Chapter Five: Unexpected Camaraderie
*Don't expect life; don't expect death; expect nothing, for you shall never then be disappointed.*
Lily didn't like life. It was slow and unruly and so dreadfully pointless. It didn't matter. Then again, nothing really does matter when you're lonely. That's the entire point of loneliness, to seek and destroy. The quickest death is inevitably insanity. You cannot control a wreckage of the brain, and loneliness is that wreckage. At the crux of every person, there is a hole, a blank spot of darkness so dreary that an ounce of it is lethal. At birth, that whole is centered in our hearts, and there it grows. That hole, that fatal emptiness, that chasm of abyss does not exist to the naked eye. Oh, no. It is invisible, and in that, it goes unnoticed as long as it possibly can. But love and hate and voided emotions are incredibly powerful, and with the annihilation of innocence, comes the dawn of emptiness. And with that emptiness will come desolation.
Lily stretched her hands out, palms pushing away an unseen evil, perhaps even her very own thoughts. She didn't want her thoughts, she didn't want her spirit, she didn't want her life. All she wanted was a long, dark sleep, with no disturbances and no people.
People sucked.
*Humans are vitreous beings,* she thought bitterly to herself, *so senselessly easy to understand.*
To Lily, minds could be reads, like and open page of a book basic charms. Actions were easy to understand; it was rudimentary psychology. The motives of fragmentary actions, actions still left unfinished, however, were quite a bit more complex.
Her thoughts were then led to the motives of James Potter. Why in the name of all that's magical would that boy talk to her? They were enemies for Merlin's sake. What could possibly drive him at befriending her, Lily Evans. Her virginity, she thought instantly. He had been trying to get her to date him for years. And just for one shag. Had the boy no logic, she wondered. She supposed if he knew about the priest, he would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps he'd then leave her alone, but did she want him too? And what is sex had nothing to do with their new friendship-like thing.
Friendship-like thing? That might have been getting a little to friendly for her as long as it included Potter.
"Lily,"
Speak of the Devil.
"Potter," she whispered in a deathly tone. "You're in my room at four A.M." just because they were no longer enemies, *per se*, didn't mean she had to be completely nice. So she bared her teeth at him through the dark, even though she suspected that the affect was lost.
"Scared?"
"Perhaps. How the hell did you get in here?"
"My secret, you curser,"
"Then keep your secrets and keep away from my bed."
He grinned childishly, but its appearance evanesced in the shadows.
"As long as you keep away from your bed too." He told her.
She scoffed quietly.
"I mean, please stay away from your bed and come with me."
She scoffed again.
He growled lightly. "*You* are impossible to please. I even said please, Evans."
She imitated his growl in a girlish fashion.
"Just come with me." He paused. "I'll tell you my secret."
"Okay."
James Potter helped the girl to her feet. Her hair splayed out behind her in a rouge flag, and her eyes sparkled. Lily loved secrets for no other reason but that she never had someone to share them with. She trusted nobody, and it meant a great deal to her that he trusted her with his.
He took her hand and led her to the window.
"Whatever you do," he said softly into her ear. "don't let go of my hand. *Accio broom*"
Swiftly, his broom conjured in front of him.
"I don't like to fly." She stated.
"Sure you do.
"No," She told him deeply. "No, I don't."
His frame condensed slightly in the dark, leading Lily to believe that he was shrugging his shoulders.
Lily stepped slowly in long, dragging steps away from the window. After all, height was bad. Height was *really* bad. While the darkness in her room certainly was dangerous to be walking backwards through, flying through that very same darkness was even less appealing. She'd much rather keep her feet firmly on the stone floor.
And then she crashed into the wall with a slight thump and a quiet "ow".
"Fun?" Potter asked sarcastically.
"Quite,"
She made her way through the door that was ever so slightly to her left. It was hardly a quick walk down to the Common Room on any normal day, and yet Hogwarts had its many attractions, and as Lily made her way down those frigid, twisting stairs that led the way down, Potter followed. Of course, he should have known just how bad an idea that was, but James Potter, being James Potter, didn't think through the choice as he made it. And that was dangerous. Halfway down the stairs, Lily felt a shift. Looking back up behind her, she glimpsed the stairs rapidly turning into a slide, one by one, as James made his way downward at a frightful pace. She clutched to the railing, scowling at he grinning boy, and hoping against hope that she wouldn't have to go down that slide too. Landing in an unflattering position above James Potter was not her idea of good fun. Hell below, being above James Potter at any time wasn't fun- unless it was class-standing.
Then his body just thunked over her stair, plopping onto his stomach with surprise written all over his face. And Lily laughed her first laugh in a awfully long time.
She had somehow forgotten how good it felt to laugh, to even smile. It was unlike any wonder in the world. It was magic. For a second, it was pure joy, joy that she very rarely felt.
And then it disappeared. Just like that.
Her heart fell lower than it had been before.
She descended down to his level at a cursory pace. The stairs were steep, though, and slightly scary, causing her to pray to whatever deity it was that protected teenage girls from falling down blasted stairs. And then she was a step above him, and she stepped onto, and over, the boy, heel, toe, heel, toe.
He withered slightly beneath her weight. After all, she was small; not without mass.
She crossed the Common Room quickly and plummeted into the large fauteuil with a cushion that swallowed her into it. James, groaning vaguely, joined her thereafter.
"So we're down here, are we?" he asked.
Lily pointed up. "Well, were most certainly not up there." She grunted and added in an undertone, "Thank you, divine spirit of the stairs,"
She guessed he heard based on the condescending look that fell onto his features.
"Are you all right in the head." He asked.
"Certainly."
"Then I have something for you."
Lily scowled. She hated presents. She got a bike for her birthday from her mother once. That was ten years ago. After she fell, she decided against gifts for life.
"I won't except it." She told him.
"Yes, you will. And you'll do it with euphoria."
Lily wondered weakly just why she doubted him, but if she could *not* have to distrust him, that would be just fine. However, the only way to stop herself from doing so him was to make him go away. To hell with the damned rules that were, she paused in slight confusion, in hell already. Or to heaven were the rules. No, she decided, restored to life. The rules had been reborn. Now she could hate him again, and happily so.
"I don't know why in hell you're so confidant. You have no reason to be; it wasn't more than three weeks ago that I called you a toe-rag, now was it? I'd just be happy if you left me alone to sleep."
"Yeah, the thing normal people do at night,"
"Yes, you remembered. It *is* something normal people do at four a.m."
"But I'm not normal."
She sighed. "Sadly, no, you're not."
"And if I were you'd just *love* to date me?" he asked cheekily.
Her eyes narrowed. "No, not me, thank you very much," she mocked.
"Blow me?"
"You're vile," she told him.
"Thank you."
The fire crackled behind her and she wondered how it would look if she could catch it, freeze frame. Maybe it would be like a miniature hell. In a hell-on-Earth, hell could freeze over. She decided immediately that the only way that she would ever date James Potter was if hell froze over. However, she resolved, she didn't have to be a total bitch.
"Sorry," she told him with her usual small, girlish voice. "But that was hardly a complement."
He shrugged.
"I still have a gift for you."
"Don't bother,"
"You'll like it. It's damn nice, if I say so myself."
"Feeling narcissistic?"
Potter paused in perplexity instigating a smirk to graze Lily's lips.
"I don't prefer being with stupid people."
"I'm not stupid," he said, "In fact, I'm excessively smart."
She nodded and shrugged.
It wasn't crazy to believe that James Potter was intelligent. He wasn't exactly a clever person. Of course, he *was* friends with Sirius Black; best friends. You couldn't just get rid of that kind of presence with a snap of one's fingers. It just wasn't that easy, though. She just wished she was sure that she was wittier than James Potter.
Then she gave in. "Narcissism is vanity," she told him. "A quality you possess, and a quality that it appears that I like because I'm going to except your present."
He shrugged. "As you wish."
Slowly, he brought out a blue-jean journal from beneath his slick, black cloak.
"I just want you to be happy." He whispered.
"James, why do I need to be happy?"
"Because you need to live."
Lily smiled wryly, her pink wrinkling as she clutched at her arms. God, this was crazy.
"Why live when you can die?" she asked him gently.
James shrugged. "Why die when you can live?"
She smiled at him, amazed at his outlook on life. He was not just another boy. He was high and mighty. He was James Potter.
"Thanks for the journal." She told him in a whisper as she rose. "I mean it, Potter."
She nodded at him, despite the fact that she puzzled at whether she was lying to him, and smiled her goofy smile that she gave when she was genuinely happy. However, she wasn't sure whether she was acting. As quick as one who is occupied with thoughts can do, and soon she fell safe into her dormitory bed for a silent sleep.
"I hope you mean that, Evans. Go to sleep." He said with the most insignificant wave of his wand.
And so Lily plunged into her haunting dreams of apathy and death that just won't come, the dreams that just kept getting worse, because Lily Evans was on the path of destruction.
Dreams James knew nothing of.
A/N: Once again, I do realize that this is confusing. Basically, the whole first part of the story is setting up for the second half in which Lily must stop the "game of gods" as I called it. The priest is just background stuff that will just vanish. He'll probably come back and bite Lily in the ass much later in the story. He's a great character, though, later on. Or at least I developed him to be. I used to write a story about Alexandre the Drunken French Priest- just for my own amusement. Now I suppose he's taking form (and my, oh my, what great form it is. J/K) But seriously, this is an L/J story. I am a romantic, and I'll probably just ignore this later, but this is supposed to be Lily's freaky-deaky weird-ass story. Just trust me, it will kind of make sense over time. Sorry, I'm just not good at understanding that some people (er, that would be *most people*) just don't get me.
This is gonna be an angsty little fanfic, so please beware.
Oh, and if you do like this story, please review my other one. It's an L/J too, except, well, it seems weird right now. I'm having a bit of trouble writing it.
Please, please review. I'm praying to all deities for reviews.
Thank you's go out to everyone who reviewed this story- lots and lots of tanks
Later days,
Hunter
*Don't expect life; don't expect death; expect nothing, for you shall never then be disappointed.*
Lily didn't like life. It was slow and unruly and so dreadfully pointless. It didn't matter. Then again, nothing really does matter when you're lonely. That's the entire point of loneliness, to seek and destroy. The quickest death is inevitably insanity. You cannot control a wreckage of the brain, and loneliness is that wreckage. At the crux of every person, there is a hole, a blank spot of darkness so dreary that an ounce of it is lethal. At birth, that whole is centered in our hearts, and there it grows. That hole, that fatal emptiness, that chasm of abyss does not exist to the naked eye. Oh, no. It is invisible, and in that, it goes unnoticed as long as it possibly can. But love and hate and voided emotions are incredibly powerful, and with the annihilation of innocence, comes the dawn of emptiness. And with that emptiness will come desolation.
Lily stretched her hands out, palms pushing away an unseen evil, perhaps even her very own thoughts. She didn't want her thoughts, she didn't want her spirit, she didn't want her life. All she wanted was a long, dark sleep, with no disturbances and no people.
People sucked.
*Humans are vitreous beings,* she thought bitterly to herself, *so senselessly easy to understand.*
To Lily, minds could be reads, like and open page of a book basic charms. Actions were easy to understand; it was rudimentary psychology. The motives of fragmentary actions, actions still left unfinished, however, were quite a bit more complex.
Her thoughts were then led to the motives of James Potter. Why in the name of all that's magical would that boy talk to her? They were enemies for Merlin's sake. What could possibly drive him at befriending her, Lily Evans. Her virginity, she thought instantly. He had been trying to get her to date him for years. And just for one shag. Had the boy no logic, she wondered. She supposed if he knew about the priest, he would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps he'd then leave her alone, but did she want him too? And what is sex had nothing to do with their new friendship-like thing.
Friendship-like thing? That might have been getting a little to friendly for her as long as it included Potter.
"Lily,"
Speak of the Devil.
"Potter," she whispered in a deathly tone. "You're in my room at four A.M." just because they were no longer enemies, *per se*, didn't mean she had to be completely nice. So she bared her teeth at him through the dark, even though she suspected that the affect was lost.
"Scared?"
"Perhaps. How the hell did you get in here?"
"My secret, you curser,"
"Then keep your secrets and keep away from my bed."
He grinned childishly, but its appearance evanesced in the shadows.
"As long as you keep away from your bed too." He told her.
She scoffed quietly.
"I mean, please stay away from your bed and come with me."
She scoffed again.
He growled lightly. "*You* are impossible to please. I even said please, Evans."
She imitated his growl in a girlish fashion.
"Just come with me." He paused. "I'll tell you my secret."
"Okay."
James Potter helped the girl to her feet. Her hair splayed out behind her in a rouge flag, and her eyes sparkled. Lily loved secrets for no other reason but that she never had someone to share them with. She trusted nobody, and it meant a great deal to her that he trusted her with his.
He took her hand and led her to the window.
"Whatever you do," he said softly into her ear. "don't let go of my hand. *Accio broom*"
Swiftly, his broom conjured in front of him.
"I don't like to fly." She stated.
"Sure you do.
"No," She told him deeply. "No, I don't."
His frame condensed slightly in the dark, leading Lily to believe that he was shrugging his shoulders.
Lily stepped slowly in long, dragging steps away from the window. After all, height was bad. Height was *really* bad. While the darkness in her room certainly was dangerous to be walking backwards through, flying through that very same darkness was even less appealing. She'd much rather keep her feet firmly on the stone floor.
And then she crashed into the wall with a slight thump and a quiet "ow".
"Fun?" Potter asked sarcastically.
"Quite,"
She made her way through the door that was ever so slightly to her left. It was hardly a quick walk down to the Common Room on any normal day, and yet Hogwarts had its many attractions, and as Lily made her way down those frigid, twisting stairs that led the way down, Potter followed. Of course, he should have known just how bad an idea that was, but James Potter, being James Potter, didn't think through the choice as he made it. And that was dangerous. Halfway down the stairs, Lily felt a shift. Looking back up behind her, she glimpsed the stairs rapidly turning into a slide, one by one, as James made his way downward at a frightful pace. She clutched to the railing, scowling at he grinning boy, and hoping against hope that she wouldn't have to go down that slide too. Landing in an unflattering position above James Potter was not her idea of good fun. Hell below, being above James Potter at any time wasn't fun- unless it was class-standing.
Then his body just thunked over her stair, plopping onto his stomach with surprise written all over his face. And Lily laughed her first laugh in a awfully long time.
She had somehow forgotten how good it felt to laugh, to even smile. It was unlike any wonder in the world. It was magic. For a second, it was pure joy, joy that she very rarely felt.
And then it disappeared. Just like that.
Her heart fell lower than it had been before.
She descended down to his level at a cursory pace. The stairs were steep, though, and slightly scary, causing her to pray to whatever deity it was that protected teenage girls from falling down blasted stairs. And then she was a step above him, and she stepped onto, and over, the boy, heel, toe, heel, toe.
He withered slightly beneath her weight. After all, she was small; not without mass.
She crossed the Common Room quickly and plummeted into the large fauteuil with a cushion that swallowed her into it. James, groaning vaguely, joined her thereafter.
"So we're down here, are we?" he asked.
Lily pointed up. "Well, were most certainly not up there." She grunted and added in an undertone, "Thank you, divine spirit of the stairs,"
She guessed he heard based on the condescending look that fell onto his features.
"Are you all right in the head." He asked.
"Certainly."
"Then I have something for you."
Lily scowled. She hated presents. She got a bike for her birthday from her mother once. That was ten years ago. After she fell, she decided against gifts for life.
"I won't except it." She told him.
"Yes, you will. And you'll do it with euphoria."
Lily wondered weakly just why she doubted him, but if she could *not* have to distrust him, that would be just fine. However, the only way to stop herself from doing so him was to make him go away. To hell with the damned rules that were, she paused in slight confusion, in hell already. Or to heaven were the rules. No, she decided, restored to life. The rules had been reborn. Now she could hate him again, and happily so.
"I don't know why in hell you're so confidant. You have no reason to be; it wasn't more than three weeks ago that I called you a toe-rag, now was it? I'd just be happy if you left me alone to sleep."
"Yeah, the thing normal people do at night,"
"Yes, you remembered. It *is* something normal people do at four a.m."
"But I'm not normal."
She sighed. "Sadly, no, you're not."
"And if I were you'd just *love* to date me?" he asked cheekily.
Her eyes narrowed. "No, not me, thank you very much," she mocked.
"Blow me?"
"You're vile," she told him.
"Thank you."
The fire crackled behind her and she wondered how it would look if she could catch it, freeze frame. Maybe it would be like a miniature hell. In a hell-on-Earth, hell could freeze over. She decided immediately that the only way that she would ever date James Potter was if hell froze over. However, she resolved, she didn't have to be a total bitch.
"Sorry," she told him with her usual small, girlish voice. "But that was hardly a complement."
He shrugged.
"I still have a gift for you."
"Don't bother,"
"You'll like it. It's damn nice, if I say so myself."
"Feeling narcissistic?"
Potter paused in perplexity instigating a smirk to graze Lily's lips.
"I don't prefer being with stupid people."
"I'm not stupid," he said, "In fact, I'm excessively smart."
She nodded and shrugged.
It wasn't crazy to believe that James Potter was intelligent. He wasn't exactly a clever person. Of course, he *was* friends with Sirius Black; best friends. You couldn't just get rid of that kind of presence with a snap of one's fingers. It just wasn't that easy, though. She just wished she was sure that she was wittier than James Potter.
Then she gave in. "Narcissism is vanity," she told him. "A quality you possess, and a quality that it appears that I like because I'm going to except your present."
He shrugged. "As you wish."
Slowly, he brought out a blue-jean journal from beneath his slick, black cloak.
"I just want you to be happy." He whispered.
"James, why do I need to be happy?"
"Because you need to live."
Lily smiled wryly, her pink wrinkling as she clutched at her arms. God, this was crazy.
"Why live when you can die?" she asked him gently.
James shrugged. "Why die when you can live?"
She smiled at him, amazed at his outlook on life. He was not just another boy. He was high and mighty. He was James Potter.
"Thanks for the journal." She told him in a whisper as she rose. "I mean it, Potter."
She nodded at him, despite the fact that she puzzled at whether she was lying to him, and smiled her goofy smile that she gave when she was genuinely happy. However, she wasn't sure whether she was acting. As quick as one who is occupied with thoughts can do, and soon she fell safe into her dormitory bed for a silent sleep.
"I hope you mean that, Evans. Go to sleep." He said with the most insignificant wave of his wand.
And so Lily plunged into her haunting dreams of apathy and death that just won't come, the dreams that just kept getting worse, because Lily Evans was on the path of destruction.
Dreams James knew nothing of.
A/N: Once again, I do realize that this is confusing. Basically, the whole first part of the story is setting up for the second half in which Lily must stop the "game of gods" as I called it. The priest is just background stuff that will just vanish. He'll probably come back and bite Lily in the ass much later in the story. He's a great character, though, later on. Or at least I developed him to be. I used to write a story about Alexandre the Drunken French Priest- just for my own amusement. Now I suppose he's taking form (and my, oh my, what great form it is. J/K) But seriously, this is an L/J story. I am a romantic, and I'll probably just ignore this later, but this is supposed to be Lily's freaky-deaky weird-ass story. Just trust me, it will kind of make sense over time. Sorry, I'm just not good at understanding that some people (er, that would be *most people*) just don't get me.
This is gonna be an angsty little fanfic, so please beware.
Oh, and if you do like this story, please review my other one. It's an L/J too, except, well, it seems weird right now. I'm having a bit of trouble writing it.
Please, please review. I'm praying to all deities for reviews.
Thank you's go out to everyone who reviewed this story- lots and lots of tanks
Later days,
Hunter