August 4th: James Potter
James has wanted Lily for so many years that, now that they're together, he feels like he can barely function for happiness. He knows the extent to which he's been kissing and cuddling with her in front of the others is excessive, but he doesn't care. Lily Evans is his girlfriend, and James doesn't care what anybody thinks of it, so long as he gets to be with her.
He'd been so afraid that Lily would freak out and create distance between them if they did anything physical again, and James had been ready to resign himself to a lifetime of being just friends with her. If all he could have were friendship with flirty banter, he would have taken it happily. But it turns out that he can have more, and all he can process is joy joy joy.
He loves that Lily and Sirius are rooming together in their own flat, because it means that when James comes over every day, he gets to see his best friend and his girlfriend (his girlfriend!) all at once, the whole day long. He's so happy that he's not even jealous that Sirius and Lily are sharing a bedroom. The one problem this poses, of course, is that neither James and Lily, nor Sirius and Marlene, have any privacy from each other for physical intimacy. For James and Lily, this isn't a huge deal, since it's not like they've done much more than peck on the lips, but James imagines that Sirius is going a little stir crazy without having had sex with Marlene all summer long.
Truth be told, James is more than a little apprehensive to go any further than brief kisses with Lily. She iced him out for months after that one time they kissed during sixth year, and while by some miracle she doesn't seem to be having any kind of crisis of conscience this time, James is still nervous that they'll go too far and it'll be too much for her to handle. He's so, so happy just to hold her and kiss her and while away his days in her company, and he doesn't want to do anything that might jeopardize the miracle he already has.
It's just the three of them one night—James, Sirius, and Lily—when James brings up the elephant in the room. "I feel like we've barely seen Wormtail and Moony all summer. There's not some—is something going on between you and Moony still? You seemed to make up over whatever it was, but then…"
Sirius laughs, but he sounds nervous to James. "I don't want to talk about it, all right? I'm sure Moony and I will be fine."
"Are you? It's been months, Padfoot. Months. I hate this thing where we're on one side and they're on the other; I miss my mates, and it reminds me too much of—of fifth year."
"Then go over to Wormtail's house with Moony if you miss them that much. I can't control them; I can't force them to feel comfortable coming here," says Sirius, his face suddenly lined and hard.
"But why—"
"That's enough!" Sirius says, eyes glinting. James puts up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, but Sirius pays it no mind. "I'm going to take a shower."
He stalks off into the bathroom; Lily whistles quietly. "It must be really bad between him and Remus right now for him to react like that."
"Must be," James echoes. "I just miss them, you know? This us versus them thing sucks. I don't know what's going on and I don't want to take sides, but it feels like I've been forced to take Padfoot's just because his flat is the place everyone comes to, and so this is the place that Moony and Wormtail are avoiding."
"You could always owl them and make plans," Lily suggests, but James shakes his head.
"That would just feel like ganging up on Padfoot. At least this way he isn't alone."
"He wouldn't be alone," says Lily. "He would have me, and Marlene, and the other girls when they come around."
"But—"
"Besides, who says you have to unilaterally spend all your time either here or at Peter's house? It doesn't have to be a binary choice."
James shrugs. "I'll think about it. If nothing else, it has to get better when we go back to Hogwarts, right? Moony and Padfoot may still be avoiding each other to an extent, but we all share a dormitory and have classes together; it's not going to be this us-on-them thing when we're scheduled to spend that much time in each other's company."
"I hope not. I know how important your friends are to you, James, and I respect you a lot for how loyal you are to them."
James raises his eyebrow: he's not used to receiving compliments from Lily, who has always teased him much more than she's praised him directly. "Are you sure this is still my girlfriend talking?" he jokes.
Lily smiles softly. "Yeah. Yes. Your girlfriend." She looks pleased and a little embarrassed, dropping eye contact and looking down.
He tilts her chin up until she looks him in the eye again. "I'm really, really glad that we're together now."
"Me, too."
"Sure you aren't going to leave me for Snape?" says James.
He's joking, but Lily's wearing a pensive look and a frown. "You know, I always suspected that he had feelings for me," she says. "Severus, I mean. The way he looked at me sometimes… the way he talked about you fancying me…"
"Did you fancy him back?" asks James, terrified to learn the answer.
"No," she says, and James holds in a huge sigh of relief. "The way I felt about him was strong—he was my only real friend for years—but it wasn't like that."
"Right."
"I do miss him," Lily admits. "You don't stop caring just because you're supposed to about someone who was your best mate for eight years. But I want to move on with my life, not stay stuck in regret over someone who… who…"
James starts to say, "You don't have to—"
"No—it's okay. This is just something that I live with, that's all," she says with a shrug and a small smile.
When James Apparates back home, he finds his dad alone in the living room, reading the Daily Prophet and looking anxious. "More bad news about Voldemort?" James asks darkly, the remnants of his smile dropping from his lips.
"I wish you wouldn't call him that," Dad sighs. "No, actually, it's—it's your mother."
"Mum? What about Mum?"
"You know that spattergroit case she worked at the hospital last week?" James nods. "Well, your mum started to break out in purple pustules today. They—they think she's been infected."
Everything seems to freeze as James tries and fails to process the news. "But—but Healers treat spattergroit cases all the time. Mum can't have—"
"Not all the time. Spattergroit is highly contagious, you know that," Dad says quietly. "It's good they caught it early, but James, we want you to stay at one of your friends' houses for the rest of the summer, while Mum is in treatment. We don't want you catching this from her."
"And what about you?" Dad's silence tells James everything he needs to know. "You're just going to stay here and get yourself infected?"
"There are precautions I can take," says Dad. "Face masks and protective charms—"
"Like the precautions Mum took treating the patient who gave this to her in the first place?" says James hotly.
Dad clicks his tongue. "She's going to need a caregiver, and I took an oath to protect her in sickness and health. I'll be fine. But for your safety—"
"I want to talk to Mum," says James immediately. "Where is she? Your room?"
"James, honey, you can't. If Mum passes this on to you—"
"I want to see my mother!"
"No, James. I know it's hard, but we've decided, and it's what both of us want for you."
In this moment, James feels like a damn idiot. He's been spending every day of his summer vacation at Sirius and Lily's flat when he could have been spending valuable time with his mother—now she's sick and he's supposed to just stay away and not see her, and who can even say how much longer she has, assuming she makes it through this? Mum has to make it through this. She just has to. James's mum with the sparkling smile and teasing laugh and affectionate embrace—she just has to be okay. If she's not—if Dad gets infected, too—
"Fine," James mutters. "Fine. Just—just let me pack my trunk. I'll go back and stay at Padfoot's; I'm sure he and Lily won't mind."
In a daze, he tosses clothes and books into his trunk from where he's strewn them across his bedroom for the last month and a half. James's brain seems to be running at triple speed. All he can think about is Mum and how he'd much rather stay at her bedside every day than go back to Sirius's or, hell, to Hogwarts a month from now.
It seems to take seconds for James to pack everything, and he straightens up, clutching his trunk in one hand and his owl in the other. He knows he should go back downstairs and say goodbye to his father before Disapparating—that he'll regret it if he doesn't—but if he goes down there, James doesn't think he'll have the strength to leave at all. He turns on the spot, concentrating hard on Lily and Sirius's flat.
They're both in the living room when James gets there; Sirius seems to have calmed down from his anger at James earlier, and he creases his eyebrows together in confusion. "Prongs? Lily said you were heading back home for the night."
"I was. My mum, uh—she's been infected with spattergroit. She and Dad wanted me to find somewhere else to stay the rest of the summer, since it's so contagious."
"Oh, Prongs, I'm so sorry," says Sirius at the same time as Lily asks, "Spatter-what?"
"Spattergroit. Basically, you come down with a load of boils on your face, and then you die," says James in clipped tones, pretending he's reciting definitions to study for an exam and not that his mum—that—
"Of course you can stay here," Sirius says now as Lily frowns and twists her lip and takes James's hand in hers. "You can bunk with me if, Lily, you don't…"
"Thanks," says James quietly.
Lily looks back and forth from Sirius to James and back again a few times before Sirius's statement seems to click. "Oh! No, it's okay, James can stay in my bed." James smiles weakly and sets Walsh's cage on top of the mantle, opening it.
James can't think of a less romantic way to start sleeping (literally) with Lily. They climb into bed, and Sirius turns out the lights and gets into his own bed, and then James feels Lily scoot up to face his backside and wrap her arms around him—one under his neck, the other over his waist. He covers one of her hands with his own and tries to steady his breathing into a slow rhythm, to lull himself to sleep, but he stays awake for a long time, for hours after Lily's own breathing drops off and Sirius starts to snore.
It seems unbelievable that just hours ago James was over-the-moon delighted about dating Lily and worried about whose house Remus and Peter were spending their summer vacation at. He loves his best mate and his girlfriend, but right now, he would give this flat up just for the knowledge that his mum was going to be okay.
xx
END OF PART SIX
