Summary: Lily hates James. James loves Lily. Lily has a secret which James has found out, and now she's afraid he'll tell. Begins with an excerpt from Order of the Phoenix, no longer in Harry's POV, but through Lily and James. Rated M for adult themes in later chapters and some language.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you may in any way recognize. All of the characters save for a few of my own imagination belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews. Still revamping. I'm going to try and edit a chapter, and then submit a new one. Please you might want to reread the old ones again, just to see the changes I've made to the plot. Sorry for any disjointed confusion in the midst of all the reconstruction!
Chapter 2: Bad Landings and Train Confessions
Lily was lying on her bed, face first into her pillow. She hadn't bothered to pull across the scarlet hangings—they were where she'd left them, neatly tied against the bedpost from that morning. She was too busy worrying to care if anyone saw her.
"Oh no," she groaned into the pillow. She hadn't realized it at the time, but she'd quite possibly crossed a line herself. For all she knew, Potter was off telling everyone what he'd seen when he quite literally stumbled upon her in London over the holidays. She'd been shocked that he hadn't owled the entire Fifth Year of Hogwarts. But her shock had gone away quickly when it appeared that far from telling everyone he was going to make use of his newfound knowledge and to try and convince her to go out with him. Kind of like an implied blackmail. The swine.
She'd just thought herself another date in the long list of girls James had asked out, or was planning to ask out. But now she was certain (well, almost certain) that James was interested in her more than for a date and a quick snog before moving on to the next girl. "Go out with me Lily," he'd said, "And I'll never touch Snivellus again." Not only did he have Sev, a Slytherin who was a well known comrade of Lily, or he used to be at least, but he also had more leverage against her. Her stomach went queasy at the thought. 'God,' she thought, 'I never should have let Wesley pull me into that alley.'
She was too busy feeling sick and sorry for herself to notice when Cass slipped into the room. "Lils?" she said softly. Lily jerked, "Yes," she said into her pillow, causing her voice to come out muffled and pathetic. She felt, rather than saw Cassandra sit on the bed. She stroked Lily's back comfortingly.
"Lane went with John. I've got your Transfiguration notes… are you okay?"
Lily turned her head to the side to see Cassandra with a slightly worried furrow across her forehead. "Peachy," she told her.
"Well," Cassandra told her, shifting on the bed to make herself more comfortable, "You certainly burst Potter's bubble. He looked quite distraught. Almost chased you, but Sirius said it'd be a bad idea."
"Amazing, Black's managed a coherent thought. 'Bout bloody time."
Cassandra raised her eyebrows. "Lils, I know you and I have always made fun of those guys, and their, you know, immaturity, but this, I dunno, sounds different." She wrinkled her delicate nose for emphasis, as if it smelled different too.
Lily sighed. She wanted to tell Cass… but she was so—was it ashamed?—she just couldn't get the words out of her throat. "Yeah, you're right." She started, trying to come up with something, anything to steer Cass from digging deeper. "I'm just so stressed out, I suppose. OWL's and all of that. It's easier to put it to use against Potter and his lot."
"What about with Snape? You two haven't been as close as you used to be. I hope that's not something Lane and I did." It was a well-known fact that Cassandra and Lane did not understand Lily's friendship with Sev. Apparently having grown up down the street from a Slytherin didn't mean much.
Lily sniffed. "I don't know. He stopped riding with me on the train after Christmas, said he had things to do with his classmates. And then he barely spoke to me during spring hols at all. And now he's calling me a mudblood. I used to trust him, but now I just don't know anymore."
Cassandra patted her on the head. "Aw, poor Lilykins."
Lily let out a harsh little laugh. She swatted at Cass behind her back. "Don't call me that. I'm in a mood I'll have you know."
"Ah, a mood. I know how to fix that." And with that Cassandra grabbed one of Lily's pillows and smacked her with it.
Lily sat straight up. "Ow! What was that for?"
"Well," Cass said, brandishing the pillow menacingly, "You said you were stressed out. This is to relieve stress."
Lily blinked. "Do you know what stress is?"
Cass opened her mouth as if to come back with a definition, then stopped. "Well, I don't know the technical definition for stress. But I know it's not good, and it generally develops when someone doesn't know how to have fun." She grinned and smacked Lily on the head with the pillow again for emphasis.
Lily's mouth dropped, "I know how to have fun!"
"Oh really? Prove it." The pillow smacked her across the face this time. Lily dove over the bed to the other side of the room, and grabbed the first pillow in sight. Cass came after her.
The two fought with the pillows and both ended up with a fit of giggles after Lily got tangled up in the edge of her comforter and pulled out her wand as a last resort. After turning the pillows into any number of things, and ending up with a chocolate frog and a rubber chicken, Lane came in to give them both very incredulous looks. To which the two girls merely threw the chicken and frog, and Lane's pillow as well. Lily giggled at Lane's indignant look, feeling more relaxed than she had in months.
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Lilly dragged her trunk across the platform, and handed it to the porter to load. Lane and Cassandra had already boarded the train, leaving Lily to have her "traditional moment," for one last look at Hogwarts. As much as it stressed her out, as much as she sometimes wished she were just normal, she had never regretted stepping into that castle.
It had just been days before that Lily had officially ended her friendship with Severus. He had apologized, and he'd been sincere. But Lily had heard too many rumors to count. And she knew what that group called themselves, Avery and Mulciber, and all of them. Death Eaters. The term constricted her throat. She knew, as much as Sev was and had been her friend, he was also against Mudbloods in the worst way. And Lily was what she was.
She smoothed a hand over her red hair, and turned towards the Hogwarts Express. She boarded the train after a row of first years and began to look in the compartments for Lane and Cass.
"Evans! Hey, Evans!" a voice called from down the corridor. James Potter's voice. "Oh, Merlin," Lily thought, "not now." She had managed to avoid him since her outburst over Snape, and she'd thought she'd gotten off scot-free. Guess not.
Resisting the urge to run, Lily turned around to face James. "Hey," he said, latching onto her arm, just about the elbow, as if worried that she'd run away. His black hair was sticking out at all angles; his mouth was set somewhere between a nervous smile and a frown. He ran the hand not clutching her elbow through his hair, pushing it into a whole new set of odd angles. Surprisingly, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were nowhere to be seen.
"Potter," Lily addressed him, looking somewhat pointedly at her arm. He didn't get the hint.
"Can we talk?" He asked his hazel eyes earnest, "Somewhere alone?"
Lily opened her mouth to refuse when he surprised her by saying, "Please?"
"All right… I suppose." Without anymore encouragement, James pulled her into an empty compartment where he released her arm. He shut the door, running his hand through his hair again. He saw her watching him and he dropped his hands to his sides.
"Nervous habit," he muttered looking down at his right hand. He flexed his fingers, as if they had a mind of their own, striving for his hair while he held them back.
"Oh," Lily said, blushing a bit, remembering their last conversation and her snub about how he always messed up his hair to look like he'd just jumped off of a broomstick.
They were both quiet for a moment, before Lily broke the silence. "So…what did you want to speak to me about?"
"Oh…I," James swallowed, "Well, I wanted to ask you," Lily braced herself for the words "to go out with me," when James said, "if you were, um," he cleared his throat, "happy?"
"Happy?" Lily stared at him, waiting for the punchline.
"Yeah, happy," James told her, searching her face, "with that bloke."
Lily felt her blood freeze. "That is really none of your business Potter."
His face darkened a bit, "I don't understand why—," Lily cut him off.
"You don't need to understand anything about it. Now if that's all, I'll be going." She walked around him towards the door, hoping her face wasn't revealing as much as she felt. She hoped she wouldn't be sick all over the compartment and James.
"Evans," his hand reached out and come in contact with her own. A jolt tingled up her spine. "I um… I'm sorry about Snivellus, I mean, Snape." He told her, not looking her directly in the eye but at their hands, still touching.
For a moment Lily thought he meant the fact that she and Sev were no longer friends. But that was impossible, she realized.
"It's fine," Lily told him, pulling her hand away. She pulled away from the compartment, and tried to force herself into walking normally down the hall, and not at a breakneck speed, leaving James alone in the compartment.