Chapter Fourteen: or These Walls
Lily is very forgiving
Lily's Point of View
Cause everybody tries to put some love on the line
And everybody feels a broken heart sometimes
And even when I'm scared I have to try to fly
Sometimes I fall
But I've seen it done before
I gotta step outside these walls
Teddy Geiger
I'd had a whole summer to cool off and try to get James bloody Potter out of my mind. And yet somehow, I just couldn't. Not a day went by when I didn't think about him. Sometimes I thought about how much he'd hurt me and how much he'd let me down. Sometimes I thought about how much I used to hate him before the beginning sixth year and how much I loved him during it. But most of the time I just thought about how much I missed him. He wrote me a letter about once a week. I never read any of them. I was angry. But I was also scared that if I read his letters I would be tempted to forgive him. I didn't want to forgive him. I was just too upset.
I had every right to be upset…or at least I thought I did. Emily, on the other hand, did not. According to her, she could understand why something like this would make me upset but technically I didn't have the right to be angry. I threw an apple at her when she said that. She wasn't very happy with me.
"Lily just think about it," she'd said to me one day over the summer. "You and James were on a break. You weren't together anymore. It wasn't your business who he kissed or er, did anything with."
"But just because we were on a break doesn't mean I wanted him to be with other people!" I protested.
"Well that's not really fair," Emily reasoned, "you're either together…or you're not. It's that simple."
"It's not that simple!" I retaliated.
"Lily you told him you wanted to stop being with him. You said you wanted to take a break. He thought that meant you didn't want to be with him anymore. What else was he supposed to think? Was he supposed to somehow know that you didn't really mean what you said?" Emily asked me.
"Whose side are you on anyway?" I shot back at her.
"Yours, Lily of course I'm on your side. But I'm just saying you have to try to understand where he was coming from," Emily said logically.
"Well what about Kristen!? Where does she get off cheating on Sirius and shagging my boyfriend?!" I insisted. I was not going to let this go.
"I'm not going to defend what happened Lily. But I talked to her the other day and she's really upset. She had just seen Sirius cheating on her with that girl, Heather something. And James had told her that you two broke up. Technically she didn't do anything wrong," Emily tried to explain.
"She said she doesn't even like him that way!" I protested.
"Kris was always like that. You just don't remember. Before Sirius, she was always going out with guys she didn't have feelings for. It's easy to forget she was ever like that because she was so in love with Sirius," Emily reminded me.
"Yeah well if she was so in love with Sirius she shouldn't have shagged James," I said crossing my arms. I knew I sounded childish but I didn't care. I was angry and upset and I wanted to blame anybody but myself. Because deep down I knew that this whole mess could have been prevented if I hadn't suggested taking a break in the first place.
"Sirius hurt her, Lils. She was upset and not thinking straight. I'm not saying what they did was right…but I think you should try and forgive them," Emily suggested with a shrug of her shoulders. After she left I wallowed in self-pity for a good hour or so.
But that was back in July. It's September now, and a lot of things have changed. I got named Head Girl, which I was ecstatic about until I found out James had been named Head Boy. It didn't even make sense. He was never even a prefect! And yet somehow he goes and gets himself named Head Boy. It's bloody ridiculous if you ask me. Dumbledore has finally lost it.
It then occurred to me that James and I would have to be working together all year. I would have to see his face everyday for considerable amounts of time. This was not going to be easy. And not to mention, we would have to run the first prefect's meeting on the train together! And James didn't know a thing about prefect's meetings seeing as he was never a prefect himself. Just great.
I was one of the first people to get to Kings Cross. I had already changed into my Hogwarts clothes and had my new Head Girl badge pinned to my robes. I couldn't help it…I was excited. Finally, after working so hard, I'd achieved what I'd always wanted. I was about to head over to the prefects' compartment when somebody reached out and grabbed me around the waist. I screamed as they yanked me into a random compartment and slammed the door shut. I heard the lock click as I spun around to face the person who'd essentially kidnapped me. I was shocked to see Kristen standing in front of me, hands in her pockets, looking rather guilty.
"What the bloody hell was that all about!?" I yelled at her. She just shrugged.
"It seemed like the only way I was going to get you to listen to me," she admitted with a sigh. Kristen had been writing me letters all summer too. Again I hadn't even bothered reading them. Instead I just shoved them down the paper shredder at the Lawrence's house, where I was staying.
"And so you attacked me?" I asked incredulously. Kristen looked a little embarrassed at having accosted me so.
"I really wanted to talk to you," she said earnestly.
"For someone so small you are really quite strong," I told her. She just looked at me. She seemed to be waiting for me to explode and scream at her. Little did she know I'd done all my exploding and screaming over summer vacation. Since my parents were murdered, I'd stayed with Emily all summer. Emily had very patiently put up with my tantrums and rants. I almost had nothing left to say on the subject…almost.
"I know that you hate me," she began looking at her feet.
"Is that what you think?" I couldn't help interrupting her.
"Well yeah," she said looking up in surprise, "I wrote you a letter almost every other week. You never wrote back."
"I was hurt Kris. I was really hurt and I didn't want to talk to you about it. But that doesn't mean I hate you," I tried to explain.
"You don't?" the surprise in her voice was extremely evident.
"I did," I admitted, "for a little bit. But then I got over it."
"I'm so sorry Lils. What I did, it was stupid. I wasn't thinking straight. And I was so upset and he was just there—" Kristen trailed off, looking at her feet again.
"It's ok I guess," I said with a shrug.
"No it's not. I never should have done that Lily. I'm supposed to be your friend. Friends don't do that to each other," she insisted. Kristen seemed to be very upset with herself. I never would have thought that she would be just as upset as I was about the whole thing.
"Tell me about it," I instructed. She looked up at me, her eyes popping in shock.
"What?!" she exclaimed. I don't even know why I said that. It was as if I was asking for her to make me upset. But I just had to know.
"Tell me what happened…with you and Sirius," I clarified, "and why you did what you did."
"Do you really want to know?" she asked me warily.
"Yes," I said firmly. Maybe, if I heard her side of the story I would be able to forgive her and we could go back to being friends again.
"Well, er let's see," she began her story, "I guess it all started with that morning. I slept in and I was late for breakfast. I was really hungry and I wanted to get to breakfast before all the tables cleared. So I decided to run. Stupid I know. So I ran to the Great Hall and I gained so much momentum that I ran right into a person as I came through the doors. I completely knocked them over—sent them flying actually. We both fell down and it was all very ungraceful. I looked over and saw that it was Sirius's brother I had pummeled. I felt a little guilty so I went over to help him up. I think I was laughing, because to me the whole thing was rather funny, and I told him I was very sorry. He was surprisingly nice about the whole thing. Didn't insult me once. He offered me his muffin, I'd missed breakfast, and that was it. So apparently Sirius saw this whole exchange and it really ticked him off. I know he's sensitive about his family and all but he just flipped out. He said I was betraying him or something…I don't even know. We had a horrible row. It was pretty bad. So fast forward to later that night. I'm in the common room with everybody else. I've already had a couple of butterbeers and a sip of firewhiskey and I was talking to James. He was telling me that you guys broke up. And then the next thing you know…there goes Sirius and Heather Miller stumbling by, glued together by the mouth. He took her back to the dorm and—it was awful Lily. I was so upset. He was the one person I thought I could trust no matter what. It hurt…a lot. More than I'd like to admit. So rather than go and confront him about it I did the stupid think and drunk myself into submission. The whole thing with James happened so fast that I can barely even remember it. We were both so drunk and it didn't mean anything I promise! He was devastated when we realized what had happened. He was practically in tears because all he could think about was you." Kristen stopped telling her story and looked up at me, waiting for a reaction. I didn't really know what to say.
"I'm so sorry that Sirius did that to you," I told her earnestly. She just nodded. I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since the last day of term. She looked miserable. Her eyes were dark and downcast, not shining with her usual mirth. She wasn't smiling but she wasn't frowning; she was just…there.
"There's nothing I can do about it," she said after awhile. "I shouldn't have trusted him so much I guess. And that's why I'm so mad at myself. Because I know how you must be feeling right now. It's awful. I hate feeling like it and I can't stand it that I made you feel like this too!"
At first I didn't know what she was talking about. But then I realized. Sirius had cheated on her…he betrayed her. And even though James didn't technically cheat on me, it still felt like he did. And that hurt…a lot. But then again, James didn't actively try to hurt me. He thought we were done…he thought we were over. Sirius had really just treated Kristen like crap—he didn't even wait till they'd broken up.
"And the worst part," Kristen continued after a prolonged silence, "Is he knows that the fucked up and he doesn't even care. He didn't even fight for us. He just let me end it. He didn't even bother to try and talk to me." James, on the other hand, had written me a letter every week. He tried to talk to me; he fought for us. And I was the one who gave up. While I was contemplating this I could hear the people boarding the train. Kristen looked up at the voices. "We should get out of here…sorry about well, attacking you."
"It's alright. I'm glad you did. I'm sorry you spent this summer thinking I hate you. I don't hate you Kris," I told her honestly. She looked so relieved to hear that.
"Thank Merlin," she said letting out a breath. I followed her out of the compartment and we walked right into James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter on their way to the back of the train.
"Oh," I said startled. James immediately tried to catch my gaze but I couldn't look at him just yet. I could practically feel the tension coming off of Kristen as she tried to look anywhere but at Sirius.
"Congratulations on making Head Girl," Remus said, most likely to break the awkward silence that had consumed us.
"Thanks," I smiled at him briefly. I looked at the boys, knowing what I had to do, but still feeling a little scared at the same time.
"When's the meeting?" he asked me conversationally. Even though Dumbledore hadn't made Remus Head Boy he still got to be a prefect.
"Probably around eleven fifteen," I said to him. He nodded. The prefects' meeting was always around that time each year. But as I was Head Girl I could change the time if I wanted. I took a deep breath, knowing that I was about to do something that I could very easily regret. "James do you want to come with me for a second and I can give you a quick run-down of how the meetings usually go? We can get ourselves on the same page for the meeting."
James looked over at me in shock. His head whipped around to look at me so fast I swear I could hear the air move. His eyes were slightly wide behind his glasses. He looked as if he couldn't quite believe his ears. Remus, Sirius, and Peter looked surprised as well. Kristen just smiled at me knowingly. James recovered himself after a couple of seconds. The surprised look remained on his face though.
"Yeah, alright," he said. He then turned to his friends and told them to go on without him. The three boys disappeared to the back of the train.
"I guess I'll get going," Kristen said as she walked away from us.
"I'll see you later," I called out to her as she went to find Emily and Caroline. I turned to James who was still looking quite shocked.
"You can put your eyes back into your head," I said to him with a small smile.
"Sorry," he muttered, "I just can't really get over the fact that you're talking to me," he admitted.
"Either can I," I confessed. He nodded, as if that made perfect sense.
"Lily I'm sor," he started to apologize but I cut him off.
"I know," I said with a sigh. "I know you're sorry James. And quite frankly I don't really want to hear it anymore. I want you to shut up about it alright? You make it very hard to hate you," I told him.
"Well I don't want you to hate me," he insisted.
"I should hate you," I sighed. He looked up at me, sensing the unspoken but. "But we were on a break…and I wasn't being very fair. I'm still pretty pissed off that the day we go on a break you just—but I'm willing to look past that."
"You are?" James asked me incredulously.
"I can't even believe I'm saying this right now!" I exclaimed. "I don't really like not being with you James. It kind of sucks. And what happened at the end of term..."
"It was a mistake," he interrupted.
"Right, and people make mistakes…nobody is perfect. So I'm willing to forgive you for this particular mistake," I informed him.
"Seriously?" James looked at me in disbelief.
"I was talking to Kristen and it just sort of opened my eyes to how lucky we are. She trusted your stupid best friend and he broke her heart. He didn't even try to save their relationship…he just gave up. You fought for me and that means a lot," I told him exactly how I felt.
"Of course I fought for you," James said with a smile. "After we had that huge row I was talking to Remus. He kept going on and on about young love and how your first love isn't necessarily the person you're going to marry. He was saying how school relationships aren't the end of the world because we're all bound to meet someone later on in life. And that's when I realized I didn't want to meet anyone else. You're it for me. I can't see myself with anyone else. So I had to fight for you. I would have been an idiot if I didn't."
"It's not going to be easy," I sighed.
"What isn't?" he wanted to know.
"Getting back to the way things were," I explained. "I love you James. But you really hurt me. And it's going to take some time to move past this."
"I know," he said hanging his head. "But I think we can do it."
"Yeah?" I asked with a small smile, he sounded so sure of himself.
"Definitely." He said firmly. "Except I'm not gonna lie I have no idea why Dumbledore made me Head Boy I have no clue what to do." I couldn't help but roll my eyes a little bit at that.
"Well then it's a good thing I do," I said shaking my head. I explained how the meetings usually went. I told James that today, all we had to do was help the prefects patrol the train and then we got to go back to our friends. There were other things I left out but James didn't need to be overwhelmed with information on his first day.
"I still don't get why Dumbledore gave me this position. I thought it would be Remus for sure," James said after our very successful first prefects meeting. We took the first shift of patrols and we were just walking up and down the corridors of the train.
"Remus is an excellent student but he's not much of a leader. He's more of a behind the scenes kind of guy. You're a natural born leader James," I said shaking my head. James was perfect in the meeting. He didn't mess up once. And when we talked to the prefects he sounded a lot less nervous than I did. I was a bit envious of him.
We walked past the compartment where Remus was sitting with Emily, Kristen, and Caroline. Sirius and Peter were conspicuously absent. Remus, Emily, and Caroline seemed to be having a lively conversation but Kristen was just staring out the window. I couldn't get the picture of her, looking so sad eyed and defeated as she told me about how much Sirius had hurt her, out of my head. I wasn't used to seeing her so empty. She was always full of emotion, whether it was happiness or anger she was usually pretty passionate. But when we were talking she just seemed defeated and empty.
"Where are Sirius and Peter?" I asked James. He looked in the compartment and noticed their absence. He just shrugged. "Sirius is a jerk." I found myself saying. James just frowned at me. "Ok well he isn't always a jerk but I really am not happy with him right now. What he did was so wrong."
"It's complicated," James sighed running a hand through his hair.
"Are you really going to defend him?" I asked in surprise.
"No!" James exclaimed. "It's just I know why he did what he did. I don't think it was right…but he's my best friend and I've got to stand by him too."
"Why did he do it?" I wanted to know.
"Kris told you about their row?" James wondered. I nodded my head. "Sirius is weird about his family. They weren't much of a family to him. He did love them at one time, when he was young. They were the only people he ever loved and they hurt him. It messed with him. And he hasn't been able to get away from it. Whenever people get too close he hurts them. He hurts them before they can hurt him. He did it with us, almost got rid of us too. But we wouldn't let him. When he found himself starting to trust Kristen he pulled back so that she couldn't let him down. He betrayed her so that she wouldn't have the chance to do that to him."
"But that's not fair!" I protested. "What if she never hurt him?!"
"I know, but that's just how he is," James sighed.
"He could have been so happy with her," I said sadly.
"They were happy together," James agreed.
"And he really let her down. She's not the same anymore," I informed James angrily. James looked surprised to hear this. "What you didn't notice?"
"I haven't really talked to Kristen all summer," James admitted. "I didn't think it was a good idea given everything that happened."
"Well I think you should talk to her. You're friends and this has really changed her," I suggested.
"You're okay with that?" James asked.
"With you talking to her? Yeah," I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. Sometimes James was such a girl. "I'm not going to tell you who you're allowed to talk to James."
"Yeah well I figured you wouldn't want me to," he shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't care. I'm not that insecure," I replied with a laugh.
"I feel like so much has changed," James sighed sadly.
"Me too," I agreed with a frown.
"When do we stop walking around?" James asked me. Our hour of patrolling was almost up.
"Ten more minutes," I informed him.
"And how often do we do this?" he wanted to know.
"We set up a schedule with the prefects," I reminded him, "Everyone gets different shifts. It works out that there's two people doing rounds everyday."
"That's exhausting," James declared.
"That's being a prefect," I told him.
"Did you always want to be Head Girl?" James asked me.
"Yeah," I admitted blushing a bit. Ever since I got named prefect I wanted to be the Head Girl. When I was in my 5th year, the Head Girl was a Ravenclaw named Sarah Clawatter. She was so smart, and pretty, and cool. She was basically my role model. I wanted to be just like her when I was in my seventh year. And somehow I linked being like Sarah with becoming Head Girl.
"I never even dreamed of being Head Boy. I swear we all thought it would be Moony. I was fine with just Quidditch Captain," James told me.
"Now you've got Quidditch and Head duties to worry about," I said with a smirk.
"Don't remind me," James groaned.
"And we've got NEWTS this year," I added.
"And I have to take almost every class," James sighed unhappily.
"You're going to try and be an Auror?" I asked.
"Like my dad, yeah," James said with a grin. I could tell how much he looked up to his father. James was always talking about his parents like they were the coolest people in the world. Most teenagers were embarrassed by their parents, but not James, he admired them. To James, his parents were heroes.
"That's great," I said enthusiastically.
"What about you? Are you still thinking about that weird potions thing," James wondered.
"No I'm leaning more towards being a healer," I admitted. It was weird to be with James, talking about the future. After not seeing, or hearing from James all summer I had forgotten what it was like to have somebody that I could tell anything and everything.
"You would make a great healer. And I'm not just saying that," James told me with a smile. I grinned too. I had forgotten how much I liked just sitting around and talking to him.
"I want to put Voldemort in his place," James told me.
"I know you do," I said to me. I really had to admire James for his courage. Not a lot of people grow up saying that they want to fight the most powerful dark wizard the world has ever seen. But James did. He knew from the very beginning that he had to be the one out there fighting.
"I just want to make a difference in the world," I told James with a shrug.
"Well that shouldn't be too hard. You already have. Just by being here we're all changing the course of the universe. That's what my dad says anyway," James shrugged his shoulders.
"You think he's right?" I asked.
"Definitely. We have the power to change people's lives. Even if it's just one person," James reasoned.
"Yeah," I liked the thought of that. By deciding to forgive James I had already altered the course of fate. I liked the idea of having that power. "I think you're right."
Author's Note: I'm sorry it took me so long to get back in the swing of things but from now on you guys can expect weekly updates!
Yellow14: I loved your review as always!
Secretly A Gryffindor: I just realized how drama filled that chapter was haha. Hopefully Lily redeemed herself in this chapter. There are many controversial things coming up for Sirius and Kristen so you can look forward to that!!!