Lily couldn't breathe. Her chest was tight; it was like her lungs refused to take in the life giving oxygen she was so desperate for. She couldn't believe what she had just seen...She didn't want to believe it.
James Potter had just told his new girlfriend that he loved her! Lily was in a state of pure shock. But...why was she so upset? Shouldn't she be elated that James no longer had his sights set on her? No. She knew by now that she was falling for James, she just didn't have the courage to tell him. But now she was too late! James was in love with someone else, and Lily had nothing. She could feel her heart aching more with every passing thought.
Lily ran from her hideout behind a suit of armor where she heard the snippet of conversation to her private bedroom. Collapsing on her bed, she dissolved into tears. She knew that she had run out of chances. James and his feelings for her had come and gone. Lily recalled the phrase her father used when she was growing up; hindsight is 20/20. Well, curse hindsight! Lily actually wished that she could go back and take James up on one of his offers to go out with him...Things could have been so different!
Lily's mind was racing. She had to get her thoughts together or else she'd just explode. Still crying, she got up from her bed and went to her writing desk. She pulled out a piece of parchment, quill, and a bottle of ink and began to write.
Dear James,
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I never gave you a chance. I can't even blame it on anyone but myself. At first, I thought I hated you. I thought you were just an arrogant jerk on some sort of twisted mission to prove a point. I didn't think that you really wanted me. I know different now...But it's too late. I turned you away one too many times, and I don't blame you for making the decision to move on with your life. But that doesn't mean my heart isn't hurting any less. I realized how much of an idiot I am James. I do have feelings for you--I'm pretty sure I love you, however corny that might sound. But I will never tell you this, not now. Why? I just heard you tell Karen Bones the very same thing. I'll get along without you I think, I just wish it were me standing in front of you today instead. Again, I'm sorry for all of this.
Love,
Lily
Sniffling, Lily folded up the letter and put it in her pocket for safe keeping. She knew she had to make sure that no one would ever read it, least of all James Potter. She grabbed her wand and schoolbag and headed for the Gryffindor common room to work on her N.E.W.T. practice tests.
"Flobber worms..." Lily sighed as she approached the Portrait Hole. It swung open, and Lily stepped inside.
Finding an empty seat in a corner of the crowded room, Lily spread her books and papers out over the table in front of her. Searching for a quill she emptied the pockets of her robes, spilling the contents onto the table, before finding her query. Lily worked in silence for hours before drifting off to sleep in her chair around midnight.
"Lily...Wake up. Lily, you'll be late if you don't get up and go get ready now."
"What...?" Lily felt incredibly disoriented.
"It's almost eight in the morning Lily. You have to get up now...Why are you asleep here anyway?"
Lily fully opened her eyes and realized that she was still in the common room and that a sixth year acquaintance was trying to wake her, "I must have dozed off last night...Thanks for getting me up."
"No problem..." The girl said before picking up her own schoolbag and leaving the room for her first class.
Lily rubbed the sleep from her eyes and moved to clean up her schoolwork, only there was none to clean. She looked beside her and saw that everything had been put back into her bag. Figuring it was the work of the school's house elves, she picked up her bag and hurried to her own room to make herself presentable enough for class...and just maybe a certain quidditch player.
Lily spent her day finding it increasingly difficult to pay attention to her professors. All she seemed able to do was keep a watchful eye on James Potter. This didn't go unnoticed either. Professor Slughorn let it slide saying everyone was entitled to an off day, while Professor McGonagall kept putting her on the spot with obscure questions that she usually saved for the Marauders. Throughout all of this she noticed, James was unusually silent. That was until their final class of the day.
"Lily, can we talk after class?" James whispered from behind her while Professor Binns was droning on about a long forgotten war between the different races of pixies.
His voice sending chills up her spine, Lily simply nodded as casually as possible. Inside her mind however, she was fruitlessly wracking her thoughts as to any reason why James would need to talk to her. Then, with a little over a minute to go in class, it hit her; the letter. The stupid pointless letter that she'd only written to get her thoughts straight! It had been sitting on her work table after she had emptied her pockets. She wondered if James had noticed it while he was in the room, joking around with the other marauders. Lily could feel her blood pressure rising just thinking about it. She pulled her bag onto her desk and began to rifle through it as quietly as she could, looking for the cursed piece of parchment, but just then Professor Binns declared class was over, and James was at her side. She stood up and went with James to the Heads' common room, trying to hide her shaking hands.
Both Lily and James sat down on the couch facing the fireplace. Lily felt her concern rising as James took a deep breath, as if readying himself to say something huge. When he looked up at her however, he remained silent.
"What is it?" Lily managed to ask.
"Is there...anything you want to say to me Lily?" James replied after a moment.
'Oh no,' Lily thought, 'He did see that letter...Ah!'
"No..." Lily lied, doing her best to look bewildered.
James let out a hollow laugh, and stood up, pulling a folded up piece of parchment out of his pocket. He tossed it back to Lily, and flashed her a sad looking smile. With that, he turned away from Lily and walked out of the room.
Lily sat on the couch, mortified. Her mouth was dry as she picked up the parchment and unfolded it with shaking hands. It was indeed the letter she had written the previous day. But below her own handwriting was someone else's. At the bottom of the page, James had written 'Apology accepted.'
She was speechless. Her eyes blurring with tears, she got up and abandoned the letter to follow James. Hoping he'd be where he usually went to be alone, Lily headed straight to the quidditch pitch, keeping her eyes open for him on the way. She made her way outside, and started down the hill. Ignoring the early winter cold that seemed to seep through her robes, she entered the pitch, and sat down in the stands. She already knew James was there, she had seen him rising into the air on his broom before she had reached her destination.
She waited rather impatiently for James to notice her presence. She shook now from head to toe, but she could only blame it partly on the cold night air.
'This is crazy,' she thought, her mind racing, 'this time last month, I wouldn't have thought I'd ever feel this...'
"Lily...Lily?"
Lily jumped, she was so lost in thought, she hadn't realized that James had indeed seen her and was now standing before her, "James! You scared me..."
"What do you want?" James asked, sounding more irritated than he intended to.
"Uh..." Lily felt like she'd been struck dumb. Was James angry with her because she didn't admit how she felt to his face? And now that she was here with him, alone...What was she expecting to say? A pink tint crept up her cheeks, and she continued to shiver.
"Lily, I want you to know that you didn't hear the whole conversation between Karen and I today." James said in a softer voice.
"What?"
"I ended up breaking up with her. I told her that yes, I loved her but not in the way that could keep a real relationship going." He explained.
Lily looked up at the boy no, man in front of her and smiled weakly, "I don't know what to say..."
James grinned, "I never moved on Lily. I'm stuck on you."
Lily stood up and flung her arms around James' neck. James stumbled backward at first but quickly caught his balance and wrapped his arms around her small waist, still grinning.
Lily was again in tears, "I thought I'd run out of chances, I thought that you didn't want me anymore. I didn't know what to do with myself, I felt so stupid! That letter...It was just meant to get my thoughts down straight, I never thought you'd read it."
James pulled Lily back in order to look at her, "Well, it ended up unfolded on that table, and Sirius had caught a look at it. He said that he felt it was his 'moral duty' to take it and give it to me."
Lily laughed, "That's just like him..."
James smiled and held Lily a little closer, "You're shivering, you've got to be freezing out here Lily."
Lily returned the smile and shook her head, "Not anymore."
"Lily?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, I love you too."
James' heart swelled. He never thought he'd actually get to hear those words come out of her mouth...At least not directed toward him anyway.
"James?"
"Yeah?"
"I think there's something you ought to ask me."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah..."
"Will you go out with me then?"
Lily grinned. She had never wanted to hear that question more in her life than she did at that moment.
"Yes, I will go out with you James."
So...What do you think?
Review and tell me!
-Serena Gemini-
