JKR thought of it first. I own nothing. If I did, I wouldn't be posting it here. :-)

Black Letters

The days following Christmas were some of the happiest moments I had ever spent at Hogwarts. Although neither Lily nor I mentioned the mistletoe incident to anyone else, we had definitely become closer, casually holding hands when no one was looking and stealing quick kisses in between. I wasn't sure what was going on between us, but I didn't question it. I finally had the girl of my dreams. Unofficially anyway; we still hadn't talked about our unusual arrangement. Was she expecting me to ask her to be my girlfriend? Was it implied by our new actions? I wasn't quite sure, but I was determined to find out. Two days before the other students were scheduled to return from their holiday, I mustered all of the Gryffindor bravery I could manage, and decided to ask Lily if she would like to eat breakfast alone with me. It was the first step in what I considered the hardest thing I was going to do that year considering I hadn't asked her out since the end of sixth year. As I approached her in the common room, I swallowed the huge lump in my throat and went for it.

"Hey Lily," I said so that she barely heard me.

"Hi James," she beamed.

"Hi, um, I was wondering if you would like to join me for breakfast today. You know, just us two?" I asked with what I hoped was my most fake confident voice.

"Of course, I'd love to!" she responded enthusiastically.

"Great, shall we walk down there now?" I asked not knowing what else to say. Why was this so hard? I had asked tonnes of girls out before! Why was asking this one girl so difficult!

"Sure, let me just grab a jumper from upstairs. I'll be right back," she said smiling and turning toward the opposite side of the common room.

I let out a huge breath I wasn't even aware I was holding the moment she disappeared up the staircase, and I felt like a bag of brick had been lifted from my shoulders. I berated myself to calm down, but it was nearly impossible. I was finally getting along with Lily Evans the way I always wanted and I just wasn't sure what to make of it. Although I was no stranger to dating, I had never dated a girl I cared about so much. Lily was unique, and I wanted everything to go right with her. I decided at that moment that I was officially going to ask Lily to be my girlfriend for what I hoped was the last time.

"Hey Prongs, ready to go down to breakfast?" Sirius asked coming up behind me and breaking me out of my reverie.

I stared at him for a moment, not quite sure why he was there, when I remembered I was still in the common room, waiting for Lily.

"About breakfast," I stumbled. "I sort of made plans to spend some time with Lily. Could…."

"What?" he interrupted. "Since when do you eat breakfast with her and not us?" he asked looking confused.

"Since I asked her if she would like to join me today," I said trying to sound cool and confident about it.

"Leave him alone Padfoot, he has his reasons," Remus said smiling at me in a knowing way and grabbing hold of Sirius' robes.

"So are you two dating now or something?" Sirius asked trying to get away from Remus' grasp.

"No," I said a little too eagerly.

"Then you wouldn't mind if we joined you then?" Sirius asked with an evil smirk.

"Yes I would mind you prat," I responded punching him hard on the shoulder.

"Alright, alright, no need to get violent," he said laughing and rubbing his arm. "We'll leave you alone if you promise to tell us all the intimate details afterwards," Sirius said trying to control the huge smile that was threatening to form on his face.

"Padfoot, you dog!" Remus said laughing hysterically now. "We'll get off your back. Have fun!" He said right before pushing Sirius out through the portrait hole.

"What are you scowling at?" Lily suddenly asked behind me.

"Nothing," I said shrugging.

"That doesn't sound like nothing," she said raising an eyebrow.

"Let's just say that my best friends are total gits," I said smiling at her.

"I see. Let me guess, they laughed at you for asking me to eat breakfast with you?"

"Yeah," I responded blushing a little bit.

"Boys," she muttered before grabbing hold of my arm and dragging me out through the portrait hole.

xx

Our first breakfast as an unofficial couple started out impressively. Lily and I talked much the way we always did, occasionally laughing so hard one of us ended up showering the other with pumpkin juice. I was in the middle of telling her a particularly funny story about the time Sirius and I had snuck into Filch's office after hours, when the morning post arrived. Lily got the Daily Prophet as usual, but when I looked up and saw what was on the front page, I knew that day would change our relationship forever. As soon as the owl placed the paper in front of us, the image of the Dark Mark hovering over a flattened building brought back some of my worst childhood memories. The headline that read: Muggle and Wizard Schools the Latest Target of You-Know-Who, made the situation much worse. I continued to read a few sentences from the article, when more owls swooped into the Great Hall carrying black letters and placing them in front of a few students in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. I knew exactly what those black letters meant. I felt myself go completely still, and I saw Lily staring at me with a confused expression on her face. From the corner of my eye I also saw a very concerned Sirius quickly making his way towards me from the opposite end of the Gryffindor table. I knew exactly what he was doing, so I quickly got up and ran as fast as I could towards my dormitory, leaving Lily behind without saying a word to her.

When I finally reached my dormitory, I yelled out whatever sealing and locking charms I could think of. Moments later, I heard Sirius pounding at my door wanting to come in. I on the other hand, just wanted him to go away. I put a silencing charm on the room and threw myself on the bed fighting back the tears. I did not want to cry, but the black letters and the Dark Mark were just all too familiar.

When I was eight years old, my older brother Jason and I were best friends. He was two years older than I was, but he always treated me as an equal. One afternoon, a week before Christmas, my father was attempting to teach me the finer points of wizard's chess after I got home from school. As if on cue, an owl came swooping into our living room carrying the black letter that was to haunt me for the rest of my life. I saw the shock and realization in my father's eyes but I didn't understand what it all meant at the time. I saw him slowly get up to call for my mother while I tried to get his attention, unsure of why he looked so panicked. When my mother came down the stairs and looked at the letter in my father's hands, she immediately fell to her knees and began to scream in a way that I can still hear every night before I go to sleep. I didn't know what was going on when I asked my father what the black letter was for and why it was making my mother cry. He looked at me as if noticing me for the first time and I saw the tears running down the side of his face. He knelt down beside me and told me that there had been an accident at Jason's school. I of course didn't understand what was going on because we both went to different schools and couldn't possibly imagine anything bad happening there. My mother at that point was holding on to the black letter as she wept loudly while pounding her fists on the hard wooden floor. My father then tried explaining to me that some bad wizards had somehow gotten into Jason's school in search for a certain witch that was teaching there. What he told me next changed my outlook on life forever. It turned out that the dark wizards that attacked my brother's school were the beginning of a group that would later be called Death Eaters. They were searching for a witch that had witnessed an act that my father didn't think I would understand at the time. My brother and his classmates had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the wizards attacked the witch in the middle of a lesson. That single incident for years remained as one of the most brutal events in wizard history; that was until Voldemort began to gain power throughout the wizarding and muggle communities.

Seeing the black letters that day brought back all of those frightful memories I had tried to put at the back of my mind for years. Losing my older brother had been the hardest thing I ever had to face; losing my parents in that summer proved to be just as painful. Staring down at the Dark Mark hovering over the muggle school in the Daily Prophet made me angry. How could one wizard be so cruel? How could one wizard inflict so much pain over so many innocent people? At that point, I lost all composure and I began to do what I had not done since the news of my brother's death. I cried and I screamed, and I kicked. I just couldn't take it anymore. After my parents died, I only shed a few solitary tears but I never really let it all out. It was the first time I realized that I was all alone. It finally dawned on me that I had no family left. The pain was just too unbearable.

xx

I must have fallen asleep after my tantrum because when I awoke, it was dark outside. It took a moment for me remember the events of that day and when it hit me, my heart sank. As I got up from my bed, my body ached and I felt as if my insides were trying to devour themselves. I sat down on the chair by my desk, put my elbows on my knees and rested my head in my hands. I stayed that way for a few minutes when I heard a click at my door, and then the sound of someone walking in.

"James?"

It was Lily. I didn't respond at first because I didn't want her to see the state that I was in.

"What do you want?" I asked her in a raspy voice.

"Are you alright? I'm worried about the way you ran out earlier," she said in a sympathetic tone.

"I'm fine, I just want to be alone," I said monotonously.

"James, you're not alright. Look at yourself," she said taking a seat on the floor next to my chair.

"You shouldn't be here. Just leave me alone," I said to her standing up and walking towards the window.

"James, please talk to me," she said in a pleading voice.

"There's nothing to talk about, alright?"

"Please James."

"What do you want from me?" I asked her raising my voice and turning around to look at her.

"I want you to talk to me" she responded as she slowly got up.

"I said there was nothing to talk about."

"Then why did you run away and lock yourself in this room all afternoon?"

"I had to be alone," I countered through gritted teeth. I didn't want to be mad at her, but her questions were irritating me. "Now please leave before I do or say something I'll regret later."

"I just want to know what's wrong. Sirius wouldn't tell me anything and neither would Remus," she said with tears in her eyes.

"You want to know what's wrong? Fine!" I yelled throwing my arms up in the air in frustration. "My life is falling apart right now, okay Lily! Some stupid wizard is going around killing innocent people without a second thought trying to prove he's all powerful! And that bloody Dark Mark he leaves behind! Don't even get me started on what that thing does to me! That bloody Dark Mark haunts me in my dreams! Ever since I got home that night and found my parents dead in their bedroom I have nightmares about it! I have no one left in my family and that stupid mark in the Daily Prophet each time somebody dies is a bloody reminder of one of the worst moments of my life!" I screamed at her as I got closer. "And those letters! Oh let me tell you something about those stupid letters! Do you know what it feels like to receive one of those damned things and find out that your best friend, the person you look up to most, your only brother is dead! Do you!"

She was clearly afraid of me at the moment because she was cowering back towards the wall, but I didn't care. She was asking too many questions she shouldn't have been asking and I couldn't handle it anymore. I wanted her to leave, but she refused. I realized that I didn't have to yell at her but she had no right asking so many questions. For years I had bottled up my emotions and at that moment they came out all at once. It was unfortunate that Lily had to be at the other end of my ranting but she had instigated something that was just waiting to come out. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, and she quickly closed the gap between us. She then put her hands on my face and began wiping away my tears. A strange sensation swept over me at that moment and I could no longer hold on to whatever composure I had left. All the walls I had put up around me over the years were coming down in front of her and as if she sensed it, she pulled me closer to her and held me tight. All the tears I had bottled up since my parent's death came storming out at that moment in her arms. I sobbed loudly into her shoulder but she only held on tighter as if afraid to lose me. As I cried my eyes out in her arms, I became very weak and I couldn't remain standing anymore. Sensing this, she began leading me slowly towards the floor until we were both on our knees holding on to each other as if there wasn't anybody else in the world. I don't know how long we remained that way but by the time I stopped crying, my head hurt and I felt sick to my stomach. I tore away from her embrace and leaned back against the wall as I closed my eyes. She sat next to me on the floor and put her head on my chest without saying a word. The events of the day had taken a toll on me and I found myself once more drifting into sleep.

A/N: Next chappie coming by Friday.

Liked it? Hated it? Thought it was just okay? Please review!