Chapter Nine

The Great Hall was bustling with the noise of dinner. Excited students who had just returned from a day in Hogsmeade, others chattering about Quidditch games, and still others moaning about the load of schoolwork they still had to do for Monday. Although surrounded by it, alone and silent sat a boy and girl, side-by-side, both lost in their own thoughts.

Their arms brushed against each other as they ate. They glanced at each other for barely a second before swiftly averting their eyes from those of the other. Lily hid her blush behind a wave of her hair, falling out from behind her ear.

"Sorry." James mumbled to her. She nodded, just barely visible from behind her hair.

'Merlin, I love her,' was the first thing to pass through James' mind, yet again… 'Moony is totally off on this one. There is no way love will mess this up, right? I should just tell her. That would be romantic and girls like romantic. It's not like I'm lying about it. Right, I'll tell her right after dinner and she will smile and lean in and kiss- wait! What if I tell her and she thinks I'm joking- and that this whole day is a big joke- and that I'm a giant git for playing with her like that. Worse, what if she thinks I'm being serious? Will it freak her out? Will she think I'm a crazy stalker and all…? No, I can't tell her…absolutely not…but… Merlin! What do I do?"

Unknowing to an oblivious James, Lily was caught in her own tangled thoughts as well.

'Okay, Lils, this is easy. You have this all under control… I'm such a horrible liar! I don't know what to do. Come on, Potter, do something stupid and make me hate you again- You've always done it so well before, why not now?... Whatever, he is still Potter and I don't like him… but he's not. He's James and he- he knows the different ways I blush and he understands how to be protective of your friends and I talked to him all day and almost kissed him!... I'm so confused. How can I hate him and love him at the same time? No, not love, like. I meant LIKE!... Oh, my. I don't know what I am going to do.'

They were both uncannily silent throughout the meal, especially compared to how open and talkative they had been earlier this very same day. Funnily enough, neither noticed how strange the other was acting because they were too caught up in their own troubling predicaments…

Lily set down her utensils onto her plate with a clatter when she was convinced she could no longer delay by eating slowly. She saw that James had given up on supper as well.

"So, what do you have planned out for the rest of today…?" she asked, trying to seem nonchalant.

"Well," said James slowly, getting up from the table. Lily followed his suit. "I was thinking 'cause we started the day out with a sunrise it would only be proper to send it off with a sunset…"

"So are we heading outside again?" asked Lily as they exited the Great Hall and she noticed James was going in the opposite direction of the Entrance Hall.

"No, somewhere else."

- - - -

About ten minutes and a good walk later Lily found herself at the top of a tower she was unfamiliar with and had a feeling was out of bounds. For some reason it didn't bother her as much as it should have.

"Is this another place you happened to 'discover?'" asked Lily with a hint of a smirk, speculating what circumstances must have brought him here in the past. Doutblessly something exciting and against the rules.

"More or less," replied James, leaning against the rail of the open balcony in the waning evening light.

Lily joined him, electing to stand several feet away from him. She looked over the Hogwarts grounds from this immense height and it took her breath away.

"Everything looks so small from up here," she said just above a whisper. "So…insignificant."

"That's the beauty of it," replied James, not even turning to look at the redhead as he talked, but still staring over the horizon. "When you step back far enough, even mountains seem insignificant."

Lily was silent for a moment before asking, "Why is that beautiful?"

"Because," answered James easily. "If mountains and the sun," he said indicating his hand toward the dipping light, "Or evens stars look small and powerless from far away we still know they are not. It makes me think that if everything can look insignificant, and not just some things, that we all must be significant, despite what we sometimes feel."

"Couldn't it just be that we are all insignificant instead?" questioned Lily, with curiosity about how James would answer.

He shrugged and turned his head to Lily. "Maybe, but I don't think that's the case."

Lily bit her lip before replying, "Me neither."

The sun was dipping lower and lower in the western sky until its bottom rim grazed the top of the tallest trees in the forest, making them appear to be on fire.

James was completely caught up in the sight and Lily kept carefully watching him out of the corner of her eyes, sometimes making a show of readjusting her hair in order to get a better look at him. Only after a few minutes of this did she realize the fact that she and James had seemed to have changed places. At sunrise he had been the one watching her as she had observed the sun…

This morning she thought he had only showed her the sunrise to try and impress her. To make him seem sensitive or romantic, but now as she watched his face, totally absorbed the sight of the dying light, she knew it was something more. He actually enjoyed it, more then enjoyed, it appeared that he almost…breathed it.

"You are undoubtedly the most interesting person I ever met," said Lily, unable to control it from running off her tongue as the last of the sun was hidden behind horizon.

"What?" he asked, looking at the girl with an eyebrow raised.

"I mean," said Lily uneasily, floundering for the words to explain her statement. "Sometimes you seem to be moving so fast…" she trailed off, hoping James understood her reference to his endless pranks, his exuberance with his friends and Quidditch, his fast and crazy lifestyle all together. He nodded and she continued, "Yet still you take the time to watch sunsets and talk to some girl all day long…"

"Well, life isn't just one speed, I guess," replied James.

"I guess not," agreed Lily. The sun was completely behind the horizon now and night was taking the day's place. Lily was sad that the day was coming to the end, she wanted it to just stand still because as soon as the day ended she would have to make a choice she was nowhere near ready to make.

"I get it," Lily whispered after a moment of contemplation. "You love life. You want get everything out of it. See everything, do everything, except maybe follow the rules…"

"You had to get a dig on me in there somewhere, didn't you?"

"But I'm right, aren't I? That's what it is?" asked Lily.

"Yeah, I guess. I never put it to words before, but that sounds right."

Lily sighed and sank back against the outer wall of the tower, sliding slowly to a sitting position on the floor.

"Are you okay?" asked James, concern in his voice, sitting down next to her.

"I'm fine," she whispered unconvincingly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she did so. She kept her eyes downcast, staring at her hands in her lap, not daring to meet James's hazel eyes.

James knew she wasn't okay, but he left her alone. He sat beside her silently, his head leaned against the stone wall, watching the sky darken and the stars become more visible.

"We should be getting back to the common room," he commented idly.

"Why?" asked Lily, still not looking at him.

"It's almost after hours...and we're out of bounds as it is…"

"So?"

"Aren't you worried about getting in trouble? Don't you have, like, a clean record…?"

"Clean record? Actually, no. Am I worried…?" She was silent for a moment in thought. Was she worried about getting in trouble? "Not tonight."

"If you say so…" James said before lightly placing his hand on top of Lily's. She turned her head just a fraction of an inch further from his, she closed her eyes tightly as she tried to hold back tears.

She didn't want to…but she knew what she had to do.


Aki- Well, hope you liked that and pleez don't kill me over the ending. My beta already told me I was evil for this cliffhanger...