"Everybody Hurts"
Rowan Arkenson
Summary: Everybody hurts – especially when you're in love with a girl who won't even look at you. But James will soon realise that he's not the only one with problems...
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the setting. JK Rowling does, and I guess she owns the general plot, but the story, lucky me, is mine. :) enjoy.
A/N: LMAO!!! *laughs hard and falls over* … yes, so, it's been about 10 years since I last updated, but for some reason I got this URRRGE to start writing it again. Bearing in mind I usually tend to write another chapter and then give up again. But what the hell, you never know I might actually keep writing this, since my 6-month-long writer's block is slowly buggering off. :D (Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and the author's note. Your support means everything to me.) ~rowanx
Written after end of chapter: This chapter's a bit shorter than the others, but I have my reasons: 1) It's 2am. I'm tired. Leave me alone. 2) I like where I ended it. I'm sure you won't and will soon be throwing bananas at me, but hey, I like bananas. Hope you like this chappy anyways. LOVE YOU ALL. (Also, I'm really tired so haven't spellchecked this or read over it. Apologies for mistakes or general badness. Will go over it when I have the time, or if I can be bothered.)
Chapter Six – Boys Are So Immature
The next day James awoke feeling like hell. He had remembered briefly feeling a few tears enter his disturbed sleep, but couldn't think of much else. Trying to move a pain shot across his back and through his neck. He blinked his eyes awake to remember he had slept on his beanbag the night before. Glancing over at his bed, he saw his bed empty – and tidied up.
Where's Lily?? he thought frantically. Falling to his feet he stumbled across the room and ran downstairs, crashing into his father at the bottom. "Well, aren't we in a rush to go back to Hogwarts?" Mr Potter joked heartily.
James managed a weak smile. It seemed they were trying to pretend last night hadn't changed. Fine by James, but it wasn't going to change how mad he was at his parents. "Have you seen Lily?" James asked calmly. Mr Potter nodded significantly towards the front room and smiled at James before continuing up the stairs. Glancing after his father, James walked to the living room and glanced inside through the open door. He gasped in shock. Lily and his mother were sat on the couch – together – talking. They began laughing and James walked in.
"Good morning sleepyhead," Lily said grinning to him. He raised an eyebrow and she just gave him a look. Standing up she turned to Mrs Potter. "Well, I'd better go and get my things packed up. Thank you ever so much for having us." Smiling at each other, Lily left the room winking at James, leaving him to stare in shock at his mother.
Mrs Potter stood up looking awkward. "Well, I was thinking about what you said last night; it really isn't fair to take anything out on Lily. Just because things didn't quite go as your father and I had hoped…" she said tightly. James could tell that this was hard for her to say, and he folded his arms, enjoying every second of it. "And it didn't feel right to let the poor young girl go thinking I was a harsh old woman."
James smiled and moved forward to hug his mother. "You're not old. And you're not harsh. Thank you," he said into her hair, and kissed her on the cheek.
Mrs Potter was smiling in joy and relief as James pulled away.
Lily came back with her suitcase and James'. "Ready?"
James nodded as his father came into the room. "See you next year, then," James said. Mr Potter nodded sharply and his mother simply smiled. Lily stepped into the fireplace with her handful of floo powder and said "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry", James quickly following suit.
***
James stumbled out of the fireplace in the common room with Lily somehow managing to walk through gracefully behind him. Lily took a look around while James brushed himself down. "Wow, nothing's been blown up this year," said Lily, raising her eyebrows.
"Makes a change from last year's Halloween," James said, smiling. "And the year before. No wait, and the year before that. And I think the year before that too…"
Lily laughed. "Trust YOU guys to be all manly and think you have to blow things up to make it a Halloween fest."
James grinned. He was just about to answer when a loud "JAMSIE!!" yell came from the stairs. He looked up to see Sirius running down them. The next thing he knew he was laying on the floor with a big dog licking him.
"Down boy," came Remus' voice. Someone tug Padfoot off James and held out a hand to help James up.
"I missed you too Padfoot," said James laughing.
Sirius grinned and turned to Lily as Remus patted James on the back. "Welcome back," Sirius said. "James a total nightmare?"
"I'm RIGHT over here ya'know."
"I meant James' parents. Your parents, love." Sirius sighed and looked at Lily. "Sensitive one isn't he?"
Lily laughed. "Yeah, the Potters were ok…"
James frowned. "Sure, apart from that moment when there was yelling and meat and soot and beanbags and I seem to recall a certain Daddy-kins saying 'Anita Anita Anita Anita'. But yes apart from that the whole weekend was totally spiffing."
James had managed to get this out in one breath, and a very loud angry breath at that, and there was quite a long silence after, broken only by Sirius who, in a very quiet and shocked voice said, "…Did you just say 'spiffing'?"
Remus punched him. "What's this about beanbags?"
James shrugged, throwing his bags down and slumping in a chair. He vaguely heard Lily say she was going to go unpack, and then Remus and Sirius sat down on two chairs beside him. "So tell us what happened," Remus offered kindly.
"Nothing happened," James said sulkily. "My parents were dicks at dinner so I stormed out of the house with Lily and we went to the park."
"…And?" said and impatient Sirius, obviously waiting for the better parts of the story.
"And that was it," James said angrily. "I know you're all expecting some great romance out of me and Lily, but I told you, she hates me, ok? Nothing happened, get over it."
James stood up and grabbed his bags.
Remus grinned, despite James' sulky annoyance. "Ok fine, don't tell us what happened, tell us what almost happened."
Sirius smiled gleefully and pushed James back down into his chair, leaning forward and wiggling his eyebrows at Prongs. James sighed. "Fine, well I think we almost kissed on my bed, but it was just one of those "in the moment" things and my mum was outside the bedroom and yelled that dinner was ready before anything had a chance to happen, but nothing would have happened anyway ok?"
"That is so denialist of you, girlfriend!" Sirius giggled. "I mean, seriously, get over yourself girl. This guy is so obvious, and you're just not facing facts!"
Remus rolled his eyes. "As much as I hate to say it, girl's got a point. I agree, Prongs. Except maybe in a less girly voice..."
James stood up. "This is getting stupid now. Are we just going to argue every day over whether Lily likes me or not until you two remember how much you don't care?"
"No, it'll end the day you get the guts to ask Lily out," said Remus, standing and folding his arms.
Sirius stood up and looked between the two. Their eyes were both narrowed and were staring straight into the other's. Sirius found this incredibly amusing. He yelled, "BOO!" into Remus' face, but his friend didn't move. Then he conjured up some orange juice and threw it at James' trousers. And there was much giggling from Remus.
"HA I win," grinned James triumphantly.
"Yes," Remus managed to get out, "But at least I'm toilet trained."
James looked down at his trousers and blushed. He picked up his bags and made his way to the boy's dorm staircase. "Honestly, boys are so immature."
***
James watched as Lily soared into the air with the rest of his team. He couldn't get over how much more beautiful she was in air, especially seeing her from below. She never tied her hair back, and her luscious red curls were flowing around her, and yet never seemed to get in front of her eyes. She could always see the quaffle, and always caught it with perfect accuracy, zooming up the field as it hit her slender hands. Everyone knew she wasn't brilliant at getting in the points, but they had James and Anne to do that, and both had hardly ever missed a hoop. Besides, James had been watching Lily fly, and she was improving more and more each day.
A week ago, the day after they got back from Mr and Mrs Potter's house, James had woken up at 6am. It was barely light and no one was even around but he couldn't get back to sleep. He'd gotten up and walked down to the common room with his books to try and finish some Potions work. When he went to the window to open the curtains he could see down into the quidditch pitch, and could see someone take flight with such familiarity he knew it had to be Lily. The next day James woke up early again and saw Lily down there. He put a short invisibility spell on himself and went down to watch her. Not for long, as the spell wasn't very good, but just that ten minutes each morning since was enough to keep James in ecstasy for an entire week.
And now, watching her again, James was filled with that same feeling of belonging. A sense of rightness that Lily was meant to fly; and that he was meant to watch her.
"Are we going or what?" James, a bit startled, jumped at the loud voice to his left. He stared at Sirius for a long time.
"How long have you been standing there?"
Sirius grinned. "Only a second." James breathed out inaudibly. So Sirius hadn't seen him staring at Lily. "So how come you have the attention span of a two year old and yet you can manage to stare transfixed at Lily for ten minutes without moving?"
James pouted. "I thought you said you were only there for a second," he mumbled, frowning.
"I was. I was watching you watch Lily from over there," Sirius pointed out gleefully, pointing a finger about ten metres away on the field. "You never asked me how long I'd been standing over there for."
James pushed Sirius over and jumped on his broomstick, racing away. Soon enough though he could hear his friend quickly behind him, and the two chased each other through the air, until Sirius finally caught his friend and they both fell with their broomsticks to the ground. Their team mates rushed around quickly, but James and Sirius were just laughing and tickling each other like cute little six year olds.
Just apart from the laughing crowd Lily stood with Priscilla, watching intently. Priscilla shook her head. "Boys are so immature," she said disapprovingly.
"Yeah. They are." Lily saw James laughing with Sirius. And smiled.
***
The room was silver. Cloaked in rubies and drapes of gold, it was the most beautiful room James had ever seen. Even more beautiful for Lily's presence.
"How come it took you so long?" she whimpered, rushing towards him.
James took her in his arms and hugged her close, never wanting to let go. "I got lost. I couldn't find you."
Lily pulled apart. She smiled and started singing. The words sounded Gaelic, probably Irish, but James knew nothing of the tune. Except that it was the most beautiful sound coming from her lips that he had ever heard. Running his hand down her cheek he silenced her with a kiss, pressing his lips against hers, feeling the warmth from her embrace as he felt her heart beat quickly against his chest…
***
James' eyes snapped open. He was sweating, and pushed the covers off himself. Bugger, he thought. Just a dream. James swung his legs out of the bed and sat there for a very long time, waiting for the sun to rise.
***
"You alright Prongs?" A very unenthusiastic James nodded. "It's just…your head's in your toast."
James lifted his head off his plate and yawned. "Tired," he mumbled, picking a crumb from his hair.
Remus grinned. "I wonder why…" he muttered. "Ooh, Lily, that's right Lily, do me on the haystack… Ouch!" Remus rubbed his leg angrily where James had kicked him.
James rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "Morning," came a cheery voice from above him. James looked up to see November standing next to him.
"Mornin' Em," James mumbled.
November sat down next to him, taking her bag off. "Ooh, what's wrong with you this morning? Mr. Moody?"
"He's just moody because he isn't getting any OW Prongs stop kicking me! Bastard." Remus mumbled into his porridge looking highly peeved.
November grinned. James frowned and said, "I'm just tired, mmkay?"
November held up her hands in defence and said, "I am saying nothing. Just know I'm here for you baby, if you don't think you can last much longer." She laughed, and James grinned at her.
"Nice to know," he said with a wink.
"Gooooooood morning." James looked up sharply and his smile melted with Lily's presence. Was she talking to him? Should he answer? Moving his mouth like a fish, he watched as Lily walked up to the table and sat opposite.
"Hi Lily," he said, smiling. "Y- How are you?"
"I'm well thank you," Lily said grinning.
Why was he so nervous all of a sudden? Panicking at the silence, James said, stuttering, "How was flying practice this morning?"
Lily raised an eyebrow. "How did you know I was out flying this morning?"
James opened his mouth and shut it again. Quickly deciding to use his back up plan he elbowed Remus in the ribs when Lily was looking down at her goblet to pick it up. Remus looked at James and sighed quietly.
"I told him because I stalked you and saw you were practicing and then I laughed to James about how bad you were because, well, I'm a jerk," Remus said, smiling.
Lily pouted. "Remus! James, slap him."
"With pleasure."
"OW!" Remus rubbed his cheek. Remus stood up with his bowl and moved to sit the other side of November. "I am never sitting by you again, you evil violent…thing, you."
Lily laughed and James watched her happily.
November slammed her goblet down obviously. "I'm going. I don't need to watch everyone flirting like immature little boys." She stood and stalked out of the hall quickly.
Lily frowned. "Um, I think I better go see if she's ok."
James nodded and watched her leave.
After a moment's silence Remus said, "You think I'm immature?"
James threw an orange at him.
***
The rest of that morning November was acting weird around everyone. When James tried to say "Hello" in Charms class she completely ignored him and stalked past to sit on her own. When James looked inquisitively at Priscilla and Lily they both shrugged, looking just as lost as everyone else.
Despite November's coldness and sudden mood swing James had a surprisingly good morning. He wasn't really good friends with November anyway, and stopped pondering over what was wrong. He decided to just put it down to "that time of the month". Charms lesson was really good; they had to go in partners and James went with Remus since Sirius was nowhere to be seen (he was probably still asleep, lazy bugger) and Peter was in the medical room for damaging his bum in Potions. No one knew how. James had to levitate Remus into the air, but couldn't control it. Moody went flying across the classroom and fell into Priscilla, both of them knocking to the floor. Lily seemed to find it hysterical, and James decided he was going to carry a camera around just so that he could record every time Lily laughed and keep it to watch forever. This thought made him happy pretty much for the rest of the day, and he soon forgot that he'd only had two hours sleep the previous night.
That evening everyone was sitting around in the common room. The conversation mainly consisted of making fun of Peter's sore bum. Which was amusing for a while, but then James felt he should go check on Sirius, since he hadn't seen him all day. He assumed his friend was just lazy, but thought he'd better check on him anyway.
"Sirius…?" James slowly opened the door to his dormitory and walked in. Sirius wasn't there. "Sirius, you here mate?" James walked to the bathroom door and knocked on it. There was no answer. James tried opening the door but it was locked. James started to panic. "Sirius you in there?" he asked, worried.
He heard a faint mumble from inside. "Sirius, you locked in or what?"
"I'm fine, go away…" came a very weak croak.
"I – I'll get you out of there," James said. He put his hand into his pocket – his wand wasn't there. He'd left it down in the common room.
"Sirius, I haven't got my wand on me so I'm going to knock the door down. Get away from the door mate."
"No, James don't come in here…"
James took a few steps away from the oak door and ran, slamming into it heavily. He did this again. And again. Fourth time the lock broke, surprising James at his own strength, and swung the door open to reveal Sirius crouched against the side of the bath tub, holding his arm. He stood up wobbling, and grinned weakly. "Got you there. Ha ha you should have heard your voice…"
"Sirius you been here all day?" asked James incredulously.
Sirius shook himself and let go of him arm, standing up straight. He smiled. "I'm fine. Let's go, I want to know about everything that happened today…"
James gripped his friends shoulders in the doorway and looked him in the eye levelly. "Tell me what's wrong." Sirius looked away. "I'm not letting you go until you do."
Sirius sighed. "Look, I just had a bad tummy ache, ok? Felt like skiving off for it."
James frowned. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that?"
"Yes, now leave me alone." Sirius pushed past James, pulling his arm out of James' grip. He yelled aloud and stumbled to the floor.
James went pale. "Sirius what the fuck is wrong?"
Sirius curled himself into a heap, cradling his arm, and stayed silent, his face in twisted pain.
James fell onto his knees and grabbed Sirius' arm. "James, no, don't stop," Sirius said trying to pull himself free from James, but being too weak to do so James pulled back Sirius' sleeve…and froze.
Cut into Sirius' arm in deep traces of dark red was one single word: Black. A million cuts around it held blood everywhere, and James thought he was going to throw up.
Sirius pulled his arm away and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his good arm around them and lying his head down.
James sat back and stared at Padfoot. The two sat there for about five minutes until James broke the silence. "Sirius…what the fuck are you doing?"
Sirius pulled his head up angrily. "Whatever Potter." He stood up but James stopped him.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Oh yeah and what good would that have done? We could have had a man to man talk, get all the hidden emotions out, make it all go away? You tell Moony and Wormtail and we all have a big discussion about how to 'fix' this? You tell your fucking parents and they go all worried about me?"
James frowned. "No, but we could have got you help…"
"Oh yeah, from fucking muggles? From Dumbledore telling me how much everyone can 'help' me if I just let them try. Sure."
"Why the hell did you even start again anyway?" James asked. "How long have you been doing this to yourself?"
"Like you care," Sirius said spitefully. "You and the others, your heads in clouds, worried about your own little shitty problems, 'Oh dear, Lily doesn't fancy me', 'How can we fix that?'. You don't know shit about real life James. And you don't give a shit about me. None of you do. As long as you have good old Padfoot to have a laugh with you don't care what's wrong with me, as long as we can fix it up quickly so that you won't have to bother with it."
James was stunned into silence. He gaped a while but no words came out. He soon realised he was crying, and quickly wiped a tear away before Sirius saw.
"Look, James, there's nothing you can do to 'save' me, ok?" Sirius said in a softer tone, but one just as melancholy. He looked away and walked over to his bed, grabbing a t-shirt and pressing it against his arm. James sunk to the floor and sat there for a very long time.
