Chapter 7: The good times
A/N: Thanks to those who favourite/follow/review I LOVE YOU ALL! Please continue to do all three it is so great! Enjoy the latest update!
Disclaimer: Jk Rowling is British, I'm not even British, yet another reason for why I am not her!
Lily- flashback Ten years agoIt was my 7th birthday, I woke up and threw back the bed sheets and bolted downstairs. My grandmother's face was the first one I saw. She was always the first one there for me. She gave me a big hug and said now that I was seven I was a "big girl" now. Oh those good times.
My grandmother was almost invincible in my mind, I never thought she would leave me. 3 years ago, on this exact same day, my fourth birthday, my grandmother was used a hostage in an armed robbery. Yet, she was still there on my birthday, she was so resilient, strong. I always thought nothing would take her. How wrong I was.
Present timeI sit in the secluded dark corner of my own secret room, no one can find me, and I don't want them to. My grandmother is gone. Dead. I will never see her again, and that is what hits me the hardest, the fact that I can never ever see her, talk to her, nothing. I pull out the letter, which informed me of her death. My grandmother was killed by death eaters. On yet another pointless, meaningless muggle killing spree which had no sentimental value to them, only to others, like me. I taste the saltiness of my own tears on my tongue, the bitterness, and I don't mean the tears. I take off the silver locket of which I wear around my neck everyday. On one side is a black and white picture of my parents together, I can't imagine what I would do without them now that the contents of the picture has left, my grandmother, gone, forever. I'm still trying to come to terms with what has happened, I feel empty.
A guttural sound comes from my throat, makes me sound like I'm choking, I feel like it. Choking on my emptiness. I stand up, and instantly fall back down, I have no energy, I check my watch, 2:57. I have been here for about 7 hours, it feels like 10 years. But I don't want to move. I don't want to go back there. No one else knows what has happened, no one else knows where I am. Or so I thought.
I hear the squeak of the statue outside when it moves and before I know it, I am not the only one in this room no longer.
"Just go away" I mumble, which properly turns out sounding like something unintelligent.
Whoever it is, they don't leave, instead they keep coming closer. I think of so many possibilities of who it may be, Hestia, Remus who became friends with after 2 years of prefect duties together, Potter, Severus, even death eaters for some odd reason.
The last person I expected to see was Sirius, and here he was standing in front of me with a concerned look in his eyes. He doesn't speak but instead sit downs next to me and just sits there. We sit there together, with only silence doing the talking, for as long as I care to remember, he doesn't mention anything, and I don't want to.
Third Person"James just sit down, nothing is wrong and nothing will happen, padfoot will find her and talk to her, then he will come back to us and spill the details."
"Remus, its Lily, she's usually so strong, it must've have been something big for her to miss a days lessons and to go missing altogether".
James didn't get to hear Remus reply, as there was a knock at the door followed by Hestia.
"We could've been naked y'know?" James stated with a straight face "And you just let yourself in without waiting for anyone to reply"
Hestia scrunched up her nose, but after being best friends with James since any of them could remember she wasn't to fazed by his suggestion "James, I know you too well, no gay guy would go after a girl for almost seven years. On that point, do you happen to know where she is?"
"How should I know?" James lied " It isn't as if I have ways of knowing where she is, do I"?
Hestia just simply shook her head "James Potter I have known you your whole life, we live 5 minutes from each other, I know every single one of your deepest and darkest secrets even if you didn't want me to and most of all I am your best friend. Now hand me the Marauders map so I can get to my other best friends."
James opened his mouth to protest but had nothing to protest and settled with a shrug "We don't have it".
Hestia looked furious with the delay in what should have been a quick and simple procedure, she had now been stalled 5 further minutes. "What do you mean we don't have it?!"
"Well, precisely what I said Miss Jones, we as in us in this room do not have the Marauders map, Sirius does." James ended with a bright smile.
Hestia dropped her eyes from James's gaze and took to studying the floor intensely.
" You know, you are still yet to tell your dearest best friend what happened two years ago which took you two from best friends to, well this. Ignoring and pretending the other doesn't even exist." James continued still holding his eyes to the fixed spot in front of him.
Hesitation flickered through Hestia's eyes as she looked up to James "James Please" She pleaded " Just leave it".
James shook his head "Fine whatever, but Sirius still has the map."
"Okay" Hestia mumbled and left the dormitory.
James turned from the closing door, rubbing his forehead and jumped back in surprise. Then he remembered that even through his and Hestia's conversation that, Peter and Remus had also witnessed the encounter but yet were still silent.
"James" Remus said, "If it is any comfort, Hestia and Sirius haven't told anyone what happened. It's a mystery for everyone."
"I know Moony but I thought one of them would tell their best friend, that's all." James replied, not meaning to sound bitter but unfortunately doing so.
HestiaI left the dormitory of the Marauders even more confused than I previously was, somehow. Confused on what made Sirius take the actions that he did in 5th year and confused on how to handle the James situation.I figured that the only way to unravel this seriously tangled web of unanswered questions and mysteries was to meet them head on. Problem was, I didn't know where to start. Firstly I needed to find Lily and find out what had happened to her. But then that other problem arose. Where the hell was Lily?
LilyI don't know how he did it but here I was, sitting in the Great hall for dinner, even though my grandmother had recently passed away, here I was. Yet here I was, all thanks to Sirius. I didn't look up even when people came by to try and talk to me. I just sat there and prodded my food with Sirius sitting next to me. But that's when someone over stepped the line. I felt someone next to me, but as I had done for the previous visitors, I pretended they did not exist. "Lily thank god there you are, Sirius said he was going to find you but he had been gone for ages so I thought he couldn't find you or something like that. Anyway Lily, where have you been." James's extremely annoying and for some unreason excited voice hit a sore point for me and I realised I really wasn't up to this. I looked to Sirius for support. He looked at me with sympathy in his eyes but I could tell he had nothing. I turned to James, with tears streaming down my face, his emotions changed in an instant. I wasn't there to watch it happen though, I was off. I felt him try to bring me back down and tug at my tear sodden sleeve but I shrugged his hand off and did the only thing I knew to do, I ran. JamesI turned and watched as Lily ran down between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables as she escaped from the great hall and for the matter everyone else.
Sirius reached over and cuffed the back of my head of my head with his hand. "Ow what the hell Padfoot?" I asked confused.
"That James is for being and inconsiderate.. Um. Pineapple!" Sirius growled, I must have still looked confused as he further elaborated "Never mind, you know what I mean. Why did have to bound here like happy-go-lucky when you could obviously see if you were sympathetic at all that Lily was feeling extremely sad and sorrowful?" He demanded.
"Oh Shit" I exclaimed as it clicked "Padfoot what the hell has happened to Lily? Oh and by the way, how am I a pineapple?
"Because I dislike pineapple and at the moment I dislike you. No Prongs this time I am not helping you or healing over the wounds you have left all by yourself. I do that enough, this time you can find Lily and you can help her and try to comfort her so she can tell you, for once it won't be me." He said this as he got up and slammed a blank piece of parchment on the table next to me, after finishing with his lecture he stalked away to chat up a 6th year Ravenclaw and I realised I wouldn't be getting any help this time.
I pointed the tip of my wand to the parchment in front of me, then thought better of doing it in public and stowed both into my pockets and also got up from the emptying Gryffindor table as dinner started to draw to a close.
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good" I whispered to the parchment and it immediately began to flourish with the familiar contents which of course was the Marauders map, filled with black dots and lines representing people and corridors/secret passageways. I scanned the sheet for the dot of Lily Evans. In fourth year, two years after the completion of the map and four years on from my obsession with Lily, I had an ingenious moment to cut down wasted time on trying to track down lily though the endless amounts of dots. After consultation with the boys and research from Moony we managed to do another incarnation on the already magical enough piece of parchment. The thing we managed to do is, when whispering ones name with your wand pressed to the parchment, the dot of said person appears brighter and therefore easier to find than any other on the parchment.
So after a few wasted minutes I remembered this moment and after touching the tip of my wand to the map yet again and whispering "Lily Evans" to the parchment I managed to find the glowing dot in the secret room of which we found in third year and evidently added to the map.
I stored the map into my bag and put my wand in its usual place before setting off for the 4th floor.
I walked up the last few stairs before arriving on the fourth floor, not from the statute, behind that was Lily's room, my palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy and I was already beginning to dread what would follow.
I tapped the statue with my wand and it began to move to the side revealing the small wooden door. I turned the handle and stepped over the threshold. I looked around the dark room and couldn't see a metre in front of me, I heard a small whimper to my left and knew it could only be one person.
As I started to adjust to my own surroundings, I started to make out the outline of Lily's body, curled into a tight-knit ball, impossibly small.
"Lumos" I whispered and lit my wand to reveal Lily's tear stricken face with mascara also running down both of her pink cheeks.
I felt my heart wrench and twist at her desperate state, something big had happned and I felt so incredibly bad for how cheery I had been at dinner when she was in this mood, I don't know how she became this way but I knew one thing , I wanted to make her better.
I didn't say anything, I didn't know what to. Instead I just precariously took a couple steps towards her and slid my back down the wall next to her, and did a risky yet what I felt right movement and drew her into me with my arm and tucked her into my chest as tears spilled from her eyes.
For how long we just sat there, I don't know. I didn't talk and I don't think Lily exactly wanted to. But at around 11:30 she finally opened her mouth, "James, what are you doing here?" she asked quietly.
"I figured you needed someone, a shoulder to cry on I suppose, and since I was a complete jerk before I thought that I better make amends, or something" I shrugged.
Lily lifted her head from my arms, her chin still resting against my chest and even though her face was red from the consistent crying and mascara was smudged across her cheeks from the tears. I still couldn't believe how incredibly beautiful she truly was, the way her dark red hair fell and splayed across her chest. Her silky white complexion prominent because of the contrast with her school robes. Most of all, the way he emerald green sparkling eyes were looking up at me put me in a trance. She was as close to perfect as anyone could get.
"Why are you doing this though? Why are you being nice to me all of sudden?" Lily asked her voice still barely over a whisper.
"Lily, I want you to understand-". I paused trying to figure out what I really wanted to say. "I-I have been a complete, a complete jerk, an inconsiderate asshole to you for 6 years Lily and I know throughout those years you hated it, you hated me. But I'm sorry for everything, I now that it won't make it all go away, it won't make anything better. But now I want you to believe that, that was not the real me. I was Immature and blinded, blinded by how much I adored you Lily, and yes had a very weird way of showing it, but now I want to show who I truly am. I'm not asking for you to go out with me, all I am asking for is to be your friend. I would be forever grateful and honoured, to be your friend Lily." I finished, not taking my eyes off hers for one moment.
She tried to reply but choked it back because of fresh tears which had begun to fall again. I panicked.
"Lily? Oh no I'm sorry, what did I do? What did I say? Oh Lily I'm really sor-"
"Ja-James shush, I-I never hated you, you just, I strongly dislisked you then and you annoyed me so much!" Lily exclaimed.
"Okay, I-I think I get it, so if it's ok, Why are you here? What happened Lily?"
"James" she whispered even quieter "My Grandma died."
A/N: Ok first up it may look like I was trying to build suspense but really I wasn't. This is just sort of a turning point so it was important. The chapters are starting to grow as I have established the characters and all that, so it should start to get better from her on. I will update as quickly as possible. If you have any questions, advice, anything I would love to hear from you and maybe improve my fic. Remember to follow/favourite/review! The title has also changed.