ATTENTION READERS: The length of this story will be directly affected by the number of REVIEWS it receives. I know quite a few of you are following this already. If you really do like it, I beg you to please take the time to REVIEW. Most of this chapter was written during my Sociology class, and I'd like to know if it was worth the effort.
I wake up the next morning to the typical chaos and rustle of any other morning in our dorm. Remus is in the shower, Sirius is rummaging through everything he owns for one thing or another that he's lost, and Wormtail is snoring loudly a few bunks away. The first thing I notice about myself upon waking is that I don't feel any better.
I look around from my position sprawled out across the sheets. For a moment, I consider going back to sleep and blowing off my classes for the day; I still feel exhausted. I audibly groan as I remember a charms exam I have today.
You refuse help in your classes because you think you're too bloody good for it.
I'm horrible in charms. That's Lily's specialty. I sit up slowly and wince, finding that my entire body is sore: my shoulders, my back, my neck, and my arms.
Crying always exhausts me. I can imagine how hard I passed out last night… chances are I didn't even move. I grab my classes off the table and put them on. Just as I'm registering the fact that the lenses are too foggy for me to see through them, something collides with my face, very nearly knocking me over.
"Heeeey! Look who's alive!" Padfoot has chucked a pillow at me. I fling it back and regret it instantly as my shoulder screams in protest. "Good-morning sunshine!" I resist the urge to punch him in the face. I am not a morning person, and Sirius's energy in the morning frequently gets on everybody's nerves.
I stretch painfully and pull myself to my feet. I walk over to my wardrobe, thankful – for once – of the uniform, and its removal of decision from my morning tasks. I pull out a clean shirt and pants, dress slowly, and pull on my robe. As I'm lacing up my trainers, the bathroom door opens and Remus steps out in a puff of steam.
"Jeez, Moony! Hot enough in there for you?" Moony, who isn't a morning person either, ignores Padfoot and starts pulling on his clothes. I take this opportunity to use the loo. When I've finished, I pull my glasses off my face again and clean the lenses on my robe. I sigh. The mirror in the bathroom is beginning to un-fog and I stand in front of it, feeling contemplative and heavy.
You think you're so bloody attractive, it disgusts me.
I don't think I'm attractive… I stare into the eyes of my reflection and wonder if they've always looked so hopeless. There are red lines poisoning the white part of my eyes, and blue circles hug them beneath my lashes. I don't think I'm attractive at all. My hair is a mess, my skin is too pale, my eyes too far apart. My glasses are ugly. My arms are too long, my feet are too big, and my eyebrows too bushy. My mouth is too small. My lips are too pink. My hands are too big.
"James, come on, do you want breakfast or what?" I don't answer them. I'm not hungry. I just want to lay back down, close my eyes, and fall back to sleep – where I can't feel this weight. I feel kind of… disconnected from everyone else. I feel horrid. Remus lied. "James?" Sirius is in the doorway. I look around, pretending I didn't hear him the first time.
"Sirius?" He looks confused for a moment.
"Uh… We're going to breakfast now…" I plaster on a smile.
"Great, I'm starving" Padfoot laughs.
"Of course you are, Prongs." I give him what I hope he'll decide is a playful shove and follow him out of the bathroom. I grab my stuff, sigh, and follow my friends to the Great Hall. The whole time we're walking, all I can think is 'I just want to be sleeping'.
Because we're running late (as usual), the Hall is already filled with students. Out of habit, my eyes seek out the familiar head of red hair that's become the high point of my mornings. I find her quickly – standing behind Snape at the Slytherin table. This does nothing to improve my mood. I pry my eyes of Lily, remember how irritated she gets when I stare. I turn around and sit between Sirius and Remus, trying to convince myself that I shouldn't feel so lonely right now. I'm surrounded by great friends… literally.
For some reason I just feel alone.
The smell of the food makes me suddenly hungry, and I take it as a good sign that I still feel like eating. I begin piling my plate with pancakes and fruits and syrup. As I shove food into my mouth, I watch Remus stare at me and Sirius (who just stuffed two muffins in his mouth at once) in bewilderment.
"I'm the werewolf, and YOU two eat like animals," he informs us with an almost parental tone. He has a smile on his face as though he finds the two of us amusingly fascinating.
"Dongt disaglt mah whait I alething." Sirius attempts to reply with a mouth full of food. Remus laughs.
"Come again?" I watch in amusement as he swallows all the food at once and coughs. I slap his back with probably more force than necessary.
"Don't distract me while I'm eating." He says again. "I need to focus." He says it in such a serious tone a couple people at the table stare at him in disbelief. And then he laughs. I shake my head and go back to my food. I'm just starting to feel only a tiny bit better when Lily walks by with Snape. My heart sinks.
You think you're so bloody attractive, it disgusts me.
I watch as Lily laughs at something Snape says. I wonder if she thinks Snape is attractive. My eyes focus on him. I guess he's smaller… skinnier. I look down at the food on my plate and suddenly I'm disgusted with myself.
"Am I fat?" I hadn't meant to say it out loud.
"Yeah, Prongs, you're huge." I look around at Sirius surprised for a moment at his answer. He's got an expression on his face that says quite clearly "what the fuck was that?" I get the feeling he's being sarcastic, but at the same time I'm not so hungry anymore. I look down the hall in the direction Snape just went with Lily. I think of all the food I just ate.
"Hey I've gotta take a piss." I say in the most care-free James like manner possible. Sirius shrugs and attacks an omelet. Remus appears not to have heard me. I excuse myself from the table and walk as casually as I can to the loo.
As I walk I think about my appearance.
Quidditch season hasn't begun yet… I've lost whatever form I had last year because I didn't practise over the summer… I weigh 25 pounds more than I used to… my stomach jiggles when I walk…
I walk faster.
"Vomero." I retch and my breakfast spills into the toilet bowl. I cough and sputter for a moment and then repeat this process again, just for good measure. I breathe heavily for a moment, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. Then I stand up, flush the loo, and rinse my mouth in the sink. From now on I'll be sure to eat less. At least today won't put me off track.
I walk out of the restroom with a new – almost positive – resolve to lose the extra weight… and maybe even a little more. I'm startled to find Sirius standing outside the bathroom door with a look of horror on his face.
"What?" I ask, legitimately bewildered by his expression. He seems to be at a loss for words for a moment.
"A-are you okay?" He looks pale. Am I okay? Probably not.
"Yeah..?" I respond slowly. "What's wrong?"
"I thought I heard vomiting…" I stare.
"James when I told you that you were huge I was joking…" I glare at him, offended.
"What are you implying?"
"You're not, you know…"
"I can't believe you're actually serious right now!" I snap. "I'm not stupid, Padfoot. I know how bad purging fucks a person up!" It's not a lie… I'm not a Bulimic. I just didn't want to be off track… from now on I just… won't eat so much.
"I don't want you to think that I…"
"I don't know what you heard, Sirius, but it don't happen." My tone is final. He stares me down for a second, and though I still don't think he believes me, he doesn't push. As we walk silently to our first class of the day (Potions), I contemplate why I lied to him about throwing up. I don't think I really did anything too wrong… It's not like I plan on doing it again. And yet… somehow I just… felt like I needed to lie…
As we enter the classroom I see Lily seated by the window with Alice Longbottom. They're giggling about something written on a piece of parchment. For a moment, I wonder what they're laughing about. For a second I hope it has to do with me, but realise that if it did, that probably wasn't a good thing. I bet they found out my Charms grade…
Whatever positive feelings I had from the idea of getting skinnier fly out the door with the draft. Suddenly I just want to go back to bed again.
I'm finding it hard to focus on Potions today… and of course it doesn't help that I have Wormtail for a partner… with his small brain and my limited attention span, we manage to blow the potion up in a matter of 20 minutes. Slughorn must be in a bad mood as well because he takes 20 points from Gryffindor and instructs Remus to assist me. Wormtail's been sent off to work with a Ravenclaw student on the other side of the room.
"Come on, James, you have to pay attention." Remus instructs me once again. I try to pull myself out of my thoughts, although I don't know if I would necessarily call them thoughts. They're more… feelings. Emotions… bad ones. And of course, Moony's impatience with my depressive attitude isn't helping at all. He grabs my wrist for the third time to stop me adding the wrong ingredient.
"God damn, James, just let me do it!" I drop the eel's eyes I was holding and sit down. I feel tears again. Of course Lily doesn't like me. I'm a fuck up…
I brush the moisture from my eyes and stare at the wall until Moony speaks to me again. His voice is softer now.
"Are you okay, James…?" I can tell that he's legitimately concerned and somehow this only makes me feel worse. Not only do I screw things up for myself, but now I'm hurting the people I care about too. It's all a fucking circle. It will hurt them if I tell them I'm not really okay… and they'll waste all sorts of time worrying about me when I don't deserve it, and I feel like shit for it. But if I don't tell them I'm alone and I'll still feel awful…
"James?" I nod my head. "Yeah, I'm fine." I force a smile. "Just a little zoned out today." I decide not to tell them. Either way, I'm gonna hurt. This way at least they're spared.
"Yeah… okay." I put my head in my arms, close my eyes. I feel like I'm falling.
My inability to concentrate spreads through the rest of my morning classes, and come lunch time, my fat ass is starving. I tell my friends that I want to go to the library to revise for my Charms exam, and they willingly accept this, and leave me behind in the Transfiguration corridor. I do go to the library, but instead of revising, I stare at an open book, managing not to absorb a word of the text. With each word, I feel more and more hopeless that I'll ever pass. Eventually I give up, close the book, and gaze out the window, past the lake. It's rainy today, and I can see dark, sobre, grey clouds reflected across metallic water. Despite yesterday's heat wave, today's wind looks icy cold. I glare at the sky, having hoped that perhaps the sun would cheer me up.
I laugh catches my ear from behind a set of shelves. I know that laugh…
I get up from my place at one of the uncomfortable wooden tables in the library, and walk slowly toward the noise. Before it occurs to me that what I'm doing could be called stalking, I peer around the corner of an aisle and see just as I expected. Lily. She's accompanied by a Ravenclaw girl that I do not know, and they seem to be gossiping.
"I know right?" The blonde is saying. Lily giggles.
"It's so pathetic… I almost feel sorry for him" The other girl looks at Lily seriously for moment.
"Don't LIls, trust me. He's really not worth it." My lower lip starts to tremble. They're talking about me…
I sneak away from the aisle where Lily is with her friend and find a secluded table in the very back corner of the library. I can't help the tears that come. I bury my face in my arms. I'm not sobbing as I did last night – not by a long shot – but at the same time I can't help but feel beaten and alone. I can imagine this has to do with the lack of food in my system, but that's something I'll need to grow used too.
After 7 years of chasing, this has finally broken me.
I'm crying for probably ten minutes before I'm startled nearly out of my skin by somebody touching my shoulder.
"Potter…?" I squeeze my eyes shut. No. Oh, god no.
It's Lily.
I press my palms up to my eye sockets.
"Just go away, Evans." I try to make my voice sound steady, but it doesn't work.
"Potter… what's wrong…?"
"Nothing." To my dismay she pulls out a chair and sits next to me.
"Nothing?" She says. I can hear a smile in her voice. "Then why are you crying?" I sniff.
"Because I felt like it." She doesn't say anything. "Why would I tell you?"
"Because I'm asking," she tells me simply. I remove my hands from my face and look at her through blurry eyes. She looks more curious than she does worried. "Are you okay?" I sniff. I pull back the urge to just scream that no, I'm not okay, and nod my head without saying a word.
"I just… I got into a fight with Sirius… yeah." She looks surprised by this.
"Oh… I'm sorry" she frowns. "Was it bad?" I nod my head and wipe at my eyes again. She's paying attention to me… "What did you two fight about?" My stomach drops out of my feet. If I tell her I don't want to talk about it, she'll go away… but I don't know what we could have fought about… I say the first thing I can think of.
"He thinks I stole his knife." I kick myself. A stolen knife? Now she really is going to think I'm pathetic. Crying over something so stupid…
"Oh… he was really that mad?" I can tell she doesn't believe me so I have to make something up fast.
"Yeah… he got that knife from his grandfather as a kid… right before he died…"
"Did you take it?" I shake my head. "Well what does he think you'd want with a knife anyway?" I actually think about that myself. What would I want with a knife…? Something goes through my mind that I really, really don't like, next thing I know, the tears come rushing back. Lily raises her eyebrows at me. I can't tell if she thinks I'm lying to her, or if she just thinks I'm being pathetic but either way I don't think it's good.
And then she does something I never expected.
She hugs me.
This catches me completely off guard and I stop breathing for a moment. Once I've registered what's going on, I don't release my breath, because I don't know how much control I have right now and I don't want to end up sobbing all over her like I did to Sirius last night. I just let her hug me. For some reason, I can't bring myself to hug her back.
"Why don't you go talk to Sirius," she says when she lets go of me. "I'm sure he's stopped being angry by now." I wipe at my face and nod, pretending to agree with her.
"Yeah… okay." And then I think I might have a shot. "Hey, Lily… will you,"
"No, Potter."
"But I thought…" This just seems to piss her off.
"For god's sake Potter, I'm nice to you once and you're all over me. I said no." She started to walk away and paused. "I'm sorry you're having a bad day," she told me, and I could tell she meant is. And then without looking back, she left me behind.
I stood in the library, staring after her, unsure of whether I should cry, or be happy because of the encounter. I wind up staring dumbfounded in her direction. I glance up at the clock on the Library wall and realise – with a jolt – that I'm nearly late for my Charms exam. I pick up my bag and hurry off.
When I run into charms I'm 10 minutes late. Lily's already in her seat. Her and yet another friend notice me come in late, and roll their eyes at each other. I don't understand…
It's like the Library didn't even happen…
I sit next to Padfoot who whispers in my ear.
"You're late."
"I noticed." He stares at me for a second.
"Have you been crying?" I glare at him. Sirius has a whisper that carries.
"No." I say shortly. "Have you?" He looks confusedly at me.
"No… why would I?"
"Exactly." He takes this as his queue to shut up.
"Alright boys and girls," Flitwick announces to the class in his high-pitched squeak. "The examinations will begin… now." He waves his wand and paper lands on my desk. I pick up my quill, read the first question, and groan.
I don't know this shit at all…
I make my way down into the Great Hall at dinner time and almost instantly feel my mouth begin to water. I figure I may as well eat something because it won't do me any good to pass out in front of Moony and Padfoot who already think that something's wrong. I figure a bowl of chowder won't do too much damage, and I eat it slowly. If I finish this before dinner's finished, I might eat more. Remus asks me for the third time today if I'm okay and I'm beginning to get irritated.
"Yes, Remus!" I snap. "You two have been on my case all fucking day! I'm tired, I failed my test, and I'm having a bad day! I know I freaked out last night but seriously just leave it the fuck alone and stop reminding me!" I get up from the table, deciding that I really don't need to eat after all. I grab a flask of pumpkin juice to keep me from starving and stalk up to the dorms.
By the time I get there, I'm starting to feel bad about yelling at my friends. At the same time, they can be so… irritating.
As I turn off the lights and lay down for bed, I think about what they're saying.
Am I okay?
I brush it off. I'll feel better in the morning.
It's with this thought that I drift into sleep.