Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius and Lily moved in together again for the summer before seventh year. James and Lily finally started dating.
Revised version uploaded 11 January 2022.
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August 4th, 1977: James Potter
James has wanted Lily for so many years that, now that they're together, he feels like he can barely function for happiness. He knows the extent to which he's been kissing and cuddling with her in front of the others is excessive, but he doesn't care. Lily Evans is his girlfriend, and James doesn't care what anybody thinks of it, so long as he gets to be with her.
He'd been so afraid that Lily would freak out and create distance between them if they did anything physical again, and James had been ready to resign himself to a lifetime of being just friends with her. If all he could have were friendship with flirty banter, he would have taken it happily. But it turns out that he can have more, and all he can process is joy joy joy.
He loves that Lily and Sirius are rooming together in their own flat, because it means that when James comes over every day, he gets to see his best friend and his girlfriend (his girlfriend!) all at once, the whole day long. He's so happy that he's not even jealous that Sirius and Lily are sharing a bedroom. The one problem this poses, of course, is that neither James and Lily, nor Sirius and Marlene, have any privacy from each other for physical intimacy. For James and Lily, this isn't a huge deal, since it's not like they've done much more than peck on the lips (with one notable exception), but James imagines that Sirius is going a little stir crazy without having had sex with Marlene all summer long.
Truth be told, James is more than a little apprehensive to go any further than brief kisses with Lily. She iced him out for months after that one time they kissed during sixth year, and while by some miracle she doesn't seem to be having any kind of crisis of conscience this time, James is still nervous that they'll go too far and it'll be too much for her to handle. He's so, so happy just to hold her and kiss her and while away his days in her company, and he doesn't want to do anything that might jeopardize the miracle he already has.
He's alone with her when Sirius is in the shower one night when he tilts her chin up until she looks him in the eye. "I'm really, really glad that we're together now."
"Me, too."
"Sure you aren't going to leave me for Snape?" says James.
He's joking, but Lily's wearing a pensive look and a frown. "You know, I always suspected that he had feelings for me," she says. "Severus, I mean. The way he looked at me sometimes… the way he talked about you fancying me…"
"Did you fancy him back?" asks James, terrified to learn the answer.
"No," she says, and James holds in a huge sigh of relief. "The way I felt about him was strong—he was my only real friend for years—but it wasn't like that."
"Right."
"I do miss him," Lily admits. "You don't stop caring just because you're supposed to about someone who was your best mate for eight years. But I want to move on with my life, not stay stuck in regret over someone who… who…"
James starts to say, "You don't have to—"
"No—it's okay. This is just something that I live with, that's all," she says with a shrug and a small smile.
When James Apparates back home, he finds his dad alone in the main living room, reading the Daily Prophet and looking anxious. "More bad news about Voldemort?" James asks darkly, the remnants of his smile dropping from his lips.
"I wish you wouldn't call him that," Dad sighs. "No, actually, it's—it's your mother."
"Mum? What about Mum?"
"You know that spattergroit case she worked at the hospital last week?" James nods. "Well, your mum started to break out in purple pustules today. They—they think she's been infected."
Everything seems to freeze as James tries and fails to process the news. "But—but Healers treat spattergroit cases all the time. Mum can't have—"
"Not all the time. Spattergroit is highly contagious, you know that," Dad says quietly. "It's good they caught it early, but James, we want you to stay at one of your friends' houses for the rest of the summer, while Mum is in treatment. We don't want you catching this from her."
"And what about you?" Dad's silence tells James everything he needs to know. "You're just going to stay here and get yourself infected?"
"There are precautions I can take," says Dad. "Face masks and protective charms—"
"Like the precautions Mum took treating the patient who gave this to her in the first place?" says James hotly.
Dad clicks his tongue. "She's going to need a caregiver, and I took an oath to protect her in sickness and health. I'll be fine. But for your safety—"
"I want to talk to Mum," says James immediately. "Where is she? Your room?"
"Honey, you can't. If Mum passes this on to you—"
"I want to see my mother!"
"No, James. I know it's hard, but we've decided, and it's what both of us want for you."
In this moment, James feels like a damn idiot. He's been spending every day of his summer vacation at Sirius and Lily's flat when he could have been spending valuable time with his mother—now she's sick and he's supposed to just stay away and not see her, and who can even say how much longer she has, assuming she makes it through this? Mum has to make it through this. She just has to. James's mum with the sparkling smile and teasing laugh and affectionate embrace—she just has to be okay. If she's not—if Dad gets infected, too—
"Fine," James mutters. "Fine. Just—just let me pack my trunk. I'll go back and stay at Sirius's; I'm sure he and Lily won't mind."
"Jamie…"
Dad hasn't called him that in years. James doesn't know why he's saying it now—whether he thinks it will appeal to James's sympathy or whether he's slipped into something more intimate because of how scared Dad is—but all it really does is make James feel uncomfortable and scared.
It's serious, if Dad is calling him "Jamie" again. It's serious, and James has barely been home all summer. Why has he spent every day camped out at Lily and Sirius's flat? It's not like he doesn't already see them all day every day at Hogwarts. His parents only get to see James for two and a half months in the summers, two weeks at Christmas, and a week at Easter. They must miss him when he's away. And instead of spending time with them—including them in his life in a meaningful way—he ditches them every day of every break to see more of the people who get to keep him full-time.
He knows why he does it, of course: he feels aimless whenever he goes a week or a day or an hour without being in at least one of his friends' company. It's that thing that all the Gryffindor seventh years know but have only ever discussed on rare occasion: they can't function without each other. They've gotten comfortable giving into how good it feels to have eight other people's constant companionship, and it's easier to keep drowning themselves in each other's lives and thoughts and drama than it is to confront how restless and lonely they feel if they try to be their own separate people.
All this time, he shouldn't just have been allowing them back into his life: he should have been asking them how they managed to let go of him so that he could learn to do the same with his friends. James can't cope without his friends, and his friends can't cope without James, and yet his parents, who never see him, have allowed him to live his own life completely away from them without complaint. And all this time, how has he repaid them? They don't just provide for him; they dote on him. Every time he sees them, the conversation is all about him—what's going on in his classes and in his friend group and on the Quidditch team and with his giant crush on Lily. When was the last time he took the initiative to sit down for a few hours with him without them having to ask, to work themselves around his schedule? When was the last time he even asked Mum or Dad how their day was going? He can't remember, and he's horrified with himself for it.
And now that he's run out of time—now that he can't see his mum or dad, maybe not ever again if this goes the way James suspects it's going to go—they're thrusting him back into the hands of the friends he's so stupidly clung to for all these years, and they're doing it to protect him, as if he's the one who deserves safety, as if he's…
He's staring at his dad, and his dad's staring back at him, and even though all James wants is to have more time with him, he can't think of a single meaningful thing to say. How does he admit to Dad how badly he's failed? All this time, Mum and Dad wanted to give James freedom—independence—and he's squandered it, because instead of learning what they wanted to teach him, he's affixed himself to people who fed into James's own addictions.
That's what this is, isn't it? He's an addict—but now that he knows it, he still doesn't think he can stop. He's going to go to Sirius and Lily's flat, and he's going to confide in them about how lost he feels without his parents, and he's going to cling to them for the kind of support he doesn't know how to give himself. He's going to spend every remaining moment of the summer holiday in their company, and the worst part is, he's going to need it—he's going to live for it—because he's not going to know how to live without it.
"I have to go," he whispers.
"But—"
"Daddy…"
He only has the one word for it, but from the look in Dad's eyes, James thinks that Dad has understood everything James means to say. He flees the room and sprints for the nearest staircase.
In a daze, he tosses clothes and books into his trunk from where he's strewn them across his bedroom for the last month and a half. James's brain seems to be running at triple speed. All he can think about is Mum and how he'd much rather stay at her bedside every day than go back to Sirius's or, hell, to Hogwarts a month from now.
It seems to take seconds for James to pack everything, and he straightens up, clutching his trunk in one hand and his owl in the other. He knows he should go back downstairs and say goodbye to his father before Disapparating—that he'll regret it if he doesn't—but if he goes down there, James doesn't think he'll have the strength to leave at all. He turns on the spot, concentrating hard on Lily and Sirius's flat.
They're both in the living room when James gets there; Sirius creases his eyebrows together in confusion. "James? Lily said you were heading back home for the night."
"I was. My mum, uh—she's been infected with spattergroit. She and Dad wanted me to find somewhere else to stay the rest of the summer, since it's so contagious."
"Oh, James, I'm so sorry," says Sirius at the same time as Lily asks, "Spatter-what?"
"Spattergroit. Basically, you come down with a load of boils on your face, and then you die," says James in clipped tones, pretending he's reciting definitions to study for an exam and not that his mum—that—
"Of course you can stay here," Sirius says now as Lily frowns and twists her lip and takes James's hand in hers. "You can bunk with me if, Lily, you don't…"
"Thanks," says James quietly.
Lily looks back and forth from Sirius to James and back again a few times before Sirius's statement seems to click. "Oh! No, it's okay, James can stay in my bed." James smiles weakly and sets Walsh's cage on top of the mantle, opening it.
James can't think of a less romantic way to start sleeping (literally) with Lily. They climb into bed, and Sirius turns out the lights and gets into his own bed, and then James feels Lily scoot up to face his backside and wrap her arms around him—one under his neck, the other over his waist. He covers one of her hands with his own and tries to steady his breathing into a slow rhythm, to lull himself to sleep, but he stays awake for a long time, for hours after Lily's own breathing drops off and Sirius starts to snore.
It seems unbelievable that just hours ago James was over-the-moon delighted about dating Lily without another care in the world. He loves his best mate and his girlfriend, but right now, he would give this flat up just for the knowledge that his mum was going to be okay.
He hates himself, even more so because holding Lily so close and listening to her and Sirius breathe is having the exact effect he knew it would: he feels calmer, steadier, somehow more whole. Without them, all he is are fragments.
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END OF PART SIX