"Evans!"
She moved quickly, her shoes hardly making a sound against the damp grass. She could hear laughter and chattering all around her as the students of Hogwarts basked in the long-awaited spring weather, appreciating fully the last few days of term.
"Evans, wait…"
She ignored him, lips pursed, and continued towards the castle gates. A quick glance over her shoulder told her that he was still following her, and she hastened her pace with renewed vigor.
He caught up to her anyway, his long legs no match for her small steps. He was careful to keep a distance though, which she was grateful for.
"Please listen to me…"
This was too much, and she suddenly stopped in her tracks and whirled around, making him stop in surprise. She threw a look of hatred at him. "Leave me alone!"
"I'm sorry," he started quietly, put she silenced him with a hand.
"I don't want your apology."
It was true. She was tired, so very tired of this endless charade of theirs, and though, admittedly, there were very few times James Potter ever apologized, she found that at this point she simply didn't even want to hear it anymore. He ran a hand through his hair and grit his teeth, swearing softly.
"Damn it Evans, what do you want from me then?"
His tone was biting and impatient, and it spurred her temper further. He had no right to be vexed with her, her anger was justified soundly. When she spoke, it was her exhausting that made her cry out. She was so bloody tired of this.
"That's just it – I don't want anything from you, I never wanted anything from you! In fact, I wish you'd cease to exist for me and leave me ALONE."
It was true, all of it was true; she wanted nothing to do with James Potter, yet she found that not a single incident could be recorded of her life at Hogwarts without his name making an appearance, and he simply couldn't get it into his thick head that she did not want him in her life at all.
Having effectively silenced James, Lily turned to leave. She had hardly taken a few steps though, when suddenly he was in front of her, blocking her path and glaring down at her with frustration and a wild kind of helplessness flashing on his face. When he spoke, his voice thundered.
"It never works for you; I've tried everything, but nothing ever works for you, because you just refuse to see past your damn prejudice!"
"Prejudice? Prejudice? After everything you did last year in fifth year you have the nerve to call me prejudiced?"
His gaze was stony and his jaw clamped shut. He was clenching and unclenching his fist, but she knew he was powerless to say anything. The evidence was completely against him and he knew it; however much he regretted what a fool he had acted then, it couldn't change the fact that those incidents had happened. She continued, her tone laced with hysterical rage.
"And what have you tried, Potter? All you've ever done is humiliated me in a variety of flagrant ways, made my life miserable – what exactly have you tried?"
He stood his ground, letting her words batter against him, and said nothing. Of course that's what she thought; she never seemed to see anything else in him, never saw who he really was. Her hatred blinded her, and he was powerless to change her views, he wanted to shake her and make her realize how wrong she was, but he was powerless.
"And what's more Potter, you'll never change. You know why? Because you don't seem to find anything wrong with yourself; what would you change for?"
The last words were spat at his face in a gust of finality. Having delivered her crippling blow, she started to move past him and follow her preliminary path to the castle.
"Do you want me to change for you?"
She stopped. James' voice was toneless, and he wasn't looking at her.
Lily whirled around and gave him a long look.
"You would change for me?"
"I don't believe in changing for people," James continued in the same dead voice, "I think that's cheating. A person should like you for who you truly are rather than a modified version that suits more to their liking. But I would change for you."
She felt her body trembling, but whether with rage or shock, she couldn't tell. How dare he offer her the one thing he would die before offering to anybody else? How dare he mark her as singularly different and unique for him and place his heart in her hands to do as she pleased; she hated it. She wanted nothing to do with him and his heart, she hated him for goodness sakes, and she loathed him for putting her in such a situation, where remaining indifferent was not an option. She hated how he had given her a choice to either hate him or love him, because he knew that either was a form of acknowledgement, far better for him than if he were to cease to exist to her, as she would have preferred. Now whether she had a say in the matter or not, the deal was done; he had invariably made a place for himself in her life, be it amongst the things that she strongly disliked, and she hated his presumptuousness in doing so, hated how it was so typical of him to push and shove his way into her life without her say in the matter.
Inflamed, incensed, her feet moving on their own accord, Lily was suddenly right in front of him, her face a few inches away from his and her green eyes fixed on his hazel ones. For a moment, she was thrown back three years ago into a memory of fourth year, of the moment that triggered everything that followed between them, when they had stood in the Transfiguration corridor just like this only so much younger, and she felt the energy crackling between them once more.
"I don't want your devotion. It means nothing to me," Lily said venomously, "How dare you think that changing for me would make me give you a chance? Do you truly believe that my choice of people is measured in terms of how devoted they are to me? I don't want you to change for me. I hate you. I hate the person you are."
"You don't know the person I am," James said quietly, unwaveringly.
"I know however much you've allowed me to see."
"Then allow me to show you more, Lily."
Lily felt it again, that something in his eyes which tugged at her emotions and brought them tumbling to the surface; hate and pain and passion. That blazing look she'd seen in them so many times on so many occasions held her where she was, throwing her into a momentary standstill. Why was it always now or never with them? Why was everything they said to each other so final and so deeply impacting?
She could almost see the crowd in the Transfiguration corridor in her periphery, almost hear Sirius' loud cough reverberating in her memory almost as if it was real, and for the second time in her life, she made her choice and stepped away from James Potter, and once again, she felt like she was letting something very important go.
This time, she did not blink and look over his shoulder, but held his gaze, her eyes cold and closed. "It's too late for that, James."
She pulled her cloak closer around her body, and without another word, she walked past him in the direction of the castle. And just like that day, he didn't try to stop her, or follow her, or even watch her progress, but stood still, hand at his sides, back stiff and straight, and the one repeated thought that came to his head was that she had unknowingly called him 'James' for the first time in three years.