Chapter Three
Lily had to meet with her friends today in Diagon Alley. Thursday had passed in a second. With all the wedding preparation going on around days seemed to passing by so quickly. She groaned as Petunia screamed over the telephone about the venue being too small without a garden or something.
"It's not like the wedding is tomorrow y'know?" said Lily mostly to her dad, not wanting Petunia to shriek at her. Her dad chuckled.
"Come on Lils, play nice. I think your sister has been planning her wedding ever since she first went out with Vernon." said Donald.
"More like before she was born." scoffed Lily. Her father gave her a faux threatening look.
"How's Alice? We couldn't meet her that day even in the evening."
"She's good. She said hi to you guys."
"Sweet girl that one. Remember how scared she was when she saw someone speaking on the telly." he chuckled at the memory, "I thought you were going to stay over at her boyfriend's?"
"Oh yeah, but we went over to Potter's, where Frank was that day. Their parents had to discuss some important business." explained Lily hoping her father wouldn't notice how pathetic she was at lying. She hadn't exactly told her parents about the dismal pureblood propaganda going around in her world. Which is why she didn't tell anyone in her family about Franks's father's death.
"Potter as in the one who was the 'annoying git Potter'?"
"Potter as in the one who is the annoying git Potter." answered Lily bitterly.
"Oh come on Lil. Boys are like that when they try to get a girl's attention when they're young."
"When they're young. He's sixteen now. He'll be an adult in the wizarding world in less than a year."
"What happened that day. Your feelings look freshly hurt." noticed her dad, who was on the verge of laughing.
"You know most dads are protective of their daughters getting harassed by a boy." replied Lily rolling her eyes.
"Not me. I brought you up to be a fighter! But what really happen there?"
"Nothing really eventful, except when he said something about me not being able to keep my cool around him when I stumbled over something and when I asked something about his dad's work, he snapped"
"Why?"
"How would I know?"
"Lily I have been reading your newspaper, you leave it in the dining room often. Things don't exactly look jolly, you know?" remarked her dad, warily. Lily sighed and debated whether or not to tell him the truth. She took a seat next to him.
"It's just that our world is more or less divided into two factions. One that roots for the pureblood families, and want the muggle-borns, the likes of me with no magical background, to not be given an opportunity to study and learn magic. They think that if the muggle-borns marry into pureblood families they pollute the bloodline and the magical strength of the purebloods get deteriorated. The other faction believes that anyone who shows signs of performing wandless magic in their early years should be taught magic."
"Which side has the lead?" asked her dad innocently.
Lily let out sigh. If only it was as simple, she thought.
"The Ministry, is trying to contain the situation. The situation is pretty grim. More grim than that newspaper lets on. We were going to stay over because Franks's father died. On duty. But then the Ministry sealed his house so he and his mother came over to stay at the Potters'."
"His father died?" her father was quite perplexed. After a while he added, "what about Potter? Is he on the bad side?"
"No. Quite the opposite." as Lily said this, she realised for the first time ever since all of this pureblood business came to light that Potter was genuinely disgusted by it. She'd herself seen it on so many occasions, the marauders rescuing away small muggle-born first years from the bullying Slytherins.
"Where does his father work?"
"He worked at the same department as Frank's did." replied Lily, knowing where this was going.
"And you with all your over-thinking abilities couldn't fathom why he might be a bit touchy about this topic?" he looked at her curiously and grimly as he waited for an answer. Lily realised she may have been in the wrong regarding this.
"Yeah I think you might be right." admitted Lily. "He still is a git though." she quickly added. Although she found herself more and more sceptical of the last part. She shook her head. It's maybe all this grim talk, she reasoned.
"I'll come back by five." she said, as she got up to leave and kissed her dad on the cheek.
"It's okay if you stay out late too you know. You're a big girl." replied her father, amused.
Lily shook her head and chuckled.
"So I heard you were at Potter's this Wednesday." said Marlene, with a little worried but amused tone nonetheless. Ever since that incident by the lake at the end of their fifth year, they have very cautiously avoided the topic of either Snape or Potter. They have all throughout these years warned her about Snape, and how he had started hanging out with the likes of Mulciber by the end of their second year. She'd defended Snape as much as a friend should, but Snape deserved none of it. Lily had always looked the best in people but with Snape she was hanging on to a very little good in him that was far outnumbered by his vices. As for Potter it's always been a rule with the girls that if he comes up in a conversation it usually ends up with Lily getting all riled up about him being a presumptuous git and then not talking for another hour.
"Why does everybody want to talk about that today?" asked Lily, rolling her eyes. She tried feigning a frustrated expression but the little talk she had with her father earlier in the morning had been pricking at the back of her head. However to quickly change the topic she asked, "How do you know I was at Potter's?"
"Oh Si-Black wrote to me." replied Marlene hesitatingly. At this Lily raised her eyebrows, her eyes wide.
"Black wrote to you?" she asked, disbelief in her eyes.
"Yes, he did. He wanted to talk about a new game plan Potter had devised for the next Quidditch season, you know, with most of the Ravenclaw chasers are now in their last year also their seeker will graduate this year. So they'll do everything to win the Cup this year. James thinks it is unwise to recruit so many seventh years into the team. When we'll be in our last year the Ravenclaw team would be quite weak with untrained young players. But this year they are quite strong. So James and Black invited me to practice with them at James's place. That's why he wrote to me." explained Marlene.
Lily found the explanation quite acceptable. However the very fact that Marlene would so desperately explain something as simple as quidditch practice with Potter and what he thinks about the Ravenclaw team, sounded fishy to her ears. Only when she was hiding or lying about something did Marlene explain anything so profusely. Another thing that she found off with her explanation was the fact that Black wrote to her instead of James, who has been her friend from before they came to Hogwarts.
"Why didn't Potter write to you?" asked Lily, knowing that this was a loophole in her story.
"I don't know .. er .. it's probably because he's been quite I don't know, distraught because of his dad and the whole Ministry business." answered Marlene sheepishly. She knew she was lying. This wasn't why Sirius had written to her instead of James, but she didn't entirely lie because Sirius did tell her about James being more or less of a mess because of his father. This was true. She felt bad for using James's pathetic condition to cover for herself but she wasn't lying.
Lily on the other hand was quite stunned to hear this. Guilt was slowly spreading through every fibre of her being. Lily being Lily would crumble under the guilt of having hurt anyone. And that very much included anyone whose father had a dangerous job in such a time. Not only did she brazenly ask Potter about his father's connection with a man who had recently died, she had pointedly ignored his attempts at trying to make conversation with her throughout the day.
"Is it bad? I mean, is Potter really not fine?" asked Lily, very much aware of the voice inside her head growing louder with every passing second making her slowly drown in guilt.
Marlene noticing a twinge of guilt in her friend's voice answered, "Yeah, his dad has been keeping a very busy schedule recently. But that is the extent of what I know, Si-Black hasn't exactly been very clear but given that James hasn't written to me at all, or anyone for that matter, I'd say whatever it is that's eating up that boy, it's bad." she finished.
Lily nodded with a solemn face. She took all of this in. Just then, Hestia arrived with their butterbeers and plonked the glasses down on the table.
"What are you guys talking about?" she asked them.
"Oh nothing, I told you about Lily going over to the Potter's on Wednesday, that's what." replied Marlene, trying to steer the conversation away from why she has been writing to Sirius.
"Yeah, no wonder Lily here looks like she's seen a ghost." chuckled Hestia, "So how was it? Visiting Potter?" she asked.
"I didn't visit him. I was there to visit Frank and his mother." replied Lily, defensively.
"So you didn't talk to him at all?" asked Marlene, incredulously.
"We did talk, he showed me around his house and everything. His mother was really sweet. Augusta hit him when he tried being a prig around me." Lily told them, chuckling.
"You know you have some nerve calling Mrs. Longbottom by her first name. Not many people do, even most of her colleagues don't call her by her first name." remarked Marlene, "As kids James and I used to be so freaking scared of her. It's only around her that I've seen him being still for more than ten seconds at a stretch." she finished, laughing out loud.
"She's such a sweet lady, I don't understand why she's like this with you people." replied Lily.
"Oh please, miss goody two shoes. She's besotted with you for obvious reasons." said Marlene, teasing.
"Although what's up with her clothes?" asked Lily as if she suddenly remembered Mrs. Longbottom's eccentric dressing sense.
"Oh! Don't even go there. It's so much hard to keep a straight face when she scolds you, while all the feathers on her hats move as if they're snarling at us too." said Marlene between bouts of laughter.
Lily couldn't help but laugh herself.
James was flying on his broomstick absent-mindedly. Frank had asked the boys to leave him alone. He was still in a better shape the day Alice and Lily had come by, but since yesterday he was having a hard time. Mrs. Longbottom and Frank were supposed to leave their neighbourhood to make preparations for the funeral. Sirius asked him if James would want to visit Diagon Alley. He had been visiting the Diagon Alley so much even without James, that the latter had been pretty suspicious of Sirius, which is why James decided he'd tag along today. Sirius's face had been that of confusion, as if he was solving some kind of puzzle in his head. James was waiting for Sirius to get ready. Honestly, what is up with him, James thought. Sure Sirius takes a little more time than the other four marauders to get dressed usually, but this really was taking long.
Sirius hesitated. Should he wear the night-blue shirt that Marlene had nonchalantly commented he looked good in? But she'll probably notice he wore it again and might get the wrong idea. More like the right idea, a voice inside his head barked at him. He shook his head and decided to wear a black shirt instead. He left for the main gate but not before waving hysterically at James from his bedroom window who was flying around on his broomstick aimlessly, his mind somewhere else.
Sirius, James noticed, was being extremely fidgety. It was weird to experience a fidgety Sirius. He had a very laid back air around him. I could have been laid back but damn that redhead, James thought.
"So where to?" asked James, curiously observing his unsuspecting friend who was apparently looking around and it seemed he was looking out for something very particular.
"Huh what?" asked a very zoned-out Sirius.
"Oh what's wrong with you Pads?" asked a very frustrated but amused James.
"Oh nothing I was just thinking maybe Flourish and Blott's?" replied Sirius, taking a wild guess, thinking if Lily was with Marlene and Hestia, she might have dragged the two of them there.
James eyebrows disappeared in his hairline.
"You wanna go where?" he asked, and suddenly as if the devil had possessed James, he pinned Sirius to a wall, his wand out, pointed at Sirius's face and a grim expression on his face. With an urgency in his voice he asked, "What was the first thing I said about Lily?"
"Wha-? James let me g-" Sirius struggled to get out James's grip.
"Just answer me."
"What are you two doing?!" a shrill voice interrupted James's inquiry. James was about to dismiss the intruders, till he saw a flash of red hair appear in his peripheral vision. He whipped his head to his side and there she was. "Evans." he said with an incredulous tone. Sirius tried to struggle out of James's grip but the latter didn't let go.
"Just answer the damn question-" James's eyes grew wide when he realised that he didn't want the answer to that question in front of Lily, but it was too late, and for once he was hoping Sirius or the fake Sirius would give the wrong answer.
"That 'the damn girl has green eyes and red hair, she's practically a walking Christmas party and that-'"
"Yeah okay we're good yeah, I got that." James quickly interrupted loudly before Sirius started avenging himself by listing out every embarrassing thing James had said about Lily in the past five years.
When James turned around to face his three classmates, and tried to catch a quick glance at Lily who had turned red like a tomato, from anger, embarrassment or the August sun he couldn't really tell and did not exactly had the courage to figure which was it.
"So ladies, sorry for the little fiasco, James here has a history of losing his cool around Evans." Sirius apologised, with a charming smile for the girls and a scowl for James.
"Yeah but I don't think I was the one losing my cool. You took an hour to get dressed, you've been fidgety ever since we got here, you keep looking around for something, you're barely paying attention to what I'm asking and you said you wanted to go to Flourish and Blott's! I'm sorry if I felt compelled to check if you're an imposter." finished James.
"Have you maybe tried couple's counselling?" asked Hestia rolling her eyes. James scowled at her.
"Well, I've got to agree with James here. You wanting to go Flourish and Blott's would've forced me to question you." remarked Marlene with a smirk.
"We're going there by the way, if you guys would like to join." said Hestia, hoping they would just get moving already. James could see Lily starting to protest and almost immediately said, "I think we'll get something to eat first-"
"What? No, no, no, we'd love to joins you girls." Sirius cut in quickly, shoving James in the general direction of the shop.
"So! Hestia, how has summer been?" asked Sirius, paced forward leaving James behind, trying to get in between Hestia and Marlene putting both his arms around their shoulders which pushed Lily in the back, falling in step with James. James had no idea what Sirius was playing at and if he should say hi to Lily after what had happened at his home. It'll be rude if I don't say hi, he thought.
"Hi." greeted Lily in a soft voice.
"Hi." replied James, surprised yet again.
An awkward silence engulfed them. They walked quite unsure of themselves swaying away a bit and then realising they were too far apart for it to be polite and then closing the gap between them trying to be as subtle about it as possible. Lily wondered if she should apologise. But she hadn't had time to think -overthink, a voice in her head said- through whatever she's been told about James today, from her dad's doubts to Marlene's confirmation of the same. What was even more confusing was James's silence. Normally as Sirius had said, he'd lose his cool around her and would either make fun of her hair or would just embarrass her incessantly by complimenting her every time he'd lay eyes on her. Was he mad at me? Lily thought and her eyes grew wide in confusion. It felt weird having James Potter mad at her. In the past he'd looked positively hurt when she had first refused to go out with him, but then he had just grown into an arrogant toerag who pestered her to go out with him. He had been annoying, cocky, insufferable, had bragged about them going out one day, but she can't remember any day or any given minute where he might have been mad. The thought was scary. She had seen James being mad at Sirius, last year for some reason, which also involved Sev. He had turned a blind eye to the poor boy. Sirius had roamed around the castle dejectedly for a month, kicking at random armours, falling asleep on the stairs sometimes. Lily on her patrol duty had often woken him up and taken him back to the Gryffindor tower but he'd just sleep in the common room. It went on for the whole of March but they made up in the first week of April. While Lily wasn't a sucker for James's random bursts of the appreciation of her, she never wanted to be on the receiving end of James's cold indifferent anger. She knew she had to apologise but she didn't want to apologise in front of her friends. She wracked her brain for some excuse to get Potter alone. Before she could come to a conclusion they had apparently reached their destination. Lily had kept walking straight till James had to call her name out to tell her they'd reached.
Lily's silence was unnerving James a great deal. Was she really that upset with him? Well I did snap at her, he thought. I shouldn't have done that, she must have already been going through her own shit of dealing with the fact that Snape called her a mudblood, and the fact that muggle-borns were the victim base of this feud. She didn't once lose her temper with me, despite James's comments that she had, in the past, found extremely annoying. He chanced a peek at her and saw her frowning, her lips pursed, nostrils flaring. James knew her way too well to know she was thinking about something she didn't like and something that she couldn't wrap her mind around. He'd seen her like this a number of times during Transfiguration. It was her weakest subject. She still was third in class after Sirius and himself though. He remembered when they had to turn the tea cut in a rat. She'd asked, "But professor! How can a tea cup develop complex body parts that need blood and veins, and a heart and a brain? It's made of porcelain!" Everyone had thought she was crazy. Her own friends had chuckled at her ignorance, even Snape thought it was a stupid question to ask. McGonagall had given some explanation which he didn't remember. All he remembered was that she seemed quite perplexed by the reaction she had received, and was not entirely convinced by the Professor's explanation. Later that day in the evening when she'd been sitting in the common room surrounded by books on Transfiguration, James had approached her. "Hey, Evans, I just wanted to talk to you about what you asked in McGonagall's class." He was quite nervous, he remembered. At first Lily had seemed really dismissive of him, she'd started scribbling something on her notes, but when he had just stood there, nervously running his hand through his hair, fidgeting with the corners of the books kept in a stack, Lily, as he thinks, took pity on him and asked him to have a seat across from her. "What did you want to talk about?" she had asked.
"You know how you said, that por-slin can't turn into blood and all that, what did you mean?" he had asked. He remembered she had looked at him for full ten seconds, before answering.
"Every living thing, that breathes, feels, eats and what not, it takes time to develop right? Eggs take so long to hatch for the chick to come out. The bird doesn't open its eyes for days. Then how is it possible to turn a tea cup into flesh? That tea cup was made of porcelain, I don't think you could make hair or eyes out of porcelain." Lily had explained in a quiet voice, all the time not looking at him
He had at that time assumed that her quietness was because she was embarrassed after the class made a spectacle of her but later through the years he'd find out (as he found about so many things about her) that she became quiet and her voice went hollow when she was unsure of herself, which didn't happen often unless someone compared magic with muggle stuff. He would spend hours crouched under his invisibility cloak in the empty classrooms where she and Snape brewed potions or in the Library. Snape would many times tell her to get rid of the small notebook that she carried around to take quick notes. After such days James would go up to her and ask about her notebooks, she would sound hollow and quiet. He didn't have to pretend to like them, as he would originally plan, because he ended up actually loving the idea of having parchments bound together in a flat form. Just as she had finished, he'd realised it actually made sense. Even his cousin had to wait for his dog, Daisy, to give birth to puppies for at least two months.
"It makes sense you know?" James had replied, running his hand through his hair. At this Lily raised her head and looked at him curiously as if asking him to go on. And so he did and told her about his cousin's dog and her puppies. She had seemed fascinated and kept asking him about the puppies, how old they were, their names etc. James had been more than happy to answer the questions she kept firing at him because then that meant he would have her emerald eyes fixed upon him and he could stare at them and hold her attention longer. He told her he'd grown up watching his mother turn his small broomstick into a blanket when it was bedtime. She had chuckled a bit at this which had (and still does) made him feel ten feet tall. "If it hadn't been for your question I'd have never thought about how a broomstick that is, in no way, half as soft as a blanket, gets turned into one." he had told her. At this she had given him a goofy grin and as James likes to remember she had a blushed a little too.
James looked down at her. She was looking around absent-mindedly. She looked lost. A pang of guilt hit James. He knew there were so many times that she had felt like she didn't belong here in the magical world. She had no connections, her parents were probably oblivious to the way muggle-borns were being treated and even if they did know, they could do little to help. James had always wanted for Lily to feel as belonged as he did in the wizarding world and if he hadn't been able to answer the one question that she had put to him then he had failed her. He decided he would apologise to her and if she was willing to listen at all to him, given that she almost never did when she was mad at him, he would tell her about anything she'd like to know.
"Oi Prongs, taking Evans on a date are you?" roared Sirius from behind James. James turned around to see Sirius and the two girls standing right outside Flourish and Blott's. James and apparently Lily too hadn't realised that they hadn't stopped at their destination. James saw Lily still walking ahead and called her. She turned around and looked like she had been woken from a deep sleep. James beckoned at her towards the shop.
As they entered the shop Hestia quickly left for the section which displayed books on political commentary. Marlene went somewhere towards the back. To James's surprise Sirius too walked away as if with a purpose, towards the fiction section. What surprised him even more was that Lily hadn't moved from her spot next to James. They stood there awkwardly at first and then were pushed farther inside the shop by the incoming crowd, when Lily spoke up.
"Are you mad at me?" asked Lily, perplexed by the choice of her own words. Wow, tact, she thought to herself. James looked positively bewildered and looked around himself in case Lily was talking to someone else.
"Who me?" asked James, when he realised she was, indeed, talking to him. She nodded quietly.
"Uh .. Evans I had to talk to you about something." said James. He wanted to apologise before she said anything and a whole new topic of conversation commenced.
"Yeah, me too. But let's just get out of here please." she requested as someone as tall as James came towards them carrying a stack of books and some cleaning equipments atop the stack and almost collided with Lily but James pulled her out of the guy's way.
"You should really try some stretching exercises you know, you might still be able to grow a few inches, unless you just want to get pushed around in your favourite book stores." James grinned at her good naturedly as he gently guided her out of the book store. She was walking right in front him, so he wasn't able to see her face, but he hoped to Merlin for her to not lash out on him in the middle of a book store.
"I'm of a perfectly acceptable height thank you. It's not my fault people like you just keep growing like trolls on steroids." quipped Lily. When James noticed Lily's voice lacked the usual cold tone it had when she spoke to him, he felt a weird warmth spreading through his chest.
As James guided her out of the store, his hands just about hovering over her shoulders, occasionally touching them, to steer her away from things or people she might bump into, she felt nervous. She could feel the warmth of his hands emanating on to her shoulders. It made her ticklish. What did he want to talk to her about? Is it to tell her that what she did was completely unacceptable and that she shouldn't mention his father again? That, seemed reasonable. The two of them were outside of the store and looked around for a place to sit and talk.
"Let's get ice cream." James suggested and started walking towards Florean Fortescue's. James found them a booth and asked Lily what she wanted to eat. A while later he appeared with her Banana Split ice cream and to Lily's surprise he got himself Mint Chocolate Chips with rainbow sprinkles all over the ice cream. She looked at him with amused eyes.
"What?" he asked, indignantly.
"Kids have rainbow sprinkles on their ice creams."
"Are you telling me you have out grown your love for sprinkles?"
"No! I mean I don't think I have."
"Yeah me neither." he replied, flashing her a very childlike grin.
"But aren't you little old to be getting sprinkles on your ice cream?"
"What?! No! You're never too old!" protested James, "Did you stop getting sprinkles just because you were older?" he asked and the look on his face was that of complete horror.
"Didn't everyone?"
"What?!" James was mortified at thought of having given up sprinkles because someone earned a grey hair in their life. Lily had half a heart to laugh at his face. He looked like a kid who had just found out that Santa isn't real.
"I mean at least that's what I thought as to why people stopped getting sprinkles when they got older. I didn't even think about this until you showed up grinning at your rainbow sprinkles as if you've won a lottery." Lily said, rolling her eyes, smiling nonetheless.
"It's a horrible reason if you ask me. Leaving something just because people your age are leaving it." he said, digging into his ice cream, slicking the sprinkles on his fingers and then licking them off his fingers. Lily watched him eating the sprinkles, carefully so that none of them would fall.
"Looking at you marvelling at your sprinkles, I'm beginning to regret not getting them." Lily told him, as she picked up her spoon to eat her ice cream. Before she could dig in James quickly slipped her ice cream away from her and went over at the sprinkles counter. When he came back Lily's ice cream was barely visible. It looked like a landscape with hills covered in rainbow sprinkles. James gave her her ice cream back, grinning from ear to ear. He took some of the sprinkles from the empty space in her bowl and sprinkled them on his own ice cream.
"What! The guy won't let me have more sprinkles. Said I ate more sprinkles than all the kids, who come over for summers here, combined. Jerk. They are supposed to be nice." complained James, grumpily, but the moment he licked his ice cream, he was a ten year old boy again. Lily was enjoying grumpy childlike James. She let out a happy chirp when she first tasted the sprinkles with her banana split. James watched her as she closed her eyes and adorably shifted in her seat, enjoying her ice cream smiling endearingly. A little bit of sunshine fell on the top of her head and made her hair look even more vibrant than it already was, a few strands of hair had come undone from her braid and fell loosely around her face. To James she was very easily the most beautiful girl on the face of the earth. A little broken sprinkle was stuck at the corner of her mouth. Before James could stop himself he reached out and removed it.
Lily opened her eyes at the sudden foreign touch and saw James removing a sprinkle stuck to the corner of her mouth and putting it in his mouth. She hardly knew how to react to this. She would've easily swatted his hand away or at least shown her displeasure but instead she slowly felt a blush creep up from under her collar bones rising up to her neck and then to her cheeks. It's probably the sun shining on the top of my bloody head.
As soon as Lily opened her eyes and looked James straight in his eyes as he ate the sprinkle he'd just removed from her face, he braced himself for Lily to shout at him. His heart throbbed uncontrollably, not from the anticipation of a fight, he had far outgrown that fear, but from the blush that James could see rising up from her chest to cheeks making freckles appear on her nose. Was she blushing? Maybe it's the sun, he reasoned. Maybe, it's not. She had looked away and was not meeting his eyes now. He hated it when she looked away from him.
"So what did you .. er .. want to talk about?" asked Lily, who was looking intently at her ice cream.
"Are you crazy? I told you wouldn't be able to meet you today, I was meeting with the girls." hissed Marlene.
Sirius and Marlene had found the room where the extra copies of books were stored in. The stacks of books were charmed to stay atop each other. One could just lean on them as they'd lean on a wall without knocking the books off. The entire room was like a maze with walls made of books. Sirius and Marlene found a quiet corner at the very back of the room.
"So? Lily could keep James occupied for as long as she'd exist. We all know Hestia to be a loner and she'd leave probably in an hour, her boyfriend is taking her for the movies at three in the evening." Sirius told her, grinning. Marlene rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth tugged at lips but before it turned into a full blown smile, Sirius caught her lips with his own and closed the gap between them. He pushed her into the nearest wall of books that he found. It wobbled a bit against their moving forms but stood its ground. Marlene wrapped her arms around Sirius's neck and her hands quickly found their way into his long black locks, which normally fell around his face quite royally, but right now they were a chaotic beauty, falling in front of his stormy grey eyes that peeked occasionally from behind them at Marlene's closed eyes and flushed face. He kissed the corner of her mouth and Marlene let out a small whimper. He could've sworn his heart jumped from its place into his mouth. He tried ignoring it, without admitting that it felt good. He gently brushed her hair behind her neck and left a trail of urgent kisses from left her collarbone to just below her left ear and kissed her jaw line, before reaching back to her agape mouth. He probed her tongue with his own and groaned when she responded by rolling her tongue around his. His stomach flipped a little. This has been getting a bit out of hand, Sirius noted, remembering the last time she had pushed her tongue in his mouth, he had felt his stomach flip, only a little lighter in intensity than today. He bit her lower lip before locking their lips, holding her as close as he could.
"Is someone in 'ere?" someone at the entrance growled.
They broke apart, Sirius's sweaty forehead resting on Marlene's, their eyes closed, breathing heavily. They remained like this for another minute, before Marlene muttered, "Let's get out of here."
"Um, I wanted to apologise." responded James, clearing his throat, straightening his back.
"You what? I don't think it's you who has to apologise." mumbled Lily. James gave her a quick confused glance before he interrupted her.
"No Evans. I was really rash with you the other day. You had only asked a simple question and I-"
"-I understand, Potter, why you were so defensive about it. Marlene told me abou-"
"-just snapped at you without a sparing a thought that maybe you were just trying to make conversati-"
"-your dad and that you've been pretty withdrawn this summer-"
"-I feel as if it's my responsibility to make you feel like you belong here." James stopped here when he saw Lily stop at his words.
"You f-feel responsible for m-me?" she stuttered.
"Yes." James admitted, "And not just me. It is or at least should be, the responsibility of anyone with a magical background, to welcome the muggle-borns and make them feel at home," he stated quite simply, "We completely neglect the legacy that muggle-borns bring with themselves from their world in a bid to entirely transform them into a witch or wizard and make them lose every connection they have with their world. This want of dissociating with the muggle world is the very root of this hate that's spreading. And even when they try to dissociate them from the muggle world there is this systemic way of ensuring that the muggle-borns never become an integral or an indispensable part of the wizarding world. This kind of leaves the muggle-borns hanging in the middle with nowhere to go. On top of that if people like me, shun the muggle-borns when they need answers, it'll only add to the problems. There are so many things we could take from your world. The telephone thing you told us about, it could make communicating so much easier than stepping in a load of owl shit in the owlery. My point being, that while I'm not in a position to make such amends as introducing telephones, the least I could do is tell you every information that I'm privy to by the virtue of having a magical background. If anyone has the right to ask me about my dad's work, it's you. You as a muggle-born have every right to question me back and forth about what is going on, how far along we are in containing the threats, how much harm is done, how much is anticipated, because honestly, The Daily Prophet is doing a crap job reporting even a flautist's event. So I'm sorry, that I snapped at you, I shouldn't have done that, and I promise I will never do that again. And if you'd like, you could ask me anything that you'd like to know about such business, anytime and I'll try to give you the best possible answer I could." James finished.
He had been looking at Lily looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face. When he had finished, Lily had shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She tucked the loose strand of her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat, sitting up straight, exactly how James had done before his little speech.
"That's really thoughtful of you, Potter." acknowledged Lily, with a small grateful smile. James let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. He smiled shyly at Lily. Lily had, in the past five years never known him to be sensitive to such issues. She liked how upfront he was about discussing such a sensitive issue with a muggle-born. She sat there quite dumbfounded until she found her voice again.
"I wanted to apologise to you to-"
"Evans, you don't have to." James quickly cut in.
"No, Potter, I really do, I mean, as much as I'm grateful, I really am, that you put so much thought into this, but that doesn't mean I wasn't in the wrong questioning you like that, especially when our history has not exactly been civil." Lily finished, smiling at the last bit, as did James.
"It's okay, Evans. So anything you'd like to know?" asked James, casually licking his ice cream, his glasses had slid down to the tip of his nose and were dangerously close to being smothered by his ice cream, but he scrunched his nose in an attempt to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He failed miserably, sending his glasses further down. He had dirtied both of his hands in eating his ice cream like a kid. Lily reached across and pushed his glasses up. He looked a bit stunned by what Lily had done but smiled gratefully at her. "So any queries mademoiselle?", he asked again, with his lopsided grin, bringing him right back to his old self.
"How are you holding up?" Lily asked, carefully, knowing that when James said 'anything' he meant the Ministry and other stuff, not probing about in his private life.
James seemed a bit taken aback by her question. Of all the things this ever-curious creature could bombard me questions about, she decides to ask about my mental health?
"Not exactly your usual golden Potter boy at the moment, but I'll be alright." answered James casually, not divulging in too much information. The last thing she needs is a teenage boy spewing his angst at her and whining about stuff he doesn't have control over. She nodded not entirely convinced with his answer, but she didn't press him for details.
Just then Sirius and Marlene entered the shop and spotted the two of them.
"So you actually were taking Evans for a date huh?" teased Sirius, smirking as he took a seat next to Lily while Marlene took a seat next to James.
"Yeah, it was going great until you two popped in." Lily replied. It was her turn to smirk as the colour drained from both, Sirius and James's, face. As soon as they noticed her rolling her eyes, they tried to return to their calm composure. Sirius succeeded, James struggled.
"Going soft on me Evans?" James asked, with his annoying smirk on his face, but Lily could see the tip of his ears turning pink.
"You wish Potter."
"Where's Jones?" James asked in an attempt to change he topic before he embarrassed himself more.
"Oh she met up with her boyfriend on the way here. They're going to watch some movie." explained Marlene. Marlene glanced at Sirius who smirked at her, and she scowled in return. They hadn't met up with Hestia after they got out of the book store instead they had found their usual snogging spot and had taken a stop there before coming to find James and Lily. Marlene just assumed that if it was already quarter to three, Hestia must have already left.
"Oh yeah, she did tell us, totally forgot about that." Lily remembered.
"Let's get going yeah?" Marlene asked, "My folks are expecting me home a bit early." she explained quickly. Everyone nodded.
"So when are you guys going to practice your new quidditch game plan?" Lily asked, remembering Marlene mentioning it.
"Our wha-" James started.
"You know our plan to beat the Ravenclaw team this year." Marlene quickly cut in, addressing James.
"We have a plan?" James inquired, completely lost.
"Yeah the one you came up with." Lily pointed out.
"I came up with a game to beat the Ravenclaw team?" squeaked James.
Marlene kicked Sirius in the shins.
"Yeah the one you were talking about just yesterday!" Sirius wailed.
"Pads, I don't think I said anyth-"
"Oh don't mind him, it's just everything has been so stressful for him lately." cut in Sirius, apologetically.
"Yes they have been stressful but I know I didn't make a game pla-" James protested.
"You need your rest Prongs, come on now." Sirius quickly wrapped his arms around James, as if the latter was sick, and dragged him away from the girls.
Lily saw James struggling to get out of Sirius's protective grip but couldn't quite manage it. She shook her head at the two of them. She bid her farewell to Marlene and went home. Back home, things were quite as Petunia was out with Vernon and his friends. Her mother was in the kitchen, cooking and her dad was in his study. She went up to her bedroom and flopped down on her bed, face first. It hadn't been bad meeting with Potter at all. Has he always been this considerate? Lily quickly shook her head. She refused to let her brain gain pleasure out of overthinking about this day. This day in her mind was something fresh, something she hadn't experienced before and she'd like to keep it that way. At least for a while. Overthinking made everything stale. She didn't want this meeting of hers with Potter to turn stale with her numerous questions that her brain asks to examine and cross examine the witnesses. It was the first time she had experienced a pureblood talk so responsibly about the cause of the muggle-borns. On top of this a pureblood whom she had despised for the better half of her years at Hogwarts. Has he nev- no! No over-thinking. She rolled over to her back and closed her eyes. She smiled when she realised James had gotten some ice cream smeared over his glasses but he didn't notice. She did.
A/N: So the third chapter is here. It's a bit longer than the other two. Thank you so much for reading! Next update: next Saturday. Until then. Love you guys.
