Author's Note: This chapter was meant to have more scenes, but the two it features ran on super long, and I really liked the neatness of the ending, so all in all I'm pretty happy leaving it as it is
Chapter 2: Deluge
Peter and Remus had already gone home when James woke up the next day.
"Peter's mum came to pick him up an hour ago," his mother informed him, after she'd strode into his bedroom and whipped his duvet into the air, leaving James shivering on his mattress in his boxer shorts and not much else. "That was at noon, James. One is generally expected to be up and dressed by noon, not lying comatose like a wounded snot."
"I'm hungover," James moaned, his eyes shut tight against the daylight, reaching out for a duvet that wasn't there.
"What you are is rude, leaving your friends to sit around downstairs while you sleep in."
"I resent the comparison to a wounded snot."
"Yet leaving behind a legacy of insolence doesn't bother you at all," said his mother dryly. "It's the middle of the day, James. Get up, get dressed and put something in your stomach before I throw cold water over your head."
James knew his mother too well to take her threat lightly.
He also knew that he was still in the doghouse, and quite rightly so, because he'd ignored her calls all night and tumbled home at 3 a.m., missing a mutually agreed-upon curfew by three whole hours. Euphemia saw no issue in allowing her son to go to parties, nor did she mind if he came home from those parties drunk—in fact, she often covered for Remus and Peter, who had far stricter curfews, when they found themselves a little the worse for wear—but when James had the audacity to break a deal they'd struck, her fury could be terrible to behold.
Punishment was coming. Much like winter, but Westeros had powerful, beautiful women like his dream girl, Sansa Stark, while James had nothing but his mother, who was deadly serious in her intent to storm the offices of HBO with a flaming torch if Cersei Lannister didn't win out in the end.
He tried to will himself to go back to sleep, but Euphemia started moving around his room, shuffling through his things and singing Boney M's "Rasputin" at the top of her lungs, so it was no use. James wasn't strong enough to withstand the combined forces of his mother and Russia's greatest love machine.
He rolled out of bed and onto the floor, all the better to protest his mother's cruelty.
"My pride and joy," said Euphemia, coming to stand over him as he lay prone on his back, staring up at the vague outline of the glow-in-the-dark stars he'd stuck to his ceiling as a child. Without his glasses, his mother's face was a blur. "I don't think I've ever felt more privileged to have expelled you from my birth canal than I do at this very moment."
Then she dropped a pair of jeans on his head.
"It should weigh heavily on you that you've forced me to resort to this," he heard her say, while he spluttered in outrage and shook them off. "You have a singularly beautiful face, and it pains me deeply to throw clothes at it."
"Then don't," he grumbled, and sat up straight, reaching to his nightstand for his glasses.
"Where's the fun in that?" she said, then turned away to leave, marching from his room with her nose thrust in the air. "For the queen he was no wheeler dealer, though she'd heard the things he'd done…"
"She believed he was a holy healer," James sang under his breath, then scowled to himself.
Bloody hangover. Bloody parents. Bloody Russian mystics.
Once he'd showered and dressed, venturing downstairs for food did nothing to improve his mood. His mother was bustling around the kitchen, humming to herself, and while his father was there at the breakfast bar, as placid as ever as he slurped his beloved lunchtime avgolemono—one of Euphemia's specialties—with his nose buried in his phone, Sirius was also present, pumped up with Schadenfreude and grinning like a dick.
"Hark!" he cried, when James slouched into the kitchen, dragging his feet across the terracotta tiles. "The Chosen One arises!"
"Shut up," said James.
"Don't be rude to your brother," Euphemia scolded, whipping past him with a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. "There's soup on the stove if you're hungry."
"I don't want soup," said James, who also loved avgolemono, but didn't want to give his mother the satisfaction. "I want a bacon sandwich."
"Then make yourself a bacon sandwich!" she called over her shoulder, disappearing into the den.
Scowling, James went to the fridge and opened it, only to find that there was no bacon.
"Oh yeah," Sirius drawled. "Peter ate the rest of the bacon this morning. He was wounded by your harsh mistreatment, so your mother cooked the lot for him."
"Why tell me to bloody make some if she knew there wasn't any left?" James huffed, and slammed the fridge door shut.
"Your mother has been slighted online by someone named RumbelleGal96, and is quite upset about it," said his father as James turned around, looking up from his phone. As usual, Fleamont's scruffy hair had been combed, gelled and flattened to within an inch of its life, but was already beginning to ease back into its natural state of disarray. "We must do our best to support her in her hour of need."
James could barely contain an eyeroll. His mother was obsessed with a television show about fairytale characters and it made no sense to him at all, not least because the show was no longer on the air. She frequently annoyed everyone with her incessant gushing about the main character and some dopey pirate, and since Sirius had introduced her to Twitter, she had begun a new hobby of getting into fights online with people who did not share her love of that particular couple.
Sirius, of course, encouraged this behaviour, often making suggestions or getting involved in the fights with any one of a multitude of troll accounts he had in his possession. He said he found no greater pleasure in life than watching Euphemia roast teenage girls online.
"How about, instead of forcing us to support her, she stops getting involved in Twitter wars with people who don't agree with her opinions?" he suggested.
"They are wrong!" Euphemia cried from the den. "They are wrong and they deserve to be told!"
James wasn't stupid enough to argue back. A Twitter spat would never upset his mother, who was too old and clever to let herself be bested by anyone, even though he couldn't understand why a fifty-nine-year-old woman would happily waste her time feuding with kids online. He knew the real reason for her mood was her only son's insubordination. She likely hadn't thought of a good enough punishment to cheer herself up yet.
She would, though. Euphemia always did, just as she always managed to strike when he least expected.
"I wonder what revenge she'll dream up this time," he said quietly, and opened the fridge again.
"If it makes you feel any better, I got a full-blown lecture this morning," said Sirius. "She said she hadn't taken me in just to see me saunter into the house at all hours of the morning like a common prostitute, and should she be expecting Richard Gere to stop by soon."
"Good," said James, contemplating the contents of the fridge.
"She also said that I'm too thin and frail to protect myself from gangsters," Sirius continued, sounding mildly disgusted. "Gangsters, mind, the kind that wear trilbys and carry Tommy guns. That's who she thinks poses the greatest threat to my safety, out here on the mean streets of suburban Cambridge."
James grunted noncommittally as he removed a bottle of ketchup and a carton of milk from the fridge, then knocked it shut with his elbow.
"Oh," Sirius added, "and she said that we were leading sweet young Remus down a dark path."
James slid the bottle of ketchup across the countertop near the bread bin and set the milk down next to it, then turned to fix Sirius with a disbelieving look. "No, she didn't."
"Yes, she did. Right in front of him, too."
"And what did Remus say?"
"He agreed with her," said Sirius. "Found it well funny."
"Of course he did," James sighed, as he doused a slice of bread with a liberal helping of ketchup and slapped a second slice on top of it. With his lunch prepared, he poured himself a glass of milk, returned the items to the fridge and sloped over to the breakfast bar, plonking himself on the stool closest to Sirius.
His father looked up from his phone as James sat down, regarding the snack in his hand from beneath lowered brows. "What are you eating there, son?"
James took an indulgent bite. "Ketchup sandwich."
"Are ketchup sandwiches what we'd call nutritious?"
"Tomatoes are a fruit," said James thickly.
"And ketchup is predominantly comprised of high fructose corn syrup."
Having a scientist for a dad was the worst, except for when it wasn't. Mostly, though, it was the worst. "So I'll eat a vegetable later."
Fleamont sighed, and set his phone down on the table. "You know, your mother and I didn't teach you to cook so that you could stuff yourself with condiments and white bread.
"You didn't teach me to cook," said James flatly. "I was born with an innate ability to cook that can't be explained by modern science. Or astrology."
Then he took another bite, and washed it down with a mouthful of milk.
"How hungover are you?" said Sirius, eyeing the sandwich with revulsion.
"M'not," James lied. "I'm young and vital." He looked at his father. "How was your meeting?"
As the sole founder and current CEO of Sleekeazy's, which manufactured and sold hair products across the whole of Europe, Fleamont often had to travel around for what seemed like immensely boring meetings in various locales.
"It was an R&D meeting, so more interesting than usual. We're branching out into hair dye in the new year, so I was liaising directly with the department heads," said Fleamont happily, though James privately believed it sounded just as dull as any of his father's usual meetings. "How was school yesterday? And the party? You were gone by the time I got back from Taunton."
"Fine," James replied.
"Fine is the most meaningless of adjectives, not an apt descriptor of my son's life," said Fleamont. "What did you get up to? Who was at the party?"
James didn't think he'd ever lived a day in his life and notbeen asked for a play-by-play by his father, who always wanted to know what he'd been up to, who he was hanging out with, or how he was feeling. Either Fleamont was immensely interested in his son's doings, or did an excellent job of pretending he was.
He shrugged. "It was good, I dunno."
"He's only saying that because he was trashed and can't remember what he did last night," said Sirius.
"Yes, I can!" James protested, though the only lucid memory he could dredge up at that point was that of Lily Evans offering to take him home in a taxi.
"Do you remember telling your mother that you were your own man and beholden to no laws?" said his father.
"Then stealing her stash of peppermint schnapps once she'd gone to bed?" Sirius added.
Fleamont made a soft, shushing noise and lowered his voice to a whisper. "I'll replace that today, before she knows it's missing."
James looked from one face to the other, straining to spot a sign of dishonesty. "I did not do either of those things."
"Yes you did, and it was obnoxious. You don't suit being that drunk, it turns you into an arsehole," said Sirius, and took a big, slurping spoonful of his own soup, which smelled absolutely delicious, no doubt better than a stodgy ketchup sandwich washed down with milk. "I fell asleep after you fought with Peter—"
"I fought with Peter?"
"Oh yeah, you were being a real dick about Helena."
"But Helena stalked me, and she's—"
"The absolute worst," I know, said Sirius, "but you were calling Peter a betrayer and all sorts, saying you'd never trust him again and that McGonagall was the only person you could ever trust." He paused. "Which is also offensive to me, now that I think of it."
"And me," put in Fleamont. "Minerva is a fine woman, but I ask you this: did she ever build you a treehouse?"
James stared at Sirius for a moment, drowning in a resentful silence as he finished off his sandwich, then he lifted his glass and drained the rest of his milk in one mouthful.
"Oh!" said his father, unmoved by this deeply tortured display. He turned to Sirius with a smile. "Did I tell you that Tim got promoted?"
Fleamont proceeded to launch into a story about Tim—who James never had and never would care about—and his adventures at work, so James got up from the breakfast bar and put his empty glass in the dishwasher, feeling very much like the arsehole to which he had been compared, and just a little like a splitting headache was rumbling his way.
Then he walked into the den and found his mother sitting on the sofa, watching Bargain Hunt on the telly with one elegant, manicured hand curled around her coffee mug.
"You," she said coldly, not looking away from the screen.
He threw himself into the seat next to her and laid his head on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he said, "for betraying your trust and giving you sass and stealing the rest of your peppermint schnapps, which I wasn't supposed to tell you about, but it seems like the right thing to do."
Euphemia didn't answer him immediately but shifted slightly in her seat to wrap her arm around his shoulders.
"Has my sweet boy come back?" she asked him.
James nodded, his chin bumping gently against her arm.
"Good. He's a lot more lovable," said his mother, and kissed the side of his head. "Though you'll still be getting sorely and soundly punished, just as soon as I think of a good one."
"I wouldn't expect anything less."
James wound up spending several hours in the living room with Euphemia, Sirius and Algernon—who sprang into his lap during Homes Under the Hammer and curled into a ball with a contented purr—watching crap reality shows about antique selling and house renovations. Meanwhile, his father ventured to his study to "work," which at weekends meant streaming eSports tournaments, or ascending to the next level of whatever game he'd recently become addicted to.
At some point in the day, a heartfelt apology was constructed, sent, and happily accepted by Peter. More bacon was procured during a quick trip to Asda. His parents ordered pizzas for dinner, and after a few intense rounds of Mario Kart, the entire family settled down for movie night. It was Euphemia's turn to pick, so James had no choice but to sit through All About Eve for what must have been the tenth time in his life.
Movie night, a Potter family tradition, took place every second weekend and was considered so important by his parents that Fleamont had created an Excel spreadsheet for the sole purpose of determining who of the four of them was scheduled to choose the film, the food, and the pre-screening activity on any given evening. Opting out of movie night was considered nothing short of sacrilege, and while it certainly wasn't the coolest Saturday night activity for a seventeen-year-old, James didn't mind the obligation and rarely complained about it. He really liked his parents and enjoyed spending time with them.
More importantly, he knew how much that time meant to Sirius, even if Sirius would never admit to such a thing out loud.
Besides, Bette Davis was an absolute legend.
The next couple of days also passed fairly harmoniously, with Euphemia having not decided upon a punishment yet, and Algernon being in an uncharacteristically affectionate mood. They were also pretty successful, as James scored a hat-trick in Sunday afternoon's footy match to immense applause from the watching crowd. Not only was he awarded Man of the Match for his efforts, he was subsequently congratulated by two of his teachers at school on Monday—as well as Heather, who hadn't been there to see it but was very impressed when Hooch called attention to his efforts in front of the class during Sport and PE.
All in all, his regrettable, drunken actions appeared to have no lasting consequences.
Then Wednesday came around.
James's first class on a Wednesday didn't start until the afternoon, and in the four weeks that had passed since school had started, he had devised his own routine to get him through that particular day.
First, he'd wake up early—not by choice, but because it was impossible to ignore the deafening caterwaul of each of Sirius's five unique alarms—and make his mother breakfast, guaranteeing him major brownie points and preferential treatment for the rest of the week.
(On the first Wednesday of October, Euphemia heaped such praise upon his buttermilk pancakes that James allowed himself to hope she might forget her resolve to punish him for his criminal breach of curfew.)
After breakfast with his mother, he'd take a long, luxurious shower, free of any banging on the door from Sirius, who had to leave the house early to be at school in time for French. Following that, he'd breeze through Tuesday's homework, arrive at school in time to have lunch with his mates, and attend a double session of Sport and PE before heading home and enjoying himself as he pleased.
On the first Wednesday of October, James was halfway through this routine—and tragically, right in the middle of lunch hour, which ought have been a sacred time—when everything fell spectacularly to pieces.
"Potter!" barked McGonagall, happening upon James, Sirius and Peter as they were cutting across the mismatched flagstones of the main courtyard to get to the sixth form canteen. She moved towards them quickly, her heeled boots clicking angrily against the ground, her dark bun pulled so tight that the skin around her temples was stretched taut. "I'd like a word with you!"
Nonplussed, James stopped walking, mere inches away from the double doors that led into the school, as did his mates beside him.
"What does she want?" murmured Sirius, watching her advance upon them.
"No idea," James murmured back.
Peter, on the other hand, appeared to have been petrified, his characteristic ruddiness draining quickly from his face. It wasn't unusual for Peter to be intimidated by a teacher, but James felt that his obvious terror was a rather extreme reaction, even for him.
He didn't have time to ruminate upon Peter's theatrics, however, for McGonagall had drawn level with them, and planted her hands on her hips.
She did not appear to be happy.
"My office, Potter," she said curtly, and with an unmistakable undercurrent of anger in her tone. "Today, after school, no excuses."
Correction. She was very clearly furious.
"You offi—what?" James replied, his mouth falling open. "What did I do?"
McGonagall's nostrils flared.
"Don't play the innocent with me," she said. "You know perfectly well what you did, and if you had any sense at all—"
"No, I don't know, actually!"
"Do not interrupt me while I am speaking, Potter—"
"But I didn't do anything!" he cried, completely bewildered by the sudden ambush. Though he would have been the first to admit that he'd made troublemaking something of a habit in his earlier years, James had been positively angelic since school had started back up in September. "I didn't—honestly, Miss, I don't know what you're talking abo—"
"Lying to me at this juncture is not going to help your cause—"
"I'm not lying—"
"I've already called your mother."
His stomach churned with a sudden surge of fear. "My mother?"
"Yes, Potter, the woman who birthed you," McGonagall dryly retorted, remarkably calm in the face of James's spluttering confusion, though she sent a quick glare at a sniggering Sirius. "I daresay you can remember who she is without my prompting, but if you need a refresher, she'll be in my office at 4 p.m. this evening, and I expect you to be there with her or I shall have no choice but to get the headmaster involved."
"Involved in wh—"
"We'll discuss this in my office, Potter," said McGonagall, and strode ahead of him, pushing through the double doors without so much as a backwards glance.
"What the fuck was that about?" said Sirius, when the door clanged shut behind her.
"I don't know!" James ran a hand through his hair, unease slicing through his stomach like a hot knife. "I didn't bloody do anything!"
"Maybe someone told her you did?" Sirius suggested. "Or maybe you did something that you didn't think was bad, but actually broke about a hundred school rules and inadvertently led to widespread famine?"
"I think I'd know, Sirius. It'd have to be criminal if she'd need my mother to come in," James said, and dropped his hand helplessly to his side. His mind was working frantically, skimming over the past few days for some hint as to what he'd done to make McGonagall so angry.
"Unless you're getting an award you don't know about, your mum's going to be pissed," said Sirius.
"Apoplectic, more like," said James darkly. "And she'll believe anything McGonagall tells her, no matter what—what's wrong with you?" he added, noting suddenly that Peter looked as if he was going to throw up.
"Nothing!" Peter squeaked. A slick sheen of sweat was coating his forehead.
"You sure? You look a bit—"
"You look shit," Sirius finished. "Like you've just come down with food poisoning."
"It's nothing. I'm fine," said Peter quickly, moving towards the door as fast as his legs could carry him. He reached out to push at the handle, but his hand groped uselessly through the air as it was pulled open from the inside and Lily Evans stepped out, looking very pretty—and thankfully, quite alive—with the sleeves of her pristine white blouse pushed up to her elbows, and a pea green headband in her long, loose hair.
Evans stopped as soon as she saw them all, eyes wide and slightly alarmed, as if she'd just walked in on a casual acquaintance getting changed and didn't quite know how to move past it.
"Potter," she said at once. "Hi."
She was blushing—not a faint raspberry or a dusky pink, but a full-blown, warm-blooded red, no question about it—from cheeks to forehead, and that made even less sense than the curve ball McGonagall had just thrown at him.
"Hi," James replied, blinking at her.
He didn't even have time to register his surprise that she had greeted him specifically, because a new kind of panic was beginning to bubble up in the fiery pit of his gut, as if the unease fostered by McGonagall had decided to throw a party and this Evans-related panic had shown up unfashionably early, the first in what may have been set to become a full conga line of guests.
James had combed over the details of his encounter with Evans at McNamee's party—once he'd been alert and sober enough to do so—and concluded that it went relatively well, despite having knocked her on her arse, but clearly he had been wrong to assume that he hadn't hurt or insulted or offended her deeply. Not if the way she was looking at him now was any indication.
Whatever it was he had done to her, James was certain that he would never drink again.
"Hi," said Evans, and frowned, like she'd just happened to hear herself speak and couldn't quite fathom what she was saying. "Sorry." She shook her head. "What I meant to say was—"
"The canteen will be out of vegetables if we don't leave now!" piped up Peter. His usual flush had returned to his face, but it was violently pronounced.
"Vegetables?" Sirius frowned at him. "What—"
"All the vegetables," said Peter. "Let's go."
He dashed past Evans and disappeared into the building, leaving Sirius staring after him in disbelief.
"He doesn't even like vegetables," he said, and flicked his long, sleek hair away from his face. "He literally said that vegetarianism is against his principles. Is there a carbon monoxide leak in this school today?"
"What?" said Evans.
"What?" Sirius repeated.
"I'm sorry, I was in my own world, didn't hear a thing you just said," she explained, "but do you think I could have a word with Potter for a moment?"
James was pretty sure that the look of surprise that crossed Sirius's face was a direct mirror of his own.
"In private?" Lily added.
He was acutely aware of just how loud the inside of his body was being, particularly the organ he kept caged-up on the left side of his chest, but James also couldn't help the jitters. He'd clearly done something despicable to Evans at the party, and she was preparing to enact her revenge in a quiet, secluded space with no witnesses present.
Maybe he had shattered her coccyx bone, and her family were going to sue… but this was England, not America. Evans was covered by the NHS, and besides, she'd seemed fairly sprightly when she sprang out the door not seconds earlier.
"Um," said James.
"He'd love to," said Sirius, choosing an utterly bizarre moment to decide to be helpful, considering how often he had complained about James's crush on Evans in the past. "I'll go find out what the fuck is wrong with Peter."
Then he clapped James hard on the back and left, following Peter through the double doors though which Evans had just emerged, leaving them alone together—or as alone as two people could be in a school courtyard in the middle of the day, with other students milling about and the distinct sound of two lads brawling floating vaguely towards them from the field behind the science department.
"D'you want to…?" Evans began, jerking her head to the left to indicate that they should move away from the door. He nodded and followed her a few steps, coming to a halt by the window that looked in on the music room. There was a short bench beneath that window, but Evans did not sit down, so neither did James.
"So," she said, regarding him with a tight, almost pitying smile.
"So," he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Are you okay after, y'know…?"
"Our untimely collision?" She tugged on a lock of her hair. "Yeah, I'm fine. Not so much as a bruise."
"That's good. Great. Glad I didn't kill you."
"Right, yeah. No, I'm definitely not a ghost."
With that portion of their conversation finished, James now had no idea what to say to her.
She was looking at him expectantly, which might have made her the second woman in about as many minutes to expect James to possess an understanding of something that he simply did not have. He didn't know how to apologise for a thing he couldn't remember doing, unless the terrible thing he had done was knock her to the floor, but he'd tried to apologise for that at the party and she hadn't seemed particularly eager to assign much blame in his direction.
Seconds ticked by, long, painful seconds in which James's inability to muster up any kind of response most likely sent him sinking lower and lower in her estimation.
It was his turn to talk, so he had to say something. Anything at all. He had to wrangle it so that it seemed as if he knew what he was talking about, as if he wasn't a drunken idiot who had blacked out portions of his evening after far too much tequila. Evans was a class act. She probably never got drunk. She probably drank organic ginseng tea with honey. She probably knew what ginseng was.
He had to say anything something. Anything. Right at that moment.
"I'm sorry," he tentatively began, "about what I did at the par—"
"I got your letter," Lily interrupted, her voice ringing out over his.
James's brain tripped slightly, like a light bulb flickering in the middle of a storm.
"What?" he said.
"Your letter," said Lily again. She was swaying almost imperceptibly, a gentle, side-to-side movement, as she swung her school bag over her shoulder and brought it to rest in front of her stomach. "I mean, it is yours, right? I thought at first that maybe it wasn't, that one of your mates was trying to prank me or something—" She wasn't looking at him, her eyes cast downwards, watching herself unzip the front pocket of her bag. "—but then I still have those English lit notes you let me borrow when I had that stomach bug last year, so I checked it and the handwriting matches up, so..."
From the front of her bag, she pulled out a slim, white envelope, torn open at the top with a precise kind of neatness, with her address on the front, plainly written by his hand, clearly visible as she withdrew the letter that was inside.
The letter that…
The letter that he…
The world swam violently in front of his eyes.
"I mean, I don't—I don't really know what to say," she continued, and set about unfolding the letter before him. "It's really flattering, honestly, but it's such—it's such a lot, and I don't—were you joking?" She looked up at him, and her bright green eyes were pretty and curious and maybe a little guarded. "I thought that maybe you were joking, but you don't seem like you'd do something like that."
The letter was open in her hands, and James's heart was about to rocket right out of his chest and whizz up to the stratosphere, where it would pop like a firework and shower the cosmos with fragments of his myocardium, while back on earth he collapsed and died from the horror of it all.
In a matter of seconds, she'd done completely away with any residual hope that she'd somehow been mistaken, that she'd gotten the wrong letter, or that he'd written something completely different and far less incriminating in a drunken stupor, because in her hands were the very words he'd expelled on a page at the height of an impassioned obsession.
The world was ending. This couldn't be real.
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck was he supposed to do?
"Potter?" she said.
How was he supposed to handle this?
How was he supposed to handle this when he had no bloody idea how she'd gotten the stupid letter in the first place? When he had never—of all the girls he'd liked before, if he could have picked one from whom he could forever guard this secret—ever planned for Lily Evans to learn how much he'd fancied her? Was he now meant to lie? He'd garnered just enough of a reputation for clowning around that he might just have been able to convince her that it was a prank, but then she might be hurt, or confused, or rightfully indignant to be made the butt of a joke.
But then, what was the other option? Telling her the truth? Then she'd know. She'd know that he—I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you—she'd know that he'd written it. That he'd meant it, once. Not now, but once, though this was as fresh for her as it was stale for him.
His hands were clammy, his face felt hotter than a forest fire, and he was pretty sure that he was seconds away from passing out completely.
James had to lie.
Lying was his only option, a single port in an unexpected storm. It would piss her off, sure, because she'd think that she'd been used for the sake of a prank, but she and James weren't friends in the first place. She'd never fancied him when he was in love with her, and he'd long since given up on the hope that they'd ever be anything to one another but minor acquaintances. The truth was a necessary sacrifice.
A painful sort of sacrifice, because he'd always kind of hoped… but necessary. Completely necessary.
"I didn't mean—" he choked out, and Evans raised an eyebrow at him, and his stomach turned over, "I didn't mean for you to see that."
Or he could just admit to it like a pathetic loser.
"But," said Lily, and flipped the envelope in her hand, "my address was on it."
"I know, but—"
"Are you saying you addressed this letter to me, even though you had no intention of sending it?"
"Yes, but I'd been having a bad day—"
"So you meant what you wrote?"
"No, but—I don't, or I mean—yes, I did," he said, seeing her eyes widen at this denial. Too much was happening all at once. He was going to die, he thought, and Evans had somehow gotten her hands on an item that was supposed to be several miles away in a dusty old shoebox, known only to himself and Algernon—who didn't have the opposable thumbs required to affix a stamp to an envelope—and this didn't make sense and she knew how he'd felt and he was definitely going to die right here. "It's really difficult to explain, it's like, I don't but also I—"
And then everything got about a million times worse.
For there, in the background, approaching the courtyard from the north-east school entrance, was Heather Jordan.
Heather Jordan, who was clearly beelining right towards him with undeniable purpose, moving faster than was logically feasible for a girl who hadn't just received a love letter from her very good mate and was on her way to confront him, staring at him with wide, confused eyes.
Heather Jordan, who had in her hand a slim, white envelope.
Sorely and soundly punished, his mother had warned him, and wouldn't she know about the letters in the shoebox? Surely her years of cleaning and poking and prying through his affairs would have yielded her the knowledge of his most secret possessions, and wasn't it just like Euphemia Potter to dream up a revenge too diabolical for an ordinary, decent person to contemplate?
The woman idolized Cersei Lannister, of all people!
But Heather thought that she and James were friends. Heather had a boyfriend. She was going to hate him for doing this. She was going to think that he'd sent her that letter of his own volition, hellbent on manipulating her feelings, like the worst, most selfish kind of Nice Guy imaginable.
James was about to suffocate beneath the weight of his own anxiety, be beaten to death by his violently pounding heart. He couldn't handle this. Couldn't. Evans was bad enough, but Heather…
A mad, ridiculous, absolutely awful idea popped into his head.
"Pretend to be my girlfriend," he said to Evans, firing the request at her like a bulging water balloon.
Even as the words left his mouth—and as Evans, who was visibly taken aback, let her school bag slide from her arm and land with a heavy thump on the ground—he realised that he'd just uttered the stupidest sentence he had ever and probably would ever utter.
"What?" she said, her voice low and deadly. Her gorgeous eyes narrowed in suspicion, and she drew away from him with one pointed step.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have no manners," James babbled, longing to run away but rooted to the spot like his shoes had been nailed down tight. "Pretend to be my girlfriend, please?"
Mad. Stupid. Awful… but he was sticking with it, apparently.
"Potter…" Evans opened her mouth and closed it again. "What the hell—"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but this is a life and death situation and I think I'm having a heart attack—"
"What are you even talking abo—"
"I'll explain everything later, everything, I swear, but I just need you to do this for five minutes—"
"You want me to pretend—"
"Not even five minutes! One minute! Thirty seconds!" Heather was approaching fast. "I swear I'll explain everything, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I have no other option—"
"You're not making any sense!"
"—or maybe I do have an option—" Fifteen feet away. Fourteen. Thirteen. "—but I don't know how to change my identity and my cat would be distraught and have you seen what Sirius is like when I even take a sick day? And I can't live in the wilderness! I tried camping once and the tent fell down on my head in the dead of night, and I thought I was being murdered and I—"
"Jesus, Potter!" Evans snapped, and threw her arms out by her sides. "Fine!"
Fine.
The word rocketed through his head like a pinball, bouncing violently from one bumper to the other with loud and discordant clangs, before it hurtled down the drain and disappeared.
Time was running out, James had no better ideas, and Heather was only two or three feet away.
He grabbed Lily's shoulders and kissed her.