Llef ylil yhw -By Yo-yo

Disclaimer: C chappie #1.

Chapter 14- Truce:

"Rosy, two butterbeers please?" James waved his arms amidst the throng of Hogwarts students taking a breather from their holiday shopping.

"Be right over," Rosemerta called nodding to both James and Lily.

Random topics flitted through her brain as she removed her coat and fit it over the back of her chair.

"You look good," James nodded as she sat down, noting her green sweater, fitted jeans and ruffled hair.

"Thanks."

"I like your hair the way it is," he said, letting his eyes flow down the downpour of red and vermillion hair, "but I like it better curly."

Her eyes flickered at his words, and suddenly, anger reddened her pale cheeks.

"You have no right!" she whispered, her eyes alight with green flames, flickering and singeing the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Lil-," James began, but was interrupted by Rosy as she set the butterbeers on the table.

"Hey guys, glad to see you two finally got together," she grinned, shaking her long, dark brown hair away from her face, catching the light almost flawlessly.

"That's funny," Lily smiled darkly, "and we're not together."

"Still fighting, huh?" she laughed, pulling the tray behind her back, her brown eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Always fighting," James groaned, pushing off his own coat and pushing back his hair.

"Perpetually fighting," Lily reciprocated his groan, slouching in her seat.

"You guys should really take care of that," she reached out and pulled a curl away from Lily's eye. "So, how is the rest of the gang?"

"Fine," Lily replied.

"The hell if she knows," James retorted.

"How's Delia, still obsessed with Quidditch?"

They both raised a brow to her, signifying a stupid question.

"Remus?"

"Great," Lily whispered, "and hopelessly in love."

"And Sirius?"

"Same."

"Pete?"

"He's got a new baby sister. Her name is April." James stated.

"Sunny?"

"Her younger sister, Skye, is dating Romeo here." Lily smirked callously.

"What, jealous?" he turned his eyes towards her, hazel flames licking her insides.

"Of what, having to gouge my eyes out every time I see your face, or is it brushing my teeth every time I have to kiss you?"

"You weren't saying that that night after the-" he began but cut himself off.

"I said forget it, didn't I?" she snapped, "And believe me, Crest's stock did go up after that night. You don't know how many times I had to brush my teeth to get the taste of you from my mouth or how close I was to puking out my entire existence."

"Hey, hey you two," Rosy intervened, holding her tray between them, obstructing their vision of the one another. "Get over it. So you two hate each other . . . you're totally bringing down the vibe in the rest of the bar."

When Rosemerta removed the tray, Lily's eyes were maneuvered towards the door, ignoring him and the conversations going on around her. Her eyes had turned glassy, the light reflecting off the watery irises, illuminating them sadly. She sucked in her cheeks, revealing her cheekbones and pursed lips, while her fingers wove themselves together, clamping together.

"I'll leave you two to talk." Rosy nodded, heading towards another patron.

For ten whole minutes, they sat in silence. Lily's eyes were concentrated towards the door where snowflakes danced past the frosted windows, lying upon millions of preceding snowflakes. James's eyes had fell onto his hands, tracing the scar he'd gotten from the last Quidditch practice with his eyes.

It was the first practice he'd allowed Skye to attend, and he spent the entire time trying to not make a fool of himself, and in the end, he narrowly missed a Bludger and whacked his hand against the goal post, thoroughly succeeding in hurting his hand. For the rest of the night, she sat next to him in his dormitory, cradling his injured hand and whispering little stories to him in the dark.

He was torn.

From the first time he'd seen Lily, he'd known that she was somehow to be interwoven into his life. It'd taken him until fourth year to realize how and why. And it had taken her until . . . not yet to realize how much she actually meant to him. And now, after he'd woven through most of the girls at Hogwarts, hoping to prove himself wrong- to prove that Lily didn't mean as much to him as he'd perceived- now, he'd actually succeeded in proving himself wrong . . . maybe.

Skye was perfect. She was innocent and sweet. She liked to laugh, and dance and sing and do everything . . . even if she was bad at it, which she usually was. She liked to paint late at night, when everyone else was asleep. She liked to listen to old music, sometimes dancing with herself when she thought no one was around. She didn't mind getting dirty doing the things that amused her . . . but sometimes he found her a little young . . . not in age, but in . . . experience. She was naïve.

And Lily was vibrant. She wasn't Skye, but that wasn't bad. Lily liked to watch the sunset on the highest Astronomy tower. She liked to swim in the lake with the mer-people and Giant Squid. She liked to dance to her Muggle records, singing along with the Beatles, Van Morrison, the Monkeys or The Rolling Stones. She lived her life in disarray but thrived on order. She enveloped herself around everything that she loved and never let anyone down. She was . . . Lily.

"Look, Lily, we didn't come here to yell."

"We don't have to come here for a specific reason, we're going to always end up fighting."

"Well then, why don't we break the cycle? Stop fighting before it gets too heated for once?"

"And how do you suppose we do that?" she turned to look at him, her emerald eyes darkening to an almost black.

"I don't know," he threw up his arms, "hold a civil conversation . . . a neutral conversation. One that doesn't bring up old battle wounds, ones that don't cause us to jump down one another's throats. Just something other than what we've been arguing over. Frankly, I'm tired of the fighting . . . we need to resolve this, if not for each other, for our friends."

She nodded.

"When did you start getting so smart?"

"I've always been smart; it's just taken until now for you to realize it."

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes. "Great comeback."

"Ok," he sighed, "I guess I'll start. How's the family?"

"Fine."

"So, are you going home for the holidays?"

"Yeah," she looked over at him. "In fact . . . in fact . . ." she looked away.

It was on the tip of her taste buds to tell him about the invitation, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to tell him. Maybe she was jealous of Skye? Maybe that was the reason she was being such a bitch? Maybe she really did want him?

She shook her head at her last thought, finally thinking herself preposterous. She reached out for her butterbeer and took a long gulp before saying,

"Are you going away for the holidays- to your parents I mean?"

"I'm staying here, is everything okay at home?" he asked leaning forward, his voice almost a whisper.

She barely heard him when she nodded her head and waved his concern away.

"No, nothing . . . everything's fine at home," she babbled, "Well, except for Petunia. But there's always a problem with Tuny . . . she isn't going to be at Christmas supper. She's going to spend it with her friends . . . it'll be the first time . . ."

"How do you feel about that?" he asked, noticing the way her fingers played with the handle of the mug.

She shrugged, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. She tried to hide the frown threatening to turn down her features, but couldn't stop the wave of emotion from spilling out in the open.

In moments, James was beside her, an arm wrapped around her shoulders.

"Hey, its ok-"

"No it isn't James, nothings okay anymore. Nothing makes any sense. My sister hates that I'm a witch but . . . I didn't think she'd ever do that. And then this entire situation with Sunny, Fly and you guys . . . Everything used to be so easy, our friendship used to make so much sense. And then all this happened and I don't know what I'm thinking anymore. I don't even know why I got so upset at the thought of you and Skye. I'm sorry that I've made things so difficult . . . I didn't mean to sabotage your relationship with her. I like Skye, I didn't mean to . . . God, why am I such a ditz?

"And then . . . and now I'm crying on your shoulder making you act as though I wasn't a total asshole to you and that I didn't do mean things for no good reason. Why do you do this?"

"Do what?" he asked brushing away a tear from her face.

"Why are you so nice to me when I'm so mean to you? It can't be because you like me because I don't really like myself right now, so you should especially not like me."

"Because you're a good person beneath all your confusion."

"God, I think that's one of the things that infuriate me the most about you?"

"What, that I give you compliments?"

"No . . . yes. That I can treat you so bad and be so malicious, and yet you still stay by my side. And it's not okay, James. It's never okay for you to do that to me. Why don't you just slap me when I'm being a bitch . . . or tell me off? Why in the hell do you take it? And then you try to make me feel better, and I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't but you do anyway . . . and it makes me hate you more- well, not hate- but makes me hate the situation I put you in and hate the way you react to it. Do you sympathize for me, is that why you're so nice?"

"No, it's because . . . because . . ." he turned his eyes from hers, thinking back to all the arguments they'd ever had and all the looks she'd ever given him.

"Because I do the same thing to you. We both play evil off of one another. You're a bitch to me; I'm a bastard to you. You press my buttons, I press yours back. You make me jealous; I try to make you jealous. It's always been this way . . . and I don't like the fact that I make you cry. When I hold you and stuff, I think it's an admission that I know I caused those tears, and I hate myself for what I've done, but I hate you for making me do it. I . . . we bring out the worst in one another . . . and the best too."

"That's a pretty rocky road to try and build a friendship off of," she sniffled, looking away as she wiped her eyes.

"But we can try, anything's possible." He smiled when she faced him again.

"Yeah, I mean, we're smiling and talking civilly to one another right now . . . who woulda' thunk it?"

"So, are we calling a truce?"

She nodded amicably, "Truce."

She reached out and took his hand, pumping it for an extra measure and both nodded a silent agreement.

Placing a kiss to her forehead, James took a seat at the stool in front of her again.

"So, uh, are you going to spend the holidays with your parents?"

"You ask that before, and no." he smiled sadly.

It was then that she grew shocked. Ever since she'd known James he'd spent the holidays with his parents. He and Sirius would chatter about it for days until they finally got on the scarlet train and set on their journey home. When they got back they'd talk about it for days, inside jokes would be between those two, and the rest of the group could just imagine what each quip meant.

"Why?" she gasped, her eyes growing wide.

"It just didn't fit, my parents didn't want us going out for the holidays, they thought it'd be best if we stayed here."

"But you guys have been looking forward to the holidays with your parents all year. I usually look forward to hearing about it afterward. You guys love it."

"Yeah, well, we can't." he sighed, looking away.

"Why not," she whispered, noticing the way his face closed up, freezing his expression.

"Because . . ."

"If we're going to be friends, we should be honest with one another." She tried.

"You can't do that . . ." he sighed, pushing his hair away from his forehead.

"Do what?" she asked innocently.

"You can't try that on me. I'm not supposed to tell you, so just let it be."

"C'mon, are we all dying tomorrow or something?"

His hazel eyes grew wide, and his eyes opened a fraction.

She reacted to his reaction and stared into his eyes, "We're going to die?" she breathed.

"No," he looked away.

"But-" she began.

"Look, I'll tell you, but you have to promise to not tell anyone, even Sunny, Fly or Skye. No one can know, and you'll seriously be in deep shit if anyone else finds out, and not just from me . . . a lot of people higher than me."

She nodded and leaned forward to his words.

"It all started . . ."

TBC . . .

A/N: I hope you guys like this chapter, e-mail or review when you can (I'm hoping sooner than later) and tell me what you think about how it turned. I know I left you dangling on a Sequoia and all, but yeah, I didn't know how to keep going, but I'll figure it out. Linda, update your reviews, along with everyone else, I do know that you guys exist, and I'm thankful because you guys tell me how horrible or how good a writer you think I am, and help me to be better.

This chapter is dedicated to the entire Hammen Family, I hope you're all in a better place. We all love and miss you.

w/ luv, Yo-yo