It's a damn good thing she has the next day off, because the headache that comes from polishing off an entire bottle of wine in an evening is enough to keep her in bed for most of the day, cursing the ultraviolet morning light and firmly reminding her precisely why she doesn't make a habit of using alcohol as a coping mechanism.
She finds herself thinking back to something James had said a while ago, that there's no way he could keep up with Puddlemere's training regimen if he truly made a habit of getting wasted every night - and she thinks he might be onto something there.
She still can't decide what to make of James' story. It simultaneously makes sense and doesn't, explains some things and creates even bigger questions about others.
It's one thing to have a few bad stories about you in the press. It's wholly another to pretend like it's an accident that they've been going on like that for three fucking years. If he really got into this mess through some unhappy circumstances, there's no reason he shouldn't have turned it around by now, especially if he's supposedly still the same person he always was. The James she knew wouldn't be so apathetic and self-pitying - he'd fucking change things.
His words are still weighing heavily on her mind when they have a practice the next day; she manages to completely shut them out for the entirety of practice, her ability to single-mindedly focus on Quidditch the moment she goes airborne coming in handy once again, but the thoughts are right back when they land and James exchanges a joke with Ozzie that has the Keeper clutching his stomach.
She just… she doesn't fucking get it. Something doesn't add up somewhere along the way.
Most of the post-practice work gets distributed to the other coaches, and Lily ends up with the sole task of locking everything up before they leave the practice area.
She's closing the broomshed when a voice tells her to stop.
When she looks up, James is coming towards her, holding his broom.
"Forgot to put it away," he says as an explanation.
"Okay," she replies, tapping the lock with her wand again to open it again. She pushes the door open so that he can go in.
"Thanks."
She's not really sure where they stand anymore, after their meeting in the bookstore. They'd successfully made it through an afternoon of sharing a table without so much as a single biting remark, which is an accomplishment compared to any of their other interactions, but now… she doesn't know what to expect. She suspects they're in some sort of temporary truce, or even just an impasse.
Which is precisely why she shouldn't do this. She's picked a fight with him pretty much every time they've been alone together, and she should really stop doing that, but damn if she doesn't find herself opening her mouth anyways.
"Explain something to me."
He cocks his head. "Explain what?"
"If you hate your reputation so much, why aren't you doing anything to change it? Surely, if you're not actually like what everyone seems to think of you, it shouldn't be hard for you to find a way to prove it?"
A crease appears in his brow. "I - "
She cuts him off. "I mean, first of all, it'd be pretty fucking easy to stop having your face show up in magazines - if you don't go out to clubs, they can hardly post pictures of you at them, yeah? Not to mention how many ways you could come up with other things to do that would take the attention away from that, like making some massive charity donation or hell, even just giving an interview of the supposed 'real James Potter' - I'm sure some reporter would just eat that shit right up."
He shakes his head. "It's not that simple."
"Isn't it though?" she pushes right back.
"Oh, because you're an expert on publicity and public image now?" he replies, and it's obvious that she's struck a nerve.
She shouldn't even be surprised anymore to find that that excites her. Fighting with James is like boxing with no gloves - each punch targeted at where it hurts the most, nothing held back. Nothing there to soften the blow, just pointed words and an uncanny ability to find each other's pain points with a violent precision.
"No, I'm not, and so the fact that I can come up with a potential solution in a few minutes really says something about how much effort you've put into solving this problem that's supposedly plagued you and ruined your life for years."
He puts his broom away with perhaps a little more aggression than is fully warranted. "Ignoring the 'supposedly' in there, because I'm not sure what the hell you're trying to insinuate with that, what makes you think you have any right to just waltz into my life after three years and start telling me what to do with it? You don't know my life anymore."
His words sent a bolt of red-hot anger through her veins - it's a well-placed hit, landing its mark on her perfectly.
"And whose fault is that?" she snaps.
"What?"
She takes a step towards him. "You're right that I don't know your life anymore. Whose fault is that? Who stopped replying to my letters and cut me off as soon as we graduated? I don't know your life because you didn't let me."
He looks dumbfounded by that, and she can practically see the cogs in his head turning as he struggles to come up with a response to that.
Eventually, he just shakes his head. "I'm not getting into this right now with you."
She wants to scream out of frustration. It's absolutely fucking absurd that he can just drop her out of the blue, admit to dropping her out of the blue, and stillsomehow think he can just walk away from the conversation just because he doesn't like it.
She doesn't like that he started ignoring her three years ago, but she didn't get much of a fucking choice in that matter either.
"Why?" she challenges. "Are you scared you'll upset me by admitting it? Because news flash, you're about three years too fucking late on that front."
"That… that's not what I meant - "
Her anger is displaced by an overly bright laugh, and she can see it on his face that he's startled by the abrupt shift. "It doesn't fucking matter what you meant. I don't give a damn about your intentions when your actions clearly don't match."
And with that, she turns on her heel and walks away. She has nothing left to say to him, and there's nothing else he can say to her.
It's only as she's Apparating home that she realises that she's finally managed the last word with him.
About fucking time.
Despite Lily's assumption that the dinner invitation from Sirius had been merely a formality, a letter from him and Remus arrives asking her to come over on Friday night. And, having nothing better to do (along with actually wanting to catch up with them), she accepts.
She finds the address on his letter fairly easily, and climbs up to the third floor to get to unit 31. She knocks, three quick raps against the wood, and the door swings open almost immediately.
"Nice look, Evans," Sirius says as a greeting, grinning at her dark blue bell-bottom jeans.
She doesn't get to wear them much, given that she almost exclusively alternates between athletic gear for Quidditch and dress robes for Order work, so she'll take any chance to put them on. And she's pleased that someone else appreciates them as much as she does.
"Hello to you too, Sirius," she replies, stepping inside the apartment.
"Lily!" Remus's voice rings out from somewhere inside the flat, and then he appears from around the corner. "It's so good to see you, I was beginning to think you'd completely vanished from the face of the earth."
"Nope, still here," she replies, and Remus closes the space between them to give her a hug.
She's surprised by that, but somehow manages to return the hug nonetheless. Sirius offers her a drink, and she accepts, if only to give her something to do with her hands. She sits at the bar while the two of them work together to cook dinner, moving around each other with a sort of practiced ease that shows just how comfortable they are together, just how many times they've done this before.
Sirius asks her about work, and she launches into a story about a match from last season.
"You know," Remus says after she's finished, "when Sirius mentioned you were coaching Quidditch, I couldn't quite see it. But god, it makes so much sense now."
Lily has to laugh at that. He's certainly not the first person to express that sentiment, and while she might take offense to it coming from some people, she knows Remus means it only in the most genuine of ways.
It's strange to her, the way that Remus and Sirius seem to practically be the same people they were three years ago. Sure, they're older and more secure and Sirius smacking Remus's ass as the other man walks by him in the kitchen wouldn't have happened when they were seventeen, but at the core of it, they almost make it seem as if no time has passed at all.
Time is tricky in that way, she thinks to herself. Some people stand still despite the passage of it, holding tight to the core of who they are despite the changes in the world, despite the shifting ground beneath them. And then others are altered drastically by it, for better or for worse, transformed into wholly unrecognizable entities by the circumstances they've been subjected to.
That, she supposes, is one thing she and James have in common. Her blind faith in the inherent goodness of the world has gradually crumbled in the face of everything she's lived through, and the person that's been left in its wake is cold and cynical in a way that would probably terrify her past self. And James is… well, he's whatever he is now.
"How did you end up at Puddlemere, anyways?" Sirius asks casually as he carries the pot of pasta primavera out to their small kitchen table, tearing Lily out of her philosophical musings and back into the present moment.
"It was a lucky coincidence, really," Lily says, launching into the story she's told numerous times before. "I was at Quality Quidditch Supplies for some broom polish, and somehow started talking Quidditch strategy with the person ringing me up, and someone with some Puddlemere connections overheard me and apparently liked what I was saying, and he suggested I come out to the training compound to interview for a new assistant position that had opened up and… well, the job was mine from there."
Most of that is the truth. The events of her story did actually happen, but none of it was a 'lucky coincidence.' Lily made her own luck and her own coincidences in this world - with the help of some of Dumbledore's connections.
Sirius laughs. "That sounds about how I got my job. I couldn't shut up about motorcycles while I was looking for a certain part for my bike, and one of the mechanics offered me a job then and there. It really might've just been because he figured that would get me to finally stop talking."
"It's great, because now I no longer have to hear about motorcycles," Remus quips.
They all sit at the table to eat, and somehow, the entire thing feels just like old times. Once they work through the basic catching up, it's so easy with the two of them. She feels almost nostalgic for their Hogwarts years, and for the first time in a while, it's not in a bitter sort of way. She just genuinely enjoys their company.
Somehow, the passage of time had made her forget that.
They polish off two bottles of wine between the three of them before the night is over (though truthfully Sirius and Remus are the consumers of most of it), and Lily genuinely can't remember the last time she's laughed this hard.
When she leaves, she's promising that they'll do this again soon, that they won't let time slip away from them this way again.
And she finds that she means it.
There's a sudden drop in temperature that somehow makes for a particularly rough practice, and all Lily can think about as it comes to an end is a hot shower in the locker room followed by an equally hot cup of tea.
The team and coaching staff are all silent as they file back into the building - it seems everyone feels the way she does and have decided that it is simply far too cold to socialize or do anything other than figure out how to warm themselves up. None of them were expecting this cold, it seems, and no one was properly dressed for it.
Lily's on a mission to get to the showers, so she walks over to her locker and rifles through her bag to pick up all the necessities - a towel, shampoo, a pair of joggers, and… something's missing. A shirt. She could've sworn she threw something into her bag to wear - she never forgets things, especially not things as important as a change of clothes when she knows she'll be staying around the facilities all afternoon.
But it seems there's a first for everything, because she's forgotten it today.
There are almost always some extra jerseys and practice gear in the storage closets, so that's just going to have to be her solution for now.
She pops over to the closest storage closet to the locker room, leaving the door open and not bothering to turn on the light. The fact that her fingers (along with nearly every other part of her body) are almost completely numb means that she has no interest in doing anything beyond the absolute bare minimum. All she can think about is hot water and thawing out every inch of her frozen skin, so she goes to the first box she sees, tearing it open and pulling the first jersey out. She doesn't even bother checking the size, just confirms that it is in fact a shirt, before slipping back out of the closet and into the locker room again.
There's one last open shower stall, so she takes it and immediately turns the water as hot as it'll go. It hurts like hell at first, the pins and needles under her skin at the abrupt change of temperature, but she stubbornly refuses to move from under the shower stream until her skin is pink and every inch of her has been fully warmed up.
When she finally turns the water off, the locker room falls silent. Somehow, she's the last person in the showers. She ties her wet hair up and dresses quickly, trying not to be too bothered by how her black joggers were not meant to be paired with a navy blue shirt (because really, it's not like anyone will see her for the rest of the day anyways), before going back to the main area of the locker room where the rest of her things are stashed.
James is the only other person left in the locker room - she's noticed that he tends to take the longest showers of anyone on the team by far, which means he's often the last to leave - and she can sense that he notices her arrival.
There's a tense silence between them as she collects her things.
She's comfortable keeping it that way.
She doesn't have anything to say to him at this point. She's got no intention of picking a fight with him today. She's cutting him off, making herself an island, punishing him with her silence.
He seems to have a different idea though, and his voice rings through the empty locker room as clear as day.
"Lily?"
The use of her first name catches her entirely off-guard, hitting some sort of painfully nostalgic nerve she'd rather leave untouched. It has the effect of making her turn to him automatically, all plans of silent treatment and ignorance temporarily forgotten.
When she faces him, his eyes are on her, and he looks distinctly unsettled.
"Can I help you?"
He blinks a few times, as if he's recovering from some sort of shock. "Er, no. It's just - where'd you get that shirt from?"
She doesn't know why that matters, but she answers him anyways. "The supply closet. I forgot to bring an extra today."
"Ah," he replies, something still a little off in his tone. "Well, I figure I should warn you that it's got my name on the back of it - and I'd guess if you knew that you wouldn't have put it on."
There's a smirk on his face, but the amusement doesn't quite reach his eyes.
But that would explain why the box was unopened - it's the new merchandise. That would explain why there was a full box of them instead of an almost-empty box of the last few throwaway spare jerseys like usual, and if her mind had been even a little less foggy from the cold, she would've thought about that and questioned it. Or at least had the presence of mind to think that something might be off and to look at the back of the fucking shirt.
"Oh," is what she manages as a response.
She thinks about how it probably looks - her messy bun, oversized joggers, and jersey emblazoned with 'POTTER' across her shoulder blades. No one in the Quidditch compound will think twice about her appearance, but to the average person, she probably looks exactly like his latest one night stand, like she threw herself together after a night of fun and stole his shirt on the way out.
That thought elicits two, very different reactions, and eventually, the disgust wins out.
She hates the idea of being seen as one of his latest things. She's immensely grateful she can Apparate directly home from here after she's done with work today, and promptly shove this jersey in some dark corner of her closet where she'll never have to think about it again, or somehow sneak it back into the supply closet like she'd never taken it at all.
But for now, she needs the fucking shirt because she sure as hell isn't going to walk around the offices in nothing but a sports bra, so the offending article of clothing stays on.
"Just… out of curiosity, was that from a new box of them?" James asks, and when she looks over at him, there's an earnestness in his eyes only partially masked by his usual nonchalant expression.
"Er, yeah, it was," she replies, unsure why that matters.
But clearly it does and he seems to find something humorous in it, because he's laughing bitterly under his breath as he turns to leave.
Seventh Year, March 1978
She can't find James.
The prefects' meeting is set to start in less than five minutes, and she can't fucking find James. The Head Boy, who's supposed to be leading this meeting with her, and who, most importantly, has the only updated copy of the rounds schedule.
The first few prefects filter into the room, and she starts to tap her foot impatiently. She finds herself wishing she'd somehow stolen that map of his, because at least then she'd know where he is and whether or not he's going to be here on time.
He's been so good at being on time to Head things, to the point that she's almost forgotten running late like this is usually his specialty. And goddammit, she really needs him to be on time today.
"Lily?"
She turns to the Hufflepuff prefect addressing her. "Yes?"
"Is there still going to be a Hogsmeade visit in April? Some of the other students have been asking, since the first half of the month is Easter holidays?"
Lily honestly keeps forgetting Easter holidays are even a thing - it's not like she'll be going home for them anyways, so they barely even register in her mind.
"Yes, there will be - we'll go over the details during the meeting," she answers, before turning her attention back to the door, where a couple of Slytherin prefects are coming in but still no James.
She's reached her peak of annoyance and just about resigned to leading the meeting herself and telling the prefects they'll just have to pick up the rounds schedule tomorrow when he bursts through the door, red-faced and sweaty. His hair is completely windswept and his broom is slung over his shoulder, so there's no mystery where he's just come from.
"Sorry I'm late, Evans," he says breathlessly as he joins her at the front of the room. "I lost track of time while I was out on the pitch and had to sprint up here."
She cuts straight to the point. "Do you have the rounds schedule?"
"Yes, and I made copies," he replies, reaching into his bag and pulling a stack of papers out.
"Well thank Merlin for that, at least," she says, the edge in her voice unmistakeable. She takes them from him and keeps a copy for herself before passing the rest of the stack off to the nearest prefect.
When she looks back at him, there's something in his expression that vaguely resembles a kicked puppy, and she realizes that her snappiness might have had a stronger impact on him than she'd intended.
She doesn't have time to dissect that though, because they've got a room full of prefects waiting for announcements and James' tardiness has already ensured that they're not starting right on schedule.
But despite the rough start, the rest of the meeting goes fairly smoothly - barring the cluster of Slytherins who inevitably snicker at everything she says - and eventually James dismisses the prefects and they all file out of the room, leaving just the two of them in the office.
"You're mad at me," he observes as soon as the door shuts.
It's more complicated than that, though. If he'd made that observation at the start of the meeting, the answer probably would have been an undisputed yes, but that initial frustration has faded significantly over time. She doesn't know how to express that out loud though, so she settles for saying something completely different.
"Why were you late? And why were you out at the Quidditch pitch? We didn't have practice today."
"Yeah, I know," he replies, his hand jumping to his hair as it so often does when he's nervous. "But with the open tryouts I have scheduled over Easter break, days off aren't really an option right now - there's just not room for error in these professional tryouts. I need to be at the top of my game if I even want a chance of getting a spot on a team. So I went out for a few hours after class and I swear, I didn't forget about this meeting and I wasn't trying to slack on my Head duties, I just misread my watch in the sun and just… I'm sorry."
With every word, she feels the last bits of her anger towards him subside, replaced with something warm. It's hard to stay mad at him when he's like this, open and genuine and right in front of her.
"I - it's okay," she replies. "You weren't actually late, after all. The only thing you missed was a question about Hogsmeade visits and me forgetting that Easter break is a thing most people are actually planning on taking advantage of."
She's got no reason to go home now, and she's not entirely sure she'd be welcomed either, given how she'd left things with her mum and Petunia after her dad's funeral.
James' hand falls back down to his side again. "Okay. Well, if you still want me to make it up to you somehow, feel free to put me in charge of sorting all the detention slips for the week - I know you hate doing that, so - "
"Don't tempt me like that. You know I'll take you up on it in a heartbeat, even though you really don't have anything to make up for."
He cracks a smile at that. "I'll take three-quarters of them instead of half this week. And by the way, I really hope you plan on taking advantage of Easter break in some way, even if it's just escaping to Hogsmeade with me and Sirius a couple nights."
Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise when she realizes what he's insinuating. "You're staying at Hogwarts over break? I didn't think any of the other Gryffindor seventh years were."
"Change of plans," he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I couldn't leave you stuck in the castle all by yourself, could I?"
He… he did this for her?
"But your tryouts - "
"I'll leave for those, I ran it by McGonagall and she was fine with me leaving for the day a couple of times, so long as I don't make it public knowledge that she's making an exception for me."
He's grinning at that, and of course he is. McGonagall has the biggest soft spot for him, though she tries to suppress it.
And really, Lily doesn't blame her. There's a lot about James worth having a soft spot for.
"I - thank you."
She couldn't possibly tell him what this means to her, the fact that she'll be just a little less alone during the last holiday break of her Hogwarts career, the fact that she'll have him and Sirius around to push away the inevitable heavy feelings that'll come when she thinks about the shattered state of her family and all that she's lost.
She couldn't possibly tell him what he means to her.
It hits her then, for the first time: a realisation she probably should've had months ago. A realisation that her feelings about him - for him - run deeper than just the easy friendship they've built. She likes him. She likes him so, so much.
Her own sudden epiphany has her imagining things, because she swears there's a slight flush on James' cheeks when she looks up at him.
He shrugs. "It's no big deal. And being able to practice on the pitch here all the way up to tryouts definitely doesn't hurt."
The fire in the room dances in the reflection of his glasses - she doesn't know why she's suddenly so fixated on that detail, but something about it is mesmerising.
Maybe it's just the eyes behind them, sincere and full of light.
She thinks to herself that she might be staring for a bit too long, so she says the first thing that comes to mind, her words coming out in a rush. "I know I'm probably not the ideal person to run drills with, given the whole lack of any Chaser experience, but if you ever need a second set of hands out there… I can do my best."
He smiles. "I might just have to take you up on that."
"It'll be nice to have my claim to fame be that I once helped the famous professional Quidditch player James Potter prepare for his first tryouts," she tells him, picking up her bag from under the table.
He grabs his as well, an unspoken agreement between the two of them that they'll head back to the Gryffindor common room now. "Oh, I'm sure you'll have plenty of your own claims to fame - you won't need that one."
"Maybe, but none of my claims to fame will ever get me a whole mass of screaming fans wearing jerseys with my name on them."
She thinks about that for a moment, about a Quidditch stadium full of people screaming his name, asking for his autograph as he leaves after a match. And for the briefest of moments, she imagines herself there too, wearing his number on her back, his eyes finding her in the crowd immediately, because of course he's only got eyes for her.
The fantasy feels so real. Somehow, envisioning a future with him comes naturally.
"Tell you what, Evans," James says, drawing her attention back to the present moment but somehow mirroring her inner thoughts all the same, "if I ever make it big enough that they make jerseys with my name on them, I'll make sure you get the first one out of the box."