Chapter Eleven Severus
She traced her finger along the gems circulating the little music box; she sighed and pushed it gently away. The sapphires gleamed and called her over but she stood away from them hesitantly.
It had been almost a week since she had last saw James, she felt her insides squeeze themselves together when she thought of him; where could he be? Wasn't he s'pose to be the guy who went crazy looking for her? She sat in the foot of her bed just staring at her necklace.
"You, some may say this is pathetic." Sirius said stepping in her plain room.
"Some equaling you." She snapped. She whipped her hair back. Red roots were emerging.
"Growing your hair out I see?"
She stayed quiet and continued to play with her music box; she looked at it like each time was the first, like James had just barely dropped it in her hands and that at any moment he would come through that door and apologizes for taking so long.
"I know you miss him." He said in an almost inaudible voice.
She wanted so badly to question what he thought he knew about her, she wanted to snap and say that he had no right to say he knew anything about her but she didn't. She didn't want to bring herself down to own of those attention craving, angst-filled women who just cause and live drama.
"I don't really feel like talking about him, I'm sure he has a perfectly reasonable explanation for not being here." She said in a careless voice, she looked down and fiddled with her hands. "He might be busy with work, or something. Besides…" She stopped and looked up at him, "Forget it, I don't want to talk about it."
Sirius wasn't much of a pusher or a prier so he knew when he had to stop. "Fine with me. I thought I'd take you out to lunch."
"I'm not very hungry." She said softly.
"Ava and Ash are going to be there." He said and gave her a smirk. Her face lit up and her eyes glowed.
"You must be very excited to see Ash," she said with an obvious amount of sarcasm in her tone.
"Actually, despite what people might think or tell you, I do enjoy seeing her every once in a while. I like to know if she looks any different, you could never tell with her. I like to know how she is and if she's happy, but with her, ugh, it's like an on-going war. She thinks that I'm just out to get her. I doubt that I'm even close to being invited to her wedding; she probably already made up her mind about me and has just stunk to it. Oh, she made up her mind about me LONG ago back at school." His words dripped of bitterness and anger. He kept his focus on the ground, almost as if he was directing his anger towards it.
"People change. And I'm sure she knows that, she just doesn't want to accept it." Lily tried saying, her voice light and sweet.
"That still doesn't give her the right to always treat me so bad."
"Well the Ash and Sirius I remembered were both very stubborn and very dramatic with their fights. And I know you won't get off your high horse to confront her about it and I know that Ash won't ever admit she's wrong so she will just be directing the anger she feels at herself at you. So she'll have a reason to be mad."
"God Lily, you've only been in my life for a little while and here you are again fixing my problems and giving me advice."
"That's what I'm here for, again." She felt her chest puff up with pride. She gave him a look and edged him forward, he wrapped his arms around her and she gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"I'm going to get ready and then we can go to eat. I'm so excited!" Lily got up and shooed him out of her room.
Moments later she walked out of the room wearing this beautiful simple white sundress that looked like it was made back in the fifties. It was halter and it went out a little bit her hips and the dress went a little past her knees and she wore little white ballet flats. She was a naturally petite person but the ballet flats gave her more of a tiny appearance.
She had placed her hair in an elegant bun with little pieces of hair went down. She was a person who hardly ever needed make up so she got that full on natural glow.
Sirius could feel himself holding his breath. What is keeping James back that is holding him back from seeing this?
"Awe, Lily, you look absolutely beautiful. I told you, I missed you over the years, right?"
A blush made its way over to her cheeks, "Thank you and yes I'm glad you have."
She looked back at the music box on her bed and asked in a forced aloof matter, "You haven't, by any chance, talked to him have you Sirius?"
Sirius met her eyes and looked away, and cleared his voice, "No I haven't," he replied awkwardly, "have you?"
"No," she responded dryly, "I haven't."
"Let's go then, hold my hand," He took his hand out and felt her grasp on it.
"Well well, you finally found her James." The voice of Albus Dumbledore rang through his ear. "About time, some would say."
James furrowed his eyebrows and cleared his throat, "Some would, yes. I just wanted to stop by to say…"
"Hello?" He chuckled and then flattened his beard a bit. "You would come by for a quick chat when you have just found Lily? I would imagine seeing you spend every waking moment now with her. Now since you can."
"I would, but… I don't want her to feel suffocated or anything, I mean I would love to just be with her and just hold her but, the thought that pains me to be around her is that she wasn't my girlfriend when she left so it's not fair of me to just show up and expect a full blown relationship from her."
"Well that is a very fair thought James, but you haven't even discussed this with her so you don't know what she wants. Instead you're here discussing it with me, when you should be discussing it with her. I mean if it is her best intentions you have in mind, that is." His eyes glittered majestically.
"It's difficult…we're two different people, we probably want two different things. I want to settle down and just know all these things about her, but she probably wants to find something spectacular and just be free and able to do all these things. She can do what she wanted to do back in school; she has to find herself… I'm probably the least of her thoughts."
"James, you might be right but I am also sure that Miss Lily must not appreciate very much that you just spent one night with her and never even sent her an explanation or anything." He folded his hands and stared at the edge of his desk.
James fixed his glasses and stayed put, "I don't want to talk about it Professor, ("I've told you million of times James, you are free to call me Albus—Sirius has taken it upon himself though to overdo it.") I'm sorry, Albus but that topic just doesn't feel appropriate for me to discuss it with you."
James could have sworn he saw him flinch; he felt so distant from someone he used to question and sit around just to hear what he had to say about things.
"I have a confession, James." He said suddenly. James stared at him. "I want you to leave as soon as it comes out of my mouth, I want you to stand up and leave. I don't want to give you an explanation just yet. I'll find you when times right."
"Professor—Albus, is everything alright?" James tried.
"I knew where she was, the entire time, I didn't tell you. I've been lying to you all this time." He choked on his words, for once James felt bigger then he was. He looked at him astonished, looked at him with such disgust and looked at him for the old worn out man he was. James stared at the man who he used to think as a wonderful teacher, a man that would never do him wrong.
He stood up, feeling mightier, mature—and gave him a hard look and did just as he instructed him to, and left.
Sirius took her to a nice restaurant off the shore of New York, Ash had chosen and Sirius admitted to Lily that Ash had wonderful choices of restaurants.
Lily felt her heart sink lower and lower, she felt so nervous, like they had a gigantic spot light on her.
Days ago she was Flower Potter, a woman who had potential feelings for Remus Lupin and little memories of her past and now she was Lily Evans, who still had the feelings but now she had feelings for her old best friend James Potter with a handful and a half of memories in her with more still to come.
They were the first to see her, Ava immediately approached her. She stood her, her mouth was wide open and her eyes were welled up.
"Lily?" Ava asked, taking her appearance in. She had her dark hair pulled back with ringlets of curls letting lose by her neck. She was wearing a very classy and professional black dress with dark red lipstick on.
"There he goes again; just tell the bloke you don't like him so he could just crawl in his room and die or something." Ava said shooting a smirk at Ash, who was lying back on the couch.
"He's pathetic Lily, Merlin only knows why you even bother talking to him."
"Severus is nice, that's why. He isn't like Sirius or James—he's nice." Lily replied with a deep accent.
"Sketchy is what he is. I wouldn't go touch him with a ten foot pole." Ash said flipping a page on her book.
"Well that's just your opinion." She gave Severus a small wave and he returned it.
"Bloke never even smiles." Ash drawled on.
"Stop it. And what if I did like him, would it be so bad."
"Lily, you cannot be serious!" Ash scoffed, shooting him glares.
Ava gaped at her with her mouth opened wide, "Lily! Well, he does have like a sexy 'I don't care about anything' attitude that is rather intriguing and the way his hair falls over his eye like that is very nice."
Lily gave her a small look and laughed, "Glad to know you're opinion."
"James would never approve." Ash warned her. "Never."
"Well I don't talk to him anymore, do I?" Lily snapped.
"Oh…right, how long has it been? Almost a year now?"
Lily stared at Ash, she was actually looking sympathetic. She was usually very hard to crack and very secure with her emotions, she was a hard cookie to open up. She didn't tell her secrets to anyone but Ava, Lily and Star. She didn't go near boys unless she thought they were good enough. She was an overall strong person, so seeing.
Star sighed as she came down the hall, "This place is like a prison."
"One day, we'll escape and we'll come back to it and not see it as a prison, just see it as a place that once was what it was." Lily said twisting a piece of hair around her finger.
Star leaned against her, "Lily you have such a way with words, it's almost scary."
And there she was staring at them, totally different, why weren't they the same? Why weren't they feeling the way she did? Why did she have to miss so much? Why did she have to let go of James…twice? She felt the tears come on, strong.
She held on to Ava and just cried…cried for herself, cried for them, cried for Sirius, and cried for everyone and especially for James.
"I am not going to lie to you; I'm finding it hard to believe it's you." Ash said, her eyes already dripping with tears. "It can't be…you died, just like Star, just like everyone else."
"Star died?" Lily asked softly.
"Two years ago."
"I wouldn't bring her all the way here if I didn't know it was here." Sirius said darkly, standing off to the side.
"I don't know that." Ash said nastily to him.
"You don't think you'd get tired of doing this? Just this, would you?" Lily asked him, as she played with his hand, feeling his side and then hers.
"No. I would never get bored of being with you. I owe you so much." He said giving her a smile, kissing her softly on the lips. "I would miss seeing you smile—that smile."
She laughed, feeling herself blush.
"You are too good for me, you know that? You are so beautiful and so sweet, and I'm just not someone for you." He said to her, holding up a smile, but said it so sadly.
"You are perfect for me." She said smiling. "I need you."
"You need me like water in your lungs."
She stood up and pulled him up; she pulled him into a long kiss and gave him a large hug.
Why couldn't she see his face? All she saw was a blurred expression; it hurt her head to even think of who it might have been.
"So what's your name?" Ash questioned, harshly, interrupting her thoughts.
"Lily Evans." She replied softly. She felt herself grow angry. "How could you do this? Can you not see I'm confused as it is? I didn't come here to prove to you it's me, I came here thinking you had already accepted it's me and we could catch up. You were one of my best mates. You'd think you'd be excited to see me. But I forgot how much of an ice queen you once were." She picked up her coat and rubbed her eyes, "I have too much things to figure out. I don't need this right now."
"Wait—stay. Please." Ash cleared her throat. "I'm sorry."
Sirius chimed in, "I know a good joke-"
"We're not that drunk yet." Drawled Ava, laughing at her own joke. Lily let out a meek chuckle.
"So besides Star's death, what else have I missed?" She said softly, almost embarrassed.
"Well Annabelle's sick, we're pretty sure you're little ex-boyfriend Severus is a death-eater—and…"
"I dated Severus?" She said feeling herself blushed.
"Yes, that's why you broke it off with Remus, remember? It ended shortly before the attack—I remember James wanted to kick his arse the entire time you were together." Ava said smugly. "We never saw much of him afterwards, we actually heard he was dead for a while, then he appeared somehow in the profits and now rumors are he's a death eater. Everyone's disappeared from school, really. Ash is probably thought of as disappeared. James for sure is. Times have changed."
Lily couldn't get over it, Severus Snape?
"I almost forgot that…James blocked that out of his memory most likely." Sirius went on, still on the Severus Snape fling thing.
She felt a huge headache coming on, she pressed her fingers against her temple.
"Oh my god! Lily, you're bleeding sweetie!" Ava rushed over to her and held her head against some tissue. She felt her world…fade…fade…f…a…d…e...