Fall In Love Again

Chapter One: In Which James Loves

James inspired me; there really never was any sort of doubt about that. He was beautiful, witty, and magical in a sort of swirl of built up emotions that all wound up until they rudely burst out at anyone who got in his way. Even I saw that, and I wasn't supposed to.

He was my best friend growing up, the only one I could really talk to. I don't tell people that usually. It's not my way. But now that he's gone, things have to be different. I have to tell the truth to someone or I'll lose my soul. James wouldn't have wanted that.

He had set a path for himself a long time ago, when he was about seventeen, and he wouldn't have let anything get in his way. Not even me. Not even Lily.

And whatever good attributes Lily Evans did have, she always seemed to find herself right in front of James. He might have liked that well enough, seeing as she was so unusual in the way she never seemed to quite see him, but on the rare occasion that she did see the way he'd look at her, she would give him her most scathing look she could muster and walk as far away from him as she could get in the opposite direction from one James Potter.

I suppose she walked away from me too, but I never really liked girls who wouldn't look me in the eye. It was James, my bigheaded best friend in the entire magical world, who always seemed hurt by it. It deflated him, drained him too, until all he was was a teenage wizard completely smashing himself in love with a slightly strange redheaded teenage girl. Of course, he'd never tell me this and I never expected him to; whom he'd kissed between charms and herbology yesterday in the fifth floor broom closet was my territorial right to know, but love was a completely different matter. It was our silent agreement as friends that he had it bad.

But Lily still didn't notice. Perfect Prefect as she was, and Head Girl later on, she really wasn't as clever as I might have guessed. Between all my half smirks whenever her hand touched his (on the very rare, but somehow, more rapidly occurring occasion) and his stares at the way her hair seemed to weave into the wind as she walked, she should have known she had him wrapped around her every word. Even after the thirty-seventh time he asked her out, she still didn't understand. And by the hundredth time he asked her, she was so mad at him for reasons no one, except maybe her, understood that he looked at her and yelled it so loud that the entire school probably heard it.

"I LOVE YOU, LILY EVANS!"

And he really did. I just wish that was enough to inspire her too.

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I looked at James from my place on the velvet pouf. We were alone in the Room of Requirements, just seeking solitude from the rest of the castle. What we got looked more like a brothel than a haven. But we were sixteen then, and no matter what we wanted, we also wanted sex. I shook my head.

"You've fucked it up this time."

"Yeah?" he asked. His voice was quiet and flat, a little sad too, and I couldn't imagine him like that anywhere but there in the dark, dust, red room.

"Yeah, mate,"

I could hear him sigh, and I rubbed my face with my hand. I didn't want to be the grim reaper. Telling him that Lily would never love him was like telling him magic didn't exist, that we were sitting in the tree fort at Godric's Hollow and pretending we were in a castle doing great things. I couldn't tell James things like that.

"Do cheering charms make you forget things like this?"

I shook my head no.

"Not even for an hour?"

"Doubt it,"

He grinned at me. I mean, really smiled. It wasn't the normal, self-satisfied one, but it told me everything would be okay, even if it wasn't right then. I guess he just didn't know what he was facing.