus Snape left Lily Evans crying in a Transfiguration room and he told himself he would not cry, and he didn't, but his heart was shattered and crumbling and on fire and he just wanted to shake her because she should feel it too, but she didn't and it was all so so so wrong.
He left and she was glad because now she could just sit and cry to her heart's content and no one would bother her. Her heart was broken and now she had to clean up the pieces and pretend that it was all okay and it wasn't! But of course, she was Lily Evans and how could she suppose, for one second, that he wouldn't find her when she needed him the most and wanted him the least?
He creaked open the door and knew what he would find, because the Map never lies, and he had just left, so of course she was crying. He wondered for a moment why he had come and how does one comfort a crying girl who hates you? But he couldn't leave because she lifted her head and looked at him with those eyes and how could he not do something?
He was there and why? All she wanted to do was cry and now he was there and he looked at her and pitied her and she hated being pitied. And now he was coming over and putting his arms around her and she was sliding into them and ruining his shirt with her tears and he didn't say anything, he just sat there.
She didn't punch or yell or shoot him with hexes, so he figured what he was doing was okay so he just held her and he was holding Lily Evans! But she was crying and this wasn't exactly how he pictured it but he'd take what he could get and he hoped that this meant she didn't hate him.
She was so cruel to him, so why was he here, holding her like nothing was wrong and like this was what it was supposed to be like? But she didn't have the energy or motivation or anything to ask him why so she just sat with him and he let her be and that was okay.
So James Potter let Lily Evans cry for a very long time before she looked at him, kissed him on the cheek and said thank you and left and it was his turn to sit on the floor of the empty Transfiguration room, but it was okay because he'd take what he could get and this was pretty good.