This whole business with Sirius has made James appreciate just how frustrating it must be for Evans to try to avoid him and his friends day in and day out. After all, in the evenings after curfew, there's not really any place to go to hang out with Remus or sometimes Peter besides the common room and the dormitory. Sirius usually takes the common room while James is upstairs, but every time Sirius so much as pops up to grab a textbook, James is filled with a tension so stiff that he wonders if he isn't going to burst soon. Sure, he's got his Invisibility Cloak, but it seems like a wasted trip to use it just so he and Remus can sneak into an empty classroom or someplace to talk.
James has never had to work very hard to avoid Evans: sure, the boys keep secrets from her that they wouldn't want her walking in on and hearing, but she's always avoided the dormitory until midnight at the very earliest every night, leaving James and the others plenty of space to be themselves without having to worry about constantly dodging her or censoring themselves. Besides, it's not like it hurt to stop by the common room just because she was down there. However, with Sirius—every time James so much as catches sight of him, he feels like he could just…
By some small mercy, Sirius starts staying up late in the common room so that James is usually asleep by the time he even comes up for the night. It's not like it's what James wants, of course. None of this is what James wants—not having to avoid Sirius like this, not feeling horrified by Sirius's choices, not having had to be the one to swoop in and save somebody James hates. He can't stand the way Snape keeps looking at him. He can't stand the way Sirius keeps looking at him.
And he sure as hell can't stand the way Evans keeps looking at him, like he's devastated her—like he's shattered her faith not only in him but in the world at large. James never asked for her to put him on a pedestal. Sure, he likes playing the hero—being popular, talented, respected—and it's not like he wants to be a bad person, but… well, he's never given much of a damn about being a particularly good one, either. He cares about being loyal and brave and fighting the Dark Arts, but not a whole lot about being kind, especially not where it concerns snivelling little oddballs who are halfway to becoming Death Eaters already, and he never asked for Evans to pin on him the pressure to start.
James doesn't want to have to live up to anybody's expectations. James just wants to get through Hogwarts and whatever comes after it without being outed as the freak he's sure everybody's going to see him as if they find out what used to be between his legs.
He wishes Evans would stop wanting him to be better than he is. He wishes they could just be friends—maybe even better than friends; she's attractive enough, not just because she's started to transition but because now he knows she's trans like he is—without her setting the condition that he needs to be pure and good and noble enough for her to accept him. Because that's what it boils down to, isn't it? Evans preaches about tolerance where Snape is concerned, even knowing about his fascination with the Dark Arts, but the second she's faced with anybody else she perceives as not being up to her standards, she dismisses them as—what is it she keeps calling James lately?—an arrogant toerag.
Still, he feels an odd sense of loss when he finds out Evans is moving out of the boys' dormitory in a few short days. It frustrates him that she won't just take him as he is—but that doesn't mean he doesn't want her to take him as he is. He does, James realizes with a sinking stomach, want Evans's approval, even if he doesn't think he's strong enough to do what it takes to get it.
He gets a rare moment alone with her when she comes up to the dormitory after Remus is already asleep, while Peter is downstairs keeping Sirius company. "It's going to be really weird not hearing your breathing every night," he tells her. It's not like he can tell her he's going to miss anything like her companionship or their long talks in the dormitory at night: they don't have much interaction in here, given that Evans only ever shows up in order to sleep.
"I, uh…" This comment has clearly caught Evans off guard; she looks around shiftily at anything but James. "Yeah," she finally settles on saying. "Definitely weird."
"You can come up and visit whenever you want, you know." The words spill out before he even realizes he's saying them, let alone before he has a chance to think about their implications or consider how badly she's probably going to react to them. "Just because you won't live here anymore doesn't mean you won't be welcome."
She looks almost offended by this, which he guesses makes sense: it's not like anybody in their dormitory ever bothered to make her feel included before. She doesn't press the issue, however. "Thanks. I'll just, um—I'm just going to use the loo, and then I'll be getting to sleep."
He's seized by a sudden urge to—he doesn't know, to beg her not to hate him or something—but he ignores it. "'Night, then," says James, aching for want of the right words—of a real connection with this girl who somehow understands parts of James better than anyone else, he suspects, ever will.
xx
When it happens, he's somehow both totally blindsided and yet amazed that it hasn't happened before. James got lucky, after all: his parents dropped out of the pureblood scene when he was only five years old, the year before he transitioned, and his immediate family aren't the only Potters in Britain. He's managed to skate by at Hogwarts for all these years without anybody putting together the pieces that James Potter is the same person as the girl they knew, and even though he's lived in terror of someone making that connection, he's gotten comfortable with ruling the school—with keeping his past life and present life totally disconnected.
The one good part, if you can even call it a good part, is that he has a bit of a heads up before he gets ambushed by the entire rest of the school. It's five minutes to sunrise when Mary Macdonald barges into the boys' dormitory, which means James only has five minutes to get her out of here so that he, Peter, and Sirius can do their Animagus chants on time and not have to restart the entire spell.
(James isn't totally sure why Sirius is even bothering to keep up his chants after what he put Remus through with that prank he played on Snape—how can he even claim to care about Remus being safe during his transformations when he was so willing to wield him as a weapon? But Sirius has done them religiously all trimester, and it's not James's place to decide that he shouldn't—if anyone's, it's Remus's, and Remus hasn't complained, so James allows it.)
"Mary, it's not really a good time," Sirius grunts, stowing his wand out of sight. It's the first words he's uttered all morning—up to now, James and Peter have been talking tersely to each other, but they've largely ignored Sirius, and Sirius has largely ignored them.
"I need to talk to James," she says briskly.
"Right," says James. "Can it wait ten minutes? I can meet you downst—"
"It won't take long, and you're going to want to hear it before you go down there," she sighs.
He glances at his watch, then back up at her. "Fine. Let's hear it."
"We, uh… we should talk in private," she hedges, inclining her head toward the bathroom door.
James raises his eyebrows. "Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of them."
He realizes belatedly that this isn't entirely true—he's not sure he wants Sirius to be in on his secrets anymore—but it doesn't matter: Mary mumbles, "Even if it's about your, uh… about who you used to be?"
A thrill of horror sweeps over him. "Who I used to…?"
Mary sighs. "Can I tell you in front of them or not?"
"This isn't about—this can't be—is it? No one knows. No one is supposed to…"
"Well, they know. I just got back from breakfast, and it's all anybody can talk about. Some Slytherin found it out from their mum and dad and put together that you used to be… er…"
"That I was born female,," James finishes dully.
"Well—yes."
They've got under three minutes before the sunrise, and James can't do this right now. Honestly, James doesn't think he can do this ever, but—he couldn't right now even if he wanted to, not if he doesn't want to have to spend another month of his life with a shit-tasting Mandrake leaf stuck between his teeth making it impossible for him to talk or smile or eat.
Peter, Sirius, and Remus are all openly staring at this point. "James—" Remus tries to say, but James won't hear of it.
"Thanks, Mary. I'll, erm… not to be rude, but can you go? I need some space. I need to…"
With a twist of her lips, Mary turns to go. By the time the door clicks shut behind her, Peter is at James's side and has got his arms wound tightly around him.
"What do you need from us? Talk to me."
"I can't go down there," James croaks. "I need to do this chant in two minutes, and then I need to never leave this dormitory ever again."
By now, Remus has come over and is rubbing James bracingly on the back. Sirius, meanwhile, is standing frozen at the windowsill. "James—"
"I can't do it, Sirius." He shouldn't be saying this—he should be shunning Sirius for the rest of his life. "I can't. I don't know how. I just…"
And then Sirius is there, cupping James's cheeks in his hands. It sounds when James says it like that like it's a romantic gesture, but it's not—James doesn't feel any of the thrill he feels when he thinks about Evans these days; Sirius's hands just feel warm and steady and bracing. "James, mate, I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry this happened to you, and I'm sorry I—"
"It's fine," James mutters.
"It's not fine. I shouldn't have said what I said about Evans, even before I knew what you had gone through. I was stupid and callous, and I didn't think, and clearly, I still haven't learned because I didn't think before I sent Snape down that tunnel, either. I just…"
James hesitates. "I kept wondering why you were still bothering with the Animagus chants. I thought if you didn't give a shit about protecting Remus—"
"I give a shit. I swear I give a shit. I just treat everything like it's a big joke, but it's not, okay? Not when it hurts you or him or even Evans—not when I say it, and not even when it's just in my head. I'll do better, I swear, and—we will get you through this. If I have to hex half the castle just to shut them up—"
"I don't want you hexing anybody for me," says James numbly. "I just want people to leave me alone. Most of them have left Evans alone—to her face, anyway. I don't care what they say about me when I'm not there; I just want to be able to walk around without everybody staring at me like…"
"Like they stared at Evans when she came out," Peter finishes for him.
Remus mutters, "Or like they stare at Snape when we…"
James feels a hot and entirely unfair flash of guilt. "I want to see Evans. I know she can't stand me, but…"
"She'll come," Peter says. "I'm sure she will. She wouldn't leave you alone with this, not after the way you took care of her when it was her turn."
"But first," Sirius insists with his hands still on James's cheeks and their foreheads very close together, "we have to get you out of this dormitory. If you stay up here, you're just going to build it up to be worse and worse in your mind, and it'll be even harder to go down there when it's time."
"Do I have to?" James groans.
Remus lays his head on James's shoulder. "It'll be okay, James, I swear. We've got you."
He never really allowed himself to dream that all three of his best friends would be willing to get him through something like this, not with the transphobic jokes Sirius used to occasionally crack before James came out to him and certainly not after the incident with Snape, Sirius, and Remus—but maybe, it's safe to believe that they will. Maybe, he's still got a little luck left in him.
