"Uh uh," he said, his fingers slipping beneath the peel of the orange.
"No," he said again, this time more sharply as he continued peeling in one continuous strand.
"Lily, I mean it, get your own," he said, but a smile had formed on his lips as he said it.
"Fine," he said as he finished, breaking apart the slices of orange. "You can have one sliver."
"That's two pieces," he said accusingly, as though she had not noticed she had taken both. "That's a whole half!" he cried a moment later.
"You're evil," he said finally.
She watched the juice drip down his chin and had a desperate urge to lick it off his face. She wondered what he would say then about wanting to be friends. He would probably think she was gross. Liking someone, she realized, made you think incredibly weird thoughts. His arm came up a moment later to wipe it away when he saw her staring.
She closed her eyes and lie back down beneath the shade of the tree, conveniently using James's leg for her pillow, sucking on a slice of sweet and tangy orange that he had nicked from the kitchens that morning. Her hands quickly became sticky with juice, but she didn't mind.
One of his hands came down to run through her hair and she marveled at how delicate she felt in his hands. She loved that feeling. He wasn't at all afraid of anything she could do. It bothered her sometimes, but just now, she craved that feeling, and nuzzled her head into his hand, needing to know that he cared.
"You know, I thought studying with you meant I'd actually have to work, but turns out I slack off more with you than with the boys," he told her.
She frowned softly, conscious suddenly of their textbooks on the ground, entirely unopened. "Shush," she said. "It's nice and sunny and warm and who knows when the next time we'll have the lake all to ourselves like this?"
She opened her eyes to look at him, but he had turned to stare out over the water. "You're right. This is much better than Hogsmeade."
"You're smiling," she exclaimed. He looked down at her, and raised an eyebrow, but she was upset to see that his smile had fallen a bit. She sat up. "You don't smile all that often anymore."
"Does that bother you?" he asked, and he seemed amused, but she did not understand why.
"Yes," she said seriously.
He snorted and his smile fell away entirely. "Well I'll do my best to work on that then," he said sarcastically, pulling up his legs, his hands grabbing for one of his books.
"You should," she said, grabbing the book with her hand to stop him from ignoring her. He glared at her and pulled the book from her grasp.
"I don't like you anymore," she said, not even realizing she had said the words until they had registered in his eyes. The words were not teasing; they were entirely serious. "I don't like the way you just…accept everything now."
"You didn't like me to begin with," he said sharply, "so I don't know what's changed."
She felt hurt by that comment, but it was true. "You're being a jerk," she said, and he sighed.
"I know," he said, not looking at her. "I'm sorry."
"And?" she prompted.
"And what?" he asked confused. "And I'll never do it again?"
It was her turn to snort. "Yeah right, James. I meant, and what are you going to do to make it up to me?"
"Well, I did already give you half of my orange," he said, considering.
"There's a difference between giving and letting me take, and besides, you can't let me take something of yours in advance of offending me. That's entirely ridiculous."
"I dunno. I think it sounds like prudent planning to me," he said, not able to keep the amusement from his voice now.
She tried to bite back her grin, but his eyes were twinkling at her even if his lips weren't so much as twitching, and it had been a long time since she had seen it.
"I think you should take me to Hogsmeade for a butterbeer next go 'round," she declared.
"Isn't that at the end of May?" he asked, a crease in his brow.
"We shouldn't miss the last one," she said, but then reconsidered. "Unless you've plans already."
She'd given him an out. She'd been doing that a lot lately, as though testing whether he really wanted to spend time with her. She was always elated when he did, feeling as if he was somehow trying to tell her that she was still very important to him. When he took the out and she made other plans, in the back of her mind she always knew that she would be having a much better time if he were present. He excited her, just his presence, even when he was in one of his moods, like now.
There appeared to be an almost equal amount of each, as though he did not want to send her a clear message about his feelings for her. It frustrated her beyond measure, but though it angered her, she did not dare try to ask him again how he felt for her.
"The boys and I have some plans, but I don't think we were planning to wait that long to visit Hogsmeade again. Either way, we could meet up at some point, I'm sure."
She was not sure in any way how to read this statement. Was he saying this casually so that he could back out later? Was the only reason he was somewhat agreeing because he felt guilty for acting mean? Was he trying to tell her that he did in fact have other plans, but was willing to change them in order to spend time with her? Or was he saying they could meet up because he did not want her to get the impression that he was all that interested in going to Hogsmeade with her?
It was not the first time she wished she could ask him clearly what in the world he really felt for her. He sent her a thousand mixed signals, none of which she knew how to read or which ones to pay attention to.
When they had agreed to study together, he hadn't told his friends that it was with her, only with 'someone'. He treated her like she was his friend when it was just them, but she didn't know if he generally downplayed their relationship to other people.
On their hike up to this spot he had offered his hands several times to help her up places, though she could have probably done fine on her own. He treated her like a lady, but she didn't know if this was because he was mature.
His eyes occasionally glanced down to her chest or bum when she was not looking at him directly, and sometimes, even when she was. He looked at her like there was something to see, but she didn't know if it was just habit.
His actions were so passive-aggressive she wanted to slap him until he was direct with her. She turned away from him and sighed, missing his frown.
"No, that's alright. I'm sure I'll think of something else," she said, picking up her text book finally.
"Lily," he began, but she had expected his protest, if only because it was the polite thing to do, and she cut him off.
"You should spend it with your friends, and I should with mine," she said in a calm voice, made calm only by the fact that she had begun flipping through the pages of her book and not looking him in the eye. How's that for passive-aggressive, she thought.
"I wouldn't have said I'd do it if I didn't mean it," he said seriously, and that display of the all-or-nothing James she knew caused her eyes to flicker up to his. It was a mistake. "And what do you mean I should spend it with my friends and you with yours? Aren't we friends? Don't we spend time together?"
"Studying," she said. "Or talking about classes or homework or about NEWTS and career plans and every other boring thing on the face of this planet except anything that would form a friendship James! I haven't learned anything about you that matters. And you don't know anything about me that matters."
His eyes were dark and unreadable. "That isn't true," he said, but she didn't say anything, daring him to prove his point. "You don't mean that," he said instead.
"I do," she said.
"You're wrong," he said, shaking his head.
"Prove it," she said.
"Think of your deepest, darkest secret James. The one thing you would take to your grave. Something you would never tell a living soul, the kind of thing you would never be able to say, but if someone knew you, they would know. Got something?" she asked, but could tell by the way his face had turned an ashen white that he did. "Do you think I know it? Would you tell me? Right now James? Would you tell me right now?"
He was silent. "That's what I thought," she said. "What about your second, James? Your third? Would you even be able to tell me your third darkest secret?"
She felt tears burn at the back of her eyes and didn't know why. She hated how she felt, hated how she was treating him, but she didn't want to stop, not yet. All she knew was that she either wanted to be the closest to his heart or the farthest from it.
She wanted him to feel the distance between them that she felt at every moment, but she had forgotten something very important. He had already known that distance, and if she finally wanted it, then he would force her to be so close it would hurt.
"The reason I'm Head Boy is because I used an illegal curse to stop Sirius from killing Snape at the end of sixth year. I watched my mother die when I was three and believed my father when he said she had just gone to sleep – believed it for six years. Sometimes at night I think about you and touch myself. I'd use the killing curse if anyone came after me or my family or my friends. I'm an illegal animagus. When I jumped off the Astronomy Tower in third year, I wasn't practicing flying and it wasn't an accident. I have a reoccurring dream on rare occasions where I'm being strangled by a man in a black cloak and I wake up having pissed myself. I have a tattoo of a griffin on my back left shoulder and a phoenix on my back right shoulder. I drink too much firewhiskey. I'd stop my destructive habits if anyone ever asked me to. I cheated off of Remus in my third year exams. The reason I liked you so much in fourth and fifth year was because I wanted to be as strong as you were. I feel more comfortable alone in the Forbidden Forest than alone in a room with my father. I'm terrified I'm going to fuck up NEWTs and I won't do anything with my life."
All of this was said forcefully, without pause, and then, just as quickly he said, "Happy now?"
She reeled from all of these confessions laid open and bare before her. His face was flushed and he could not look her in the eye. When he abruptly stood, collected his things, and took off, she couldn't even move her head to watch him go.
Apparently, he still cared about her.
