A/N: …Are you ready?
This is the longest chapter I've written in a while, and it's kinda important, which is probably the reason why it's so long. I'm on summer vacation now (::dance:: ) so the chapters should probably come a lot quicker now.
….
That's all, I think.
Happy reading!
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Thursday, 12 AprilTwo months, twelve days
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"No."
Lily sighed and set her jaw, but continued writing. "She is my sister, James."
"Yeah, I know that, but that doesn't mean she gets an—an automatic invite or whatever," James insisted from across the table. He ran a hand through his hair and softened his tone when he spoke next. "I just don't get why you think it matters so much to invite her."
"Because," Lily replied, refilling her quill with ink, "she is my sister."
James reached across the table and pulled the page with the first draft of their guest list out from under Lily's quill, causing her to make a very long line of black ink across it. "No," he said. "No, no, no. I don't care, okay? I don't—I don't care that she's your sister, all right? All that girl has done for ten years is to try to make your life a living hell."
"I know that just as well as you do," Lily responded, reaching for her wand and Summoning the guest list from him. She prodded the wand absently at the streak of black ink, effectively erasing it.
"Okay, great. I'm glad we're on the same page. But, uh, maybe you could clear this up for me—why do you want to invite her?"
"She's my sister."
James gritted his teeth. "Lily."
"James, she's my sister, okay?" Lily said, throwing the quill down angrily. "She's my sister, and, yes, she has been a little difficult—"
"She told your parents I acted in porn."
"I remember."
"She told your parents we were living together."
"We were."
"We were also eighteen. We were barely out of school."
"I was there."
"Your dad asked me if I knew what a condom was."
Something that looked not unlike a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "I know how painful that was for you, love."
"I'm not sure you can." He forced a smile and said, "Lily, I just really…I don't want her to ruin that day for you. I…I might have to kick her arse if she does. And I don't hit girls."
Lily's smile came to fruition and she ducked her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. When she resurfaced, her expression was a lot more somber and a little bit sad. "Look," she said softly, "I know you're only looking out for me, and I appreciate it—I do. Really. But, James, she's my sister. And I know you can't possibly understand this, and I don't expect you to, but it's kind of important to me to invite her, all right?"
He didn't say anything as he watched her write Petunia's address under her name.
"Besides," Lily continued, her voice trembling a little as she refilled her quill with ink so as to write the next name, "it's not like she'll come or anything." Tears welled up in her eyes and she hastily swiped them away with her wrist. "You have nothing to worry about, really."
James pushed his chair back, scraping it on the linoleum, and came up behind her as she tried to write her cousin's name beneath Petunia's. Her usually neat script was wobbly and slanted, mostly because her hand was shaking and because her vision was blurry. James put both of his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.
"She won't come," Lily repeated, her voice muffled by the crying.
"Maybe she will."
"She won't."
James rubbed at a spot of ink on her top. "Would you be happier if she did?"
Lily turned her head to look up at him. "I don't know," she admitted.
He reached up and tucked some of her hair behind her right ear. "See, here's my theory," he began. "I think you'd be miserable if Petunia did show up."
"Why's that?" she asked, sniffling a little.
"Because, Lily, you've tried so hard to impress her all this time. You got special permission to show her the magic you'd learned at school. And—remember?—she screamed at you and left the house for six hours and your parents thought she'd been kidnapped and she even called herself in missing and told the police that one of your 'freak friends' had taken her to do magic on her. Lily, if she actually responded positively to one of your nice gestures, I don't think you'd know what to do with yourself."
Lily was smiling a sad little smile at him now. "How long did it take you to think of that?" she asked quietly.
"Since you told me about her."
"That long?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
James shrugged awkwardly. "I dunno," he replied honestly. "I guess I thought you already knew."
Lily sighed, a very heavy sigh that made her seem older than she was, and reached up to take his hands. "I do know all that," she confessed. "I just keep hoping it's wrong, you know? Like I was just imagining how much she truly dislikes me, that I just made it up to invent more drama in my life. But I guess there really is…" She trailed off, biting her lip.
"Really is what?" James prodded.
"I really don't know, actually," she said. "Petunia just kind of…is, you know? She is what she is and as much as I'd like to, I can't change her."
"That's right."
She paused, stroking the side of his hand with her thumb. "I'm still inviting her, though."
"Yeah."
Sirius, Peter, and Remus were walking down the streets of London, searching for things that would fit at a bachelor party.
With the wedding less than three months away, Sirius was starting to get worried that the whole thing was going to be this great disaster. He knew that Lily and James were way behind on their invitations, they hadn't selected their menu yet, and that they didn't have wedding bands picked out. He knew that the time of the wedding was still very much up in the air, that they hadn't decided whether or not to write their own vows, and that the Portkey situation was a mess.
So he wanted to take a little bit of stress off of the two of them and make sure that the bachelor party was absolutely perfect.
Because everyone knew that the bachelor party was one of the most important parts of the wedding. It ranked at least number two, right behind the wedding itself.
Sirius sighed contentedly. "So, where should we have this thing at?" he asked.
"I'm sure whatever you pick will be great," Remus volunteered quickly.
"Yes," Peter agreed instantaneously.
Sirius cast the two of them a suspicious look. They had both been acting really weird as of late—even more so than usual—and it was starting to make him wonder if they knew something he didn't.
And it was becoming annoying.
So Sirius stopped, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and faced his friends. "All right," he said. "Tell me what's going on."
Remus glanced at Peter and Peter glanced at Remus and they both looked away from each other. "Nothing's going on," Peter squeaked.
"Absolutely nothing," Remus seconded, nodding.
Sirius started to walk backwards, tapping his index fingers together as he thought. "Come on," he said, smiling pleasantly at them so that they'd think he was on their side. "There's something you two know that I don't."
"No, there isn't," Remus insisted.
"Nothing," Peter said.
Sirius shook his head, still smiling. "Wormtail, Moony," he said, laughing heartily. "I have known you for a long time. And when you know stuff that I don't, you act like you don't know anything about anything. Now tell me—what's going on?"
"Nothing," Peter said.
"Not one thing."
Sirius expelled a long breath. "All right," he said. "I guess I'm just going to have to start guessing. Okay…is Lily cheating on Prongs?"
"Not that I know of," Peter replied.
"Moony?"
"No," Remus responded flatly. "Don't be daft."
Sirius, out of the corner of his eye, spotted an outdoor café and made his way towards it, still talking. Remus and Peter followed diligently. "Is Prongs cheating on Lily?"
"I don't think so."
"No."
Sirius nodded like he had expected these answers, which he had. "All right," he said, taking a seat at a round table the color of butter. The other two mirrored him. "Um…are either of you dealing or taking drugs?"
Remus snorted and Peter let out a shrill laugh that made Remus wince and Sirius rub at his ears.
"Not since school," Peter reminded his friend.
Sirius nodded again, smiling still. "Okay…well, are either of you alcoholics?"
"Define 'alcoholic'," Peter said wryly.
"Are either of you whoring yourselves?"
"Yes," Remus said seriously. "There's my corner."
"Are either of you having problems of the financial sort?"
"My couch got repossessed again," Remus replied.
"I lost a Sickle in Diagon Alley last week," Peter offered.
"Peter, have you recently been diagnosed with an incurable disease?"
"Yes," Peter responded, looking solemn. "I have herpes."
"Why didn't you ask me that question?" Remus wanted to know.
Sirius waved a hand, dismissing the question. "Everyone knows what's wrong with you. That's boring already."
"I'm sorry," Remus said with sarcasm so potent you could almost feel it, "if my incapacitating condition is an inconvenience to you."
"Oh, I wouldn't say it's an inconvenience," Sirius replied, smiling. "I don't mind." He yawned, then turned the yawn into a sigh. "Speaking of boredom, I am bored now. Wanna go look for cheap strippers?"
Remus shrugged and glanced down at his watch. "Actually, it's getting kinda late. Maybe we should go home. Try again later?"
Sirius smirked at his friend as he attempted to pick some hardened black gum off the bottom of his left shoe with his short fingernails. "Now, Moony, I know you're somewhat of an…innocent."
Remus shook his head, thinking he probably knew where this was headed, and tried to hide a smile as Peter snickered appreciatively.
"But," Sirius continued, "these ladies sort of work better at night."
"Yeah," Remus said.
"Yeah, I mean, I don't think they do brunch or anything."
"Right."
"You don't get orange juice and a muffin with purchase."
"I get it."
Lily flopped down on her back on the bed, holding the guest list up for James so he could count the number of people they were inviting.
"A hundred and fifty-three," he reported after a few minutes.
Lily lowered the paper. "A hundred and fifty-three?" she repeated hollowly.
"I counted four times," he told her. "And I got a hundred and fifty-three twice, so I went with that one."
"We know a hundred and fifty-three people?" Lily asked incredulously.
James plucked the list out of her hand and lay down next to her. "Apparently," he replied, reaching for her hand and entwining his fingers with hers.
"How do we know a hundred and fifty-three people?" Lily wondered, bringing her and James' joined hands down to meet the ivory comforter, then pulling them up again, then bringing them down.
"Well, there's your family."
"Yeah."
"And my family."
"And your family's huge."
"And my family's huge," James agreed. "Then there's your friends."
"I don't have that many friends."
"And my friends. I don't have a lot of friends, either."
Lily looked over at him and smiled. "Yes, you do."
James raised his eyebrows at her. "No, I don't."
Lily sat up, releasing his hand as she did so. "James, you have always had more friends than me. And that's fine. That's just the kind of person you are."
"The kind of person who needs lots of attention?"
"No," she said. "Well, kind of."
He sat up as well.
"It's not a bad thing," Lily said quickly. "You have a fantastic personality. You're outgoing and you're smart and you're funny and you're athletic and you're confident…that's the kind of person people like to be around. That's all I meant by it, okay?"
James knew how to take a compliment. He was always very good at it. He leaned over and kissed her once on the mouth, a short kiss to show that he appreciated her comment and agreed with it.
"Is that what attracted you to me?" he asked teasingly when he pulled away. "My outgoingness?"
She frowned, crinkling her nose. "Outgoingness?"
"Yes."
She smiled. "I don't know," she told him. "Maybe it was your ability to make up words on the spot."
"What did attract you to me?"
Lily laughed, collapsing against the pillows again. "How often do we have this conversation? Like, once every month or so?"
James grinned at her. "I have a very fragile ego, you know."
That elicited another giggle. "Oh, yes. Such a fragile ego you have."
"It is. Like you said, it needs constant attention and massaging. Today, it is feeling particularly breakable—"
"I don't think egos have feelings."
"Mine does. It's a special ego."
"I see."
"Mm. Now, my darling Lily, explain to me and my ego what attracted you to us."
She smiled idly and sat up again, leaning over to put her arms around his neck. "I guess," she said, thinking about it as she toyed with the baby hairs at the base of his neck, "I just warmed up to you, you know? I thought you were a selfish twat, but once I got to know you…I realized that you were a selfish twat, but that you were growing up into something better."
"I've always hated that about me," James told her, smiling.
Lily tugged at his hair. "I'm going to take back all these nice things I'm saying about you if you don't be nice to me."
He gasped in mock indignance, reaching over and tickling her, causing her to fall back on the bed, shrieking with laughter and kicking halfheartedly at him to make him stop. "I'm always nice to you!" he exclaimed, the air of shock and appall still a very present force in his voice.
Lily, still gasping with laughter, nodded. "Of course you are."
He stopped tickling her.
She sat up again.
"You know, I used to hate your smile," she said thoughtfully.
James paused. "Okay."
"No, I really did," Lily said, as if trying to convince him. "To me, it was so…pretentious, you know? Like 'ooh, look at me, I'm so special, everyone bow down to me'."
"I did think that every once and a while," James told her, grinning.
That elicited a smile. "Yeah. But one day I was sitting in History of Magic, and you were across the room from me, and you saw me looking and you smiled at me, and I realized that everything all those stupid girls that gossiped about you in the girls' room had said about your smile was absolutely true."
James straightened. "You have never mentioned these gossiping girls before," he said. "Now you have to tell me what they said."
"About your smile?"
"About anything. But, yeah, we can start with the smile."
Lily thought a bit, tossed her hair, and said, "Megan Chandler said once, I think, that when you smiled, it made your eyes light up and sort of…sparkle."
James burst into laughter.
Lily grinned with him. "I know. It's sad, isn't it? But it's kinda true. And…someone said that your smile made everyone around you want to smile. And that's true. Someone said that when you smiled at them, it made their hair stand on end. And that's true."
"That's very nice," James said. "Are you sure you didn't get that from your romance novels, though?"
She smirked. "Maybe I did. Doesn't make it any less true, though."
Remus climbed the stairs to his flat. There were seven flights of stairs before his floor, and usually he didn't bother with them, choosing simply to Apparate instead. But today he was thinking, so he had kind of a reason to take the stairs. He knew he would be severely winded by the time he got to his flat, but he thought that sleeping was a good idea after all this thinking.
Sirius would figure it out.
What was it, though? There really wasn't an it, if Remus were to be completely honest. It was, for all intents and purposes, him and Hestia, but nothing had really happened there, because of Sirius.
If it were not for Sirius and the way Sirius felt, Remus would be in a relationship. He would have all the ups and downs that came with a relationship. He would have someone to come home to, someone to hug and kiss and tell things that he didn't tell his friends, even. He would have the little spats that James and Lily and people in relationships often had, and he would have the making up period afterwards.
Remus had not had all of those things in a very long time.
He would like to have those things, sure. But he would also like to have Sirius as a friend, and he knew that that relationship had to come first. Always.
But that didn't stop him from missing Hestia terribly.
It had been almost a fortnight since he'd seen or heard from her. Several times he'd started to write to her to ask her to meet him somewhere for dinner before he'd remember and then he'd write to Peter or to James or to Sirius instead.
None of his friends realized that anything was wrong.
It was better that way. Remus didn't really want them asking too many questions and putting things together and getting it.
Because, as he kept telling himself, there was no it.
Or there couldn't be. Not anymore.
He had reached his floor. Remus headed down the hallway, fumbling around in his pocket for his key. He found it, turned the key in the lock, and stopped in the doorway.
Hestia Jones sat on his couch, hands folded in her lap, looking up at him with sad eyes.
"We really should talk," she said.
It's too late—too early for this, James thought as he rubbed his eyes and stumbled into the living room, where the fireplace was. It's three o' clock in the sodding morning, and someone's trying to talk to me.
One thing was for certain: if it was Peter or Sirius calling because they were drunk and needed to tell him something that they thought was something hysterically funny ("Get this, Prongs, get this: there's a pigeon outside my window. It's a pigeon. And it's outside my window.") he was seriously going to kill them. Really this time.
He had been having a lovely dream in which Georgina Perry, a famous Canadian model, was feeding him honey and strawberries and asking him if he'd like a backrub while wearing a black lace corset. Not James wearing a corset—Georgina. James wouldn't look good in a black lace corset. He always thought the color made him look short. He didn't know why, it just did.
James ran a hand through his extremely tangled hair and reached the fireplace.
He stopped, dead in his tracks, when he saw who it was.
"Professor Dumbledore," he said, glancing down at his choice of sleepwear, which was his green plaid boxer shorts and nothing else. "Hello," he added lamely, unsure of what else to say.
Dumbledore was looking especially grave, which could mean nothing good. James felt weak, he was sure someone had died, sure it was his parents or Lily's, and… God, he just couldn't go to any more funerals. He couldn't sit clutching Lily's sweaty hand on a hard bench, ducking his head and muttering soothing words to her as she sobbed and he tried so hard not to cry himself. He couldn't buy any more carnations and roses and lilies to toss on caskets as they were lowered into muddy holes as it rained—because it always rained on funerals. It always rained.
It was beginning to be too much, and he was sure if he didn't break, Lily would. And he couldn't handle that. Any of it.
"There has been another attack," Dumbledore began quietly.
James put his face in his hands, rubbing his cheeks and his temples and his closed eyes, hoping that maybe when he emerged from behind his hands this would be a dream, just like Georgina Perry and the honey.
"James?"
"Yeah," James replied, to show Dumbledore he was still listening. "Who is it this time? My family? Lily's? Sirius?"
"Gideon and Fabian Prewett were killed two hours ago," Dumbledore told him, his voice hushed.
James lifted his head.
There was no way.
There was just no fucking way.
Gideon Prewett was too good of an Auror; James had to admit, to just die. He was a prat, but…fuck. It just couldn't happen.
"Five Death Eaters stormed in on the Prewetts as they slept. They tortured Fabian, his wife, and Gideon, but they fought it off…Gideon managed to kill one of them, before he was killed himself. Fabian and Tracey were killed not long after."
James didn't know how Dumbledore could sound so calm.
His head was spinning.
He had known Prewett, he'd talked to him, he'd shared a sandwich with him once. They'd talked about sports. James had been so jealous of Prewett, and now that…now that this had happened, it all seemed so stupid, so childish, and…
This…this was real.
Voldemort, the Death Eaters, Dark Marks hanging mistily over houses, lives ending…
It was real.
It wasn't something that you read about in the paper, commented once on, then put away and never thought about again. This wasn't going to end. It was always going to be there, like pollution and illness and famine and all the other terrible things going on in the world.
It was real.
Gideon knew that.
It had taken the death of someone James actually knew for him to realize it himself.
"I assume Miss Evans is asleep?" Dumbledore queried, jerking James out of his whirling storm of thoughts.
Oh, God, Lily.
He had difficulties telling her when plants died or food went bad; how could he tell her this?
James nodded. "Yeah," he replied hoarsely. His mouth was completely dry, his throat scratchy. He needed a glass of water. "I can tell her," he added before Dumbledore could ask. "I'll…I'll tell her now." He paused and said, "Give my regrets to the family."
Dumbledore nodded grimly, and disappeared.
James sat there in the dark for about three minutes, his face buried in his hands.
And he let himself cry.
Remus stood there in the doorway, the shock washing over him. He'd sort of lost feeling in his fingers, and before he knew it, the key dropped to the floor. He stooped to pick it up, and set it down on the table next to the door.
"It's really late," he said.
"It's really early, actually," Hestia corrected. "It's after three."
"In the morning?" Remus asked, surprised. That shouldn't really surprise him, actually. He'd walked all the way home, and Remus was not the most athletic of people. He was about ninety-five percent sure he had blisters on his feet. The walk had not seemed that long, but judging by the fact that it had taken over four hours, it probably was.
"Yeah, in the morning," Hestia replied.
There was more silence.
"You shouldn't be here," Remus told her, breaking it. "I mean, really."
"I miss you," she said simply. "And we left things in a bad place."
He didn't say anything, but he was getting very uncomfortable. The blisters hurt, and he'd like nothing more than to lie down and sleep for about a thousand years and not have to deal with this. Remus was not in the mood for long conversations about things he wanted but couldn't have and the reasons why he couldn't have them.
Hestia rose and uncertainly crossed the room to where he was leaning up against the doorway. She stood in front of him and she just stared.
"I miss you," she repeated.
He couldn't be mean and not tell her. "I miss you," he said.
She kept her eyes on his. "Talk to me?" she asked.
He shook his head, slowly. "No," he responded.
Hestia sighed, exasperated. "We can't leave things like this."
"Why not?" Remus asked. "Listen, I'll—I'll forget it ever happened if you will. We can still—"
"I'm not going to forget it ever happened!" Hestia exclaimed in disbelief. "And I know you won't either."
"Hestia—"
She shook her head and stepped closer. She was about three inches away from him now, and his breathing became more and more irregular. "I know," Hestia told him, still staring him straight in the eyes, "that you want this as much as I do."
"How can you know that?" he asked her. He'd never said anything. Even when she said what she felt for him that day, he never returned it. As far as he knew, he'd never given her any reason to believe that he didn't just see her as a very nice person that he enjoyed hanging around with. Oh, wait. There was the fact that he turned into a stuttering, rambling prick at least once whenever they were together. Maybe that tipped her off. Or maybe she just thought he was like that and there were other clues.
It was all giving Remus a headache.
"Remus, you turn into a blithering idiot whenever you're around me," Hestia told him. "And I know that you're not. An idiot, that is."
"You don't know that either. I could be the stupidest person you've ever met, but you wouldn't know it because I have this calendar that improves your vocabulary. It gives you a word of the day and you have to use it in a sentence. It makes you smart. See, thanks to the calendar, I know that…quintessence means perfection. Did you know that?"
"When I first met him, Sirius told me about all of his friends," Hestia said. "And when he talked about you, he said that you were the most intelligent person he knew."
"Sirius doesn't know that many smart people."
"Yeah?" she said. "Well, I do. And you're one of them."
She took another step forward. They were actually touching, her legs against his, her chest against his, her arms against his. She reached up and threaded her hands through his hair, which, of course, sent shivers just about everywhere throughout his body. He wanted to tell her to stop, because this could lead to nothing good, but the fact was, it was leading somewhere good. Just not really good for Sirius. And Remus knew that if something wasn't good for Sirius, Sirius would make sure it wasn't good for anyone else.
But knowing that didn't stop him, for whatever reason, for lowering his head to hers and kissing her.
And she kissed back.
And it was wonderful, just like he knew it would have to be. It wasn't like Remus had a lot to compare it to, but this was definitely his best kiss, because it wasn't uncomfortable like the others. It was slow and soft, not hurried because the teachers might be coming. This kiss took its time, and Hestia let him touch her and he allowed her to completely mess up his hair.
But then he pulled his hands out from under her shirt and removed hers from his hair and jerked away, effectively banging his head against the door.
"No," he said, his voice hoarse and low. "No, I—we can't."
Hestia shook her head and looked away from him, tugging on the hem of her shirt. "I don't see why not," she said crossly.
"Sirius has been my best friend for ten years now, okay?" Remus told her. "And he's completely mad about you. And—"
"Well, what about you?" Hestia asked, raising her voice so it would be heard over his.
Remus stopped. "What do you mean, what about me?"
"What do you want?"
Remus rubbed at the place where his head and the door had made contact. The skin was already sort of raising up, and he could tell that if he didn't magically mend it soon he'd have a massive bump there the next morning. "I want everyone to be happy," he said finally.
"You can't," Hestia replied. "You can't have everyone be happy, especially in this kind of situation."
"I know that," Remus said. "But I just…I can't be selfishly happy like that. I can't just abandon Sirius and ignore what he's feeling because you like me better or whatever is going on."
"Remus, have you ever been selfish?" Hestia asked. "I mean, really. Have you ever just taken what you wanted because you wanted it and you knew it would make you happy?"
He stared at her, unsure of what to say to that.
"You haven't," Hestia said. "You're just that kind of person. You want everyone else to be happy before you'll even think about yourself."
"Nothing wrong with that," Remus responded stoically.
"Yeah, there is," Hestia said impatiently, "when you can't be happy at all."
He paused. "I'm happy," he said.
"You are?"
"Yeah," he said. "And even if I wasn't, it's not really any of your concern."
She stared. "It's not," she repeated flatly.
"Or it shouldn't be."
Hestia let out an exasperated sort of laugh. "Remus, you're making this harder than it is!"
"No, I'm not!" he exclaimed. "Sirius is my best friend and this would kill him. You don't understand, he's an emotionally volatile person, and—"
"So why does he have to know?" Hestia interrupted.
Remus was rendered speechless yet again.
"We can be together…but we don't have to tell him. We don't have to tell anyone, if you don't want to."
He hesitated, looking down at her hopeful face. "You know that never works out," he said.
"It could. We'll be careful."
"No, but…"
"Listen," Hestia interrupted again, wrapping her arms around his neck and winding her fingers through her hair, "I really want to be with you, you know? And if that takes…sneaking around and acting like I'm fifteen again, I'll do it. I don't care. Okay? I just—I just want to be with you."
He didn't say anything, still staring at her.
"And if it doesn't work out for you," she continued, "we'll break it off. We'll…we won't see each other anymore."
Hestia moved her right hand out of his hair and touched his cheek, hesitantly. "Okay?"
And slowly, realizing that he was making a giant mistake but not really caring for once, he nodded.
James rose from the ottoman he'd been sitting on and started to head down the hallway towards the bedroom, where Lily was still asleep. He stepped into the room, taking in the way everything looked different now. The clothes on the floor, the pictures on the dressers, the Quidditch paraphernalia on the walls, Lily's jewelry spilling out of its boxes…everything looked misshapen, out of place.
And Lily, peacefully sleeping with her arm curled around her pillow, looked so strange to him now.
She wasn't upset.
She was dreaming, she was breathing heavily and evenly, her hair spilling over her shoulders and splayed onto the crisp white of the pillows.
She seemed content.
And he realized that he needed her now.
He crawled into bed next to her and whispered her name a few times until her eyes slowly opened and she yawned, taking him in.
"What's wrong?" she asked him. "Is everything okay?"
"Could you…" James felt ridiculous. "I love you."
She smiled faintly. "I love you, too." She looked closer at him and sat up, frowning. "What's the matter?" she asked. "You've been crying." She reached up and lightly touched the stretch of skin just below his right eye, and it tickled a little. "What happened, James?"
Why had he agreed to tell her?
He couldn't tell her. He couldn't just say, "Your friend Prewett's dead, love, and I'm a mess."
James wanted to tell her that nothing had happened, that it was all a bad dream, that she should just go back to sleep.
But that would be lying, and he couldn't lie to her, now when her eyes were so wide with fright and dread and million other things he couldn't quite find the names for.
"Prewett," he said.
She gripped the comforter. "No," she said.
He nodded slowly. "Yes."
Lily shook her head. "No, I mean…" Her eyes filled up with tears and she stumbled over her words. "I know him. He's…he's still alive."
"Baby," he said. He'd never called her that before; he thought it was cheesy and something people only said in songs because it rhymed with a lot of things—honestly, why would you want to call your girlfriend your 'baby'? You didn't give birth to her. And if you did, that'd be a crime and really gross—but it seemed okay for the time. "Baby, I'm so sorry."
"If I don't believe it," Lily choked, "if I don't believe it, it's not true, right?"
James didn't know what to say.
"Right?" she pressed. "Tell me I'm right."
"I wish I could," he said.
A/N: A few people guessed that Gideon would be the one to die, so…morbid snaps for them, I guess. That actually was mentioned in OotP—the Prewetts dying. She didn't mention Fabian having a wife, but I always pictured it like that and I don't exactly know why, so I put it in there.
Lily's reaction seems kinda dramatic to me, dontcha think? I think it's just that realization that it can happen to her (to them, actually, since Prongsie's kind of a wreck as well). You know? You read and you hear about stuff like this, but you don't expect it to happen to you. It's kinda the same thing.
That's how I intended it, anyway.
And as for Mr. Moony…he's just gotten himself into all kinds of trouble, hasn't he? Don't worry, I won't let him get away with it too easily.
I tried to inject some humor in the midst of all this melodrama (::grin::) but it was sorta hard. So my apologies if this chapter isn't as funny as I usually try to make them.
I'd like to keep this story to an even 20 chapters, just like Deflating, but I'm not seeing this wrapped up in five more chapters. Maybe it will, if I can get my act together and force myself to write an outline for what has to happen.
…I think I'll do that next.
That's it for now, I think.
Review. Now. :)