Chapter 9
"Potter, tell me what happened."
A window must have been opened angled with a shaft of light to touch gently upon Lily's features. It streaked across her face; light glinting within that green iris, orb like, as if dabbled shades of green caressed one another, skirting each shade upon the other, held in this perfection of a circle ebbing light of that reflection.
That light gliding across her face with an effortless force touching upon that hair. It's effect of a glow, a ripple of deep glittering essence. Each hair caught by this light shone so brightly in beautiful colour. Moving, entwining within itself, with every breath she took.
As the rest of her face lay in shadow, a deep rich ebonating shadow as it was, it just contrasted with this glow, this accidental colouring of features, and as James looked he thought. How beautiful he knew this should be. However, it did seem to lack anything that could discern it so.
"Potter, stop gazing stupidly at my face and tell me what happened in that store room."
"I" James began, gaze with a shift to the door. A finger moving across that wooden surface, trying to only see the aged lines of time and not the ebbing reality of now. "punched him in the face."
"Oh did you." Her sarcasm lay rank and rancid in the air. Ebbinating a layer of malice with her words as if lava moulded its way through crakes like water, burning rather than cooling. James just kept still trying to contort his face into anything other than the grinding nature that festered within him. Yet Lily did not seem to rest in her incessant understanding. "Well, I'm so sorry Potter. My mistake. Of course you punched him in the face what was I even thinking wasting your time."
"Yeah," James nodding, lip held tight by upper teeth. "Thanks, and now if you don't mind I'm gonna go have detention for it."
Yet before even a grace of a hand upon the door frame Lily grabbed his arm. She stood there, lava still seeping from that essence. Then she said, oh so very slowly, like every word held the quality of that anger that burned out this thick ebbing lava. "Now," She stopped very slightly, as if willing herself not to break down the rock that held the volcano in place.
"Ok, what I want to know it this. Why did you punch him? Shh, let me finish. You normally jink him. You try some new funny" she almost spat funny but her sense was soon regained upon the next word she uttered "spell you learnt and you try it out and it's all a laugh and you then have a laugh with Sirius in detention together. Well, where's Sirius? Weren't in on it together? Hmm, very odd don't you think? And then of course the actual act. You physically hurt him. You actually hurt him. I mean you like to be this top of the school oh so cool joker where everyone bows to your every word but don't you think that maybe physically attacking people is a bit far? It's not like you Potter. What happened in that store room that made you punch him? Something must have happened."
James, focus on the far wall. Very intent on the criss-cross of brick upon brick. "Well," he said, an arch of a nod like a defiant little push evacuating those theories away, yet gaze still attentive on the building structure of around. "why don't you ask your little bestie then?"
Her grip loosened. James looked down. She looked up. Then very suddenly she realised her hand. "That's another thing." Her voice suddenly quick, bitty, as if a panic was sparking deep inside her. "He always tells me what you've done. Maybe not in detail but he tells me. Why hasn't he told me? What did you do?!"
James looked up to Lily's eyes. Lily's looked back glazed with worry, confusion yet mostly of all, complete ignorance.
He raised his eye brows, smiled and then said, so very calmly it seemed, "I punched him in the face."
The lava was back yet it did not skate easily over rock as before but instead bubbled in her features, her speech. "Are you fucking kidding me! Can anything important or... or anything get in that bloated head of yours. He tried to…" she stopped, hand skirting the air, unable to even begin to say the words "and you have done nothing about it. Nothing! Ok, maybe like twenty four hours where you were a bit edgy and was nice for once to people but that didn't last long did it? As soon as Sev came back to class you started acting shitty to him again, maybe even worse." James glancing away at the mention of his name. It seemed his stomach had acquired a taste to incessantly beat itself with seemingly thousands of butterflies upon hearing that name.
"Listen, Potter, are you seriously trying to make him… you know."
Again it seemed the wooden frame of the door held the answers to James new focus of attention.
"Evans." He said this very delicately. Like this word balanced on a pin prick. Yet still that pin was sharp as the word struck its contact. "Is someone feeling bad? After going on and on about how you feel about him being in the wrong crowd, messing with the wrong magic, suddenly your bestie tries to top himself and you're now a fucking saint waving the flag for justice."
It seemed eerily quiet then. It was as if you could hear the dust that floated in that strip of light whisper amongst themselves.
"I didn't realise he felt like that." Her tone, very flat as she spoke, yet there was that emotion that lay deep within that volcanic explosion from before that heated and kindled its fire. "But," here her green eyes looked up toward that tilted face of James still staring attentively toward the door frame. "I now know and I am trying to be a better person, a better friend. He hides it so well and you know that too. No one was expecting that. He hides it all behind sarcasm and hate and he doesn't talk about emotions so how was I to know." Then James heard it. Half way through that sentence her voice shifted like plates of the earth, jerking, and that assertion, that assurance, suddenly, vividly, became a plea.
She coughed it away suddenly. Her voice very much back to her flat tones. "Please, for me."
James, a smile that crept over his face. Turning with a slight tilt of the head, he grinned, pointing toward the door, nodding, still that grin upon his features. "Better get to detention then." The door was shut behind him before she even could reach out a hand.
Professor Mcgonagall's classroom was empty. Empty, bar the piece of parchment strewn haphazardly across her desk.
Accustomed to this form of communication, James wandered across the stone floor hearing soft taps of his feet upon floor in the silence of the walls around him.
Snape in Potions earlier that day.
Even as James issued that harsh exhale from those mirthless lips, it did not lift that heaviness that seemed to cling to that very chest. The same chest that must evidently find amusement to beat out at a faster rate whenever that stupid… when he flittered across his thoughts. Unfortunately his mind had become more accustomed to such images in present days.
He hardly saw himself pick up the parchment before him and even less aware of the words written upon its many etching yellow colours of its surface.
Potter,
I have been called to an important meeting. I do not know how long I will be but when I return I do expect you to have found all the needles in the pile of hay on my desk that my First year class Transfigured today. Also Transfigure the needles back into hay ready for my other First year Transfiguration class tomorrow. When I return I will give you more work and I will not let you finish unless you have done everything.
Professor Mcgonagall
With a flick of a hand the note flew from his fingers. Eye lids heavy on his eyes and chest growing ever more pressured. Why didn't he like Lily anymore?
Body collapsing upon the desk before him. Eyes closed and elbows resting on that surface. His head seemed so heavy in his hands like a weight pushing him down, deep into the aged wood.
He wasn't gay. No, he didn't like Snape.
Those heavy exhales becoming audible sounds at points that stifled the air within his hands but did nothing to the heaviness of his chest.
Why did Snape come into this? James was straight. Even if his feelings for Lily subsided a little, they can grow again, they will grow again. Yes, start liking Lily again and it will all be fine, all perfect, nothing ever to be concerned with again.
He was doing a shit job at that though.
Head collapsing in hands, fingers ruffling through hair.
He really was doing a shit job. She just kept talking about Snape and Snape should just fuck off from this. It just wasn't fair. No, it wasn't right, it was weird. No, it wasn't true. He did not have feelings, no, none whatsoever. Why would he have feelings for that, that…
James, moving head from left to right, trying to find words degrading enough but… there really weren't any were there.
But Snape was ugly and disgusting and vile and James was very straight and liked girls and will eventually start liking Lily again and it will be ok again and none of this nonsense, none of it will ever flit through his subconscious again.
Knock knock.
James's head did not move. A sudden shock to reality, maybe, but it was probably a student handing in late homework. They'll just put it on the desk and fuck off.
The door behind him creaked open as James went to looking lazily at the opposite wall to him, his back still to the door.
No footsteps however. Little first year frightened of a big scary student. James, smiling to himself for this granted importance for purely being older, decided to turn to help said child to make the difficult distance across the big stone floor and up toward the desk before him.
"Just put it on the desk she's in a mee-fuck."
The fact that he swore quite loudly at the person standing stock still in that doorway didn't really help. It certainly did not make said person evaporate into nothingness which would have been the most helpful scenario at that point. In fact it probably just helped to create this vividly excruciating atmosphere that clung to the room because, well, he never really cared for that hate filled sneer that Severus Snape was always far too happy to give him, even if it meant that he had to then stand in that doorway for only slightly longer to give it.
