In front of me was orange. Everything. All I had done was ask Sirius
to do something to take me mind off Lily. What he seemed to have done was
try to turn my life into a chapter of 'James and the Giant Peach'.
As I stepped through the door of the dormitory, I felt for a moment that I was inside a furnace. The walls were orange; the bed sheets were orange, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture - everything, EVERYTHING, was orange. On my bedside table was a selection of orange food: pumpkin pasties, carrot sticks, some scarily orange crisps that smelt vaguely of armpits.
"Why orange?" I stuttered out to Sirius who was standing beside me, grinning broadly.
"Why ever not o'buddy, o'pal, o'chum?"
"Because it's rather... well..." I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I hadn't recently been a spectacularly great friend what with the Sirius- and-Remus-ness. I didn't have a problem with it, it just made me feel extremely ill at the thought of my two best friends... AAAARRRRGGGH!
Ahem. Yes, anyway, I couldn't offend the guy.
"It's rather interesting, wouldn't you say?" I finished lamely.
"Good!" he beamed, "Wotsit?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Wotsit. Would you like a Wotsit? To eat!" He added seeing my face and brandished the bowl of armpit crisps at me. They were possibly the most lurid orange thing in the entire dormitory. They couldn't possibly be edible, could they?
"Cheers, Sirius," I tentivley took one and shoved it in my mouth. Sirius looked pleased and turned away leaving me free to spit it silently out into my hand. Yep, tasted like armpits too. Not that I've ever eaten an armpit and therefore I can't really make an accurate comparison. However, I'm sure if Sirius ever unknowlingly licked an armpit he would smile broadly and proclaim - "Wotsits!"
Weirdo...
*
It was 6:55pm and I was on my way to the Head Students Lounge. Lily occupied my mind. She'd said she'd think about it, and that was all I could do - think about it. Why? Why had a taken a gamble? I don't gamble! I have never been the type of guy to gamble on anything, let alone the single most perfect being in the entire history of the universe!
And now... now I had to go and pretend everything was cool. If she said no then I just had to get on and do the stupid transmigration, and if she said yes... Well, life would be bloody brilliant if she said yes!
I'd spent the afternoon with Sirius and Remus in our orange room, after I'd made them promise to never ever act... gay, in front of me. Ever. So that was good, it was like normal. I didn't want to know what they did, that was their business. And also it's a bit like watching someone snog your little cousin; it's just not something you really wanna be part of, y'know?
As the door swung open, I saw Lily thumbing through a large Transfiguration book, a pair of slim glasses perched on the edge of her dainty nose, and her hair tucked casually behind one ear.
"Hey," she looked up.
"Hey." I replied. God dammit, I'm so suave. Not. What a stupid thing to say: 'Hey'. I mean you have stuff like hey! or hey you! or hey there! or even let's go make some frickin hay in a field! Maybe not. But anyway, hey was a pathetic word. Whoops, rambling again. Oh, how people must marvel at the inner workings of my arrogant, babbling, sexually-frustrated and all round freaky teenage mind!
"Right, shall we get down to it?" Lily said, which of course set off so many more innuendo filled thoughts in my head. I just nodded in reply. I was, at that point, quite certain that if I opened my mouth I'd say something highly inappropriate and suggestive that she'd just walk out of the room in disgust. Aargh!
I slumped down at the table and pulled the book towards me. It looked complicated. Very complicated. Only the Animagus transformations topped it. I smiled ruefully and glanced up at Lily.
"Are you sure you can do this?" I questioned. Lily was pretty good at Transfiguration, but I severly doubted she'd ever tried anything this advanced.
"Well, no. I thought you should try it first. You're way better at Transfiguration then me and I'm sure you and your friends have probably had a go at stuff like this before." she looked me dead in the eye, and I was almost convinced that she knew about us being Animagi.
"Who've you been talking to?" I said sharply but she only looked confused.
"No one, why?"
"Not important. I didn't know you wore glasses." I commented, looking back down at the book again. I was almost positive I could do it first time. It seemed, to me at any rate, a bit like Legilimency - something my dad had taught me when I'd turned seventeen. I wasn't great at it, but was improving. Odd that I hadn't spotted the whole Sirius and Remus thing, thinking about it...
"Only for reading," she was saying, offhandedly, "So, you can do it then?"
"I think so. But you'll have to take your glasses off. My mental picture of you doesn't include them and McGonagall said it was easier if you 'matched', you could say."
"Do I need to take anything else off? I can have a fair guess at what teenage boys' mental pictures might include," Lily smirked and removed the spectacles. I felt my face flush bright red but she just laughed.
"Have... have," I stuttered, trying desperately to regain my composure, "Have you read the bit about what it might feel like? The transmigration?"
"Yeah, yeah - it's fine," Lily moved to the centre of the room and looked up, "Here okay?" She waved her arms about a bit as if to emphasise the space around her, a silly grin on her face. That made me slightly more relaxed and I grinned at her from my chair.
"Right... um, so I just say the incantation and it should at least start to work. I'm gonna stay sitting down cos I don't really know if my body will have any control without my spirit. Ready?" I looked at her, my wand poised and pointed directly at her head. Lily inclined her head shakily and I noticed that she'd caught her bottom lip in her teeth - a sign that she was extremely nervous.
Taking a deep breath, I spoke loud and clear, my voice ringing around the ceiling beams with a sinister echo.
"Iubere contra-corpus!"
It was possibly the most terrifying experience of my life. The resulting magic practically blew me off the sofa. It was the same incredible wave of energy, I am sure, that Moses felt as he parted the sea for the Israelites. It was like the downrush of a nuclear cloud. There was a strong metallic taste in my mouth and my teeth ached. Everywhere had a crackling like lightening and I could feel my hair rippling as if in a strong wind.
At the same time, however, I didn't really see any of this. There was no body of mine left, no weight for my limbs; I tried to look down at them prior to grasping that I no longer had eyes.
All around me there was a fierce tugging, one that led back to my own flesh and another that I knew came from Lily. I mentally pushed my own body away and there was the sensation of being caught in a whirlpool.
I fell through something - space, time - spiralling downwards, ever downwards. And then I hit and a rush of images and pictures...
...a young girl sat on a wooden swing in the rain. She looked about five years old and was incredible skinny. The rain spattered onto the yellowing grass of the lawn. It smelt like the air does after a storm, the stinging scent of ozone. She had a sharp pointed nose dotted with ginger freckles and huge emerald eyes that didn't fit her fragile face. Her short cut hair was bedraggled and lanky, some strands sticking to her cheeks from a mixture of grease and tears...
...the same girl standing this time with another, who had blond curls, a horse-like mouth and traintrack braces. The stood together looking down into a large open coffin where a slim lady with a striking medieval face and a banner of smooth auburn hair lay stone still. The sour odour of mortician's wax lingered in the air...
...the girl older, in a badly fitted Catholic school uniform...
...then curled up under a bed as shouts and yells filled the room...
...sitting in a musty attic, the girl looking out of a filthy window over at hundreds of houses, back to back in long terraces, the sky filled with dense black smoke from industrial chimmneys...
...running across a concrete playground...
...dropping a stack of books in a busy corridor...
...a mans hand slamming into her pale face...
...the mans hot breath over her face and a hand creeping down her rigid, scared body...
"STOP IT!"
The was a gunshot bang and I was thrown back into my body. The impact of my own skin punched at my soul with a bruised fist, and for a moment I felt dazed. My sight was hazy behind my lenses and my head swam.
What I had seen were Lily's memories from childhood. That girl had been Lily before Hogwarts. It was odd seeing her as a child. Before she'd grown into her facial features she'd appeared unsightly, almost misshapen, and it shocked me to think the beautiful girl now sitting across from me had once been an ugly duckling.
Rubbing my temples, I looked up for her. She was coiled up on the floor as if she'd been stabbed in the stomach. Her shoulders quivered but no sound came from her.
"Lil? Lily?" I stood up, despite the world swaying, and kneeled down by her. "Are you okay?" My hand brushed her arm and suddenely she jumped back, her eyes wild and animal. There was a spot of blood on her bottom lip from where she'd bit it too hard and her breath came in short, sharp gasps.
"Don't touch me!" she whimpered.
"Lil?" I tried to catch her wrist again but she wrenched it out of my way.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she yelled.
"But Lily- !"
"DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME! I'M SORRY!" Lily sobbed, backing against the sofa arm, "PLEASE! IT WAS A STUPID IDEA! WE NEVER SHOULD'VE DONE IT! DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING, WHAT YOU WERE THINKING!!"
I couldn't stand it. She was babbling whilst weeping pathetically into her folded arms and she looked so small and defenceless, more like the girl I'd seen a few moments ago. Deciding to step closer, I tried to speak as calmly as possible.
"Will you sit down on the sofa? Please?" I murmered. Thankfully she made no reply and sat down, still shaking. I sat at the far end. "What happened there?"
Lily shrugged at me,
"Stupid idea," she muttered. Her eyes burned bright and hurt, glistening with tears and red around the lids.
"Who were those people?" I tried.
"My... my family," came the hiccoughed reply, "The blond girl is Petunia. Was Petunia when we were younger. That was at my mum's funeral, the lady in the casket." I nodded, willing her silently to go on. "And the man... He's..."
"Your dad?"
"Yes," her voice broke as she whispered the single word. To me, the silence stretched on and on; the room grew cold. Had Malfoy been right?
"Why does he do that to you?" I choked out, mainly to myself.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped viciously at me.
"Don't think for a second I'm stupid, Lily," I retorted, "I have eyes and ears -"
"So believe everything people say?!" She spat.
"No! But I know what I saw," I said defiantly, "And so do you."
For a few moments she stayed silent, glaring at me with those deep impenatrable eyes of hers. Finally she sighed and looked away.
"He says I look too much like my mother. That I'm punishing him by looking at him with her eyes in my face. Then he gets drunk, and he believes that I'm her. Back from the dead..." the last word lingered in the air, where it rested heavy and solid.
I sat back into the sofa. There was so much she was leaving unsaid and so much I wanted to ask her. But I couldn't think what to say. What kind of thing could I have said? It was obvious Lily had had far more pain in her life than I had. Sirius was right when he'd told me I had it good.
"Was what Malfoy said..?" I left the question hanging.
"True?" she finished and blinked back fresh tears in her dewy meadow green eyes, "Yeah, I guess," she added a nonchalant shrug as if it was the answer to a throwaway question that meant nothing.
"I'm... sorry." I said lamely, but Lily just fixed me with an empty look. There was no emotion left there - not even a hint of suffering marred the glistening globes.
"Why?"
"Because he... he... did that to you. Because he hurt you." came my stuttered reply.
"You saying sorry isn't going to make it any better, James! It won't stop! It's not that simple!" She jumped up and away from me. Red heads' tempers didn't have a reputation for nothing; Lily's would leap from desperately calm to a inferno of an ire.
"I know it's not that simple!" I retorted, "But it doesn't have to happen! You can't let him do that to you! You're seventeen, you're an adult!"
"Doesn't mean I don't get scared! The fact it can stop doesn't mean I can make it stop!"
"You're scared of him, Lil'. Even now I can see it," I reached out to her again and she pulled back as my hand brushed her face, "See? You don't let people touch you."
"I do!" she insisted, looking for all the world like a caged animal.
"Just not me?"
"Not... not..." Lily stuttered, "Not just you." She finished lamely.
"Sirius?" she shook her head. "No men?" Looking away with new tears in her eyes she nodded furiously. "Not every man is like your father," I whispered.
"I find that hard to believe. How can I have faith in any man? Surely you must understand? What with your mother and sister."
My heart stopped. "What do you mean?" I gasped. She shrugged at me.
"Well, everyone knows: your mother abandoned you and your sister's dead." She spoke as if it were a simple fact but my blood was beginning to simmer as I took a trembling breath.
"Stop making this about me! That doesn't prove anything!"
"They left you. They've gone. The most important women in your life have disappeared. The second any girl gets close to you, you cling at them like a drowning man! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Lily had sat down again, looking at me with a mixture of confusion and searching on her face.
"Of course it means something, but I've never known any mother other than Augusta, my step-mother. My mother, as such, is no more than a stranger to me. She doesn't stir any great love or emotion. To me, she isn't even family. My family are the people who love me - my father, Augusta, my two brothers, Sirius, Remus and Peter. They're my family.
"And Topaz died. She was murdered, it wasn't as though she ran away, she didn't desert me. She didn't want to go..." I choked, the memory of my sister fresh in my mind, "And so what if I cling? Everyone needs something to cling to, someone to adore. Your sister loves you, doesn't she? Petunia?"
However, Lily shook her head again.
"Petunia stopped talking to me when I got my Hogwarts letter. She thinks I'm a freak. But then again so does the whole of Slytherin House. It's no change when I go home except her saying nothing is worse then having 'Mudblood' hurled at me everyday. In truth, I don't belong to either world - too much of a Witch to be a Muggle, and too much of a Muggle to be a Witch," she sighed.
I couldn't believe it.
"Don't you dare think that! You're a Witch! It's just the Slytherins who rely on the purity of blood! Think it makes them better then everyone else! But look at me! Look at Sirius! We can trace our Wizarding lineage back to the Middle Ages but we don't care if you're Muggle-born! It makes no difference!" I burst out. She couldn't truly believe something as petty as that. This was Lily - the cleverest witch in the school with twelve OWL's already under her metephorical belt.
"Ah, but I'm always going to be a Muggle-born, aren't I? If I ever had a child with a pure-blood then they would be half-blood. Every person born from then on would never be a true Wizard or Muggle. I could ruin generations of Witches and Wizards to come!"
"You don't really believe that do you?"
"It's fact, James."
"But you don't believe that it matters? Why would you think something so ridiculous? So petty? I'd marry you whether you were an uber-Muggle or -" I broke off and went red. I'd barely asked Lily out and already I was saying I'd quite happily walk down the aisle with her. Yeah, James, real smooth - she'll definately want to go out with you now! Not. "I mean, it really, REALLY doesn't matter.
"No offence, but your family have seriously messed you up."
"So what? Big effing deal! You know what? - I don't think I want to go out with you if you're going to be so bloody righteous all the time! You can't just divide the human race into good and bad, true and false, black and white! There are shades of grey. You don't understand." Lily began to storm towards the door, grabbing her wand and Transfigurtion books.
I remained, for a moment, stock still and gazing in disbelief, before I leapt over the back of the sofa. As she flung the door open, I seized her arm and knocked the things she was carrying out of her hands. Lily spun round, the candlelight shining through her hair in a soft amber glow. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes wide with surprise.
Slowly, painstakingly deliberate, I slid one trembling hand along the curve of her jawbone and up to rest under her hair at the back of her neck. I could feel small goosebumps over the skin beneath my touch. She was so close that our breath mingled together, warm and sweet like summer air. For a moment my mind went blank. I was caught, totally caught, in that split second, where the world stood still life in a painting that remains hung in the gallery of my mind years later.
Moving awkwardly, I pressed my lips gently against hers. It was barely a kiss and Lily neither pushed me away or responded. I pulled back slowly looking down at her. Tears had spilt over onto her cheeks once more, my heart gave a painful thud at the sight.
"Sorry," I murmered, "I'm sorry..." Turning away, I bent down to pick up her books which had fallen to the floor, my fingers curling around the spines. Lily sank down next to me and with two hands peeled my fingers off the books, looking me straight in the eyes as the books slipped back to the carpet.
Once more I couldn't move. Couldn't drag my eyes away from hers as she solemnly shook her head.
"Don't be sorry," she whispered thickly, a fresh wave of tears rolling onto her skin. "Look at us," she choked out, grinning lopsidly, "What a pair we make. Kneeling on the floor, you apologising everytime I start weeping like a loser."
Lily lent over and, in the same way I had, placed her hand gently on my neck, right above my pulse. Her other hand pulled my glasses off my nose and smoothed the rough skin on my cheeks with one thumb.
When she kissed me, there weren't any fireworks. There was no sweeping orchestral music in the background. But it was perfect.
Thank you all so much for being patient with me! Thank you to all the reviewers who are now reading this for coming back and staying interested! Trust me, I know how annoying it is to have to wait for chapters! Last of all I want you all to go visit this story () of Hannah7's, who I beta for, cos it's lovely and I'm very jealous not to have written it myself!
THANK YOUS.
PunK-RoK: Thank you for all three of your reviews! Here is the kiss you wanted! Soooo hard to write! And my friend is feeling much better now, she's doing good, hope you are too.
Captain Oblivious - Sorry! He can swing both ways, just for you! Hope your not too shocked and keep reading! Thaaaaaaank yooooooou!
Hannah7 - Look, I updated! And I love love love the lil story! So am sending all who read this to it (*points above*). And would I kill the gorgeous Sirius and Remus?!?!?! Hell no!
Polkat - You, you, who lost me reviewers! I don't mind actually, just proves there are more David's in the world than I originally thought. But look! I've updated FINALLY!!! Be proud! Need to work a Fiddler song in somewhere don't you think?
meredythe - Thank you! Yes I LOVE James! I wish people wrote more about him cos he's so adorable!
tinkerbellhp07 - Sorry to scare you with Sirius/Remus-ness, but I like that pairing. Just an opinion! Thank you so much for coming back! *Hug*
Musicizdbest - Woah, thank you so much! Don't worry, I have the secret keeper thing all worked out. But thank you thank you thank you! And I love the Beatles too. And your review was not annoying in the slightest - it amused me greatly!
Babygal - Yay! I didn't lose one! Seriously though, there will be barely any Sirius/Remus stuff because it's James POV. I just think they're an adorable couple. But, as I said, thank you! I knew not everyone would like slashy-ness so here's some L/J fluff! Mmmm!
Sarah
Slate07
Unhealthily-Obsessed
Hwesta - I was eating an apple whilst writing my apple-sunset bit. Glad you liked it! And you have to come back too often as FF.Net keep saying I'm breaking restrictions (which I'm not. Sulk.) And I LOVE REMUS AND SIRIUS AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T!!! ( Wandless
Willow182
Cagemo
Also thank you to those who have me on Author Alert and haven't reviewed! Please review because I love you! *puppy dog eyes*:
child-of-scorpio Bookworm141 allie kat05 tv-fan-06 Piperfan2 LunaLovegood920 Momofh
Oh, and hi Michael (Whiteriver, you big GIRL!) if you're reading this.
I'll update as soon as I can! Thank you all!
As I stepped through the door of the dormitory, I felt for a moment that I was inside a furnace. The walls were orange; the bed sheets were orange, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture - everything, EVERYTHING, was orange. On my bedside table was a selection of orange food: pumpkin pasties, carrot sticks, some scarily orange crisps that smelt vaguely of armpits.
"Why orange?" I stuttered out to Sirius who was standing beside me, grinning broadly.
"Why ever not o'buddy, o'pal, o'chum?"
"Because it's rather... well..." I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I hadn't recently been a spectacularly great friend what with the Sirius- and-Remus-ness. I didn't have a problem with it, it just made me feel extremely ill at the thought of my two best friends... AAAARRRRGGGH!
Ahem. Yes, anyway, I couldn't offend the guy.
"It's rather interesting, wouldn't you say?" I finished lamely.
"Good!" he beamed, "Wotsit?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Wotsit. Would you like a Wotsit? To eat!" He added seeing my face and brandished the bowl of armpit crisps at me. They were possibly the most lurid orange thing in the entire dormitory. They couldn't possibly be edible, could they?
"Cheers, Sirius," I tentivley took one and shoved it in my mouth. Sirius looked pleased and turned away leaving me free to spit it silently out into my hand. Yep, tasted like armpits too. Not that I've ever eaten an armpit and therefore I can't really make an accurate comparison. However, I'm sure if Sirius ever unknowlingly licked an armpit he would smile broadly and proclaim - "Wotsits!"
Weirdo...
*
It was 6:55pm and I was on my way to the Head Students Lounge. Lily occupied my mind. She'd said she'd think about it, and that was all I could do - think about it. Why? Why had a taken a gamble? I don't gamble! I have never been the type of guy to gamble on anything, let alone the single most perfect being in the entire history of the universe!
And now... now I had to go and pretend everything was cool. If she said no then I just had to get on and do the stupid transmigration, and if she said yes... Well, life would be bloody brilliant if she said yes!
I'd spent the afternoon with Sirius and Remus in our orange room, after I'd made them promise to never ever act... gay, in front of me. Ever. So that was good, it was like normal. I didn't want to know what they did, that was their business. And also it's a bit like watching someone snog your little cousin; it's just not something you really wanna be part of, y'know?
As the door swung open, I saw Lily thumbing through a large Transfiguration book, a pair of slim glasses perched on the edge of her dainty nose, and her hair tucked casually behind one ear.
"Hey," she looked up.
"Hey." I replied. God dammit, I'm so suave. Not. What a stupid thing to say: 'Hey'. I mean you have stuff like hey! or hey you! or hey there! or even let's go make some frickin hay in a field! Maybe not. But anyway, hey was a pathetic word. Whoops, rambling again. Oh, how people must marvel at the inner workings of my arrogant, babbling, sexually-frustrated and all round freaky teenage mind!
"Right, shall we get down to it?" Lily said, which of course set off so many more innuendo filled thoughts in my head. I just nodded in reply. I was, at that point, quite certain that if I opened my mouth I'd say something highly inappropriate and suggestive that she'd just walk out of the room in disgust. Aargh!
I slumped down at the table and pulled the book towards me. It looked complicated. Very complicated. Only the Animagus transformations topped it. I smiled ruefully and glanced up at Lily.
"Are you sure you can do this?" I questioned. Lily was pretty good at Transfiguration, but I severly doubted she'd ever tried anything this advanced.
"Well, no. I thought you should try it first. You're way better at Transfiguration then me and I'm sure you and your friends have probably had a go at stuff like this before." she looked me dead in the eye, and I was almost convinced that she knew about us being Animagi.
"Who've you been talking to?" I said sharply but she only looked confused.
"No one, why?"
"Not important. I didn't know you wore glasses." I commented, looking back down at the book again. I was almost positive I could do it first time. It seemed, to me at any rate, a bit like Legilimency - something my dad had taught me when I'd turned seventeen. I wasn't great at it, but was improving. Odd that I hadn't spotted the whole Sirius and Remus thing, thinking about it...
"Only for reading," she was saying, offhandedly, "So, you can do it then?"
"I think so. But you'll have to take your glasses off. My mental picture of you doesn't include them and McGonagall said it was easier if you 'matched', you could say."
"Do I need to take anything else off? I can have a fair guess at what teenage boys' mental pictures might include," Lily smirked and removed the spectacles. I felt my face flush bright red but she just laughed.
"Have... have," I stuttered, trying desperately to regain my composure, "Have you read the bit about what it might feel like? The transmigration?"
"Yeah, yeah - it's fine," Lily moved to the centre of the room and looked up, "Here okay?" She waved her arms about a bit as if to emphasise the space around her, a silly grin on her face. That made me slightly more relaxed and I grinned at her from my chair.
"Right... um, so I just say the incantation and it should at least start to work. I'm gonna stay sitting down cos I don't really know if my body will have any control without my spirit. Ready?" I looked at her, my wand poised and pointed directly at her head. Lily inclined her head shakily and I noticed that she'd caught her bottom lip in her teeth - a sign that she was extremely nervous.
Taking a deep breath, I spoke loud and clear, my voice ringing around the ceiling beams with a sinister echo.
"Iubere contra-corpus!"
It was possibly the most terrifying experience of my life. The resulting magic practically blew me off the sofa. It was the same incredible wave of energy, I am sure, that Moses felt as he parted the sea for the Israelites. It was like the downrush of a nuclear cloud. There was a strong metallic taste in my mouth and my teeth ached. Everywhere had a crackling like lightening and I could feel my hair rippling as if in a strong wind.
At the same time, however, I didn't really see any of this. There was no body of mine left, no weight for my limbs; I tried to look down at them prior to grasping that I no longer had eyes.
All around me there was a fierce tugging, one that led back to my own flesh and another that I knew came from Lily. I mentally pushed my own body away and there was the sensation of being caught in a whirlpool.
I fell through something - space, time - spiralling downwards, ever downwards. And then I hit and a rush of images and pictures...
...a young girl sat on a wooden swing in the rain. She looked about five years old and was incredible skinny. The rain spattered onto the yellowing grass of the lawn. It smelt like the air does after a storm, the stinging scent of ozone. She had a sharp pointed nose dotted with ginger freckles and huge emerald eyes that didn't fit her fragile face. Her short cut hair was bedraggled and lanky, some strands sticking to her cheeks from a mixture of grease and tears...
...the same girl standing this time with another, who had blond curls, a horse-like mouth and traintrack braces. The stood together looking down into a large open coffin where a slim lady with a striking medieval face and a banner of smooth auburn hair lay stone still. The sour odour of mortician's wax lingered in the air...
...the girl older, in a badly fitted Catholic school uniform...
...then curled up under a bed as shouts and yells filled the room...
...sitting in a musty attic, the girl looking out of a filthy window over at hundreds of houses, back to back in long terraces, the sky filled with dense black smoke from industrial chimmneys...
...running across a concrete playground...
...dropping a stack of books in a busy corridor...
...a mans hand slamming into her pale face...
...the mans hot breath over her face and a hand creeping down her rigid, scared body...
"STOP IT!"
The was a gunshot bang and I was thrown back into my body. The impact of my own skin punched at my soul with a bruised fist, and for a moment I felt dazed. My sight was hazy behind my lenses and my head swam.
What I had seen were Lily's memories from childhood. That girl had been Lily before Hogwarts. It was odd seeing her as a child. Before she'd grown into her facial features she'd appeared unsightly, almost misshapen, and it shocked me to think the beautiful girl now sitting across from me had once been an ugly duckling.
Rubbing my temples, I looked up for her. She was coiled up on the floor as if she'd been stabbed in the stomach. Her shoulders quivered but no sound came from her.
"Lil? Lily?" I stood up, despite the world swaying, and kneeled down by her. "Are you okay?" My hand brushed her arm and suddenely she jumped back, her eyes wild and animal. There was a spot of blood on her bottom lip from where she'd bit it too hard and her breath came in short, sharp gasps.
"Don't touch me!" she whimpered.
"Lil?" I tried to catch her wrist again but she wrenched it out of my way.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she yelled.
"But Lily- !"
"DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME! I'M SORRY!" Lily sobbed, backing against the sofa arm, "PLEASE! IT WAS A STUPID IDEA! WE NEVER SHOULD'VE DONE IT! DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING, WHAT YOU WERE THINKING!!"
I couldn't stand it. She was babbling whilst weeping pathetically into her folded arms and she looked so small and defenceless, more like the girl I'd seen a few moments ago. Deciding to step closer, I tried to speak as calmly as possible.
"Will you sit down on the sofa? Please?" I murmered. Thankfully she made no reply and sat down, still shaking. I sat at the far end. "What happened there?"
Lily shrugged at me,
"Stupid idea," she muttered. Her eyes burned bright and hurt, glistening with tears and red around the lids.
"Who were those people?" I tried.
"My... my family," came the hiccoughed reply, "The blond girl is Petunia. Was Petunia when we were younger. That was at my mum's funeral, the lady in the casket." I nodded, willing her silently to go on. "And the man... He's..."
"Your dad?"
"Yes," her voice broke as she whispered the single word. To me, the silence stretched on and on; the room grew cold. Had Malfoy been right?
"Why does he do that to you?" I choked out, mainly to myself.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped viciously at me.
"Don't think for a second I'm stupid, Lily," I retorted, "I have eyes and ears -"
"So believe everything people say?!" She spat.
"No! But I know what I saw," I said defiantly, "And so do you."
For a few moments she stayed silent, glaring at me with those deep impenatrable eyes of hers. Finally she sighed and looked away.
"He says I look too much like my mother. That I'm punishing him by looking at him with her eyes in my face. Then he gets drunk, and he believes that I'm her. Back from the dead..." the last word lingered in the air, where it rested heavy and solid.
I sat back into the sofa. There was so much she was leaving unsaid and so much I wanted to ask her. But I couldn't think what to say. What kind of thing could I have said? It was obvious Lily had had far more pain in her life than I had. Sirius was right when he'd told me I had it good.
"Was what Malfoy said..?" I left the question hanging.
"True?" she finished and blinked back fresh tears in her dewy meadow green eyes, "Yeah, I guess," she added a nonchalant shrug as if it was the answer to a throwaway question that meant nothing.
"I'm... sorry." I said lamely, but Lily just fixed me with an empty look. There was no emotion left there - not even a hint of suffering marred the glistening globes.
"Why?"
"Because he... he... did that to you. Because he hurt you." came my stuttered reply.
"You saying sorry isn't going to make it any better, James! It won't stop! It's not that simple!" She jumped up and away from me. Red heads' tempers didn't have a reputation for nothing; Lily's would leap from desperately calm to a inferno of an ire.
"I know it's not that simple!" I retorted, "But it doesn't have to happen! You can't let him do that to you! You're seventeen, you're an adult!"
"Doesn't mean I don't get scared! The fact it can stop doesn't mean I can make it stop!"
"You're scared of him, Lil'. Even now I can see it," I reached out to her again and she pulled back as my hand brushed her face, "See? You don't let people touch you."
"I do!" she insisted, looking for all the world like a caged animal.
"Just not me?"
"Not... not..." Lily stuttered, "Not just you." She finished lamely.
"Sirius?" she shook her head. "No men?" Looking away with new tears in her eyes she nodded furiously. "Not every man is like your father," I whispered.
"I find that hard to believe. How can I have faith in any man? Surely you must understand? What with your mother and sister."
My heart stopped. "What do you mean?" I gasped. She shrugged at me.
"Well, everyone knows: your mother abandoned you and your sister's dead." She spoke as if it were a simple fact but my blood was beginning to simmer as I took a trembling breath.
"Stop making this about me! That doesn't prove anything!"
"They left you. They've gone. The most important women in your life have disappeared. The second any girl gets close to you, you cling at them like a drowning man! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Lily had sat down again, looking at me with a mixture of confusion and searching on her face.
"Of course it means something, but I've never known any mother other than Augusta, my step-mother. My mother, as such, is no more than a stranger to me. She doesn't stir any great love or emotion. To me, she isn't even family. My family are the people who love me - my father, Augusta, my two brothers, Sirius, Remus and Peter. They're my family.
"And Topaz died. She was murdered, it wasn't as though she ran away, she didn't desert me. She didn't want to go..." I choked, the memory of my sister fresh in my mind, "And so what if I cling? Everyone needs something to cling to, someone to adore. Your sister loves you, doesn't she? Petunia?"
However, Lily shook her head again.
"Petunia stopped talking to me when I got my Hogwarts letter. She thinks I'm a freak. But then again so does the whole of Slytherin House. It's no change when I go home except her saying nothing is worse then having 'Mudblood' hurled at me everyday. In truth, I don't belong to either world - too much of a Witch to be a Muggle, and too much of a Muggle to be a Witch," she sighed.
I couldn't believe it.
"Don't you dare think that! You're a Witch! It's just the Slytherins who rely on the purity of blood! Think it makes them better then everyone else! But look at me! Look at Sirius! We can trace our Wizarding lineage back to the Middle Ages but we don't care if you're Muggle-born! It makes no difference!" I burst out. She couldn't truly believe something as petty as that. This was Lily - the cleverest witch in the school with twelve OWL's already under her metephorical belt.
"Ah, but I'm always going to be a Muggle-born, aren't I? If I ever had a child with a pure-blood then they would be half-blood. Every person born from then on would never be a true Wizard or Muggle. I could ruin generations of Witches and Wizards to come!"
"You don't really believe that do you?"
"It's fact, James."
"But you don't believe that it matters? Why would you think something so ridiculous? So petty? I'd marry you whether you were an uber-Muggle or -" I broke off and went red. I'd barely asked Lily out and already I was saying I'd quite happily walk down the aisle with her. Yeah, James, real smooth - she'll definately want to go out with you now! Not. "I mean, it really, REALLY doesn't matter.
"No offence, but your family have seriously messed you up."
"So what? Big effing deal! You know what? - I don't think I want to go out with you if you're going to be so bloody righteous all the time! You can't just divide the human race into good and bad, true and false, black and white! There are shades of grey. You don't understand." Lily began to storm towards the door, grabbing her wand and Transfigurtion books.
I remained, for a moment, stock still and gazing in disbelief, before I leapt over the back of the sofa. As she flung the door open, I seized her arm and knocked the things she was carrying out of her hands. Lily spun round, the candlelight shining through her hair in a soft amber glow. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes wide with surprise.
Slowly, painstakingly deliberate, I slid one trembling hand along the curve of her jawbone and up to rest under her hair at the back of her neck. I could feel small goosebumps over the skin beneath my touch. She was so close that our breath mingled together, warm and sweet like summer air. For a moment my mind went blank. I was caught, totally caught, in that split second, where the world stood still life in a painting that remains hung in the gallery of my mind years later.
Moving awkwardly, I pressed my lips gently against hers. It was barely a kiss and Lily neither pushed me away or responded. I pulled back slowly looking down at her. Tears had spilt over onto her cheeks once more, my heart gave a painful thud at the sight.
"Sorry," I murmered, "I'm sorry..." Turning away, I bent down to pick up her books which had fallen to the floor, my fingers curling around the spines. Lily sank down next to me and with two hands peeled my fingers off the books, looking me straight in the eyes as the books slipped back to the carpet.
Once more I couldn't move. Couldn't drag my eyes away from hers as she solemnly shook her head.
"Don't be sorry," she whispered thickly, a fresh wave of tears rolling onto her skin. "Look at us," she choked out, grinning lopsidly, "What a pair we make. Kneeling on the floor, you apologising everytime I start weeping like a loser."
Lily lent over and, in the same way I had, placed her hand gently on my neck, right above my pulse. Her other hand pulled my glasses off my nose and smoothed the rough skin on my cheeks with one thumb.
When she kissed me, there weren't any fireworks. There was no sweeping orchestral music in the background. But it was perfect.
Thank you all so much for being patient with me! Thank you to all the reviewers who are now reading this for coming back and staying interested! Trust me, I know how annoying it is to have to wait for chapters! Last of all I want you all to go visit this story () of Hannah7's, who I beta for, cos it's lovely and I'm very jealous not to have written it myself!
THANK YOUS.
PunK-RoK: Thank you for all three of your reviews! Here is the kiss you wanted! Soooo hard to write! And my friend is feeling much better now, she's doing good, hope you are too.
Captain Oblivious - Sorry! He can swing both ways, just for you! Hope your not too shocked and keep reading! Thaaaaaaank yooooooou!
Hannah7 - Look, I updated! And I love love love the lil story! So am sending all who read this to it (*points above*). And would I kill the gorgeous Sirius and Remus?!?!?! Hell no!
Polkat - You, you, who lost me reviewers! I don't mind actually, just proves there are more David's in the world than I originally thought. But look! I've updated FINALLY!!! Be proud! Need to work a Fiddler song in somewhere don't you think?
meredythe - Thank you! Yes I LOVE James! I wish people wrote more about him cos he's so adorable!
tinkerbellhp07 - Sorry to scare you with Sirius/Remus-ness, but I like that pairing. Just an opinion! Thank you so much for coming back! *Hug*
Musicizdbest - Woah, thank you so much! Don't worry, I have the secret keeper thing all worked out. But thank you thank you thank you! And I love the Beatles too. And your review was not annoying in the slightest - it amused me greatly!
Babygal - Yay! I didn't lose one! Seriously though, there will be barely any Sirius/Remus stuff because it's James POV. I just think they're an adorable couple. But, as I said, thank you! I knew not everyone would like slashy-ness so here's some L/J fluff! Mmmm!
Sarah
Slate07
Unhealthily-Obsessed
Hwesta - I was eating an apple whilst writing my apple-sunset bit. Glad you liked it! And you have to come back too often as FF.Net keep saying I'm breaking restrictions (which I'm not. Sulk.) And I LOVE REMUS AND SIRIUS AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T!!! ( Wandless
Willow182
Cagemo
Also thank you to those who have me on Author Alert and haven't reviewed! Please review because I love you! *puppy dog eyes*:
child-of-scorpio Bookworm141 allie kat05 tv-fan-06 Piperfan2 LunaLovegood920 Momofh
Oh, and hi Michael (Whiteriver, you big GIRL!) if you're reading this.
I'll update as soon as I can! Thank you all!