Eat Your Own Liver

'I spoke to Remus,' were the surprisingly balanced first words out of Marlene's mouth. 'And we both reckon you're an idiot.'

Lying atop the covers on her bed, Lily rolled over onto her back. Recently she had spent a whole lot of time in this position and it was entirely James Potter's fault. Wow, massive double entrendre there.

'Remus said that?'

'Well, it was inferred. I interpreted.' Heaving her bulging book-bag over to her own bed, Marlene began shucking her robes in her usual fashion —loudly and with no particular consideration for Dorcas and Emmeline who were, at this unrespectable hour, sleeping. As the head of the Charms Club —a position Lily had grudgingly relinquished when she became a Prefect —Marlene often came in late.

'You interpreted, did you?'

'Yes.'

Lily heaved herself into a sitting position and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her fingers began to absently fiddle with her quilt. 'Right. Well. What did he say? The un-interpreted version, thanks.'

Marlene snorted and stepped into her pyjamas. 'He didn't need to say much. Just told me about Operation Chase James, and that when you went to implement stage one you lost your nut after the exchange of about two sentences. And, as usual —' she pulled back the hangings on her four-poster ' —there was absolutely no good reason for it. Remus heard the whole thing from where he was sitting. Apparently he mentioned Panama —'

'Peru.'

' —some South American country and you stormed off like a three year-old.'

'Panama's in Central America.' Even at the very bottom of a Lily-made hole, the witch couldn't help but fire up in defence at the filthy look Marlene shot her. 'He was being condescending!'

'He was having a laugh! You said something stupid and he had a laugh about it!'

'At my expense!'

'Well then maybe you should learn to laugh at yourself! God knows he can do it.' Marlene pulled her hangings across the bed so that her form was obscured behind them. After a while Lily did the same. Moments later the lamps dimmed and the only light in the dormitory streamed thinly through the open window.

When Lily —confused and upset —had begun to think that that was it for the night and she had better start praying for sleep, Marlene spoke again.

'Do you ever think that maybe it isn't just him who needed to change? In order for this bat shit-crazy plan of yours to work?'

She let the statement ring through the otherwise silent dormitory for a full minute before continuing gently, 'you used to say that something inside you just blew up when you saw him, and that you couldn't help it, but I don't think you ever tried to.'

There was silence for another good minute before Lily said into the darkness, 'are you trying to make me hate you?'

'Nah,' came the quiet reply from the other bed. 'I just like you too much to keep my mouth shut when you're ruining your own life. Now shut up, go to sleep, and try to grow up a bit in the next ten hours. Tomorrow is Stage One Damage Control.'

Much to Lily's dismay, Marlene filled Dorcas in on the happenings of the day before on the way down to breakfast. In her own, tactful Dorcas way, the newly-informed witch agreed that Lily would have to make a concerted effort to rein in her violent temper if she ever wanted Operation Chase James Potter to 'bear any fruit', as it was so delicately put.

'What fruit?' asked Marlene blankly as they circumvented a group of loitering Ravenclaws on their way through the Entrance Hall. 'You mean offspring?'

'No, you twit,' Dorcas said. 'Though that won't happen either if Lily chops his thingo off in a fit of rage.'

Lily had a large unopened jar of peanut butter —which had arrived by owl from her mother like a timely miracle that morning —stowed under her arm and so focused her mind on toast as Marlene and Dorcas speculated on the probability of James losing his man-parts to her butter-knife before Potions.

As she had refused to leave the dormitory until Emmeline had returned from breakfast to report that one James Potter had eaten early due to a Quidditch practise, the Gryffindor table was gloriously free of him. Unfortunately, as the fates would have it, the nearest toast-rack was nowhere near Lily's plate and naturally the closest one was directly in front of Remus Lupin.

'Gen,' she said quietly to the fifth year next to her, 'I'd never ask otherwise, but I'm —I've —well, could you possibly —'

'Evans.'

Marlene had chosen that moment to swing around and overhear. Poor, confused Genevieve Clearwater was forbidden from leaving her seat, which then saw Lily creep down the table, snatch up the toast rack to a furious outcry from a group of bereaved sixth year boys and run back to her seat. All seemed swell for a while, but as soon as she had her peanut butter-laden knife poised, toast-bound, a soft cough by her left shoulder halted its progression. The outrage of the boys she had stolen from —Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Andrew Hopkins and Lance Boot —had reached an incredible level and, in keeping with her stellar luck, the diplomat sent to ease the toast tensions was in fact none other than the person she had been trying to avoid.

'Lily,' Remus said in greeting. From his elevated position, his frown fell down upon her like lead.

'Remus,' she returned nervously. 'I suppose you want your pilfered vittles back, then?'

'Yes,' he said, turning to look back at the rioters. 'But I also want a word.' His tone was grim.

'Yes, I suppose you do,' she said, quaveringly, her hopes hinging on the probability that Remus was too nice to bring yesterday up at the crowded breakfast table.

'After Transfiguration, then?' he said, an eyebrow rising with his question. Lily nodded, surrendered her toast and pinched Marlene hard when she said smugly, 'well, you're in for it.'

A few minutes later, after a furious Marlene had removed herself from the table to get Pomfrey to check if the pinch 'had gone septic', Lily was left alone with Dorcas, who was reading the Daily Prophet. In retaliation for the pinch, Marlene had charmed her jar peanut butter into fig jam —in Lily's opinion the abomination of the jam family —before she left for the hospital wing. Not knowing the specific counter-charm, Lily had only been able to conjure up some strange, granular, chopped nuts sludge.

'All I wanted was a bit of toast,' said the redhead mournfully.

Dorcas looked up from the Prophet in surprise. 'This is so not about toast. And did you honestly think this was going to be easy?' she said incredulously. 'Given you and James's history?'

Lily didn't need to answer that: it was rapidly becoming clear to her —and everyone else involved, it seemed —that Operation Chase James Potter was going to be anything but smooth and structured.

'He's disappointed,' Remus said soberly when he had cornered Lily after Transfiguration. 'I think he allowed himself to hope —just a tiny bit —that things could be different between you two.'

'I know, I know,' Lily said, frustrated beyond belief with herself. Remus had told her what had happened after she had gone to bed: apparently James had sat there like he'd been hit by a Silencing charm for a good five minutes before he had taken himself quietly off to bed, muttering 'stupid, stupid idea.'

'Merlin,' Lily groaned. 'If I could have just kept my fat gob shut.'

Remus watched her beat herself up for a few minutes and then said, 'I don't think all's lost yet.' His face was thoughtful.

'What?' she paused in her self-flagellation. 'How?'

Never had one ever approached the Gryffindor table with such trepidation as Lily Evans did that lunchtime. She was torn between two major feelings: shame —my pride will never recover from this —and fear —what if he doesn't say anything? What if he —no, don't think about it.

Remus was shadowing her faithfully; every time her steps faltered a little bit, he'd give her an encouraging but firm nudge in the back with his wand. Actually, it felt more threatening than encouraging. Must remember to cross 'wisdom' and 'gentleness' off Remus's list of virtues. They halted finally behind James Potter, who was scribbling a very last-minute paragraph onto the bottom of a Defence Against the Dark Arts essay about legal Imperius curse alternatives.

'Potter?' Oh, Merlin, Jesus, God, smite me where I stand. 'Uh, Potter?'

His back stiffened. Slowly, he swung around. Surprise was clear on his face and his eyebrows had shot up his forehead.

'Evans,' he said, blinking. Even with his hair freshly washed and oh-so-soft looking —get a grip, Evans —the voluminous mass was untameable and, looking up at her, he had to push stray strands off his glasses. His eyes, wide with surprise, flicked across to Remus, still standing behind her.

Are you a weak bint with a taste for melodrama? No, sirree.

'What —?'

'I'm sorry,' she blurted.

Now James was shocked. 'Ev —'

'For yesterday, I mean. I —er —the prefect meeting was intense and I was drained, hungry —you know. Yes, well, I'm sorry.'

The surprise on his face gave way to a small smile. 'Discussions about Dumbledore's birthday decorations got intense, did they?'

Maybe it was stupid of James to say that, given what Lily was apologising for. Almost as soon as he said it he seemed to realise his mistake and looked at her as if anticipating a blow up.

Surely enough, Lily had interpreted the question as a mockery and had begun to steam, but Remus's warning wand at her back cut through the fury.

Five minutes ago in the Entrance Hall, as the hungry luncheoners streamed past them into the Great Hall, Remus had taken her aside for a final pep talk. 'One thing you will have to accept eventually about James Potter is his firm resolve to see the hilarity in any situation,' Remus had said. She had nodded, and would have charged into the Great Hall, fired as she was by adrenaline for Operation Chase James Potter that would quickly dwindle the closer she got to his seat at the Gryffindor table, but Remus held her back.

'I know you've been at the receiving end of his… sense of humour… for a number of years,' he said seriously, and she rolled her eyes, but Remus shook his head. 'You don't understand —Sirius told me about your… conversation.'

Lily sighed. 'And? You're now convinced I'm an awful person?'

'No, I'm just saying that I know you felt that they were taking the mickey.'

Surprised and a little uncomfortable now, Lily waved it off. 'No —it's —I was just overthinking —'

'No,' Remus said again, firmly this time. 'That's not it. But it's not important right now; all I'm saying is that you shouldn't automatically assume that he's making fun of you.'

So, standing now in the Great Hall in front of James Potter, Lily forced a smile, said, 'Right. Yes. Ha, ha. Best be off,' and pivoted like she was in the air force.

Embarrassment creeping slowly and surely over her, she made her way down the table to where Alice, Mary and Marlene were sitting. What was that? Ha, ha, best be off? You are so cripplingly, mind-bogglingly and excruciatingly lame.

When she had seated herself, face burning red, she told a curious Marlene what had happened in an undertone. To her surprise, the other witch looked pleasantly shocked. 'Well I never. You apologised to James Potter? Where are the flying pigs?'

'I know, I know,' Lily said, anxiously shredding the roll she was supposed to be buttering, 'but you should have heard me, Mar —' her voice went weak with humiliation. 'And then I pivoted like a major general.'

'That is lamentable,' Marlene said robustly, nodding in a forceful way as she tipped the fluffy mess of Lily's ex-bread roll from her plate and replaced it with another one. 'But Potter still has his nads, and that, I think, can only be a positive.' She looked up from her plate and smiled. 'Looks like he's happy about it, too.'

Without permission, Lily's head swivelled around at this last comment. Her eyes found him immediately —these days she could find him in a room of bespectacled, athletic, black-haired boys all wearing the same colour as if he flashed neon green or something else unnaturally conspicuous. A small thread of hope wound its way around her large intestine. It felt rather like gas.

He was staring down at his plate, the tiniest of smiles pulling at his lips. Sirius was looking surly, Peter was gargling his pumpkin juice and Remus was eating his steak and mushroom pie with a calm and steady hand. The little smile grew until a fully-fledged grin was on his lips, and then James speared a potato and catapulted it into Peter's open mouth. The boy choked on the legume, which appeared to have flown straight down his windpipe, and all the surrounding students were showered in frothy juice.

' —which is clearly rubbish.'

Marlene's voice pulled Lily back to their portion of table. Unaware that her comment had caused her friend's attention to waver, Marlene had continued speaking and Lily found suddenly she had no idea what the other witch was talking about. A bit flustered, she said, 'sorry, what were you saying?'

Marlene snorted. 'Obviously nothing worth listening to, Evans,' she said. 'Just that I'm glad Remus took over damage control. Reparation of delicate issues isn't really my forte.'