Chapter 8: Lost Wishes
"Every life knows when they are about to die; it is an instinct that can be clearly felt in one's stomach. However, a broken heart is much harder to foresee."
It was not until Friday, Good Friday, that Lily woke to the excruciating sound of teeth grinding against each other, one side to the other, one side to the other. James Potter sat on her feet, marking them as his own with his weight. Her scarlet sheets had been thrown off her, one after one, leaving her bare and almost nude for the whole world to see.
Rubbing her eyes in fatigue, she glanced at the clock. A distinct scowl overtook her soft features as she sat. "Potter," she said, dangerously sure of just who's mass was squashing her dainty ankles. "I do realize you have a flare for the dramatic, but it's four bloody a.m.!"
He rolled his shoulders over into a slouch and then straightened back up. "Yeah, you should be sleeping, shouldn't you?" No air of shame resonated in his voice, and yet Lily sensed an odd sadness lying hidden between the lines.
"Yes," she growled.
"It's a damn shame. You look so pretty in your sleep."
Lily, herself, now ground her own teeth. She was not one for early wake-up calls, and while she would admit that she did indeed find James Potter to be rather dashing, she was not particularly fond of his tactics as an alarm clock. Quiditch, he could do. Girls, apparently not. Now that was a damn shame.
"You know, Lily, I did not invite you for Easter for you to stay in your dorm all weekend. The train laves in an hour."
Lily fell back down to her soft, feather pillow, but his words had struck a chord that was now echoing in the back of her mind.
James is going to kiss you on Easter night.
She was now very much awake.
"The train?" she asked, vaguely aware of how sly James' deception was. And just how probing her question truly was. James Potter had it all planned out, right from the moment he told Sirius Black his plan, and Lily wasn't dumb enough not to know it. He knew that she knew. It was all too obvious.
"Yeah, it's that thing that takes us to King's Cross. It's bright red. You know that thing?" He nodded to give his words emphasis and then grinned. "Lilia, I invited you to meet my parents. Are you coming or not?" His words were not harsh, but they hit her coldly just the same.
"I'm," she paused. "meeting your parents?"
He sighed, sliding off her, gaining more weight as he came to accept her attitude. "Don't worry, Lily. They'll like you. Why wouldn't they?"
"Huh?"
He gave her leg a reassuring pat. "C'mon. We leave at five."
And with that he left, leaving Lily to continue her thoughts on conspiracy.
The crimson train sat at Platform 9 and ¾. It was a warm day, it's breezy wind circling Lily into a magic trance. The sun shone brightly, though half hidden by clouds, and yet Lily felt a sense of foreboding she had not felt for quite awhile.
Thinking back, her mind came to rest on her denim notebook that sat silently in her trunk, waiting to be set free. Her earlier words of the day had not been that of bitterness, but that of joy.
James is going to kiss me. And I'm going to kiss him back.
A light tap could be felt on the girl's shoulder, catching her off guard.
"Lily Evans?" a girl asked. Her sweet, melodious voice rang through the air. She was hardly more that a little girl, maybe eight, nine years old. She had raven hair of silk and big brown-green eyes. "I'm Muri Potter."
"Muriel!" a boy's voice called, a voice sounding suspiciously like James. "Muriel!" James' voice yelled once more before he haphazardly ran toward the two girls, sweeping the young one into his arms. He grinned, and as he did so a youthful light shone through his entire aura. "Gods, I missed you."
Lily couldn't help but smile. It was rare to see James so happy. He looked so much more like the James she once knew, the James Potter she had not thought of for many a year.
The mystic memories of the past came rushing back to Lily full force, like waves pulling her down further and further until she found her resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic. Potter's face swan inside her brain, his lips closer and closer to hers, the years slowly melting until all he was, was a small, scared, eleven-year old boy, holding her hand and dreaming of adventures in far-off lands.
"Lily, love!" James' voice sounded, waking her from her dizzy reverie.
"No, Mum, don't make me go with him! He likes pink bunny slippers!" her own, frightened voice replied.
And then all that was to be heard was deep, heart-felt laughing. Lily could do nothing but stare but stare wide-eyed at the boy before her, still shaken from her drowning thoughts. The light now blinded her, and she felt leaden on her feet. There was nothing that sounded more satisfying than collapsing right then and there and never ever getting again of the platform.
James' laughter finally died, and with it so did a part of Lily.
"Muri, this lunatic is Lilia Evans." Grinning, he leaned forward and cupped the small girl's ear as if to tell a secret. Whispering loudly, he continued. "Don't be pretty by the pretty façade; she's really quite evil." He turned to look at Lily, grinning at her, and lowering his voice slightly. "She likes to suck Potter blood."
Muriel Potter turned a ghastly shade of pale white, and ran off in what Lily hoped she could only assume was the direction of her parents.
Lily turned to face James straight on, adjusting her dainty self to look more threatening, although really doing a rather goon impression like Professor McGonagall, Hogwarts' most austere teacher. Her small hands sat in fist on her hips, and a tight-lipped expression had fallen over her face. She had fixed him with her best glare that only intensified when James' lip quivered in response.
"So," James began, shockingly nervous. "She's something, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is."
A moments silence covered them, and yet Lily's gaze only intensified and her posture only became straighter.
"It's really too bad that she thinks I'm a vampire."
James gulped.
"Well," he said. "You know, after that time you bit my tongue, I'd really started to think you liked it, you know, my blood that it."
Lily grinned maliciously. "I did."
James met her stare more coldly, but a vague smile stole his lips.
"You really shouldn't kiss girls when they call you a toe-rag."
"Oh, but Lilia, it was in second year."
"Exactly," she told him, licking away the smile that was fighting to form. "It was such a long time ago."
"I had to shut you up somehow."
"Toe-rag,"
"Bitch,"
Lily suppressed a snicker and tore her vibrant eyes from the murky depths of James'. Shaking her head, she began to walk off in the direction Muriel had gone in. "Bite me," she called back over her shoulder.
Though she never saw it, Potter grinned broadly. "Now that can be arranged."
The Potter Manner was a white stone mansion built in 1682 for the heir of Merlin, the last of a great line of Ministers of Magic. Built to be more of a castle than a house, it was a labyrinth of secrets and royal accommodations. To the naked eye, however, in the late1960's, it was just a white oddity in gray neighborhood. To Lily, However, it was heaven.
As it turned out, the Potter's had not come to meet their son at the train station. Mr. Alec Potter was a big shot member of the Ministry of magic, something to do with law, James had once told Lily. Mrs. Potter was an up-and-coming art photographer. According to the Potter siblings, both led very busy lives. As it was, it was ten after one p.m. that Lily found herself stumbling out of a large, rather blackened hearth and into a harsh, white room to meet James Potter who happened to be banging on his chest and claiming to have swallowed a doxy.
"Now, isn't that cute?" she asked with a grin. Who it was that she was asking, she didn't know. "I'd imagined that you could look no more like an animal than you already do," She raised her palms in a smug shrugging of her shoulders. "But then- what's this?- here you are, James, looking exactly as I would have visualized a gorilla. Life is just too kind."
James shot her a cold glare, still coughing half-heartedly.
"My 'rents aren't home." he said.
She raised a cool eyebrow.
"And here I was thinking they were invisible. Silly me."
The boy grunted.
Despite herself, Lily just couldn't find it within herself to be kind to him at all times. After all, to do so would be suspicious at very least, and Lily most certainly did not want James Potter thinking she was in love with him. Being friends was bad enough. Love was much further than she wanted to go, if she could ever fall in love with him.
Mumbling hurriedly to herself, she brushed off her white-blue robe. It wasn't the time for reflection.
"Master James!" said a small voice, hardly taller than her knees.
Looking down she found the words to have come from a creature, hardly the size of its voice. It wore little garb, though all that it wore was imprinted with what Lily could only assume was the Potter crest. It hugged James' knees tightly, as if trying to strangle the wrong part of his body to find the due fatal outcome.
"Potter," Lily began skeptically. "What's that?"
"'Tis only Dinky," the creature said, bowing until his long nose hit his feet.
In the background Lily could hear James snickering in the background. As if unaware of the creature, he began to mumble. "As in 'dinky little house elf who needs to do a little Irish jig.'" He coughed a few times and then added a little, "Get lost, Dinky. And get me an éclair while you're at it."
The little elf scrambled off in the direction of the large, ornate kitchen.
"James! Could you have been any ruder?"
James smiled broadly, though looking thoroughly confused. "Yeah, okay, Lilia. Hey, Dinky, little house elf who need to do a little Irish jig, get back in here!"
Dinky scampered over his own feet and back into the room. "Yes, Master James?" He handed James a pastry.;
James gave Lily a curt nod and then a large bite of the éclair. "You are a dinky little thing. Show Lily her room."
She shot a glare at the black-headed boy. "Charming," Said Lily, following the quickly moving elf out of the room.
As the two headed west from the living room, leaving James and his cruel remarks, James' words haunted Lily's mind. She had nOT seen such a side of the rather tranquil, quite dramatic boy IN MANY A Y. He was a prankster to the bone when he had been younger, Lily knew, often having been the outlet of James' malicious energy. If it had not been for the slime she had been covered with for the first two weeks of first year, she might have had more friends. The slime had made James and Sirius Black legendary, but in her book, they were terrible, terrible boys. But Lily had thought the boys had grown up years before, when James had first asked her out in fifth year; apparently it was all for the joy of torturing her. He had not cared for her, not for a very, very long time. Were things really so different now? Had James Potter really grown up? Her eyes fell to the awkward creature below. Apparently not.
"I'm sorry," she offered weakly.
Dinky looked on, confused. "Dinky doesn't understand. Miss Lily hasn't hurt Dinky."
Lily took a breath and clarified herself. "I'm sorry for James."
Dinky sighed. "Dinky doesn't talk about that."
"Well, I'm sorry anyway."
"'Tis a house elf's job."
The air around then remained silent as they continued on. The wooden floor did not squeak. The suits of armor did not sing the jolly, slightly marred, carols of James and Sirius and there magical olden knights. The Potter Manor was still.
For now.
A/N: Yeah, this was probably a little confusing. I'm setting up some over- used clichés, and yes, I realize that was rather redundant. Anyway, click the little blue button if you have questions. Review anyway. Please.
"Every life knows when they are about to die; it is an instinct that can be clearly felt in one's stomach. However, a broken heart is much harder to foresee."
It was not until Friday, Good Friday, that Lily woke to the excruciating sound of teeth grinding against each other, one side to the other, one side to the other. James Potter sat on her feet, marking them as his own with his weight. Her scarlet sheets had been thrown off her, one after one, leaving her bare and almost nude for the whole world to see.
Rubbing her eyes in fatigue, she glanced at the clock. A distinct scowl overtook her soft features as she sat. "Potter," she said, dangerously sure of just who's mass was squashing her dainty ankles. "I do realize you have a flare for the dramatic, but it's four bloody a.m.!"
He rolled his shoulders over into a slouch and then straightened back up. "Yeah, you should be sleeping, shouldn't you?" No air of shame resonated in his voice, and yet Lily sensed an odd sadness lying hidden between the lines.
"Yes," she growled.
"It's a damn shame. You look so pretty in your sleep."
Lily, herself, now ground her own teeth. She was not one for early wake-up calls, and while she would admit that she did indeed find James Potter to be rather dashing, she was not particularly fond of his tactics as an alarm clock. Quiditch, he could do. Girls, apparently not. Now that was a damn shame.
"You know, Lily, I did not invite you for Easter for you to stay in your dorm all weekend. The train laves in an hour."
Lily fell back down to her soft, feather pillow, but his words had struck a chord that was now echoing in the back of her mind.
James is going to kiss you on Easter night.
She was now very much awake.
"The train?" she asked, vaguely aware of how sly James' deception was. And just how probing her question truly was. James Potter had it all planned out, right from the moment he told Sirius Black his plan, and Lily wasn't dumb enough not to know it. He knew that she knew. It was all too obvious.
"Yeah, it's that thing that takes us to King's Cross. It's bright red. You know that thing?" He nodded to give his words emphasis and then grinned. "Lilia, I invited you to meet my parents. Are you coming or not?" His words were not harsh, but they hit her coldly just the same.
"I'm," she paused. "meeting your parents?"
He sighed, sliding off her, gaining more weight as he came to accept her attitude. "Don't worry, Lily. They'll like you. Why wouldn't they?"
"Huh?"
He gave her leg a reassuring pat. "C'mon. We leave at five."
And with that he left, leaving Lily to continue her thoughts on conspiracy.
The crimson train sat at Platform 9 and ¾. It was a warm day, it's breezy wind circling Lily into a magic trance. The sun shone brightly, though half hidden by clouds, and yet Lily felt a sense of foreboding she had not felt for quite awhile.
Thinking back, her mind came to rest on her denim notebook that sat silently in her trunk, waiting to be set free. Her earlier words of the day had not been that of bitterness, but that of joy.
James is going to kiss me. And I'm going to kiss him back.
A light tap could be felt on the girl's shoulder, catching her off guard.
"Lily Evans?" a girl asked. Her sweet, melodious voice rang through the air. She was hardly more that a little girl, maybe eight, nine years old. She had raven hair of silk and big brown-green eyes. "I'm Muri Potter."
"Muriel!" a boy's voice called, a voice sounding suspiciously like James. "Muriel!" James' voice yelled once more before he haphazardly ran toward the two girls, sweeping the young one into his arms. He grinned, and as he did so a youthful light shone through his entire aura. "Gods, I missed you."
Lily couldn't help but smile. It was rare to see James so happy. He looked so much more like the James she once knew, the James Potter she had not thought of for many a year.
The mystic memories of the past came rushing back to Lily full force, like waves pulling her down further and further until she found her resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic. Potter's face swan inside her brain, his lips closer and closer to hers, the years slowly melting until all he was, was a small, scared, eleven-year old boy, holding her hand and dreaming of adventures in far-off lands.
"Lily, love!" James' voice sounded, waking her from her dizzy reverie.
"No, Mum, don't make me go with him! He likes pink bunny slippers!" her own, frightened voice replied.
And then all that was to be heard was deep, heart-felt laughing. Lily could do nothing but stare but stare wide-eyed at the boy before her, still shaken from her drowning thoughts. The light now blinded her, and she felt leaden on her feet. There was nothing that sounded more satisfying than collapsing right then and there and never ever getting again of the platform.
James' laughter finally died, and with it so did a part of Lily.
"Muri, this lunatic is Lilia Evans." Grinning, he leaned forward and cupped the small girl's ear as if to tell a secret. Whispering loudly, he continued. "Don't be pretty by the pretty façade; she's really quite evil." He turned to look at Lily, grinning at her, and lowering his voice slightly. "She likes to suck Potter blood."
Muriel Potter turned a ghastly shade of pale white, and ran off in what Lily hoped she could only assume was the direction of her parents.
Lily turned to face James straight on, adjusting her dainty self to look more threatening, although really doing a rather goon impression like Professor McGonagall, Hogwarts' most austere teacher. Her small hands sat in fist on her hips, and a tight-lipped expression had fallen over her face. She had fixed him with her best glare that only intensified when James' lip quivered in response.
"So," James began, shockingly nervous. "She's something, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is."
A moments silence covered them, and yet Lily's gaze only intensified and her posture only became straighter.
"It's really too bad that she thinks I'm a vampire."
James gulped.
"Well," he said. "You know, after that time you bit my tongue, I'd really started to think you liked it, you know, my blood that it."
Lily grinned maliciously. "I did."
James met her stare more coldly, but a vague smile stole his lips.
"You really shouldn't kiss girls when they call you a toe-rag."
"Oh, but Lilia, it was in second year."
"Exactly," she told him, licking away the smile that was fighting to form. "It was such a long time ago."
"I had to shut you up somehow."
"Toe-rag,"
"Bitch,"
Lily suppressed a snicker and tore her vibrant eyes from the murky depths of James'. Shaking her head, she began to walk off in the direction Muriel had gone in. "Bite me," she called back over her shoulder.
Though she never saw it, Potter grinned broadly. "Now that can be arranged."
The Potter Manner was a white stone mansion built in 1682 for the heir of Merlin, the last of a great line of Ministers of Magic. Built to be more of a castle than a house, it was a labyrinth of secrets and royal accommodations. To the naked eye, however, in the late1960's, it was just a white oddity in gray neighborhood. To Lily, However, it was heaven.
As it turned out, the Potter's had not come to meet their son at the train station. Mr. Alec Potter was a big shot member of the Ministry of magic, something to do with law, James had once told Lily. Mrs. Potter was an up-and-coming art photographer. According to the Potter siblings, both led very busy lives. As it was, it was ten after one p.m. that Lily found herself stumbling out of a large, rather blackened hearth and into a harsh, white room to meet James Potter who happened to be banging on his chest and claiming to have swallowed a doxy.
"Now, isn't that cute?" she asked with a grin. Who it was that she was asking, she didn't know. "I'd imagined that you could look no more like an animal than you already do," She raised her palms in a smug shrugging of her shoulders. "But then- what's this?- here you are, James, looking exactly as I would have visualized a gorilla. Life is just too kind."
James shot her a cold glare, still coughing half-heartedly.
"My 'rents aren't home." he said.
She raised a cool eyebrow.
"And here I was thinking they were invisible. Silly me."
The boy grunted.
Despite herself, Lily just couldn't find it within herself to be kind to him at all times. After all, to do so would be suspicious at very least, and Lily most certainly did not want James Potter thinking she was in love with him. Being friends was bad enough. Love was much further than she wanted to go, if she could ever fall in love with him.
Mumbling hurriedly to herself, she brushed off her white-blue robe. It wasn't the time for reflection.
"Master James!" said a small voice, hardly taller than her knees.
Looking down she found the words to have come from a creature, hardly the size of its voice. It wore little garb, though all that it wore was imprinted with what Lily could only assume was the Potter crest. It hugged James' knees tightly, as if trying to strangle the wrong part of his body to find the due fatal outcome.
"Potter," Lily began skeptically. "What's that?"
"'Tis only Dinky," the creature said, bowing until his long nose hit his feet.
In the background Lily could hear James snickering in the background. As if unaware of the creature, he began to mumble. "As in 'dinky little house elf who needs to do a little Irish jig.'" He coughed a few times and then added a little, "Get lost, Dinky. And get me an éclair while you're at it."
The little elf scrambled off in the direction of the large, ornate kitchen.
"James! Could you have been any ruder?"
James smiled broadly, though looking thoroughly confused. "Yeah, okay, Lilia. Hey, Dinky, little house elf who need to do a little Irish jig, get back in here!"
Dinky scampered over his own feet and back into the room. "Yes, Master James?" He handed James a pastry.;
James gave Lily a curt nod and then a large bite of the éclair. "You are a dinky little thing. Show Lily her room."
She shot a glare at the black-headed boy. "Charming," Said Lily, following the quickly moving elf out of the room.
As the two headed west from the living room, leaving James and his cruel remarks, James' words haunted Lily's mind. She had nOT seen such a side of the rather tranquil, quite dramatic boy IN MANY A Y. He was a prankster to the bone when he had been younger, Lily knew, often having been the outlet of James' malicious energy. If it had not been for the slime she had been covered with for the first two weeks of first year, she might have had more friends. The slime had made James and Sirius Black legendary, but in her book, they were terrible, terrible boys. But Lily had thought the boys had grown up years before, when James had first asked her out in fifth year; apparently it was all for the joy of torturing her. He had not cared for her, not for a very, very long time. Were things really so different now? Had James Potter really grown up? Her eyes fell to the awkward creature below. Apparently not.
"I'm sorry," she offered weakly.
Dinky looked on, confused. "Dinky doesn't understand. Miss Lily hasn't hurt Dinky."
Lily took a breath and clarified herself. "I'm sorry for James."
Dinky sighed. "Dinky doesn't talk about that."
"Well, I'm sorry anyway."
"'Tis a house elf's job."
The air around then remained silent as they continued on. The wooden floor did not squeak. The suits of armor did not sing the jolly, slightly marred, carols of James and Sirius and there magical olden knights. The Potter Manor was still.
For now.
A/N: Yeah, this was probably a little confusing. I'm setting up some over- used clichés, and yes, I realize that was rather redundant. Anyway, click the little blue button if you have questions. Review anyway. Please.