Chapter Two
I don't fear none of my enemies
And I don't fear bullets from Uzi's
I've been dealing with something that's worse than these
That'll make you fall to your knees and that's the
The anxiety the sane and the insane rivalry
Paranoia's brought me to my knees
Lord please, please, please
Take away my anxiety
- Anxiety, by the Black Eyed Peas
I tried as hard as I could to make her feel better, I really did. But I soon learnt that with Lily, nothing ever went quite to plan. Take, for example, the day I took her back to my place. I had assumed that if I gave Lily something to eat and made her stop crying, and then somehow made James apologize to her in front of her mum, then everything would be alright and I would no longer feel guilty and Lily Evans would no longer be my responsibility.
I was so, so wrong.
First of all, I managed to convince a very suspicious house-elf to give me enough food for two to take to my room. I may have been paranoid, but I swear he was looking at me strangely. There's really nothing quite like harboring a 'fugitive' in your bedroom. It makes you paranoid.
And after all that effort Lily wouldn't eat. She just sat there on my bed, sniffling occasionally, not really listening to anything I was saying. It was two days after I had brought her home and she only ever moved to sleep or go to the bathroom. I had had no former experience in dealing with grief-stricken girls (the only two girls in my immediate family didn't experience emotions like grief) and had no clue what I was supposed to do. Normally I would have asked James, since he was quite the ladies' man but, given the circumstances, that was out of the question.
But after two days of being Lily's shoulder to cry on, I was beginning to think that I should do something. It may have just been me, but it seemed as though she was overreacting more than a little. I mean, I guess her family meant a lot to her and stuff, but it didn't look like she was planning to get over it and fix the problem so that she could move on anytime soon.
Another thing about her was that she was incredibly sensitive. I wasn't used to having a girl around me 24/7, and even less used to having to watch what I said before the words escaped my mouth. When I mentioned the word 'family' she would burst into tears and when I made a hesitative attempt to discuss fixing the situation she would only cry harder.
And then there was the stress of keeping her in the house without the rest of the family – in particular my parents - finding out. I had a pretty clear idea what would happen. Lily would be killed, tortured, mutilated or at the very least scarred for life, and I would be disowned (my father had threatened to do so twice that summer already), and my family would make sure that it would not be possible to pursue any kind of career in the wizarding world.
It would have been funny if the danger wasn't so horribly real.
When I woke up on the morning of the third day to see Lily crying again, I decided that I'd had enough. To hell with trying to be sensitive and help her - she'd stay wallowing in her misery forever if I didn't do something.
I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the water mattress I had transfigured out of a calendar for her to sleep on and hauled her tiny frame up.
"Come on, Lily," I said purposefully. "We're going shopping."
Why shopping? Because girls love that sort of thing. But again, nothing ever went to plan with Lily. We'd been inside all of the clothes stores in Diagon Alley, all the shops that sold pretty stationery and girly trinkets, and we were now gazing at pretty animals in the pet shop. However, Lily looked exactly the same. Tired, sad and very, very thin. After she seemed done with staring vacantly at the cage that held what looked to be a cross between a koala and a kneazle, I grabbed her elbow.
"Okay Lily," I said, as if speaking to a small child. "Now we're going to get something to eat."
Predictably, she just followed along behind me, not bothering to reply. I marched up to the counter of Florean's and ordered one large mint-choc-chip sundae. I looked at Lily.
"I don't want one," she said quietly. Fantastic. She was finally talking.
"And why would that be?" I asked in a lazy manner.
"I'm not hungry," she looked at the floor.
"She'll have vanilla, thanks." I said to Florean. I took both the sundaes outside and we sat under what looked to be a giant umbrella. Lily sat down and looked at her hands.
"Eat, Lily." I snapped, somewhat nastily. Hey, I was frustrated.
Slowly and deliberately, she looked up and swallowed a tiny spoonful, her eyes never leaving mine. Then she cocked her head and said in a bitchy tone
"Happy?"
Even better. The girl was finally getting some backbone. I grinned lazily and leant back, placing my hands above my head. It looked as though we were finally making some headway. In fact, everything was going perfectly – she was talking rather than sobbing and eating, even if it was miniscule amounts of vanilla ice cream. And then I looked up.
Oh, shit.
Not far ahead of where we were sitting, came Remus, Peter and James were walking down the wide street in our direction. A thousand thoughts flooded my mind, the first of which being that there was sure to be a confrontation, and I would be stuck in the middle. I could pick James' side, my best friend of five years who had stuffed up for some unknown reason, or the side of the victim in this twisted situation who happened to be camped out on my bedroom floor. I leaned over and whispered harshly
"Lily, hide! Now!"
She looked around frantically and spotted the boys quickly, but they were too close. There was no way either of us could hide without them catching sight of us. I was in such deep shit I couldn't think straight. It was lucky that Lily did.
"Keep low and they might not see us."
She bent under the table away from the street, as if she were looking for something in her bag. In actual fact, she was rummaging through the pockets of my jacket, as if that would help us. I wanted to hide, too, or run away, but I was frozen. All of my false cool had disappeared when I needed it most.
For a moment, as I held my breath, it seemed as though they would walk by without seeing us. Then, Peter ruined it all.
"Hey, guys," he said in a loud voice. "Let's go in for ice-cream or someth – oh! Hey! Sirius!"
That little idiot had to go and ruin it. I couldn't remember feeling so terrified and hopeless.
They were walking over. I shot a glance at Lily, whose body was visibly shaking.
How the hell was I going to get out of this one?
"Hey, Padfoot," said Remus jovially as they approached. "What'cha doing?"
"And more importantly," interjected James "Who's the girl?"
Oh God. Could this get any worse? I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair, wishing to be anywhere but here.
"Ah … well … actually …" I said slowly, looking for a way, any way out of this.
Right then, Lily sat up, with a painful and strangely terrified look on her face. We made eye contact, and I could somehow decipher the message in her eyes.
There's no way out of it. We may as well face the situation.
I could do nothing but watch James' face. He smiled, and went to introduce himself but then squinted, stopped. For a while his eyes just flitted from my face to Lily's, both of us looking equally terrified. His confused look turned into a frown and he began to shake his head.
"No way," he muttered. "No fucking way …"
In second year, it had become cool for every second word that came out of our mouths to be a swear word, and I don't think either of us ever really kicked the habit.
"I don't believe it …" he continued. "This cannot be happening …"
Remus and Peter were standing a little to the side, completely and utterly confused.
James' face began to contort with anger, and it was not a pretty sight.
"You …" he said through clenched teeth, his voice becoming progressively louder. "And her …" he finished. I could almost see his mind processing the situation.
He leaned down so that his face was at my level, and I shrunk back ever so slightly.
"You were supposed to be on my side," he said, slowly and dangerously. "Even if the little brat came running to you with some sob story about me you were still supposed to take my side. Always. We were friends, Sirius. We were friends and you went against me behind my back."
"It's not like that!" I spluttered. "I didn't know – I-"
"Come on guys," said James abruptly, standing up and motioning to Remus and Peter. "Let's go."
As they walked back in the direction they came from, Remus turned around and mouthed subtly "Owl me". I nodded.
After they were out of my sight, I gave a huge sigh and rested my head in my hands. Because of my guilt about deserting Lily when I was young and stupider than what I am now, I helped her out. Because of her, I tried to lie to my best friend and say I didn't know about their fiasco. But I did know, and I had somehow dug myself so deep that it was impossible to get out. I was going to lose my friends, who were the reason I got up every morning and the reason there nearly always a smile on my face. The fact that Remus got to hear my side of the story gave me a little bit of hope though.
Then a thought suddenly struck me. They had gone out without inviting me. They weren't very good friends if they were excluding me from their little group, were they?
That feeling from first year was coming back. The feeling of being the odd one out, the one on the outside looking in. I knew that feeling, and I didn't like it. I had seen what it was like to be on the bad side of James Potter and I didn't like that either.
"Sirius?" said Lily quietly, looking more than a little sorry for me. "Let's go now."
I nodded and got up, not bothering to eat the rest of my sundae.
As we walked back to the Leaky Cauldron in order to floo home I had time to study Lily without her noticing. She still looked terribly unhealthy, with a pale complexion and a tired look about her. She walked as though she was in her eighties, slowly and painfully, looking incredibly fragile.
Until I got her letter, I had completely forgotten how beautiful, compassionate, cheerful, intelligent, young, happy person Lily was. But suddenly, someone had taken all of that away from her and left her with a mere shell of a person with no soul or passion. That someone was my best friend and it made me incredibly mad every time I thought of it.
But then there was the flip side. James was my best friend, and even though he made a lot of mistakes and had many flaws, he was still a passionate, loyal and fun friend who made it seem like life really was worth living. In fact, when I thought about it, James and Lily had really similar character traits. That is until now. I was seeing the high maintenance side of Lily and the extremely ugly side of James.
Also, there was something that James had said that I just couldn't stop thinking about.
"Even if the little brat came running to you with some sob story about me you were still supposed to take my side …"
By saying 'some sob story' he made it seem as though Lily had not told me the entire truth. But then, that was almost impossible. After all, it was James that had lied to Lily's mother, wasn't it? But then, all I had was Lily's side of the story ….
Now I was more confused than ever.
I was so preoccupied and weighed down with my problems that I flooed home with Lily without even bothering to check ahead that no-one was there. That was the biggest mistake I could have made.
Because when I arrived, just after Lily, my younger brother Regulus was standing in the middle of the living room, gaping open-mouthed at the red-haired girl standing petrified in front of him.
I had to think fast.
"Don't move!" I said loudly and clearly to Regulus. "Don't you dare move!"
"Now hurry," I motioned to Lily, and we both ran up the stairs to my bedroom. She quickly dumped everything in her trunk and I transfigured her mattress back into my calendar and tossed it on to my desk. I grabbed her trunk and we both ran quickly downstairs. Regulus had disappeared, meaning he had gone to rat to one of my parents. It was only a matter of time before they came and Lily was trapped in the house. If there was one thing I feared more than anything else, it was the wrath of my family.
There was no time to shrink Lily's trunk so she simply clutched it with both hands and held it to her chest. I tossed a healthy amount of powder into the fire. I could faintly hear my brother's voice.
"He brought a girl, Mother, I swear! I don't know her - I think she's a muggle!"
He thought we were dating?
"Hurry!" I said again, more frantically this time. Lily stepped into the fire and enunciated "The Leaky Cauldron" loudly and clearly before being whisked away by the emerald green flames.
Just in time.
My mother Apparated into the room just quickly enough to catch sight of Lily before she disappeared. This tiny problem of Lily needing some money had quickly blown into something so, big that there was no way I could deal with it.
"GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!" she screamed so loudly I thought my eardrums would burst. "AND DON'T EVER COME BACK!"
I was happy to oblige, and my last image of my childhood home was that of my extremely angry, overweight mother pitching the pot of Floo powder at the wall.
I met up with Lily at the Leaky Cauldron and we booked a room. There was only a week until school went back anyway. I quickly went to transfer my funds in Gringotts to a new, private account which hopefully my father would never be able to block or access. Once I felt I had time to breathe, though. I owled Remus, asking him to come up to our room. This problem was too big and I needed help. After hearing Lily's story – in my words that is; Lily refused to look anyone in the eyes, she just stared out the window – Remus was eager to offer advice. I had always favored James over him, but now I saw Remus for what he truly was; a friend, not just some companion who got the wrong end of the stick and fought with you over a girl.
He never stayed overnight, there were only two single beds in the room, but he visited every day. He talked to Lily, not like I did, but deeply and meaningfully, and she was finally looking a bit happier, if not slightly more confident that there was someone else on her side.
He told Peter too, who didn't visit but owled me, telling me something that Remus didn't mention: neither of them were talking to James. I sort of felt sorry from him then, even after what he did to Lily, because no-one deserves to be ignored. But for some reason I didn't say anything.
Remus and Lily often talked for hours, and I was free to wander around Diagon Alley. I never went very far, though, I was always a tiny bit afraid I would see James and be put in the same worst-case scenario as before. But despite my fears, I never saw him.
Remus was a cryptic person at the best of times, and whenever I asked him about Lily and how she was going, he never really answered me properly, preferring instead to give me advice on how to talk to her or what to feed her (apparently ice cream sundaes weren't nutritious), and most importantly how to treat her like an adult instead of a child.
The little he did say, though, gave me the impression that Lily being kicked out of her house was just the tip of the iceberg.