Friendship Has Its Limits
Disclaimer: I own nothing, other than the characters you don't recognize from the Harry Potter series, OK? Those things happen to belong to J.K. Rowling, and as far as I know, my name isn't J.K. Rowling, so therefore I must not own them.
"You know, James, I've been thinking," said Mrs. Potter as soon as James had walked in the door. James looked at her apprehensively. Whenever his mother told him that, she always told him some insane story about why he'd turned out the way he had or something like that.
"Oh?" was all he could say.
"Yes. I've finally come up with a theory," she said somewhat excitedly, "about you becoming Head Boy." Here we go, James thought, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "You couldn't possibly have been made Head Boy, you see, because you were never a prefect, and only prefects can become Head Boy or Girl. It has to be a mistake!"
"Well then," responded James, "why do I have a letter from Hogwarts, signed by Professor Dumbledore himself stating that I, James Isaac Potter, am the new Head Boy, and why do I have a badge that says 'Head Boy' on it?"
Mrs. Potter stared at her son blankly for a moment before telling him flatly, "I haven't thought of that yet, if you must know. But I'm sure that he's just made a mistake, that's all. It's the only explanation of how you managed to get that shiny little badge with 'Head Boy' written on it."
"Why is it so impossible for me to have gotten Head Boy?" James cried in exasperation.
His mother walked out of the room, coming back a few moments later with a shoebox over-flowing with papers. She set it down on the table with a loud thump. She selected a paper at random and began to read it aloud.
"'Dear Mrs. Potter, your son, James, has been involved in an incident with one Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, regarding several stink bombs in the girls' lavatories on the fourth floor. We have addressed him on said issue, and we thought it best to inform you of your son's misbehaviours.'"
She selected another letter from the box and read that one, too. "'Dear Mrs. Potter, your son, James, has been caught by our caretaker, Argus Filch, switching out all of the school's quills with sugar quills he and Remus Lupin purchased in Hogsmeade…'"
Another read, 'Dear Mrs. Potter, James, along with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, have stolen all of the girls' skirts, and cut them below regulation length…'
Other letters included the incident in which James turned Lily Evans' hair scarlet and gold that glowed in the dark for a record four days straight, bubble gum in a straw that happened to land in a third-year Hufflepuff's hair, putting Levitating Sherbet Balls in all the food in the Great Hall, and various tricks played on one Severus Snape.
"Okay, okay, I get the point, Mum," James said, pushing the shoebox away from him.
His mother only shrugged and dropped in the letters she had taken out back into the box and replaced it in her bedroom on the floor of the closet. "That's why it's impossible for you to have gotten to be a Head of the school," she said when she came back. "Fancy a cup of tea?"
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Lily wasn't sure just how long she sat in that park on the swing, but she was sure she hadn't been there for long when a shadow passed over her. She looked up to see the blurry but familiar outline of a certain messy-haired, glasses-wearing, seventeen-year-old boy.
Wiping her eyes, she asked in a tired voice, "What are you doing here James?" She hadn't realized until she heard her voice come out that she was exhausted, tired of having to deal with so much all at once.
"I was about to ask you the same thing," James responded, taking the swing beside her and sitting in it. "I couldn't take much more of my mum's 'theories' about how I came about being Head Boy."
Lily had almost forgotten about James being Head Boy. It seemed like it had been forever ago that it'd happened. "I'm sorry to beat that, but---Veronica, my step mum, is four weeks pregnant."
His jaw dropped. "You're kidding!" he blurted, but the look on Lily's face told him that she wasn't kidding. "How could your dad make you go through that again?"
She just shrugged, and looked around her at all the families in the park, mums reading on benches, keeping their eyes on the little kids running around and yelling, and dads teaching their sons to play baseball. Once again she was reminded of the fact that her own family used to come to this park, back when everything was good.
"You know, my mum used to take me here all the time when I was little," she said quietly, a tiny smile appearing on her face. "She always tried to me to play with the other little kids, but I wouldn't. I'd always sit beside her on the bench and make her read to me, back when I didn't know how to read."
James didn't know what to say, and he wasn't sure if Lily wanted him to respond anyway.
"Sometimes I pretend they didn't die that day in the hospital," she said after a moment, her voice getting caught in her throat. "I pretend that Mum came home with a squirming little bundle wrapped in blue, and I'd be jumping around her, asking if I could hold baby Harry. She'd let me, of course, and when I look at him, I'd see that he had her eyes---my eyes."
"It wasn't fair that they were both taken from you," he told her softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "It must have felt awful, and now with your dad and Veronica and everything---"
"It still does," she sighed, turning to look at him. "You have no idea how much it hurt to let her go, and when I finally did I learn that someone wantedher dead. James, they killed her on purpose."
He stared at her. "What?"
She nodded, not looking away from him. "She and Harry both died of magical cancer, and according to her doctor it was given to her from someone in the wizarding world."
"Is there a chance her doctor could be wrong? How---"
"No, James, there isn't. Her doctor's a Squib, and I saw a sample of Mum's blood myself, and there's no mistake about it; she didn't die of natural causes." She shrugged out of his grip on her shoulder and headed back to her house.
"Lily, wait!" he called after her, but she didn't stop or even turn back. She just kept walking along the sidewalk, letting her feet take her home. She couldn't explain it, but she had this feeling in her stomach that made her think that for some reason, she needed to get back to the house.
The frantic feeling urged her to hurry, and suddenly her feet were pounding against the pavement as she ran toward her house as fast as her legs would take her. By the time she reached her destination her face was sweating, and her bangs were plastered to her forehead. She yanked the door open and ran inside.
"Dad? Veronica?" she yelled, her heart pounding as adrenaline pumped through her system. "Dad! DAD!"
Time slowed down the moment she saw it---a rune glowing in bright blue on the wall in the foyer. From her Ancient Runes class she knew what it meant---explosion. Her mind took a few seconds to register the rune and what it was supposed to do, and in those precious seconds she wasted the time to escape or warn them before it happened.
The force of the explosion blew her right through the door and into the street.
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Me: I want to say sorry for the way the last chapter started out, you know about how her friends reacted to Lily's almost-drowning-incident. I know they seemed a little too calm for her almost dying, but like I said, I was having a hard time writing, and I had an especially hard time writing that part. I did realize it, however, so thanks to Hermione Elizabeth Granger and ebony-plays-the-viola, who both pointed it out to me.
By the way, ebony, thanks for the suggestion of making a girl for Remus and naming her Ruby…(I know you made it back in chapter 2, but hey…) I used your idea, hope you don't mind, lol!