Disclaimer: I unfortunately don't own the concept of Harry Potter, of Muggles and Magicals, and all that great stuff. It's all JK Rowling's.
When Dawn Breaks The Night
Chapter Eight-A Chance
Once she had returned to Hogwarts, Lily barricaded herself
in Moaning Myrtle's toilet, that being the only place she could get reprieve
from the human population of Hogwarts. She had wisely befriending Myrtle in
second year, so the ghost wasn't a menace to Lily. She pulled out a sheet of
parchment, a fresh quill, and set to work writing the most persuasive letter
home she was capable of.
*~*~*
Over a week later, Lily received the reply. The time length had worried her,
knowing her parents usually replied the minute they got the letter. This time
it had taken so much longer.
The letter came with the morning owl post four days before they left for
Christmas Holidays, and Lily hastily tore the letter open, scanned it for
general content, and let out a victorious yell. Next, she read it carefully,
just to check things over.
Dear Lily,
Your father, Petunia, Vernon, and I
have all reviewed this situation since we will all be spending Christmas
together. If it was either Millie or Amos you would be bringing home, we
wouldn't be so hesitant, but we do not know this boy. However, it is apparent
that he needs to be shown the joys of Christmas. And, we did note your lack of
relationship clarification between the two of you, which frankly makes us more
than a little nervous. You may ask him home for Christmas, but it is a pending
agreement, and he can be sent home at our discretions. I hope we are
understood.
We will meet you at Kings Cross on December 23rd as planned, love from us all.
–Mum.
"Good news?" Amos asked, tried to catch a glimpse of the paper.
"Very. What brings you back to the Gryffindor table? You haven't been sitting
here recently, have you?"
"My connections at the Ravenclaw table fell through with," Amos answered dryly,
apparently harboring no hurt feelings over the situation.
"It's for the best, I always say. Anywho, I better
start for class. Do you want to come?"
"Why not."
So Lily and Amos left the great hall, Lily waving at the Marauders as she
walked past She began working on the next part of her
mission: persuading James to spend Christmas with her family.
"I'm tired," Lily yawned and tipped her chair back.
"Join the freaking crowd." James glared pointedly, reminding her that she was
the one who wanted tutoring her Transfiguration test the next day.
"I think this is as good as it's going to get. Let's call it a night, even
though you're not tired."
"I'm tired."
"Your eyes don't have red lines like mine?"
"So?"
"So, most people get red eyes when they're tired. That leads me to believe
you're not tired."
"I can function on a minimal amount of sleep."
"Insomniac?"
"Exactly. All mentally twisted people have sleeping disorders, remember?"
"You are rather mean, you know."
"I've been told that a time or two, but I don't listen to malicious gossip."
Lily snorted, finding his fractious attitude amusing instead of annoying.
"James, do you want to come home with me for Christmas?"
"What?"
She had found that getting straight to the point was the best way to get
through to him, this being no exception. Lily repeated the offer. "It's a no
strings attached sort of thing. You need someplace to spend Christmas, and I'm
offering you a solution."
"I don't need anyplace."
"Yes, you do."
"I think I know what I need better than you do."
"I'm sure you do, but most people like human companionship on internationally
symbolic holidays."
"I'm not some sort of wounded forest creature that needs to be nursed back to
health."
"Naturally not, but just think about it. I'm offering a friend a place to spend
Christmas, James. I am absolutely free of any ulterior
motives."
"Thank you. I will think it over."
*~*~*
"Why don't you just go?" Sirius asked, trying to figure out what made his best friend tick.
"Just go? You don't just go to your girlfriend's house for Christmas. Especially not someone like Lily. Her parents will think she's pregnant or something equally awful," James said, in a panic. The situation was just too stressful, a lose/lose situation.
"She obviously wants you to go. How many other girls have invited you to their house for something as special as Christmas?" Sirius quickly amended, "Well, someone who isn't trying to get their hands on the Potter Galleons anyway?"
"Nobody, but I can't do this. I'm not prepared to meet her parents. We haven't been going out long enough!"
"Six weeks, almost seven. She's not asking you to marry her, James. Don't read too much into this. She knows you don't have anyplace to go for Christmas, and she's giving you something to do. Lily doesn't have ulterior motives, she's just trying to make you happy. Think about how many people have done that. Not many, is there?"
"It's a one-hander."
"That's precisely why you should go," Peter supplied from his own bed, where he was trying to locate the teachers on the Marauder's Map. "She's just wants to make you happy, give her a chance."
"Yeah, give her a chance, Prongs," Remus mimicked.
"Would the lot of you shut up? Why do you think she's so nice, anyway? You act like she's an angel."
"Pal, she's the closest thing you're ever going to see to an angel."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that attitude isn't going to get you through the pearly gates," Peter snickered.
"Alright. I'll go if you all give me one good reason each why I should go."
"How easy," Remus said waftily. "Child's play, in fact. You don't have anyplace or anything to do this Christmas. I know for a fact you weren't going to celebrate in any way whatsoever."
"Lily's family does Christmas to the nines, from what I hear," Sirius said. "And you have never had a real Christmas, not since you were tiny. Your family doesn't even celebrate anymore."
So now, everyone turned to Peter. "She makes you happy. You smile and laugh and seem happy around her. She could make you happy on your first Christmas too. Everybody deserves to be with someone they love on Christmas, and you don't love anyone to my knowledge, so you should at least be around someone you like, and you like her."
They were all surprised at how exact Peter's answer was.
James hated it. He didn't like anybody seeing him that well. But at least they didn't know why he was so afraid of going. What if he liked Christmas celebrated like that? It wouldn't be an annual thing, chances were it would be his only Christmas ever. He didn't want a taste of something just to have it jerked away from him. Even if it was only Christmas.
*~*~*
"Lily, I would like to accept your offer, providing it's still open."
"Huh?" Lily tried to remember the offer in question, "Oh! Christmas! Of course it's still open, James. I thought you had decided against it."
"I had, until my friends intervened."
They were spending yet another night in the Head Lounge, getting nowhere with a bunch of documents.
"In that case, I'm glad they intervened."
*~*~*
"I cannot believe you!" Millie screamed at Lily, frankly scaring her more than a little. "Are you so unaware of the world that you'll put yourself at risk! You're sillier than I thought!"
"Millie, I judge my acquaintances on how they treat me, and thus far, James has shown me respect and his own brand of kindness," Lily returned in a low, cool voice. The yelling had been going on for about five minutes now, ever since she had told Millie James would be going home with her for Christmas. Further arguing was interrupted by the door flying open, James Potter will be the cause.
"What is going on?"
"I could ask you the same question," Millie said tensely. "After all, this is the girls dormitory."
"However, I asked first. Lily? What is all the yelling about? You're audible in the common room, and I must say, you two ladies are having quite the interesting conversation." James had a cool smile on his face.
"You can't go home with her for Christmas, you savage bastard."
"You will have to think of crueler names than that, Miss Barstow."
Millie lunged at James, apparently losing her very shaky grip on control. He easily grabbed her wrists, and rendered her immobile. "I think we need to talk. If you're going to continue your friendship with Lily, and I'm going to continue my relationship with her, we're going to have work out a few things. And I'm also in favor of disclosing the truth between us, but of course, that is your secret to tell, not mine."
"Let's take this outside."
"NO!" Lily screamed, blocking the door. "You'll murder each other. I won't allow it."
"Lily dear, I swear not to kill her, and she's not capable of killing me."
"That's what you think," Millie sneered. "And we are not telling her."
"Outside. Now. And I think we are."
*~*~*
In exactly eight minutes, James and Millie had returned to fetch Lily, who was biting her fingernails while lying on the floor.
"We're ready to tell you the truth," Millie sighed, and helped her friend up. "By the way, I'm sorry for being a completely nasty person lately."
"Don't worry about it." Lily forced a grin, looking nervously between her friend and James.
"Come on." James smiled and took her hand, "We're going to have to go someplace more private than here."
"Like?"
"The Quidditch Pitch."
"Oh, God."
James, at least pretending to be a gentleman, grabbed the cloak he recognized as hers from on top of her trunk. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
The trip outside was a silent one, and conveniently without interruptions.
"I better sit down for this," Lily said grimly, plopping onto the sand of the field.
"Are you going to tell it or shall I?" James asked, hoisting an eyebrow at Millie.
"Go ahead."
"Last chance to turn back."
"I'm not turning back."
"Brilliant." James turned sharply on his heel as he paced a three meter long strip of turf in front of the two girls. "Lily, Millie here and I don't really get along because the two of us have been raised rather unjustly. I am known to the world as the Potter heir, when in fact, Millie is James Potter's true offspring."
Lily's jaw dropped, and she sat in stunned silence until she could work saliva back into her mouth, "You're kidding me."
"Not at all," James said grimly.
"My mother was a cook at the Potter house," Millie said simply, here head in her hands.
"See what I mean about a deteriorating family life? My mother had an illegitimate kid, so her husband thought it would be only fair if he had one too."
"I'm hoping this is your twisted sense of humor breaking through."
"It is. I don't pretend to know what goes through Potter Senior's mind, nor do I particularly care to find out."
Lily hugged Millie and watched James, "I'm sorry."
"You weren't the one who decided to screw around. Sorry," James quickly apologized when he was shot two glares. He was a little upset to find out he was receiving zero sympathy from Lily.
Millie, however, was rolling in it.
"I meant for being rude about your dislike for each other. Now I can't say I blame you. I wouldn't be entirely pleased if I was the cast-off while a random kid got the stardom."
"How do you think that random kid felt?"
"I'll talk to you later, James."
James made a sound of disbelief and threw up his hands.
"Our conversations are always highly intriguing and demand my full intention."
Millie smirked and James made a face at her.
By the time they had returned to Gryffindor Tower, Millie had tears and James looked thoroughly displeased. The displeasure turned into a sulky pout by the time Lily came back downstairs to see him sprawled on a sofa, glaring at some first years finishing homework. "I had to stay with her, she wouldn't have forgiven me if I had done anything else. She hates you as it is, and that would grow even more if I left her to be with you."
"What about me?"
"I thought you were the more understanding of the two."
"You were wrong."
"So I see. But I think we should move past it. Turn the other cheek and all that." Lily hauled him from the sofa and led him down the halls. "I'm also under the impression that you know more about the situation than she does."
"I do try to stay on top of things."
"I've figured that out in the short while I've known you. How did you find out about her?"
James smiled, and she wasn't sure what exact emotion prompted it, considering it had been a highly limited amount of times he had smiled from happiness, like a normal person. "My mother got…shall we say intoxicated, one night. She and Senior got in a huge row over a million things. I heard them. I watched at the stairs, and I didn't think they saw me. It was so awful, they were screaming. I always knew I looked like neither of my parents, and I had heard whispers all my life. But that night, I was confirmed an illegitimate hoax. Senior raised me to save the precious family name. You see the name we have because of it. Either way, my mother and I brought the downfall of them all."
Lily ran a hand up and down his arm that she was closest too, electing not to speak, just to let him talk.
"I can't even remember the exact words they used, I didn't want to remember. You know what though, he would have treated me like his son if my mother would have let him. I remember him trying to do normal stuff with me. We went camping together when I was eight, and he made my sister and mother stay home. As I got older, she would start pulling me away from him and try to stuff my sister in somewhere."
"How old were you?"
"When I found out? Thirteen. I was home for Christmas break. We never celebrated anyway, just treated it like another day, but I never went home after that."
Lily hugged him, tucking her face against his neck, imagining the pain he felt as an impressionable teenager who had just found out that his life shouldn't really be his life at all. She still had so many questions, but she knew she had most likely hit the boundary of his revelations for tonight.
*~*~*
"Scared?" Sirius asked, watching as James put a few last minute things in his trunk to take to Lily's.
"No. Not at all. Just incredibly nervous," James said coolly, trying to decide if he would need his multi-utility pocket knife.
"She doesn't live in the woods, moron," Remus said with a grin, not being very good at hiding his amusement
"I don't know that, though. I don't know how Muggles live."
"They're surprisingly civilized, right Peter?" Sirius winked at Peter, signaling for him to play along.
"Just barely so. You better take your own toilet paper, only some Muggles have some for guests. My dad never did until my mum showed him the error of his ways."
"Oh my God." Shock was the only way to describe what was on James's face, along with a mingling of terror.
"You didn't know? You have a lot of learning to do," Remus said, trying desperately not to laugh.
And of course, they enlightened him.
*~*~*
"You're parents will hate him," Millie warned darkly as she watched Lily put the wrapped gifts for her family and James in her trunk carefully.
"Probably."
"They'll absolutely love him," Starla assured her, and Jeanne wasn't far behind.
"The Potters have excellent manners. Even him. My family went to a little event his parents held a few years ago, and James can act completely different in public."
Lily blanched. That didn't sound necessarily good. She had just gotten comfortable with the dark and generally depressed James. She was going to jump out of the window if he started singing Christmas carols.
*~*~*
"Need any help with your trunk?" James asked, idly leaning outside of Lily's compartment.
"It can wait." She didn't look up from her magazine that Millie was reading over her shoulder.
"The train stops in five minutes, didn't you hear the announcement. If you don't get it down now, you have to wait for the crowd to clear."
"There's not much of a crowd during the Christmas hols," Amos explained, also reading the magazine.
"What are you guys reading, anyway?"
"About the establishment of a second Defense department in the Ministry," Millie said off-handedly.
"Did you know that they're adding Hit Witches and Wizards in besides Aurors? Aurors are just going to work on Dark Wizards and the others are going to take care of criminals. Neat, huh?"
"Absolutely bloody brilliant."
"Don't be so enthralled." Lily grinned shook her head, "So how about you help me with that trunk of mine."
Lily and James left the compartment together, and Millie scowled at Amos.
*~*~*
"Did you, uh, have trouble…cramming?" Lily asked, her mouth twitching as she looked at James's bulging trunk on his trolley, a covered cage setting on top of it on a slope.
"It was unbelievable, I couldn't decide what to pack. I hope it's not too cold where you live, because I only brought shorts."
"Why?"
"Isn't it hotter in the Muggle parts of the country?"
"No."
"Oh. Crap."
"You don't know much about Muggles, do you?"