The Love of a Lifetime

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything related belongs first and foremost to JK Rowling, and then to her partnerships with Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros., etc.

Author's Note: I couldn't be worse at updating, could I? Please enjoy. Live, love, and be merry. :)

Posted: 04/27/08


This was it, she thought to herself, coming up to the door. She closed her eyes standing outside of it and reached her hand out to knock. Three quick knocks, then silence. Lily opened her eyes, focusing on the door handle that stood unmoving. She pressed an ear to the door and heard nothing but silence behind it. Her heart started pounding against her ribcage, her brain reeling around in her skull. Resolutely, she slammed the door open and pushed her way inside. He had been there, of course: he was sitting there at the kitchen table as if he had been waiting for her, as if he knew she would come.

She stood in front of him, for once looming over his figure, the letter brandished in her hand.

"What's this mean?"

He took the letter and read it, as if it were foreign to him; Lily knew better.

"What do you mean?" he replied smartly, unblinking at her.

She looked at him, annoyance etched into every line of her face, eyes staring into his own. His eyes; they had become so familiar to her for some time now. He was staring at her as well, his eyes colorless.

"I've just received your letter, Sirius." She tried to keep her voice steady as she spoke to him. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"To you? You--"

"Yes, to me. You send this letter to me, as if to push me to someone who cares for me even less than you do." Before he could even mutter anything close to a retort, she broke back into speech as though she had been prepared to say this all along. "As if you don't already know that I've made a fool of myself in front of him--"

"What are you going on about, Lily?" he asked genuinely. "That letter was sincere--"

"Bollocks," she scoffed, folding her arms and looking away from him.

Sirius didn't say anything immediately back to her, but merely stood up from the old wooden chair and move toward her. Her eyes turned to look at him but her body stayed pointing in another direction.

"I did mean it sincerely," Sirius said, quieter than before. "Believe you, me: I'm not happy about this, but I'm also not foolish enough to fight this. I care for you too much."

Lily was utterly confused by these remarks and she turned her body toward him once more, giving him her full attention.

"What are you saying, Sirius? That you love me so you want me to be with James?"

"Frankly, yes. That is what I am saying."

"I--"

"It's stupid, I know, but I've been thinking about this."

Lily felt tears well in her eyes once more and hated herself for them. He was reaching a hand out to her - a hand she once loved everything about: every small cut, the small rips near the fingernails, the way the smallest finger on his left hand bent slightly to the left more than the others. A hand she had let go of, had rejected only hours before.

"He'll give you things I never have and never will. Hell, things I never could have." Sirius ran a hand through his hair, sighing. She was staring so intently at him now. "As much as I care, as much as I love you, it's nothing in comparison."

"He doesn't love me," Lily spoke finally. "You're wrong about that."

"No, I'm not," he replied, shaking his head. "He loves you much more than he'd ever be able to tell you - especially now. He has loved you too long, so long that I could never compete."

"You're wrong though." Her voice was solemn. "He told me he doesn't; to me that's irrefutable. How can you possibly--"

"I just know." There they stood, in the kitchen, staring straight at each other, two separate hearts, two separate souls. It was awkward to stand there, mere feet apart, so distanced at the heart. And as he stared, Sirius took a deep breath; this was it... this was the moment. "D'you really wish for me to tell you how I know?" She did, but didn't give him any confirmation. And to him, she didn't need to. "Because he put absolutely nothing before you - he never has. That's how I know he never will; that's how I know he is so terribly in love with you, Lily."

"What are you talking--"

"The Prophet," he answered quietly. "He came to me a bit before the wedding asking for a job as an Auror. He could've had one in the blink of an eye, but I asked him for a favor instead. I asked him to back off the Ministry for a bit and go to the Prophet. When he wondered why, I told him I wanted him to look out for you for a bit. Just until I got settled at the Ministry."

Sirius rubbed his eyes with his hands. "I told him to think about it for a little bit and let me know, but he didn't think about it - not for a few days or a few hours even. In an instant he agreed. I told him that it would only be temporary, that when I got cozy in the Auror Department he could walk right in. And even as I told him this after he started working at the Prophet he didn't mind the wait."

He paused for a moment, not looking at the rapidly thinking Lily. He sighed, grabbing his temples with the fingertips of both hands. "He bent over backward, no questions ask, no thoughts of compensation; because the moment I said I wanted him to hang around you and look out for you, he had no objections. He thought: how did a job compare to you? Your happiness, your security, your life. A career didn't matter to him as much as you did. As for me? Well... we both know which come out on top."

"I'm sorry."

Sirius looked surprised at her small reply to his long explanation. His jaw dropped slightly as she stepped a little closer to him.

"I am sorry for so much," Lily continued. "I'm sorry that I became a chore, that I fell in love with James, that I hurt you this way." She sighed. "I'm sorry that after all I've put us through and despite all you've just said, James is not in love with me, and that he will never accept me as a part of his life, like you did... I am very sorry for betraying our love."

She turned away from him, moving toward the front door of their - his - apartment.

"I've betrayed you in far too many ways," his voice said back to her.

"You were just trying to save people's lives," she replied back, not turning toward him still.

"No," he breathed out. "Even before that..."

"How d'you mean?" Lily turned to look at him this time, her eyes focusing in on his own.

"I was seeing someone for a little while, when we started out in seventh year." From his voice it was apparent that this proclamation seemed to be a weight off his chest.

"Oh?"

"I promised the Marauders that I stopped seeing her a few months after we'd officially gotten together," he said quietly, his eyes unable to meet hers. "James would've killed me if I hadn't..."

She could tell even though he had let this betrayal out, his voice still held the guilt - the guilt from a secret still sitting upon his tongue. "And?" she led. "When did it end?"

"About nine months ago," he admitted, turning ashamedly away from her. "A few months before we got engaged."

He hadn't heard the door closed behind her and in the silence he turned around to stare at it. She was gone.


She wasn't cold. She was freezing... for a very long time. Three weeks? Maybe more like a month. She couldn't tell. This room was cold - wait, no it wasn't. No, she was cold. Her heart was cold.

Her mother's reaction was... oh, she can't even remember now. Her brain learned to grow numb because of it: because of what he said, because of what she said about him. Lily had taken her mother's advice and taken a month long vacation to Paris, France. She was tired of France; it chilled her. She wanted to go back home but didn't want to face anyone. She didn't want to go back to the Prophet, to see James, and to know that she brought all this on to herself.

But she had to.

A month was quite long enough - too long, really - to sit and wallow and be bitter and be crushed. Not when all her friends were fighting and dying, while she was here only pretending to be a person.

He had betrayed her - she had betrayed him. Was it the same? No. Did that matter now? ...no. The past was the past. That marriage was finished now... And now it was time to make a future.

So she left. She went to the wardrobe, threw all of her belongings into the dust-covered suitcase and left. Her mother wasn't home when she arrived - it was nearly eight in the morning and her mother would be off at work. The house was the same though; her room, just as she had left it the day she grabbed every piece of clothing she owned and ran for the hills - ran for Paris. But Paris was not a complete escape for her.

Her mother wrote to her a few times, James even wrote once. She remembered the letter.

Lily,

I'm sorry.

James

She would remember the curve of his name until the day she died. Not that she needed to, since the letter laid secure in the pocket of her wizard robes at almost all times. But she couldn't help but see his hand arching on the parchment; couldn't help but see the way he wrote James. Where the J hung centimeters below the rest of his name and rose a mere centimeter above them...

Amelia Bones had written to her a few times when she had first reached Paris but then the letters, unanswered, suddenly stopped. She supposed James was the reason for that. Amelia was worried about Lily; this was obvious in the letters she did send, hoping for Lily's safe return home, stating that her office would be waiting for her when she was ready to come back.

She would go today, Lily decided. Even if it were just to resign, she would get it done today and not sit here in the prison of her old home, the prison of herself. She quickly penned a note to her mother explaining her whereabouts and left.

The Prophet, like her mother's house, was the same. People were rushing around working when she got there, throwing her incredulous and understanding looks as she walked through the lobby and toward her old office. She stopped when she reached the door. She had seen it. Merlin, had it been there the entire time? It mocked her now as it read:

Lily and James Potter

As if this office belonged to the Potters, as if they were an 'us'...

Her heart was beating fast as she pushed the door quietly open, and it nearly bounded out of her chest when she saw him: lounging at the desk, feet upon it, a cup of black coffee - and presumably firewhiskey - sitting at his feet. His eyes flew up to meet her as she closed the door softly.

"Hello," he said, taking his feet off the desk and sitting up straight.

"Hi," she replied softly, hoarsely. She hadn't used her voice for so long.

"Welcome back." His voice was quiet. He stood up now and walked toward her. Her heart nearly burst in her chest and he drew closer. Close enough to see every fault on her face, every ounce of love she knew she radiated for him.

"Coffee and firewhiskey?" she asked, moving over to the desk and drawing the coffee to her nose, trying to keep his attention off of her and her heartbreak. The last thing she wanted to hear was, "I'm sorry." To hear how sorry he was about Sirius... how sorry he was about himself and the love he couldn't... wouldn't give her.

He didn't answer, but turned around from the door and walked toward her. He placed the cup back on the table, then gingerly titled her face upward, his eyes begging her to look at him.

"I'm glad you're back," he muttered quietly, embracing her, his arms around her shoulders, her face buried in his chest. Please don't cry, Lily begged herself, feeling the tears well, oh not now, please! But as sure as she felt the tears in her eyes, she felt some atop her head. She pulled away slightly and looked up to see a few tears roll down James' face. After a short silence where they both were able to control their emotions, James put a hand to her cheek and she stared straight up at him.

"Be with me," he whispered to her.

Her heart had exploded, she knew it. Her chest caved in, her lungs lost air, she sputtered out the most heartbreaking gasp as she grabbed his hand from her face. She hoped she had heard him right, hoped he just gave her the same option she had given in a month ago - the one she wished she had given him years and years ago. She laced her fingers in his own; his face immediately broke into a smile as she nodded her response.

"I should've said yes years ago."

"No matter," James responded, his eyes bright and his smile clear. "All that matters is right here." He nodded toward their linked hands. "And right now."

The state of her emotions caused her to laugh, a laugh that clearly showed that she was elated - that her happiness was beyond words. She knew the hazel eyes staring at her would still be doing so the next day, the day after that and forever after. That they, Lily and James, would survive the test of time; their loving looks, their beautiful promises, their unbreakable love, would live as long as they would. That they would share the love of a lifetime.