Author's Notes: Once again, apologies on the extended delay, but I have a very good reason: I got pregnant, ha! The pregnancy has been very challenging, and it became very difficult to write among the near constant nausea. Please read and review!
Chapter Nine
When Lily wakes the morning of the seventh years' school trip, the dormitory is silent. Squinting, she opens her eyes, watching a slat of pale morning light creep its way onto her quilt.
Looks different, she thinks absentmindedly, her brain still blissfully blank from sleep. With a sigh, she closes her eyes again, and the images come unbidden to the forefront of her mind. James with Hestia. James giving Hestia a note. Hestia's flirtatious smile, her sheet of shining dark hair catching the light.
"No," Lily says aloud, her eyelids flying open.
"No what?" says a voice to her right. Mary's awake.
"Nothing," Lily says, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She pauses. "Is anyone else awake?"
"Yes," says another voice to her left. Marlene.
"Ditto," says Alice.
Silence from Hestia.
Lily sighs. "Well. Let's get up then."
The morning is more frantic than Lily had anticipated, and by the time every other seventh year student is in the carriages, Lily finds herself boarding a carriage with Mary, Marlene, and Alice.
"Where's Hess?" Marlene asks curiously.
If Alice is trying to hide her blush, she's failing badly. Her round cheeks turn bright red as she surreptitiously glances at Lily, dropping her eyelids as she twists her hands in her lap. She mutters something unintelligible.
"Pardon?" Lily asks politely but pointedly.
Alice sighs defeatedly. "I think I saw her get into Potter's carriage."
There's an awkward silence as the carriage sways to and fro. Lily clears her throat. "Alice," she says conversationally. "Have you been seeing anyone? I always forget to ask you when we talk."
Alice looks with relief at Lily since Mary and Marlene are shooting daggers with their eyes at her. She shakes her head. "No," she replies with a shrug. "There aren't many prospects at Hogwarts, are there? Especially by seventh year. Seems like all the fit ones are taken."
Lily laughs, hoping this will encourage Mary and Marlene to join them, but only she and Alice exchange awkward, uncomfortable, and short-lived laughter. Next to her, Lily can feel Marlene radiating anger, and Mary is twisting her fingers in her lap, a habit Lily knows is borne mostly out of social anxiety. This continues until they reach Hogsmeade station, where Lily hops off the carriage first, making her way to the train with her clipboard in hand, relieved to be out of possibly the most uncomfortable carriage ride of her life.
From the corner of her eye, she sees James's untidy head approaching her, but she can't seem to muster any of that promised good cheer she'd been maintaining for him these last few weeks. Everything inside her threatened to bubble up and spill over—all her wild feelings about their Patronuses and Hestia and the note James had given her and don't you see how that's not what I want at all. She turns away from him, starting to check students' names off her list as they enter the train.
"Hey," James says quietly to her as there's a lull. "Are you angry with me?"
"No," Lily replies, more snappishly than she intended. Why can't she control this anymore?
James looks at her with skepticism. "Seems like you may be a bit put out," he says, even more quietly than before. "Have I done something wrong?"
"No," Lily says, checking the last seventh year off her list, and turning to him. Her stomach lurches at the sight of him, his cheeks pink from the cold, his hair whipping in the wind, fat snowflakes melting into his dark hair. "I have to go find Mary."
"Mary's probably in our compartment," James says, pointing down the train where Sirius is waving from a window. "You're still going to sit with me, right?"
"Actually," Lily retorts. "Mary is down there—" She points in the opposite direction where Mary is indeed gesturing frantically to Lily.
"But—" James protests.
"Yes?" Lily raises an eyebrow.
"You said you'd sit with me on the train," he says, and Lily feels another lurch behind her bellybutton.
She shrugs. "I don't think we should sit together," she says plainly, her eyes hard as she looks into his face. "The Heads should be at opposite ends of the train. In case of an emergency."
"Are you f—" He's cut off by the deafening train whistle, but Lily can see the frustration in his face and the tilt of his shoulders under his coat indicates that he's not only frustrated. He's angry. At her.
"Gotta go," Lily replies, her insides squirming, but she turns away from him, dashing inside, and entering the compartment where Mary and Marlene are sitting, deep in conversation.
"Are we going to sit with them?" Mary asks, her brows furrowed as Lily enters.
"Only if you want to," Lily replies, not needing to ask who them are.
Marlene toys with her hair, and Lily knows she's torn. Of course she wants to sit with Sirius as they had planned, but Marlene's sense of loyalty to her friend wins out as she sits back stubbornly.
"If they're sitting with that tart, I don't want to go," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
"She's not a tart, Mar," Lily sighs.
"She is," Marlene insists, and the conversation is finished. Lily sits down next to Mary, facing Marlene, closes her eyes, and hopes that the train ride is blissfully short.
It's not. It takes nearly the entire day for them to arrive in Wiltshire, and the deboarding process is as hectic as the morning had been. Lily pretends not to see Hestia emerge from the Marauders compartment, her cheeks glowing. Lily looks away, knowing that these next few days are the last ones that she and James have together. Even though she knew this was coming, it all still feels quite a bit more difficult than she had imagined. Mostly because she hadn't imagined that she would actually fall for Potter like a blithering little idiot.
At the inn, Lily throws her clipboard on the bed and falls atop the quilt.
"Oy!" Marlene calls out. "Head Girl, it's dinner time."
"Nohungy," Lily says, her face muffled in the impossibly fluffy pillow.
"Come on," Mary's voice says gently. Lily feels the bed move under Mary's weight. "You should eat something. You've barely had anything all day."
"If you're worried about him and her, I can go down and have words with them if you'd like," Marlene calls from across the room.
Lily finally looks up, seeing Mary perched on the edge of the bed, and Marlene fluffing her hair in the mirror. The rooms at the The Olde Standing Stone Inn are comfortable, reminding Lily a bit of Marlene's parents' house, with crisp white covers and various magical objects whirring about, electrifying the air in the way that only a magical house could.
"I'm not worried," Lily says, a small tremble in her voice. For a moment, she contemplates telling her friends everything. Every single thing. The journal they'd found—there were more! And Severus—they'd kissed in the library! James wasn't really her boyfriend; he was just trying to get back together with Hestia, but Lily was an idiot who had fallen for him even though she'd known the whole time that what he really wanted was Hestia the whole time.
"Oh, Lil," Mary says softly, reaching out to stroke Lily's wild hair. "Have you asked him about it?"
Lily stiffens under Mary's touch, the mere mention of James feeding her a rush of anger and frustration tinged with deep sadness that soon—in mere hours—she and James wouldn't even be friends anymore, and that makes her sadder than anything. Having James as her boyfriend would be wonderful. It would be beyond her wildest expectations. But she would settle for being his friend if that couldn't be possible, and yet, she knew the moment that James and Hestia rekindled their romance, Hestia would never let James so much as breathe near Lily. The thought brings a lump to Lily's throat as she pops up, shaking her hair out of her face.
"No," she admits to Mary, looking into Mary's brown eyes. "No, I haven't asked him about it."
"Well, why don't you try to catch him at dinner?" Marlene suggests, turning away from the mirror where she was fluffing her hair. "You can ask him why she was sitting with them when—"
"I'm not hungry," Lily says stubbornly, flinging herself back onto the bed. "You go on without me."
Mary raises her eyebrows. "I smelled potatoes as we walked up here," she attempts to wheedle. "You know you can't resist a potato, Lil."
Lily bursts into laughter, the sound feeling foreign coming from her mouth. "Mare, you can't seriously be trying to convince me to go to dinner by telling me there's going to be potatoes at dinner," she sputters, chuckling.
"Come to dinner, Lily," Marlene orders from across the room. "Don't be a baby. You don't have to talk to him, but you need to eat something." Marlene's tones brooks no arguments, so Lily reluctantly slides off the bed dramatically, changes out of her traveling clothes and into her Gryffindor jumper and black trousers, and follows Mary and Marlene down a flight of stairs to the inn's dining room.
The inn is undeniably held together by the same kind of ancient and sophisticated magic that holds keeps Hogwarts ticking along. There are candles floating overhead in every room, and a fire that miraculously doesn't need tending roars in each hearth. The subjects in the paintings are moving, and in one, Lily can see two Druid women jealously watching the Hogwarts students feasting on roast beef, garlicky potatoes, and buttery green beans.
"Ooh, look, they have treacle tart," Mary says as they enter the dining room. "Your favorite."
Lily looks seriously at Mary. "Mary, are you two trying to fatten me up for a human sacrifice at the stones tomorrow?"
Mary raises her hands up in mock surrender. "You caught me! We were going to feed you to the Stonehenge chimera in order to get me a boyfriend. You're the only virgin I know. They said it would work in the books!"
Lily laughs, and as she does, she sees James sitting at a table with Sirius, Remus, and Peter. Hestia is nowhere in sight. Marlene is making a beeline for the boys' table, and Lily trails behind, wondering whether Marlene would even notice she dropped into another seat and had dinner with say, all the Ravenclaw seventh years. But before Lily can look around to see which seats are empty, Marlene swoops down to kiss Sirius on his cheek, and then asks, "Are these seats taken?"
"They're yours!" Sirius beams at Marlene, his face alight with affection as Marlene takes the chair directly next to him, and Lily's stomach twists again. Marlene fell in love, Lily thinks with regret, watching Marlene glow with joy under Sirius's attentive gaze. And I didn't even notice.
Glancing at James, Lily takes a seat between her friends. James is resolutely ignoring Lily, and while he's not being exactly hostile to her, he's definitely snubbing her. He continues speaking normally to his mates, and even makes some conversation with Mary and Marlene, but his demeanor toward Lily is one of indifference. Lily feels a stab of regret as she picks at her plate, smiling and laughing along with everyone else, but feeling a bit like a fraud. Why didn't she just sit with him on the train? Why didn't she just ask him what was in the note he gave to Hestia? She thinks about the note he wrote her not too long ago.
You looked really pretty today.
Was that what he'd written to Hestia?
The next hour is excruciating, with James flat out ignoring Lily, and Lily trying her hardest to pretend like it isn't absolutely killing her to see him not even glance her way once. Her stomach lurches when he doesn't respond to something she casually asks the whole group, instead opting to stuff his mouth with treacle tart. Lily burns with mortification. Yesterday, when their complementary Patronuses had appeared in Professor Rial's class, feels like years ago suddenly, and loneliness creeps into Lily's heart like what she imagines a dementors' despair to feel like. Even as her best friends surround her, she can't help but crave James's attention on her. Everything in her wants to rebel against this, rebel against needing the attention of a boy on her, but yet, she does, and this is how she knows for sure. You like him, Lily, she thinks, watching him as he beams at Remus, his cheeks bright with happiness and elation at being with his best mates. She wants him to shine that James Potter glow on her, but his eyes pass over her head to Mary and Marlene.
More than once, she tries to catch his eye, but it's futile. He's angry, she realizes. Nothing in his demeanor would betray his anger with Lily, of course. That's not who James is. He doesn't get mad. Lily stares at her plate, picking at her shepherd's pie, and suddenly feeling something else, something new that she wasn't expecting: anger at herself.
She could have sat with him on the train. She could have told him how she felt. She could have asked him about the note he gave to Hestia. She had all day after classes yesterday. She could have pulled him aside after dinner in the Common Room, but instead she sat in mortified silence with her friends. Writing in her journal feels like doing nothing suddenly, and the only thing she wants to do is confide in James. If she asked to pull him aside now, would he go with her? Or has he realized, after all, that Lily is too much for him? Wouldn't Hestia be a better choice for him, after all? She's taller and prettier and more popular than Lily, and she's certainly more experienced than Lily and—
"Lil?" Marlene says to Lily's right, making her jump. "You in there?"
The whole table laughs. Well, nearly the whole table. James is very obviously not laughing, instead making bubbles erupt from the tip of his wand in a bored way, as if this part of the conversation is beneath him.
"Hm?" Lily says, turning her attention to Marlene. "Sorry, what?"
"What time is the ceremony tomorrow?" Marlene says in a way that indicates that she's asked this question at least once before.
"At sunrise," Lily says immediately, her words met with a litany of groans.
"Our only school trip and we have to wake up at the arse crack of dawn to see some bloody ceremony for who knows what reason," Peter grumbles from across the table.
"It's the most ancient magic that's been preserved after all these years," Mary replies with a disapproving sort of look. "We've never seen anything like it at school."
"Still!" Peter grumbles. "Might skip it."
"Careful saying that in the front of the Head Boy," Sirius teases. "And Evans here, too. They'll have your head if you don't show up."
"We're not being graded on it," Lily says cautiously. "But it does sound quite cool."
"'Quite cool?'" James finally speaks, and his voice is nasty, sarcastic. Lily's bowed head shoots up, her eyes meeting his, but he's already looked away. She glances around; no one appears to have noticed his brief spark of cruelty toward her, but humiliation washes over her.
"I'm pretty tired," she announces to the table, pushing her chair back and standing up. "I'm going to try to get some sleep before tomorrow. Early morning and all."
"Want me to come up with you?" Mary's face is lined with concern. A twinge of warmth toward Mary flickers in Lily's heart, but she turns away before Mary can read more in her face.
"No, no, I'm fine," Lily says without looking back. "Just tired. See you all tomorrow."
"We'll be up soon!" Marlene calls to Lily's retreating back.
She feels as if she's walking through water, weaving through the tables filled with her classmates, each talking and laughing and enjoying their well-deserved school trip. Lily pauses in the doorway of the dining room, wondering if James is watching her, but as she debates turning around, she suddenly catches sight of a sheet of long, black hair bounding down the staircase. Hestia materializes in front of Lily's eyes, striding toward her, very much alone but still emanating an aura of pure, deep confidence.
Their eyes meet for a long moment, and a wave of nostalgia washes over Lily. We could have been best friends, she thinks to herself. And then James would be hers.
Something clouds Hestia's eyes as she approaches Lily, standing stock still in the doorway, and then, her eyes dart away, scanning the dining room. Lily steps away, hurrying toward the stairs, taking them two at a time and arriving back at her room breathless. She launches herself into her bed, digging into her schoolbag for her journal, and starts to write.
The ceremony starts before sunrise. Lily rises with her alarm, waving her wand to silence it. She wakes Mary and Marlene, and the three girls dress in a hushed silence with the exception of Marlene's occasional grumble at having to wake up so early in the first place.
As her peers file past her, Lily checks their names off. James does the same across from her. They ignore each other, only speaking in grunts and cursory glances to trade clipboards and ensure that everyone is present.
"You've forgotten to mark yourself," James says crossly, handing Lily's clipboard back to her.
"Well, of course I know that I'm—" she starts, but he's already walking away into the throng of students, all waiting for their Portkeys to activate. Lily sighs, stuffing the clipboard into her bag, and finds her friends, squeezing between them, waiting for the rusted and broken umbrella in front of them to glow blue, indicating it's readiness to transport the group to Stonehenge. They don't have to wait for long before the umbrella starts to pulsate, casting her classmates' faces with shining blue light.
"Everyone on three!" she says to her small group. "One—two—three!"
She extends her hand, touching the umbrella with a single finger, and a sensation like a yank from behind her bellybutton propels her forward. Her feet lift from the ground, and she's suddenly in a whirl of sound and color. Next to her, she can feel Mary and Marlene bumping up against her, and a mere second later, her feet slam to the ground. Lily stumbles forward, nearly falling, but feels a hand steadying steady her.
"You alright?" Marlene says, her eyes filled with concern. "You've been a bit odd all morning. Is it James?"
"Huh?" Lily says, feigning ignorance. "James?"
Marlene's eyebrows rise higher than Lily has ever seen them go. "What?" Lily says, arranging her face so she looks innocent.
"Whatever," Marlene huffs, turning away from Lily. "Let's go, I suppose."
"Who spit in her tea?" Mary whispers behind Marlene's back to Lily.
Lily shrugs, but she knows her withdrawing is driving Marlene bonkers. Marlene, who values openness and honestly above all things, would of course be driven mad by someone who is clearly withholding as much as Lily has been these last few months. Lily's stomach squirms thinking about how angry and frustrated Marlene would be if she learned exactly how much Lily had been withholding. Marlene's anger was like that of a parents': disappointment mingled with a slow burning fury. Lily and Mary hated making her mad, and it was generally quite easy to keep Marlene content. Marlene was naturally cheerful person. She liked being happy and loved to make others' happy, too. Yet, somehow, Lily could just tell that Marlene would be furious if she knew Lily hadn't told them about the journals, how they got out, and most of all, that her and James's very public relationship was also very, very fake.
As they approach the stones, however, all thoughts of Marlene and her temper and James and how crossly he'd addressed her this morning leave Lily's mind. Even in the darkness of predawn, the stone circle is massive. From the photos Lily had seen, the stones certainly looked large, but she hadn't expected them to tower over her quite so much. When she looks up, she can still see a few twinkling stars in the rapidly brightening sky.
Inside the stone circle, a bright green fire flickers eerily, and around the fire, men and women of all sizes and shapes dance to music that no one else can hear. Their movements remind Lily a bit of ballet—or what kind of limited ballet dancing she'd seen as a child—but they didn't seem to move in synchronicity. Rather, their movements were organic and beautiful as they twirled and leapt, on and on, around the fire.
The Hogwarts seventh years form a large perimeter outside the stone circle, and as they do so, more people appear within the stones, all joining in the dance with no music. Lily is rapt, watching the dancers in awe, and it isn't until they stop dancing that she hears a low hum descend over them, hushing even the most skeptical Hogwarts pupils. It's not even a sound that Lily can hear, but more of a thrum that she feels deep in her body. She can sense that something powerful is happening as the people inside the circle form another, smaller circle with their bodies.
They start to whisper something unintelligible, something that Lily can't decipher. Her mouth drops open as they raise their wands, pointing them toward the sky, and shoot what seems like a million rays of pale yellow light into the air. Instead of the light fading, however, the strands begin to weave themselves into what looks like a massive, silken tapestry made of pure light. Lily watches in awe as the light tapestry grows larger and larger, the whispering getting louder and louder, and then before she knows what's happening, the light forms a dome that surrounds them all, covering the students and the standing stones in all their majesty.
Gasps ripple through the Hogwarts seventh years, some of them stepping out of line to reach out to touch the light. Their hands slip through, leading to even more gasps, and finally, the witches and wizards inside the circle begin to chant.
"What are they saying?" Marlene whispers.
"No idea," Mary replies even more quietly.
It's true. Nothing they're chanting is comprehensible to Lily, but the rise and fall and lilt of their chant makes its way into her heart, and she feels suddenly overwhelmingly, achingly full. Her heart is open in a way that she hasn't ever felt before, and she can swear that her heartbeat matches the rhythm of the chanting.
Then, as if being led by a conductor, the chanting stops. Lily looks around to see what inspired them to fall silent, but she can't see anyone or anything. They're doing this entirely by instinct.
"See the sun," someone from inside the stones says, and all their wands drop. Like rain, the light tapestry falls away to reveal long fingers of yellow, orange, pink, and red light in the sky.
Sunrise.
To her surprise, Lily feels tears prick her eyes, and before she knows it, her face is wet with them. They watch the sun rise for what feels like an eternity but also a millisecond. Lily's heart swells watching the light wash over the field, bathing the standing stones in its dazzling rays, covering her body in its warmth.
In these moments, she remembers how it was before she was at Hogwarts, how every day she felt like a stranger in her own house. The alienation was overwhelming, and for a brief flash in time, she thought Severus might make her feel like she belongs. But then Petunia turned on her and that was a different kind of pain—something more acute and sharp that dulled over time. As the sun rises, the joy of this moment washes over Lily. She belongs here. For the first time ever, she belongs somewhere. Here, with Mary and Marlene and all their classmates and the air vibrating with magic, she's finally part of something.
She closes her eyes, the light making her vision turn red, and stands there, letting the sun's rays bathe over her, until she feels gentle hands on her shoulders.
"Lily," Mary's gentle voice says. "It's over."
Lily opens her eyes, not realizing that she's still crying. Mary and Marlene's faces come into focus slowly, and a surge of love for the both of them overcomes Lily. With a great big sigh, Lily reaches out, giving each of her friends a tight hug. She feels their warm arms encircle her, and for a moment, all Lily can hear is the thrum in the air and the wind whipping her hair. The three friends stand there for a long moment like that, locked in an embrace among the standing stones, sunshine in their eyes.
"Is she okay?"
"What happened?"
"She cracked up, I heard."
"I heard she was hungover."
The whispers flit over Lily's head as she tries willfully to ignore them. As if reading her mind, Marlene scowls at the latest group of their peers watching Lily with curiosity, their voices muffled behind their hands. "Ignore them," Marlene says loudly, glaring at the group. "Haven't got anything better to do than talk about more interesting people than them, eh?"
A Slytherin girl scowls back at Marlene, but they skulk away, glancing over their shoulders.
"No one has any bloody manners anymore," Mary says from Lily's left. "Can't even be bothered to talk about people behind their backs like normal people."
"Seriously!" Marlene agrees, taking a sip of pumpkin juice.
"I cried," Lily points out dully, shredding the remainder of the dinner roll on her plate. "On a school trip. Our only school trip we'll ever take, and I cried at it."
"Well, it was a very lovely ceremony, wasn't it?" Mary says compassionately, patting Lily's arm with the utmost gentleness. "Even I got a little teary there at the end."
Lily rolls her eyes. "I wept, Mare," she replies. "In front of everyone."
"They should have been paying attention to the ceremony!" Marlene says loyally.
"Bit hard to focus when your Head Girl is boohooing like a bloody toddler," Lily says, trying to smile as if she's finding all of this very amusing.
"Well, I'm glad to see you smiling again, Evans," says a voice behind Lily. She jumps, whirling around in her chair to see Sirius Black smiling his perfect, gleaming, even smile at her.
"Sirius!" Marlene admonishes. "Leave Lils alone, won't you? She's having to deal with every twat in our year and now you."
Sirius's expression sobers except the glint in his eyes. "My apologies, Evans," he says with no remorse in his voice, his attention turning to Marlene without a second glance at Lily. Lily notices how his eyes soften when he looks at Marlene, how his hands go to his pockets as if he doesn't know what to do with them, and his entire posture changes as his eyes meet Marlene's. Lily's stomach lurches as she turns to see Marlene's entire posture changed, too. She leans forward, cupping her chin, nodding along to what Sirius is saying to her, and the way she's watching him tells Lily that what Marlene and Sirius feel for each other is…
…exactly what she wished she could have. With James.
She'd wanted that once with someone else, with Severus, but as she cast her mind back, she couldn't ever remember Severus looking at her like this. Like he really saw her, like he knows her, and like he would never do anything to hurt her. Had she even loved him? Had she really ever even known what Marlene and Sirius had found with each other? Lily feels tears pinprick behind her eyes, and blinks them back, taking a long sip of pumpkin juice to mask her wet eyes.
"You up for it, Evans?" Sirius's voice breaks through Lily's reverie.
"Huh?" Lily says stupidly.
Mary rolls her eyes. "We're going to check out the hot spring after dinner," she explains. "You brought your swimsuit, right?"
Lily nods, dread flooding her veins. "Er."
"That means yes," Marlene says, with a wide smile at Sirius. "We'll be there."
"See you in the lobby in an hour," Sirius says with a wink, causing color to flood Marlene's cheeks. Mary snorts as Sirius walks away.
"Oh shut up!" Marlene says, the blush abating from her cheeks but her eyes still shining. She turns her eyes toward Lily. "You did bring the bikini I got for you, didn't you?"
"I already said I did," Lily replies, averting her eyes to stare at her plate.
"Okay, good," Marlene says cheerfully. "Because if you'd forgotten it, I brought an extra just for you."
"Great," Lily mutters under her breath, and she's grateful that her friends don't hear her as they dissolve into chatter.
As they finish their dinner, Lily's eyes drift to where James is, standing in between Sirius and Peter. His eyes are crinkled in laughter, his head thrown back, and his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. A knot forms in Lily's throat as she takes another long moment to look at him, knowing that in mere hours, he'll be Hestia's again, and she'll only be able to steal glances. But then his chin drops toward his chest, and his eyes meet hers across the room, every hint of mirth gone from them to be replaced by intensity so forceful that Lily's takes a half step backward. She doesn't look away, however, and she remembers suddenly how low his voice had gotten just days before, how he smelled just like oranges and chocolate as he'd leaned in close. Don't you see, he'd said to her, to only her, when no one else could hear his words, performing for no one. That's not what I want at all.
He's still looking at her when she turns away, following Mary and Marlene up the stairs.
Fuck, this is going to hurt, Lily thinks, looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks were blotchy. She stares at herself for a long time before a timid knock on the door interrupts her.
"Lil?" Mary's small voice says. "Could I, er, use the loo?"
Lily swings the door open, nearly whacking herself in the face with it but catching it with her foot. "I forgot something," she says too loudly directly into Mary's deeply confused expression. "I'll be back."
She pushes past Mary, pulling open the door that led into the corridor of the inn, lined with ancient rugs and paneled with gleaming, rich wood. She took the four strides toward the room that she and James had assigned the Marauders, steels herself with a deep breath, and raps sharply on the door.
To her astonishment, Alice answered.
"Er," Lily says, stepping back. "Am I in the wrong room?"
"That depends," Alice replies, opening the door a bit wider. "Are you looking for me or Lupin?"
"You and—?" Now it's Lily's turn to wear a confused expression as she spies the sandy head of Remus Lupin inside the room where Alice Bryant has opened the door. Her brow furrows even more.
"I'm ill," Remus croaks from inside the room, and Alice gives Lily a meaningful look.
"Potter's gone," she says tersely. "Sirius said something about meeting you lot at the spring? I stayed back to help—" Alice gestures behind her.
"Oh." Lily hopes her attempt to drop her puzzled expression is successful as she backs away. "Alright then."
"Do you want to come in?" Remus's voice floats through the air, and relief that Lily hadn't know she had been waiting for courses through her.
"Yes," she replies gratefully, stepping into the room where the odd pairing of Remus Lupin and Alice Bryant await her.
Remus looks worse than Lily has perhaps ever seen him before, and she quickly learns that Alice and Remus became friends over the last year as Hestia and James became close. Friends by proximity, Remus jokes weakly, clutching a bin that Lily could tell he was expecting to vomit into at any second. It dawns on Lily, all of a sudden but also in a creeping way, that she seems to have missed many, many things over the years. Had she seen Remus and Alice together in the corridors and simply missed it? Did they study together in the Common Room and Lily, too consumed with her journals and her thoughts and her opinions and her world, had looked right past them, not noticing anything except exactly what was going on in her own bloody head?
"I didn't realize you were friends," she says stupidly. Alice looks at her with an expression Lily's never before in her eyes—pity?—and smiles broadly, her face alighting with kindness.
"Someone had to make fun of Potter and Hess making cow eyes at each other all the time," she jokes, nudging Remus next to her, who musters a laugh.
"Are you looking for James?" Remus asks from his seat next to Alice. His face is wan and pale, his eyes bloodshot. It's nearly the full moon, Lily realizes, remembering what James had told her about Remus. Her stomach squirms with shame at how she had reacted to the news—with prejudice and caution—and how James had responded—with fierce loyalty to his friend. Remus was, beyond anything else, beloved by his friends.
"I—" Lily opens her mouth to say, yes, I was, but instead, what comes forth like a gushing waterfall is everything she's been feeling, all the things she's been keeping from her two best friends and everyone else in her life. Kissing James in the Potions classroom to get Severus to leave her alone. Their fake relationship and their fake kiss on the Quidditch pitch and their conversations during rounds and in the library and their Patronuses and how she tried to break it off with him but he refused and how they're in a fight and how now he won't talk to her and how they planned to break up in a spectacularly public fashion on the school trip but now it's looking more like they may never speak again and—
"Wait." Alice holds up a hand, and Lily's stream of consciousness rant halts. Next to her, Remus's mouth is open in surprise.
"Evans, I'm not sure I've heard you say that many words at once when you haven't been yelling at Prongs," he says admiringly. "I didn't know you had it in you!"
"Oh, shut up!" Alice says snidely. "Can't you see she's upset?"
"I can see that perfectly well, Alice," Remus retorts, rolling his eyes.
Lily sighs, propping her hands behind her and leaning backward. "I haven't told anyone all that," she says with a heaving sigh. "So you can't tell anyone."
Remus nods. "I solemnly swear."
There's an awkward silence as the three of them stare at each other. Then, Alice speaks, her eyebrow raised.
"So you're telling me that you've tried to break it off and he's refused?" she asks. Lily nods.
"And he told you he doesn't want to get back together with Hess?" Alice's eyebrows rise even higher.
"Well, yes, but—"
"And he wanted to sit with you on the train?"
"Yes, but—"
"And that's why you haven't spoken to him this whole time?"
"It's him who won't speak to me!" Lily exclaims, rising to her feet, pulling herself up to her full height to face the two of them, Alice, with her round, cherubic face and Remus's wan, pale one. Maddeningly, they both start to smile.
"What?!" Lily screeches. "Why are you two grinning like two maniac escapees from Azkaban?"
"Lily," Remus says slowly, shaking his head. "Lily, Lily, Lily."
"Lily, Lily, Lily," Alice apes him, still wearing her exasperating grin.
"Ugh, I shouldn't have come in here!" Lily turns on her heel too fast, though, and stumbles, the bed catching her as she tumbles forward. Behind her, Remus and Alice begin to laugh. Furious, Lily pushes herself back up, glaring at the two of them as they chuckle at her misfortunes.
"Lily, wait!" Remus calls out as Lily storms toward their door, ready to wrench it open and storm out. But, for no other reason than that she likes Remus and she knows he's sick, she turns back, taking a few tentative steps in their direction. Alice stands up now, striding toward Lily.
"Listen," Alice says, standing a mere foot in front of Lily. "Remus thinks, and I agree, that it's not just you who fell for the wrong person."
Lily tilts her head, furrowing her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"We mean—" Remus pipes up from behind Alice. "—that it's obvious, Evans. It's how he looks at you."
Her heart skips a beat. "How?" She clears her throat. "How does he look at me?"
"Like he can't figure you out," Alice says with a soft smile. "But he wants to, and in the meantime…"
"…he's having fun trying," Remus finishes.
"You think he—" Lily swallows the huge lump in her throat. "You think he might—like me too?"
Alice shakes her head. "I don't think that, Lily. I know it."
Lily's eyes flit between the two of them, and then, with a beatific smile, she throws her arms around Alice, giving her a tight hug. "Thank you," she whispers. "I have to go."
"Go!" they both call to Lily's retreating back as she sprints to the door.
What am I even doing, Lily thinks, tightening her robe around her body as she creeps past the lobby of the inn where she spies several of her peers playing a card game around a table. With a fleeting glance, she doesn't spy an untidy head of black hair, and against her better judgment, she slips silently away, her slippered feet making no noise as she pushes open a set of heavy double doors that go out into a courtyard. It was earlier that she had seen a set of stone steps leading down to the hot spring where she just knows James will be.
And she was right.
He was there, sitting alone, the glowing blue water reflecting against his bare skin. Lily scans the area, and is surprised to see that there isn't a single other Hogwarts student in the area. For a moment, she considers shedding her robe to reveal the bathing suit Marlene had so carefully picked out for her, slipping into the water, and sliding up to James, apologizing to him. But then he turns his head and he sees her. The expression on his face is inscrutable; she can't read it at all.
"All by yourself out here?" she says finally, taking a cautious step toward him.
He looks up and directly at her, and then drops his eyes back down, lifting his fingers above the water to peer at them. Lily rolls her eyes. "So you're ignoring me now?"
His eyes lift again, and in the blue light, they look almost electric. "Oh, I'm ignoring you? That's really funny, Evans. You're funny."
Lily kicks off the slippers, making her way across the jagged edge of the pool before taking a precarious seat closer to James.
"Well, I'm sorry I just wanted to be a good Head Girl and make sure everything on the train was alright and—"
"Oh, right," James says snidely, rolling his eyes at her. "That's why you didn't sit with me on the train then? When you'd already agreed to?"
"Aren't you glad you got to sit with who you really wanted to sit with?" Lily replies quietly, remembering Hestia emerging from James's compartment on the train.
James stares at her for a moment, then tilts his head back to laugh. "You know, Evans, for the brightest witch in our year, you can be really dense sometimes."
Lily tilts her head, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I wanted to sit next to you, Evans," James replies, his annoyance evident in his tone. "I even made you a thermos of hot chocolate because I know you hate tea. Now why would I do that if I didn't want to sit with you on the train ride up here?"
"You cut back on caffeine?"
James blows an exasperated breath of air from between his lips. "You are impossible, Evans," he huffs, sending a small splash of steaming water her way.
For a long moment, Lily watches him as he fidgets with his fingers, running his hand through his hair so it stands even more on end, and then, without another thought, she reaches for the tie of her robe. Across from her, she senses James freeze, but she doesn't meet his gaze as she sheds the robe, tossing it a little ways away, before forcing herself to look at James.
His lips are parted in astonishment as his eyes meet hers. She smiles shyly, resisting the urge to cover herself with her hands. She remembers how she first felt putting on this bathing suit, how utterly beautiful and powerful she felt, and that was suddenly how she felt under James's gaze. Somehow, his eyes never make her feel like he's gawking at her. Instead, his contemplative stare envelops her like a blanket, giving her a sense of intrinsic safety that she can't recall ever feeling when Severus watched her.
"Evans—" James says, his voice hoarse.
With a small push off the edge of the pool, Lily slips into the water. Steam swirls around her, clouding her vision for a moment before she blinks. When she opens her eyes, all she sees is James in front of her.
"You're coming in?" he asks dumbly.
"Yes," she replies, coursing through the water toward him until she's standing directly in front of him, so close that she could reach out and touch his hair.
"Evans, I—"
"Wait," she interrupts. "Wait, I just want to—"
"Okay."
"Just give me—" She takes a deep breath, trying to look directly into his eyes and not the water beading on his muscular shoulders and in the hollow of his throat. "I'm sorry I didn't sit with you on the train. And I'm sorry I ignored you all day today."
He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. "It's alright," he says softly.
Something drives her forward now as she takes a tentative step toward him and then another until her knees bump his where he's seated on a small ledge. There's only a few inches between them, and she has the wildest urge to break the tension by splashing him with water, but instead, she keeps her hands firmly beneath the warm water.
"Hi," she says quietly, so quietly that she's not sure that he heard her.
"Hi," he replies, his voice still raspy.
"So." Lily pauses, a small smile playing about her lips. "Our Patronuses."
For a moment, James's brow furrows but then, he laughs, extending his arms toward Lily, reaching for her waist. "There's no one like you, Evans." And she feels herself drawing closer to him now, his hands sliding down her thighs, and pulling her into his lap.
"I would really like to kiss you now," James whispers, his voice low. Lily takes a shaky breath.
"I would really like that," she says, and before the words are completely out of her mouth, his lips are on hers and every single thought, every single doubt, every word she's ever spoken flies out of her head and all there is is him. His mouth under hers, his hand pressing against her back, the other at the back of her neck, tangling in her hair, his warm, slick skin underneath her fingers, and chest pressed against hers. She's not certain if the hammering heartbeat she's feeling between them is hers or his or if they've merged, but she doesn't have time to focus on that because her brain is screaming, You are kissing James Potter!
She slides her hands up his arms, linking her arms behind his neck, and he pulls her closer, his palm pressing between her shoulder blades. Lily's lips open in surprise, a small gasp escaping her. Her tongue slips with ease in between James's lips and now it's his turn to gasp. A sensation of pleasure grips her as he shivers under her touch. I did that.
This was nothing like the two kisses they'd shared before, both on the Quidditch pitch at school with dozens and then hundreds of pairs of eyes watching them. Those were for show, to prove to the world around them that, yes, we are together, thank you very much. But this one, where no one is watching, is something completely different. Whereas their prior kisses had been performance, this one has abandoned all semblance of acting. There is no deception in the way that he's kissing her.
Instead, Lily finds that as she leans in further to James, the only person she can think about is herself and how brilliant and wonderful and warm and firm and satisfying he feels against her. The smoothness of his skin. The surprising softness of his mouth. How solid his torso feels between her thighs and how startlingly good his hands feel on her bare skin and how she suddenly has time to feel everything in this singular moment with blue water beneath her, reflecting the dark sky over their heads.
She shifts her weight slightly, but her knee slips and their lips break apart in a gasp as she nearly falls back into the water.
"You okay?" James asks quietly, his hand moving to her elbow to steady her. She leans back to observe him, smiling at his tousled hair and the way his chest is heaving, water beading in the hollow of his neck.
"I think so?" Lily says, unsure if she really is okay or if she still can't quite believe her unbelievable luck. To find James here, alone, and to be sitting in his lap with his slender, strong arms wrapped around her—it all felt like quite a pleasant dream.
"So you're done ignoring me then?" James asks slyly, reaching up to tuck a stray curl behind Lily's ear.
"Nope," Lily replies firmly. "After this, I fully plan to completely ignore you."
"Har har." James's voice is sarcastic, but his eyes are tender, watching her carefully. "But seriously. Are you still angry with me?"
Lily bites her lip, dropping her eyes to the surface of the water, contemplating exactly what to say. In the end, she goes with, "I saw you give Hestia a note the other night. At dinner."
James leans back, his eyes wide. "That wasn't what it looked like, Evans. If I could let you read the note, I would. Honest."
Curiosity digs a hole into Lily's brain, and the words blurt out before she can stop them. "What did it say?"
He takes a deep breath. "Remember how I told you she told me that she broke it off with her Auror bloke?"
"You never told me he was an Auror—"
"That's not the point," James interrupts. "She was telling me she wanted to get back together."
"She said that?" Lily's stomach drops several thousand feet.
"Not in those words, but I know her. It's what she wanted."
There is a pregnant pause as Lily and James stare at one another.
"So…the note?" Lily finally prompts.
"Yes. The note." James absently drums his fingers on Lily's waist, sending a bolt of lightning through her body. "I basically told her I didn't want to get back together."
"You said that?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Now he smiles, his dimples winking at her. "Why do you think?"
"Because she's a bloody slag, that's why!" Lily exclaims. "She dumped you for some older Auror bloke and then—"
James starts laughing. "I didn't call her a slag in the note I wrote to her, Evans." He pauses. "Lily."
"I would've," Lily mutters under her breath.
"You seriously can't think of a single reason why I might have told her I didn't want to get back together? Not one?"
"I suppose maybe…" She leans back a bit further to look at him more clearly, placing a hand on his bare shoulder to really appraise him. "…you finally realized she has a very silly name?"
He throws his head back to laugh, and it send a deep thrum of pleasure through Lily's entire being. Making him laugh feels good. No, it feels great, and she wonders for a flash of a second if he would let her make him laugh for the rest of time.
James is now wiping tears of mirth from his eyes as his eyes refocus on Lily. "I mean, it is a silly name, but no. That's not why."
"Then why?" Lily asks now, her heart racing again. Can he feel it?
"Are you really going to make me spell it out for you, Evans?"
"Yes," she replies matter-of-factly.
He huffs. "Fine." His brown eyes then settle on her seriously, and she suddenly wants to run. She wasn't ready for this moment when she came down here, she realizes. Even after everything that Alice and Remus had said, she still somehow expected that James would be here with Hestia. James takes a deep breath. "It's because I like you, Evans."
The words lance through her with white hot heat, and the deep cupboard she'd been keeping in her heart springs open, capturing this exact moment and folding it with tenderness. This moment and all the moments before and all those that will come after live in the cupboard in Lily's heart, but this is the one she will remember most clearly.
"I—" Her voice is hoarse. She clears her throat. "I…feel the same way."
To her surprise, James doesn't laugh or even smile. He looks at her very, very intently and replies, "I've been waiting to hear you say that."
Without thinking, Lily leans forward and places a gentle kiss on James's lips. They stay there like that for a long time under the broad expansive sky, littered with a million blinking stars.