a/n: I really have no excuse for why this chapter is so late - especially considering that it was pretyped - other than I wasn't really sure about how it fit in and how I felt about it. (That and this was supposed to be up nearly a month ago but for some reason FanFic has been giving me promblems. It's really making me want to bang my head against a wall repeatedly.) But oh well, enjoy! And let me know what you think! (*hint hint*). Alrighty... I think that's it! Onwards! (Oh, and this one's completely from James' PoV).
Chapter Eleven: Moment of Clarity
James Potter sat in the Gryffindor common room at approximately 7:30pm on Sunday evening, scowling into the fireplace. He didn't understand the insane feelings he was getting every time Felix and Summer snogged, or touched, or even looked at each other with that pathetic I-like-you-and-wish-I-was-snogging-you way. He couldn't – he couldn't possibly like her.
Not the girl that he had spent the last six years teasing, messing with, and generally pissing off. Not the girl that irritated him so much that he swore they would never be able to even get along. Not the girl who was currently doing everything in her power to avoid and annoy him after they had just started to semi-get along, even after he thought that they'd finally gotten over that with their heart-to-heart. Merlin, he hung his head in his hands, what's wrong with me? He thought to himself, eyes still staring into the fire.
"You know, if you keep doing that you're going to go blind," a voice said, a strikingly familiar voice. James looked up into the eyes of Lily, but after a moment he looked back to the fire and said sullenly.
"Might do me some good. If I couldn't see, that is."
Next to him Lily sighed and sat down next to him, waiting patiently while he continued to stare into the fire and tried to collect his thoughts. He couldn't possibly like her, it had been too many years since they'd met, and James Sirius Potter didn't like girls, he snogged them, maybe went a little further, and then left them. Not like they had been expecting anything more, but still. But the part of him inside that was murmuring that maybe, just maybe, he did like her was enough to successfully scare the shit out of him.
The portrait hole opened again and he heard laughter. Her laughter. How on earth do I know what her laugh sounds like? He thought again, internally battling against the concept of a crush, why do I know her favorite color, food? Why do I know exactly what to expect from her when she's happy, or sad, or mad, or nervous? He sighed and Lily looked over at him again while the laughter abruptly stopped, there's something wrong with me, maybe I should go see Madam Pomphrey. Even as he thought this he knew what he had wasn't something that could be cured so easily.
"You alright, Potter," a voice said, but it wasn't her voice, and he barely had the will to lift his head a bit and see who it was that was speaking to him. He met the eyes of Jill, Tracy, and Rose, before locking eyes with Summer and quickly dropping his gaze back to the fire.
"Would you stop that?" Lily snapped, James jumped in shock, Lily hardly ever got angry at anyone, "I've already told you, you're going to go blind if you keep that up." he heard a quick intake of breath from the girls and then felt, rather than heard, their absence in the room. After a moment of silence he took a deep breath and, ignoring Lily and continuing to stare into the fire, started talking.
"I'm an idiot," he murmured, and Lily harrumphed.
"I already knew that," she said, her voice softened a bit, "this is about Summer isn't it?" she asked. James just nodded. "You know, if you don't want her to be mad at you then you could always just apologize, she's already getting over it, especially after you to spent all that time together – what did you guys talk about anyways? - and an apology would definitely speed up the process."
"No, that's not it," James said slowly, "her being angry with me makes it easier." he glanced over at Lily but her face was distorted and blocked by the warped light spots in his vision from the fire, he closed his eyes, still facing away from the fire. When he opened them again a minute later he saw that Lily looked shocked, and a little confused too.
"I don't understand," she said, "I thought you were upset that she was mad at you."
"I am," James said simply and Lily gave him an exasperated look.
"You are making absolutely no sense, you realize that, don't you?" Lily replied. After a moment, however, a slow look of something like amazement spread over her features. "You like her!" she exclaimed.
"No! I don't!" he near shouted, voice rough.
"Yes," she smirked, "you most definitely do."
"I don't want to," he murmured, closing his eyes again and burying his face in his hands. "She's with Felix, and she absolutely hates me – I mean if she didn't already hate me before – and it would just be so much simpler if I didn't have all these mixed up feelings about her. I just want everything to go back to normal!"
"Maybe this is your new normal," Lily suggested quietly, "and I know that Sunny isn't completely happy with Felix, I heard her talking with Rose and Jill and Tracy about wanting to break up with him. She said 'I'm just not getting the fireworks I thought I would, and I don't want to lead him on,' and the whole argument that they just had still hasn't resolved, apparently he doesn't understand why she just doesn't want to go to the dance and keeps pushing it, and everything else, she says he's acting like a whole new person. She likes someone else, you know." as she said this she gave James a pointed look. He scoffed.
"She doesn't like me," he said bluntly, "and if she does then she's an idiot. I mean, look at my record! I use girls and then as soon as I'm bored I throw them away, and they don't even mind because my dad is Harry Potter! Everyone's with me because of him, they've never actually cared about me, and that's never bothered me before because I've never been with any of them for them either."
"Sunny's not like that James," Lily said and he groaned, scrubbing his face with his hands.
"I know she's not like that! That's why-" he paused and grabbed his hair, Lily waited patiently while he struggled internally for a minute before continuing, "that's one of the things I like about her! One of the reasons I'd want to be with her, but she'd never want to be with me because she'd think I was just using her, or it was for a prank, or basically anything but the truth."
"The truth about you liking her because she's an amazing person? Someone who puts others before herself and can cheer people up when she doesn't even know them? The person who never wants to talk about her issues because she doesn't think she's important, and sometimes feels lost in this world when everything she's ever known doesn't belong here?" Lily paused and another voice spoke up from the stairwell.
"The girl who just admitted that she's absolutely terrified because she thinks the reason she needs to break up with Felix is not only because she doesn't feel for him, and isn't getting the fireworks, and is completely frustrated at him for being such an insufferable prick, but because she's absolutely, positively petrified at the thought that she might just like someone else? Someone that could break her heart and tear it into pieces? And maybe she's so scared because she thinks that if she lets it go any farther than it already is then she'll lose control over her heart completely?" James and Lily looked up to see Jill standing in the doorway. "James. If you really like her, you need to tell her, sitting down here looking like someone shot your pet frog isn't going to help anyone, though you might not want to tell her until tomorrow, she's going to break up with Felix now." as she finished saying that Summer's red-gold head of hair appeared at the top of the stairs and slowly made it's way towards them.
"Hey Jill, Lily..." she paused and James was about to look away when she said, so quietly he couldn't be sure if he was imagining it or not, "Potter," and disappeared out the portrait hole. James stared after her in shock and Jill smirked before disappearing back up to their dorm. Twenty minutes later Lily disappeared too, saying that she needed her sleep. But James continued to sit, staring now, not at the fire, but out the window. He was torn between worrying over these new feelings that were pushing through him – the need to be near Summer, wanting to hold her, to make her laugh and smile, to never let her leave his side again – and the worry that she hadn't come back yet and forty minutes had passed.
James knew that it didn't take that long to break up with someone, Merlin knew he'd broken up with enough people, and forty minutes was nearing on the stage of either they decided not to break up, or something had happened to Summer. James was leaning towards the latter (Summer wasn't someone who was easily deterred when she made up her mind) but he wasn't sure, and he didn't want to go looking for her when she was still out for his head and probably didn't especially want to see him.
He was still sitting there, contemplating what to do (and just about ready to stand up and go looking for her, everything else be damned) when the portrait hole opened and the sound of crying could be heard. James looked up in shock, wasn't it Summer who was going to break up with Felix? Or was it some other girl? Who else is still up? James thought and looked back down at his hands, waiting for the person – most likely Summer – to come into the common room.
"Potter?" Summer said quietly, her voice sounded rough, as though she'd been screaming or crying, and when James looked up he could see why. It seemed as though she had probably been doing a little bit of both screaming and crying – her cheeks were flushed red and her eyes were shining brightly while tears cut tracks down her cheeks. She quickly rubbed the corner of her robes against the edges of her eyes, trying unsuccessfully to stop the flow of tears.
"You okay, Summer?" he asked quietly, he didn't want to have a book thrown at his head, but he also couldn't walk away from her when she looked so... Broken. "The breakup didn't go well I assume?"
"Who-" she started but James interrupted.
"Jill told me, and Lily didn't seem very surprised," at this Summer seemed to start crying with new vigor and James sat, frozen, unsure of what to do. Summer stumbled over to where James was sitting and plopped down next to him.
"It's so stupid of me to cry, I shouldn't even be this upset, I mean I was going there to breakup with him after all," Summer said, though it was muffled because her hands were covering her face.
"What shouldn't you be upset about?" he asked, reaching out hesitantly to pat her back gently, when she leaned into his hand he decided to leave it there, and continued to watch her face.
"Felix... He- he was ch-cheating on me with some Slytherin skank and he was telling her that the only reason he hadn't broken up to me yet was because he was doing it as a favor to his dad. He was getting paid! Paid to date me!" Summer said, taking a deep breath and trying to clear her face of tears and any evidence that she'd been crying (lucky for her that her crying didn't come with most of the usual horrors – red eyes, puffy lids and cheeks, bloodshot eyes, ect – and so she didn't have that hard of a time once she could finally stop crying).
"That bastard," James growled low, rage washed through him over how awful Felix had made her feel. She was sitting here, crying over some bloke she didn't really care about, but even so it had to hurt knowing that they hadn't cared about you and definitely hadn't cared about you finding out they were hooking up with someone else.
"Wh-what?" Summer said, her voice growing stronger by the second, but her eyes were wide and staring into James' rage filled ones. "Why would you care about Felix cheating on me? I don't even know why I told you, you're probably happy that he hurt me. It proved you right didn't it?" James swore silently, he'd completely forgotten about what he'd said about Felix being a fraud and prone to hurting her.
"Summer," he said quietly, "the reason I voiced my concerns was because I didn't want you to be hurt to start with. I wanted you to be wary of him, not to get hurt by him just to prove my point," she gave him a confused look.
"Are you speaking english? Or am I just delusional?" she asked and he sighed, running a hand through his hair nervously.
"I don't want you to get hurt, Summer," James said, not meeting her eyes. Why was she being so difficult? Why did he have to like her? Why did everything have to be so complicated?
"Potter?" she asked, a minute or two passed and he refused to look at her, staring intently out the window. She sighed and said, "James?" he jumped at the tingles that shot through his body when she said his name, he wanted to ask her to say it again but he was afraid of sounding deranged, or worse, like he liked her. He finally turned to face her and she had an unreadable expression on her face.
"What?" he snapped, suddenly angry that she could have so much sway over him. How was it possible that she was the only person that he could finally want to be with? She wasn't the prettiest girl, or the smartest, or the nicest, and yet she was the one he fell for. He snorted at himself, maybe she wasn't any of those things, the other part of his brain told him, but she's the bravest, most considerate, self-less person you know. And she's the only one who's not afraid to put you in your place when you're being an insufferable prick. He had to get rid of these feelings, they were eating him up inside. He hadn't thought about pranks since Felix and her had gotten together, he couldn't remember the last time he had talked to Fred for more than five minutes or about class work, and he wasn't concentrating nearly enough on Quidditch practices, they had a game in a bloody week for Merlin's sake!
Summer looked slightly affronted at his tone and turned away, apparently deciding that she didn't want to tell him anything after all. After a strained minute James reached out to her and turned her around by her shoulder.
"Look, Sunny, I'm sorry for snapping at you," he said, internally punching himself for apologizing. He shouldn't be the one apologizing! She should be! For- for making him feel pathetic and weak and constantly making him think about her! While he knew this was unreasonable he couldn't help but feel that it was easier to blame her for his attraction that to deal with it like a mature human being.
"Are you really? Or are you just saying that? Merlin, why am I even talking to you? You don't even care, and you'll probably just use the information to blackmail me or to spread around Hogwarts," Summer said nastily, jerking away from his touch, but he could see tears brewing in her eyes again and (for some reason unknown to himself) pulled her back to him, hugging her and letting her sob against his chest.
"Shhh," he murmured, "shhh, it's going to be alright. It'll be okay. Felix was a toerag and he doesn't know what he's missing out on. You're too good for him anyways, he's a pompous git and you can just forget about him, he's not worth your time or revenge" After a moment in which Summer seemed to calm down a little bit but made no motion to move from their hug he murmured, more to himself than her, "leave that to Fred and I."
If she had heard what he said she made no movement to berate him for it and for that he was thankful. Fred and James were long overdue for a prank and Felix was just the person to execute it on. The git wouldn't even know what hit him. A few minutes later Summer seemed like she was finally drifting off and, before she could fall asleep next to him, he carefully hoisted her to her feet and led her to her staircase.
"I would walk you up to make sure you're okay but I can't get up the stairs. Don't trip on your way up, alright?" he asked quietly and Summer nodded, slowly making her way up the stairs and towards her dorm. James turned and quickly made it to the seventh year boys dormitory and, rushing to Fred's bed, shook his friend awake.
"Oi! Mate, what the hell? What time is it? It's still dark out!" James staved off his indignant replies by grabbing a few WWW supplies, the invisibility cloak that he'd nicked out of his dad's office in 2nd year, Fred, and booking it down the stairs.
"We have a prank to pull," James said, excitement glinting in his eyes, Fred quickly caught on, though he was still yawning.
"Who is it?" Fred asked, sorting through the supplies James had grabbed.
"Felix," James muttered, glaring at his hands.
"Summer's boyfriend? Don't you think that's a bit... Dangerous?" Fred asked, staring at James like he'd lost his mind.
"Ex-boyfriend now, she was going to break up with him anyway and found him hooking up with some slutty Slytherin chick, you should've seen her when she came in," James said, sorting through the pile, quickly singling out the stuff they would need. Fred stared at him in shock, a smile slowly creeping its way across his face.
"You fancy her," Fred said, James didn't grant this with a response, mainly because he wasn't ready to admit it to his best friend and he didn't necessarily want to lie about it if he did actually like her – which he strongly suspected was the case. This caused Fred's grin to broaden but James ignored this, grabbing up the supplies he had separated and dragging them under the cloak and towards the door.
a/n2: THIS IS IMPORTANT READ THIS! Originally I wasn't planning on doing this to you but after fanfic has given me so much trouble over the past month, with finals coming up in a week (HOW THE HELL DID THEY GET SO CLOSE?), my g'ma coming into town the week after we get out of school, and 17.5 hours of community service in the first two weeks of summer, ON TOP of the new work out thing my friends and I are doing (which I really like) I really just don't have the time to write this fanfiction right now. On top of the fact that I really want to get onto what happens in later chapters but I can't just skip there so... SORRY GUYS BUT THIS IS GOING ON TEMPORARY HIATUS. But I promise promise promise, cross my heart, that as soon as June 16th rolls around (yes, I realize that's a month from now and I'm sorry) I'll have the next chapter up. Well, I hope you all have a lovely next month and I'll see you then!
- Rose