A/N: After much stress about its "realness," I give you chapter two. Chapter three, Morningside, should be up this weekend/next week, depending on how fast I can write it and how well my fantastic beta Zayz can assuage my anxiety. Also! The way I wrote this chapter will not be the way I write the others. It will still be FPOV with Lily, but not so much... like this.

Thank you for stumbling across Quiet Summer, and I hope you enjoy! (Reviews aren't such a painful thing, readers - let me know how I did!)

As always,
Mina :)

TWO: GRAVITY

I dreamt of him that night after our fight on the train home – his angry eyes, the tension in his shoulders, the feeling of his hand wrapped around my wrist – and woke up in a cold sweat, the vestiges of his face looming at me in the dark. His voice lingered in the air as I sat up in bed and clutched the sheets to my racing heart, beating in time with the rotation of the ceiling fan, the rasping of air in my throat.

I'm here, Lily, he'd said. I've always been right here.

I pulled my knees against my chest and wrapped my arms around my calves, holding myself in. The green lights of my alarm clock flashed the time – 3:47 AM – and I let out a small, shaky breath. Nightmare. It was just a nightmare, nothing but over-exaggerated memories of the day before. Sure, it hurt to relive them again, and it would hurt tomorrow, when I thought about it some more, and maybe it would even hurt when I had to see his face again, whenever that might be. He'd been so angry.

Friends. We had been friends. Essentially, I guess, that's what the blowout had been about. For about a strange, extraordinary month and a handful of days, we had consciously abstained from bickering, taunting, insulting, offending, rowing, conflicting – it had been nothing short of a miracle. Lily Evans and James Potter were getting along: alert the Prophet!

But I should've known. I should have known. Friends? Who were we trying to kid?

You're being foolish, Lily, he'd said. I could hear him in my mind with frightening clarity. You're so damn stubborn. Can't you see it?

I'm not – I had paused, then, trying to push away all those staring eyes on the platform, and ended up only working myself up further. You – I – that's not the point! You're supposed to be my friend!

I don't want to be your friend!

It had worked for a while, though. Just friends. We'd sit across from one another at dinner or in the common room and hold a civil conversation. I'd help him with a Charms spell that I could see him struggling with and he, in return, with an impressive attempt at hiding a smirk, would check over my Transfiguration essay. He'd peer over his glasses and press his lips into a thin line, muttering about how Albus would not like to see this, and the next time I wanted to aim for perfection, I could spend a little more time in the library and not gallivanting around with those hooligans that I called friends. I would cover my mouth and try desperately not to laugh, but he would drop the McGonagall act and grin and say, "Looks good, Evans," and I would laugh anyway, because he could be surprisingly tolerable when he wanted to be and so maybe we could get along when we tried.

Look, Lily, I'm sorry if I misinterpreted things, but this isn't something I can just turn on and off. I can't see you with other blokes and pretend that that's alright with me, that it doesn't bother me.

And all it had taken was an off-handed comment to rile me up. I'm not even sure what it had been; probably something innocent that had hit me the wrong way, something he said that just struck me as off, completely telling of the arse he used to be when really he hadn't meant it that way at all. A simple misunderstanding turned into a row.

Story of our lives.

I kneaded my forehead as I lay back down. A calm summer breeze swept through the open window, dancing across my bare legs and blowing wisps of hair around my face, and though it felt wonderful, I couldn't really appreciate it.

Because what if I'd been wrong? What if he'd, well, been right for once, and we didn't have to just be friends or enemies, but… more?

My knee-jerk reaction was to chide myself for considering it – being more with Potter didn't really seem realistic, feasible – and yet the unbidden question rode in on the wind like a phantom, a question he had asked, one I couldn't prevent from shoving itself past my boundaries.

Why, Lily?

Why? Why wasn't I willing to at least try? To take a chance – on him, on the apparently immense faith he had that we wouldn't end up killing each other?

Because it's Potter, I answered, but my heart gave an involuntary lurch. Because it's Potter. Because it's James Potter. I couldn't reconcile the two: logic told me that it was such an irrational, unwise proposal. But then something else, an exponentially growing speck in my heart, whispered maybe, why not, what if?

What if?

Without even realizing it, I had given him a bar to jump in those few short weeks of fragile friendship, and he'd cleared it. With both of our hackles lowered, I was able to see the person he'd turned into over the past few years. He was kind, and funny, and compassionate, and often mischievous but never with malicious intent, even toward school-yard enemies. I'd found that I liked him – genuinely liked him – as a person. He wasn't that irksome little boy anymore, and I'd realized that it had been unfair of me to hold him up to who he'd been when he was trying to show me how much he'd changed.

Even so, habits aren't easy to kill, and it was Potter, vulnerable and tired and hurt, that took the step that I'd been too uncertain to take. The little skips and hops forward that he had been taking for the past six years all culminated to that one last, single stride; and it hurt, as we shouted about he and I and us, that he expected me to cover the distance he had traveled with one enormous, terrifying leap. If anything, I had always taken steps back while he, so easily content, skipped forward slowly, gradually, effortlessly.

But could I, if I wanted to? If he were there at the end, while I took the time to catch up, would it be worth it?

I'm here, Lily. I've always been right here.

I clenched my fists and pressed them into my eyes. I would not cry. Not again. I pushed myself up and out of bed, careful in navigating the hallway and the stairs in the dark, and shuffled into the kitchen. I turned on the small light above the stove. Crying. Ridiculous. This whole thing was wholly ridiculous, and I shouldn't have these stupid feelings for a stupid boy who was just… stupid.

I was just upset that he had gotten to me so much, that was all.

The light from the refrigerator was brighter than the bleeding sun as I yanked the door open and peered inside, groaning to discover that my strawberries were gone and the only thing remotely appetizing at the moment was a dubious container in the very back that might once have been Shepherd's Pie.

Great.

There was a glass in the drain board next to the sink, so I grabbed that instead and, after a few bleary grabs at the spigot, filled it with tap water. I slumped onto one of the stools near the bar-buffet Mum had installed last summer and listened to the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Just a few more minutes and I'd go back to bed.

"Lil?"

Dorcas Meadowes, who was staying with me for a few days while her parents were moving homes, rubbed the braids out of her hair as she stumbled through the doorway, her pajamas disheveled. At six feet, she was dangerously close to hitting her head on the top of the doorframe, something I hadn't even thought about until she arrived earlier yesterday and Mum, pointing out the obvious, exclaimed, "Why, aren't you tall!"

"What are you doing in here? What time is it?" Dorcas yawned, leaning against the fridge.

"It's almost four." I sat the glass on the counter, tipped my head toward her. "What are you doing in here?"

She shook her head, golden waves of hair falling to her waist, and pulled up a stool next to mine. "Someone started snoring and I could hear them through the wall. I would've cast a Silencing Charm, but, you know, underage."

I snickered. "I'll set one on Petunia's room tomorrow."

She opened her mouth, then changed her mind and closed it. She traced a line on the countertop. Slowly: "What's got you up?"

"Just couldn't sleep," I hedged. "Not used to being home, you know?"

Dorcas clearly didn't believe me. "Oh?"

"Nightmares," I conceded.

I'm here, Lily. I've always been right here. Why can't you see that? Why are you so afraid?

Dorcas' blue, blue eyes softened. Of course she'd know. "You want to talk about it?"

And of course she'd want to talk about it.

Not really, no. I didn't want to talk about it, to open my mouth and let the words come out and put it out there into the universe. I was too indecisive. Did I want it to be true? Did I want to ignore it? Did I want someone else to know about it, and therefore be able to lord it over my head forever? All these possible choices, all because Potter wanted me to make one.

The words burst from my lips. "He's just so frustrating!"

"Who?" Dorcas asked, even though I knew she knew, and even though she knew that I knew that she knew. She liked to do that—ask questions even though she already knew the answer. It's important that you say it, she'd say.

Know-it-all arse.

So I said, "You know who I'm talking about. He is consistently ruins everything. Sorry I lit your Potions essay on fire, Evans! Sorry I lit a dungbomb in your school bag, Evans! Sorry I spilled my pumpkin juice all over you, Evans! Sorry I like you as more than a friend, Evans!"

"Besides that last one, all those things happened in third year, Lily."

"Well, they happened. And that doesn't make him any less frustrating. What am I supposed to say to him?"

"About what?"

"About – you know – about yesterday. About all those things he said. How do I let him down in a way that he won't hate me after?"

Dorcas pursed her lips and gave me a look. "You really want to let him down?"

"Yes?"

She held her stare.

I sighed and put my head on the counter, unwilling to face her as I said miserably, "No."

Her hand brushed my hair from my shoulder. "Then you should probably tell him."

"Tell him what," I said. "Tell him he's a frustrating arse? Gladly. Might even ring him on the Floo for that. 'Oh, Mrs. Potter! Is your son home? No? Could you tell him he's a frustrating arse? Thanks.' That'd be – "

"Lily."

I groaned. Diversion wouldn't work here. Neither would denial. Neither would getting up and walking away, because I was at home and not at Hogwarts, and there weren't endless hidey-holes to find here. I'd have to say it. So I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn't going to be the worst possible thing to ever come out of my mouth.

"I fancy James."

The room was quiet. Nothing exploded. And I realized that his name on my lips felt like… something. Something new. I had said it before, of course, in jest and in anger, but never, ever after the words I and fancy. Never so soft, so deliberate. Truthfully, it was kind of nice. James. I could picture him smiling, his stupid hair like an explosion and his long stupid nose and the stupid little freckle on his temple and the dimples that showed themselves only when the corners of his mouth pulled up in that full, stupid way. It was almost endearing, and I found myself smiling a little in return as the image floated into my head like a suppressed memory, something I had hidden from myself when I knew I'd need it someday.

Dorcas rubbed her hand back and forth across my back. "See? You're alright."

And then I was laughing, a hysterical feeling bubbling up in my chest as I sat up and looked at her. I fancied James Potter. I fancied James Potter. Dorcas was bewildered but going with it, not complaining or questioning when I grabbed her up and squeezed my arms around her waist, burying my face in her neck and shaking with mirth and disbelief. She pulled me close to her and we sat there in the kitchen at four o'clock in the morning, the chimes of the grandfather clock down the hall ringing in the hour and the echo of snoring coming from up the stairs.

"I fancy James," I whispered. "What is wrong with me?"

"Well, we've always known you were crazy," Dorcas said. And then she laughed, too. "Wait until James finds out."

I'm here, Lily. I've always been right here.