Author's Note: Please please please forgive the lack of update! I was out at my friend's house (as school is starting for all my CEGEP-bound friends) and I spent the last day and a half with one of them, spending half of today with another, but I wanted to update just to let you all know that I'm still very much alive. I know this chapter's short, but trust me, next chapter will make it all worthwhile. Thank you again to every person that reads this, it means so much to me, and to those that review, next chapter I will write to each of you. For now though, I must get going!
Disclaimer: I do notown Harry Potter, his mother or his father, or anything else related to his universe.
Chapter 10 - Inner Maelstrom
When Lily came home (for James now referred it as hers as well) she immediately marched up to her room and closed the door. When she didn't come out for dinner or breakfast the next day, James no longer doubted that something beyond horrible had happened between the sisters and Lily was too proud to ask for his help. So he decided to go up after breakfast and asked to be let in. "No," came a stern response and James, feeling rather dejected himself at this, turned and dragged his feet over to his resting mother in her study.
He confessed his suspicions that Lily was hurt by her sister and –
"James, dear, stay out of it, okay? Lily is not stupid. She knows you care very much for her and I am sure she will come to you eventually to help sort it all out. But for your own good, son, give her space."
Trusting his mother's feminine instincts (that he both envied and despised), and blushing slightly at the mention that Lily knew he cares very much about her, James ducked out of the room, got out his broom and cloak, and rode out over the forest. He badly needed to sort it all out himself.
His thoughts automatically sprang to petunia and nothing but hostility filled up in the pit of his stomach. Although she hadn't physically taken Lily from his mother and him, she had taken away her good humour, and that was as harsh a crime as any. He wanted to jump into the fireplace and pop out in Petunia's and scream at her until he was too exhausted to speak. He probably would have done it too had the Floo Network not been disconnected from the Evans'. He couldn't understand why she'd be so…so…such…a…such a horrible Muggle! A stupid, boring, mean and grouchy Muggle! What right did she have to treat Lily that way? Who gave her the okay to hate James – who had done nothing wrong to her – without having ever met him? Who told her it was alright to take out all her grief and anger on Lily?
James avoided tree branch after tree branch as he descended through the canopy towards his spot, his ground chair. As he sat down, a strong gust of wind blew his cloak open and James decided to tuck himself inside it like a blanket.
His thoughts drifted back to Petunia. She annoyed him just by being in his mind. Then something he had thought about previously came back to him. 'Who told her it was alright to take out all her grief and anger on Lily?' Grief. Anger. Had they not also been her parents? Had Lily stayed home after both parents had died to keep her sister company? No. Lily had returned to Hogwarts, had returned to a world where she belonged. This world, his world, where most had a sense of belonging, acceptance, of being part of the best kept secret in history. A secret Petunia was definitely not part of, her only association being that her sister ran towards it rather than her for comfort.
Now, it could be that James was only making these connections up in his mind to find a way to explain such unheard of behaviour. He really believed – wanted to believe in any case – that Petunia Evans was not just simply mean, that she had, not long ago, been fairly nice to Lily and her friends, and that only recent turn of events had affected her in a way that made her act this way. No one was naturally that horrible, were they?
Lily. Lily Evans. The red haired girl with the bright green eyes who always occupied his mind. He sighed. It was his obsession, a compulsion really, to think of Lily. They had walked in comfortable silence together not too many nights ago. Did it mean something? And what about the fact that she had locked her arms in his? Had that meant anything? "She knows you care very much for her," came his mother's words. "Too much," perhaps, he half spoke, half thought.
The feeling he had deciphered at the Evans residence came back in full force. And it angered him. It wasn't like him to be possessive. He shared everything with everyone! He hated keeping all his candies, gifts, and even shirts only for him. James had grown up with everything in abundance and thus he had always loved to share and give away anything that belonged to him.
Ah, but Lily doesn't belong to me. And that was in addition to the fact that Lily was , in fact, a person, not three hundred Christmas edition chocolate frogs or a thir black pair of trainers. Lily was a person with a mind and heart, not an objected enchanted to act as such. She wasn't bought or rented or stolen. And he knew this. He knew she wasn't his object. But it was difficult, so very difficult, to get that possessive feeling away from him. It wasn't too strong, but it made him feel stuck, sort of unable to move his neck or arms or legs…it made him feel sick and evil, almost like it was a hidden monster that, if released, would most likely be the death of harmony within himself (well, whatever little harmony lay within, for at this point, James was a very confused person). He sighed again. Lily was – is – his friend, like Remus, Sirius, and Peter. And if he doesn't mind them staying elsewhere, then why should it bother him if Lily went away to live with her only remaining family? He knew he was in denial – he had, after all, admitted to himself that he "cared" for Lily as more than a friend the very night his father had died. But did liking someone always feel this way? Jealous, always afraid that that person will deem you unworthy of their attention and leave you out in the cold?
Watching a spider work its web around a few nearby leaves, James pushed his mind away from Lily. There was something about that witch that he knew his young adolescent self could not figure out alone. So, instead, he thought of the only blood family he had left: his mother.
Again, James' emotions turned and twisted into a goop of random unidentifiable feelings until her face was clearly showing up behind his closed eyelids. Sympathy, empathy, restpect, love, sadness with the familiar dash of anger, though the anger he knew was clearly directed at himself. Why couldn't he say goodbye to her? Why couldn't he bring himself to tell her that he was alright and that all would be fine once she left and joined his father? She didn't deserve to be kept here, drowning in agony whilst he went off to school, playing around with spells and potions.
Come to think of it, it was unfair that any of them – any student, teacher or other person – were able to be kept in the safety of Hogwarts' walls meanwhile others were being killed, tormented to insanity, robbed of their identity; while people – Muggles and wizards alike – were deceived daily, while others were being blackmailed into becoming a dark, evil, feared witch or wizard.
James fumed at the injustice of it all. Some people were out there being hit every day with lethal spells, meanwhile others, others like him, were being kept safe in their mansions, in their offices, or on vacation. He felt disgusted with himself that he hadn't thought of it earlier, tat he had been so selfish as to worry about some school crush while there were people far better than he being killed for no particular reason. People were suffering, like his mother, whilst he moped about a girl, or the fact that someone used his broom without asking, or that Sirius would be buying his own place… Surely there was something he could do…he was quick with his wand and sharp on his toes, he was convinced that he could make a difference in someone's life.
If only he weren't so preoccupied with his own wasteful existence.
His stomach growled. It must have turned into dusk while he was busy inwardly screaming at himself. Mounting his broom, wrapping the invisibility cloak about him, James headed straight for the canopy and towards the flickering lights that indicated the presence of his home.
Dinner was quietly eaten. Lily still hadn't come out, and James was too cowardly (so he called himself) to talk to his mother about his inner findings. The corn was eaten quickly, tea slurped down even faster, and James jumped into the kitchen as soon as his mother had left with a smile.
Fine, he thought to himself as he busily searched the cupboards for something, Lily can mope but she has to eat! Food was very important to James and thus should also be very important to everyone else in the world.
So he finally found food he deemed good enough to feed to a depressed young woman. He arranged a tray full of chicken noodle soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, some tea cookies, a pot of tea, chocolate cookies, and yogurt with a bowl full of strawberries and blueberries. She hadn't eaten anything since lunch yesterday and he figured he needed to incorporate at least two meals into his tray.
Then he went downstairs into his fathers dusty study and took out the largest encyclopaedia of transfiguration spells he could get his hands on. There, on page six thousand eight hundred and thirty one, he found his answer.
Committing the complex hand movements (displayed in motion in a diagram on the far right) and the words to complete the procedure in less than one minute, James leapt back up the twenty one off white carpeted steps and immediately grabbed the tray from the kitchen. He took the secret (not so secret) passageway up to the upstairs corridor carefully so as not to spill anything, and stopped in from of Lily's door.
With a complex flick of the wrist, six taps, a swish, another tap and an unvoiced Latin-based incantation, the items on the tray turned into molasses (which was actually supposed to turn to water except James had mispronounced the long a in the word by a short one!). James then pushed the tray under the two inch crack beneath the thick wooden door and, as soon as it was through, muttered the reverse spell. He couldn't see much, even lying on the ground, so he could only hope that McGonagall was right about him being somewhat of a natural in her subject.
Mission: Give Lily Food; Accomplished.
And so it went for another day and a half. James spent one day corresponding with Peter (he was about to go in to retry his apparition test) and talking with his mother. She claimed Lily had used the bathroom twice during the night which not only meant that she was eating, but also that she would soon be joining them in the lounge or lounging outside. James trusted his mother's female instincts again (bizarre women talents that he lacked the luxury of possessing for obvious reasons) and left trays every meal time, tea time, and his own appointed snack times, inside her room.