athusa: Haaaa, me too :) Lexiscribbles: Ah! You're here! Hi :D Welcome! And yes, here we come indeed ;) Guest: HERE YOU GO! :D axelvaz: My lips are sealed ;P Yayayay! Glad you are enjoying 3 guest: Hahahahaaaa, not dead. No no no, Lily just wants to play with all of our feelings O:) skyexdaisy: Oh he's fighting it all right. He's a good boy ^.^ Let's see how long he can hold out? Lol Terylee: Gah, that is so sweet, thank you for telling me that. (But sorry work is so stressful!) And yes! I'm trying so hard to have the arcs of both line up, heh, it's a bit of a struggle, but think it's working out so far. Poor guy indeed! Ruin is a good word o.O That he KNOWS it is almost the worst part! He's watching a trainwreck, but like... he's at the wheel! And what a sad (but accurate!) way to look at his time with Rebecca :D

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. This author knows Lily is not a good person here, she hopes you know she is not a good person here, this story is not condoning bad behavior, just exploring it, if you are uncomfortable you can always stop reading, I won't mind :) Art work by the super talented windbyfire (insta)


Bones ~ Imagine Dragons

7th Year

By Sunday, James had had enough. He'd been trying to corner Evans all weekend to yell at her for what she'd done, but she'd been avoiding him like the plague. She'd taken to sleeping in her old dorm and slipping out of the dining hall without him noticing and he was on his last nerve. He couldn't believe that he had an Invisibility Cloak, but somehow she was the one so well versed at tactical covertness.

Her luck finally ran out that night, however, when James checked the map and found her name label in a 5th floor hallway with Gryffindor Paul McLaggen. That's strange, James thought briefly as he grabbed his wand and flew out the door. But whatever the reason he'd finally been able to locate her was, thank Merlin. He was ready to give her a piece of his mind, and maybe a little lesson: drugging people was bad. Try not to do it again, arsehole.

He rounded the corner, angry insults for her already primed on his tongue, when the scene before him made him freeze. Evans was lying on the floor, legs immobile and possibly paralyzed while she tried to drag herself to her wand which had clearly rolled down the hall. Behind her, McLaggen, a boy at least twice her size, lay face down, knocked out.

"What the—"

Evans looked up at him panicked, trying even more desperately to reach her wand now that she saw she was no longer alone. "Don't make me take you out too, Potter," she snarled. They both knew the threat was completely devoid of consequence considering she was in no position to attack anything other than the dust she was picking up with her clothes as she dragged them slowly across the stone.

Did she… does she actually think I'm going to attack her like this? James continued to watch her in complete disbelief. "What the fuck, Evans? What happened?"

She stilled, catching her breath when she saw that he was making no move to curse her. "Just leave. I got this."

"Did you think I was going to hurt you just now?" James asked, still wholly affronted.

She rested her head on her forearms, clearly in pain and running out of stamina. "Wouldn't be the first time."

James wasn't sure if he'd ever been more taken aback in his life. Who did this woman think he was?! "Not when you're defenseless! Not when you don't even have your wand, Evans! For fuck's sake, there's a difference between dueling face to face and— and—" There shouldn't be a word in the English language that would describe the cowardice of attacking a woman like this. He found he couldn't even finish the thought.

She gave him a confused look. "So you wouldn't hit me when I'm an easy target?" The way she said it made it sound like she almost felt bad for him. Like he was some slow, simple creature that would perish as soon as he stepped outside of the safe protection of these hallowed walls.

James knew he'd grown up somewhat coddled, but he wasn't an idiot. "Yeah, Evans. It's called having honor for fuck's sake."

"And you think the people you'll fight against in the real world will have that? You think they'll play by your same rules and afford you the same level of respect, just because you do?"

James stood just a little bit taller. "If they don't, that sounds like it's their problem, not mine."

Evans snorted, going back to her task of dragging herself along. "Not when you're the one who ends up dead," she muttered.

Wow, fine. He'd had enough of her sass for one night. "Okay, well, only one of us is lying here half-paralyzed, and it isn't me."

"Only because not everyone in your house is as 'noble'—" she really said it like the world was a disease, "—as you and isn't above cursing someone from behind."

James always knew he didn't like McLaggen. The guy seemed like a bully. James gave an exasperated sigh as he walked closer to Evans, still a good two meters from her wand. "Here, let me help you," he said, reaching down for her.

Evans' eyes went wide, staring at his approaching hands. "What are you doing?"

James froze, crouched down next to her. "I'm shit at healing spells, so I'm gonna take you to—"

"I can do it," Evans cut him off urgently. "Just give me my wand, I can do it."

It was his turn to think that she was the stupid one in battle. "Evans. First rule of being hurt is to get somewhere safe. You're a sitting duck here, come on, let me—"

"Just because you don't know when to strike your opponent at the most opportune moment does not mean that you are some genius dueler, Potter. I told you: I can do it."

James wasn't sure if it was his chivalrous side, or the one that wanted to argue with her, but he followed through with his intent to pick Evans up off the floor either way.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked as he settled her against his chest and summoned her wand into his possession. Even when she was actively being saved, it looked like she had a hard time pretending like everything wasn't all within her control.

It felt oddly nice to have her curled up against him like this, one arm supporting her legs while the other curved around her back. "Madam Mitchell," he answered matter-of-factly.

"What? No!" Evans screeched, using her palms to push off of his chest, as if him dropping her to the floor was preferable to being taken to the school Healer. She sounded ruffled and alarmed as she said, "Put me down! Just fucking put me down!"

James did no such thing, thoroughly confused by her bizarre outburst as he used all of his Quidditch skills and muscles to keep her flailing body balanced in his grip while he walked. "Relax, Evans, she'll sort you out in no time—"

She scoffed. "Oh you naive, little boy. She doesn't help my kind. Are you kidding me?"

The accusation was enough to stop James in his tracks. "What do you mean?"

"Just bring me home." As soon as those words left her mouth, he felt an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. It was so strange to think of what they shared as a home. To James, home meant warmth and cooking and being surrounded by people who loved you. What did it mean to Evans? He actually had no idea what her home life was like. Where did a girl like Evans even come from? "I'll do it myself."

"Evans…" he began, really wishing she'd see reason. "That will take hours."

"Yeah, but at least I know it'll be done right. Mitchell will 'heal' me to like 60 percent capacity so that I'll always have a limp or something."

That was absurd. James couldn't believe it. "No, she won't—"

"She will because she does. I've seen her do it before. Remember last year, little Andy Walton?"

James vaguely recalled a 1st year with jet black hair and dark skin. "Yeah, the kid who had yellow boils for like a week?"

"Try a month," Evans correctly. "A Gryffindor classmate hit him with some funny little curse he'd just learnt about, and Andy went to Mitchell to get healed. She told him it would go away on its own, so he waited. And waited. You know how dumb and trusting kids are, especially with authority figures." James didn't like where this story was going. "Finally his older sister mentions it to me, and I check him out. Potter, the healing spell was something Saint Mitchell would have learnt in her first year of Healing training. She'd just seen this kid, this 11 year old Slytherin boy, and thought he deserved what he got." James held his tongue to ask what had he done to get attacked by a Gryffindor. "The boils were painful too."

An image of Evans caring for a sick child popped into James' head, warring with all his other opinions of her. It seemed so random, so very out of character for her to do something so selfless and kind, that he almost wanted to fight her on her own memory of the events. Suddenly something clicked in his mind. The blond boy he'd seen sneak out of her room, the rumors of Evans having a rotation of men (and he guessed he'd heard a few tales of women too) at her beck and call, her confidence of her capability to heal herself now… "Evans, are you who all Slytherins come to when they get hurt?"

Evans just shrugged her shoulders, like it was no big deal.

James didn't know what to do with this new perspective on her, but suddenly, he found it very hard to keep staring directly at her, right there in his arms, as he walked them back to their dorm. She was close, far too close, for anything good to come from regarding her like this. He could handle her when she was a bitch — he'd been doing it for years — but when she was caring? When she was helping people and apparently expecting absolutely no credit for it? He was at a loss. She was evil, she wasn't allowed to have any redeeming qualities… James felt like he needed a degree in crazy to figure this witch out.

He found himself needing to pivot the conversation in order to keep his own sanity once more — he needed an out from thinking that maybe she deserved a pass for her past misdeeds. "Maybe if you stopped attacking vulnerable people, you wouldn't find yourself in this predicament, Evans."

"Oh yes," she sassed right away. "I forgot how you were there and saw everything that happened."

That shut James up until they got back to their suite and he gently deposited her onto their couch. It was still so weird to see her hurt. Normally, she seemed like an indestructible force of nature. "Do you need anything?" he asked. He supposed as Head Boy, he should probably go back and wake up McLaggen, but he found that he really didn't want to.

"Yes actually, could you elevate my legs?"

Of course. Of course the task she gave him was more touching. James sucked it up and gathered a few pillows, placing them at one end of the couch before lifting her legs one at a time. Her calves were so smooth, and he tried not to think about how one of them had been wrapped around him only days prior.

"And take off my shoes?"

Pushing it. She was pushing it. James gave her a look before he settled down against the very same pillows he'd just placed, and finagled her lifeless legs onto his lap. "Anything else?" He'd meant it as a joke, but even he felt the air around them shifting as his fingers found the zipper of her boot, slowly pulling it down. He released her foot, throwing the shoe to the floor, and moved on to the next one.

"I mean, a massage would never hurt."

Pushing it. She was half paralyzed and he was still putty before her. James would never not find that level of confidence on a woman positively mouthwatering. He couldn't believe that he had left this dorm hellbent on reprimanding her and was now right back here, doing her bidding — again. He could still bring up the poisoned cookie, because it wasn't like Evans had the choice to ignore him and run away… but it felt too cruel to yell at her when she was already hurt. James wanted her to feel remorse for her actions, but at this point, he wondered if she'd already been punished enough.

"I'll see you at dinner," he said before getting up to leave her to her healing.

He didn't. But the next time he did see her, she was sauntering about just the same as usual. He would never tell her, but the sight made him extremely happy.


Present Day

"Evans, stop, that's not what I even said," James lamented, nearly sloshing his Icevodka all over the couch they were presently sprawled across. "I said the movie would have been better with someone as dashing as me in it, not with me in it. There's a difference."

"Ha, okay," Lily replied.

It had been a week and a half (two?) since Evans had moved into his flat, and they were wasted. James wasn't proud of it, but didn't everyone need to blow off some steam and just goof off every now and again? They'd ordered in (Dumbledore had given them some sort of non-magical yet highly magical device to speak to Muggles who weren't even there so that he could summon them directly to them bearing food) and were watching a true wizarding classic, James Tucker Must Die. Sure, James had initially watched it because it had his name in the title, but he'd stuck around even after he'd realized that the James of the story was very much the bad guy. He didn't have a stick up his arse, he could still appreciate a good movie when he saw one regardless of that fact.

"I'm pretty sure that you would have said yes to playing the James in that movie if they'd approached you."

James slapped a hand over his heart. "Hogwash! It is far too campy. I am a serious man only."

Lily laughed, bending forward to steal another kernel of popcorn out of his bowl. "Uh huh."

This was fun. This was nice. For a brief moment in time, James forgot just who they were and what war they were in the midst of. It wasn't until Evans laid back down on her side of the couch and propped her feet onto his lap, hitting him full force with a rush of déjà vu, that he remembered just why they were in this predicament.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Evans carried on, clearly not seeing anything wrong with cuddling on the couch with him. "I find this actor plenty handsome enough." She smirked as she said it, eyes not straying from the hologram playing between them, but he knew she was complimenting another bloke to rile him up. She'd always loved doing just that, whenever she could.

James shook his head. Any joke made about her taste in men would inevitably turn into a self-burn. "Okay, well, someone has beer-googles on tonight."

"Or I'm just desperate enough I'll settle for anything." James shifted uncomfortably, not sure if he should move her legs off of him now that she was flirting — she is flirting, right? — or not touch them more than he already was and pretend like nothing was happening. "Not all of us get booty calls, you know."

James threw his head back in frustration. Yeah, so it didn't look like she'd let him pretend like nothing was happening then. "Evans, that wasn't a booty call, that was my girlfriend visiting me. And she's only been here like once, relax."

Evans raised a skeptical eyebrow in his direction. "Still. That's more action than I've gotten since being here." James felt his jaw clench. He really didn't need to hear Evans talking about sex. Perhaps drinking tonight had been a colossally bad idea; he'd just started feeling better around her was all, and had truly believed that they both deserved a little treat for not killing or shagging each other yet. It was sad to admit that both options had seemed equally likely in the beginning. (It was even worse to admit that the two possibilities were very much narrowing down to one now.) "You know, you could make me feel better…" His eyes sliced to her, not believing that she was actually going to proposition him now, after everything. They were supposed to be acting like nothing had ever happened between them. They were supposed to never acknowledge the fact that they'd fucked all over their past living quarters like two bunnies in heat. "… If you just lent me your wand."

James burst out laughing, relief washing down his entire body. That? She'd been talking about doing that?! "Why?" he asked teasingly, his lips already slanted into a smirk.

She returned his grin mischievously. "You know why."

He shook his head still chuckling. "No. No, Evans, I'm not lending you my wand so you can masturbate with it."

"That's so unfair!"

"No, it's not!" He truly couldn't believe they were having this conversation.

"Why?! You used to!" A small echo of her former school sass appeared in her words from the liquor, and James fought hard not to get lost in the nostalgia of it. It was harder to forget just how much he'd missed her for all those years since school when she showed him even the teensiest flash of what she'd been like back then.

James ruffled his hair absentmindedly. "Yeah, well, there's a lot of things I used to do back then that I'd rather forget." He hadn't meant it as an insult, but it sure looked like she took it as one nonetheless. He knew that girls got sensitive when they drank — fine, he just remembered that she did — so he probably shouldn't have said anything this callous. Then again, how was she going to make him feel like shit about not lending her his bloody wand to vibrate and stick between her thighs until she got off? It was preposterous. "Come on, don't be sad, I just meant—"

"Bet you can't though."

Yep. So drinking had definitely been a bad idea. Somehow they'd gone from ten plus days of dancing around topics and barely speaking to, in one night, just ripping off all the bandaids — hell, ripping off casts — and awkwardly wobbling around one another on broken legs.

"No. I can't," he admitted quietly. He'd never been able to forget a Merlindamn thing about her. His parents' anniversary, dinner plans with Peter, friggin' Healer appointments, all slipped his mind all the time. But the location of her beauty spots or the sounds she'd made when she was writhing on top of him, back arched and head thrown back? Seared in his brain for all eternity.

The romcom played forgotten between them as they got lost, staring one another down. How did it all go wrong? James wanted to ask. Was there anything he could have done differently, or said differently to have kept her from ripping his heart out the way she did? He settled for a far more easy, less world-shattering question: "Why were you so loyal to Voldemort?"

If she was surprised by the query, she hid it well. She took another big gulp out of her martini glass as she pondered, trying to come up with an adequate way to describe it. "I don't know." She took another smaller sip. "The way you guys talk about him makes him sound like a cult leader, but it never felt like that to me." James actually thought Voldemort and his gang sounded exactly like a cult of crazed lunatics. That's why he found Evans' ability to deprogram from them seemingly overnight so impressive. Then again, she'd always been the most impressive witch in the world to him. "To me — this is going to sound so stupid — but he felt more like… family."

"What?" James knew he should be respectful of her speaking her truth or whatever, but he couldn't help it. What a load of Thestralshit.

She smiled down at her lap sadly. "I know to you it will never make any sense. You had parents who wanted you, and friends who loved you unconditionally, and I had… him. He was the one who came along and told me that everything would be all right, if only I followed him. He told me I was different and that the only way I'd ever be safe being what I was is if I ruled them, ruled over all the people who would otherwise have hunted me down, and so I tried." James had never thought about it like that. He'd never considered that Evans trying to become the queen bee of the Death Eaters had been an act of self-preservation. It would have been so much harder for them to turn on her if she had been able to pull it off completely. By the sound of it, she'd only gotten about halfway there. Evans let out a dark little laugh. "I failed him though."

"Don't say that. You didn't fail anyone," James told her ardently, not wanting her to feel that way because of some psychopathic snake-face for a second.

She sent her smile his way. "I know. But I wasn't what he wanted in the end. I just wasn't a killer. I tried and it just… didn't work out."

James really couldn't stomach the fact that at any point in time she'd believed that was a failing on her part. He reached for her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Hey, I'm glad you couldn't do it." Maybe the reason why she had been able to change so easily into this, into what he was hoping was perhaps the real her, was because there'd always been some spark of good inside of her. Perhaps it had been buried so very, very deep, but hey — if it was there at all, James thought that should count for something.

She looked down to their joined hands appreciatively, her bottom lip finding its way between her teeth.

"The night they first made you try… That was…" he started off, really knowing he shouldn't ask — I shouldn't want to know — but his dumb mouth defied him, "that was the night…?"

"Yeah. That was the night." James knew it was ridiculous, but for some reason, he felt better having confirmed that the night she'd basically been her worst version of a Death Eater was the same night they'd, you know. "Thanks for comforting me, I guess," she joked.

He laughed. "I mean, sounds like you were traumatized, so maybe I fucked up—"

It was her turn to squeeze his hand — still clutched around hers between them. "No, no. It wasn't a mistake. It never was. Please don't say that."

It was like she knew that for years and years and years he'd thought that very thing.

James pulled his hand back, and they watched the rest of the movie in silence, with James lost in a haze of rushing memories until he offered Evans his popcorn one last time and noticed she'd fallen asleep. Maybe she'd been drunker than she'd let on.

Quietly turning the portable player off, he leaned over her legs and set it down on the coffee table before scooping up her body to carry her to bed. The same feelings came rushing back to him as they had when they'd been 17 and he'd done the same thing, only now, she nuzzled into his chest, resting her cheek on his navy jumper. He was able to admire her face when she was like this, see the way her eyelashes curled, an errant one lingering by the constellation of beauty marks that clustered on her left cheek.

Don't. Don't do it, James told his frantically beating heart.

He carried her to her mattress and laid her down softly before pulling out his wand. It really was about time he gave her a Merlindamn bed frame; he was being utterly absurd. With a quick swish of his wand, the bed sprang up to a new height, fitted perfectly inside a gorgeous mahogany frame. He changed her walls to a nice, fresh red he thought she'd appreciate (or at the very least laugh at when she'd realized what he'd done), and summoned some of his favorite books from his room to add to her sparse collection. It still wasn't much, but at least it was a start.

"Mm?" Lily mumbled incoherently, regaining consciousness for a little bit.

"It's okay, you're asleep," he whispered, pulling a freshly magicked, fluffy blanket up to cover her. He was so thankful she'd already put on her pajamas before they'd settled in for a movie night. He didn't even want to ponder how much he would have struggled with that sort of conundrum.

"Mm," she repeated more contently. "Night, James," she cooed as she rolled onto her back.

James bit his lip, unable to stop himself from pushing the loose lock of hair off of her forehead and tucking it behind her ear. "Night, Lily."

He left shortly after that.


Next Chapter: Animals