Mary Had a Whip, part two

or

The Most Monumental Day in the History of the World

James squinted. 'It looks like…' He straightened up with surprise. 'Is that a catapult?'

It was one of those nightmares where you are being chased and your legs are moving at quarter speed. In the few fateful seconds her mind needed to process what James had said, Lily's legs were frozen beneath her. As soon as she recognised the wooden structure in the shadows from the shredded blueprints and she regained autonomy, she couldn't run fast enough down the stairs.

And she didn't run fast enough down the stairs.

As she leapt off the bottom step she saw it happening as if in slow motion: The niffler launcher rolling to the edge of the shadows; someone tripping the catch; the graceful arc of nifflers in tiny pink tutus, soaring in the direction of Daisy Abbott and her friends.

For months now Lily had felt quite strongly that blonde is an imprudent and tasteless hair colour —red is much more interesting —and on the night of the end of term party, she was proved right. Because blonde, especially bright blonde in the quantities that a certain Hufflepuff possesses, tends to shine under strong lighting.

And nifflers quite like shiny things.

Daisy Abbott went down like a character in a slapstick comedy, buried under a pile of frenzied nifflers. It could've been cute, and Lily was sure it was meant to be, but the scene very quickly changed from humourous to horrific when it became clear from Daisy's pained screams that the nifflers weren't exactly cuddling her. They were swarming her —clawing and biting with sharp little teeth and nails —and Lily caught a glimpse of the spangled silver blouse that their victim was wearing, shining like Sickles under the mirror ball. Blonde hair and silver sequins. What a combination.

This all happened in the space between one second and the next.

And then Lily, fully aware that this was entirely her fault, ran for the dance floor, wand outstretched.

'Stupefy!' she yelled. One of the nifflers fell suddenly back as if shot, to lie as a furry black and pink puddle on the floor. A few of the more quick-thinking students around Lily followed her lead.

'Stupefy!'

'Stupefy!'

There were six or seven of the mole-like creatures and it took only a few seconds to stupefy them all, but the damage was done. And Daisy Abbott lay alone in the middle of the dance floor, covered in red, welling gashes, her blouse in tatters. One of the curses had gotten her —Lily had a feeling it was one of hers; her hand wasn't very steady when she was scared —and the girl was limp and silent in the most blood-freezing way. In fact, aside from the music still pounding through the speakers, the whole ballroom had gone silent. The students on the upper levels had flocked to the railings and were looking down in shock at the angel of Hufflepuff, lying like a corpse beneath the mirror ball, surrounded by the much smaller bodies of seven chiffon- and lead-clad nifflers.

Mary was standing across the floor with a look of horror on her face. This was not the plan, Lily thought vaguely, and then could have slapped herself. Bloody hell, Lily, like that's not obvious at all. This most certainly was not the plan.

It takes more than a Niffler attack and a semi-casualty to halt hormone-ridden teens in their pursuit of a good time. After Daisy was levitated to the hospital wing, a group of sobbing girls trailing behind her, the party slowly resumed play. Lily couldn't return, though. She couldn't quite sit at Daisy's bedside, either, so she fled to the empty common room. Finding herself with the pick of all the couches, she dragged the biggest, squishiest armchair to the fireplace. A simple conflagration spell later and she was the picture of exterior comfort and interior desolation.

About fifteen minutes into her masochistic and senseless picture slideshow replay of Daisy's friendship niffler cuddle, the portrait swung inwards. The brusque, no-nonsense slap of flat shoes against tarpaulin told her who the newcomer was.

'Well, now.' Marlene cleared her throat, pulling the second most comfortable armchair to the fireplace and settling into it. 'Nifflers aren't for cuddling. Who knew?'

'I did,' Lily mumbled, staring into the budding fire.

'Oh my word.' Marlene's head lifted off the head rest, her eyes like saucers. 'You feel guilty. You think it's all your fault.'

Lily stared right back at her, equally surprised. 'Of course it is. This whole thing is entirely my fault.'

'I'm not arguing with you,' the other witch decided, swivelling her head to stare at the fire and settling back into her chair. 'That's precious energy I'm not prepared to expend on such a useless endeavour.' She yawned. 'What are you still doing up, then?'

'Waiting,' Lily mumbled almost incoherently, on edge. Marlene didn't press. The portrait hole swung open again, admitting a few students, and both girls turned to see who was coming in; Marlene absently, Lily wildly. 'I think it's going to wind down in the next hour or so,' the brunette commented. Her eyes followed the line of scantily clad fourth years with supreme judgment as they tottered to the closest group of chairs and settled there, giggling.

Her prediction was correct. Within half an hour the common room was full of tipsy and excitable revellers. The party may have ended, but no one was ready to go to bed yet. Someone set up a portable turntable in the corner and a group of fifth years started a dance floor in the centre of the common room. Packs of butterbeer were flung across the room. Smuggled plates of finger food emerged from hiding. The party continued. And the two sixth year witches sat quietly in the centre of it all, nestled comfortably in their plush armchairs. Marlene dozed. Lily waited.

She didn't catch the portrait hole open again, but when she heard someone call out in greeting she shot out of her chair like it was an ejector seat. Striding across the room to the door of the boys' dormitories, James didn't look like he should be approached at the moment.

Usually Lily was quite good at identifying and heeding warning signs, but these were desperate times. She ran to catch up with him.

'James!'

'Not now, Lily,' he said angrily. 'Now's really not a good time.'

'I know,' she said, 'But I wanted to say —'

'Daisy broke it off.'

For a few seconds Lily couldn't comprehend what he meant by that. 'I…' She scratched at her temple. 'I'm not — What do —'

'She broke up with me, Evans,' he spat, turning on her, expression furious. 'Are you happy?' He twisted the doorknob viciously. 'Leave me alone.'

Of course she didn't do that. She darted through the door after him and chased him up the first flight. At the sound of her feet on the steps behind him, he swung around, shocked. 'Evans, what the —' Then his eyes narrowed in on the door they had just come through. 'Bloody double standards.' He turned away again. 'You can show yourself out. I'm not talking to you right now.'

'Well, I'm not leaving,' Lily panted, trying to jog up the stairs to keep up with him. 'Merlin, what level are you lot on? See, with the girls they operate on a very wise principle: the older you are, the less fit you're probably going to be —'

'Evans.'

Cutting sharply across her rambling, he stopped abruptly and turned to her again, eyes glittering dryly in the torchlight. 'Lily.' His voice was soft now and he just looked tired and sad. Long, pale fingers rubbed under his glasses. 'Please. I don't have the energy for this right now.'

It was true: James looked sapped; his shoulders slumped and defeated. Somewhere between the balcony and visiting the hospital wing he had rolled the sleeves of his pale green shirt up to over his elbows. It was still miraculously tucked, but from this distance Lily noted with piercing, excruciating fondness that his belt had missed one of the loops of his trousers. The warm light of the torches cast a glossy orange glow over his hair, now in complete disarray, and reflected off his glasses so that his eyes were unreadable. Yet Lily could guess how they looked: tired intensity was written into the set of his eyebrows and the downward turn of his mouth.

'I really do understand,' she said nervously, wanting nothing more than to stroke the frown lines off his forehead. 'I don't want to bother you.' Her voice was soft; tentative. 'Just —I really wanted to say sorry for this whole shambles of a night. You shouldn't let the sun go down on an argument and… you know…' she trailed off lamely.

'It's one thirty in the morning. The sun went down at least six hours ago.' A scrap of a smile threatened the corners of his mouth, quickly banished. 'And there's nothing to say sorry for.' It was a dismissal: he turned to resume his trek up the stairs.

'No —'

In a fraught attempt to keep him with her, Lily grabbed at his hand. It was warm and dry and even as James froze, it twined possessively around hers.

And it was a very bad move.

He stood, immobilised, one foot on the third flight of stairs, the other on the landing of the second. Impossibly tense, his back was to Lily. His hand held hers firmly.

Very slowly, James's head turned to look at their joined hands.

'Lily.'

As soon as he said her name, Lily pulled her hand from his like it had been stung. His empty one clenched and released, and then fisted into the material of his trousers. His voice was tightly controlled, but he was within a hair's breadth of snapping. 'You're making me angry now.'

'I'm sorry,' she rambled, holding the recalcitrant limb to her chest. His head was turning, and Lily could see his eyes were flaming. 'I knew you were angry. I knew it. That's why I couldn't let you leave! And that's why I —why I came, to say —'

In a single, smooth motion, James caught her other wrist, pressed her to the wall and kissed her.

The world imploded.

One second Lily was nearly shivering in the chilly stairwell; the next, James's body was flush against hers and she was burning up. That one second was all it took for her to respond with equal, if not greater fervour. Even as she inhaled in shock her arms came to twine around his neck, pulling him closer to her, and she was kissing him back, fiercely, their teeth clashing, and she was finally sinking her fingers into his hair and feeling the threads of futile product amongst the soft strands.

Every moment of unendurable tension had been building to this. This kiss was the culmination of all the times they hadn't kissed. The buckle of his belt bit into her stomach, his glasses scraped her cheeks and the bridge of her nose and he was standing on her toes, but she was only half aware of the stings, and she pulled him closer. James Potter was kissing her as if to stop would be to asphyxiate; as if by standing as close as possible and holding as tightly as possible she might be absorbed into him, to become that missing piece he'd always known her to be. And while his mouth pressed hard and desperate and sure against hers, his hands cradled her head like it was the most precious thing he'd ever held. And Lily, she was angry at her lungs: they heaved painfully as she gasped breaths of his feverish exhalations. Surely this was all the air she needed. Fingers bit skin; nose bumped nose; teeth stung lips; nails caught clothing; heart pressed to pounding, racing, lifting, soaring heart —

—and then he snatched his mouth from hers.

Stunned by the sudden fierceness of the severance, Lily's eyes flew open. James's irises were fever-bright and he was staring at her in utter shock. There were two spots of colour high up on his cheeks. His shirt was rumpled, his hair a riot of black from her hands and his own. They stared at each other, unmoving, for a good twenty seconds. Then, very slowly, careful, brittle fingers were unraveled from the tangles he had made of her hair.

He stepped away from her.

Cold air rushed in like a tsunami. Lily was left shivering, her mind, for once, blank. Suddenly sapped of energy, she leant her head back on the cool stone of the walls and closed her eyes. The stairwell was entirely silent. They were high enough into the tower that the sounds of the party below were almost inaudible.

It was just Lily and James, standing a few feet apart on a set of stairs at one thirty in the morning on the 29th of May, 1976. The most monumental day in the history of the world.

'I'm so sorry,' James croaked at length. The words pried Lily's eyelids apart. He was staring right at her, hands open by his sides. His eyes were shining and they said I'm really not sorry as clearly as his mouth proclaimed the opposite.

'It's o —'

'Don't say it's okay, Lily!' he exclaimed frantically, voice suddenly echoing loudly through the stairwell. He threw his hands up in the air. 'I just —Merlin —I just broke up with my girlfriend!' He shook his head incredulously. 'I broke up with my girlfriend twenty minutes ago!'

Lily didn't have anything to say to that. She wasn't sure she'd be able to if she did. It seemed he'd already recovered from the kiss, but her nerve endings were still buzzing. Her lips were still tingling something fierce.

The pacing began.

Hands fisted in his hair, James began a frazzled tread up and down the landing, muttering to himself. 'What the hell are you doing? This is bad, you great prat. This is so bad. Break up with your girlfriend and the first thing you do is kiss the reason…' Realising he had an audience, he caught himself, but Lily could piece together his meaning. She found her voice quite suddenly, pushing herself off the wall. 'Wha t—what?' Panic was pooling in her stomach like acid.

Eyes narrowing viciously, James turned on her just as suddenly. 'She's lying there,' he hissed, 'all covered in cuts from Mary's bloody friendship nifflers-' Lily was sure his voice had never been more irate '-and she says that can't be with me anymore because I'm only ever partly with her. The rest of me is somewhere else. She said that we've been kidding ourselves for quite a bit.' He tugged so hard at his hair that Lily half expected it to rip out. 'And it's true: it's been a while coming, but…' The fight went out of him like a burst balloon and his hands dropped from his head. 'I…' He breathed out, long and slow. 'I thought I could do it without anyone getting this hurt.'

He was going to break up with her anyway, Lily's thoroughly inappropriate mind noted.

'I shouldn't have kissed you,' he muttered, staring down at his hands, sounding like he was trying to convince himself of it. More quietly; 'Shouldn't. Have. Kissed. You.' His fists clenched with anger. Just then he seemed to realise that Lily hadn't yet contributed to the pity-party. 'Well,' he said with glorious sarcasm, railing her with a glare, 'any thoughts?'

It took a moment for her to assemble her thoughts. Then, taking a deep breath, she said, 'I should go. You were right —this whole thing's a mess —'

Venom on his tongue, it was James's turn to stop her. 'Don't you dare —'

Roughly, he grasped her hand, whirled her around and pulled her into him. Lily saw his eyes flashing with anger, but then somehow he had his arms tight around her waist and she had a hand at his collar, pulling his lips down to hers and they were kissing again, mouths colliding wonderfully and frantically for a few electric moments. The world shrunk to a pinprick: a witch and a wizard, tangled together in a stairwell in a Scottish castle, pulling each other closer like the apocalypse was this coming Tuesday. But it was only moments: seconds later James tore his mouth away from Lily's again and leapt away, eyes huge and shocked.

'Damn it, Lily!' he swore, hands coming up to cover his mouth. 'Merlin, what are we doing?'

'Kissing,' Lily said helpfully, her voice shaking a little bit. Of course it was the wrong thing to say, but she had just been thoroughly kissed and no sane human would expect her to be thinking straight. And apparently James wasn't all that sane of a human at this very moment.

Sure enough, her words were enough of a tripwire for him to work himself into a rage. 'Why are you kissing me?' he all but yelled, throwing his hands in the air. 'Six months ago you couldn't stand me! And now you're everywhere I look —and you're making me feel things —you've made my girlfriend dump me —' Now Lily was starting to get angry, too; really angry. With every word he said her mouth gaped further with disbelief and shock. At this last accusation, she spluttered with fury, but James's diatribe was relentless. ' —And I don't even know how you feel about me!' He laughed once, short and sharp, in disbelief. 'Is this some kind of messed up game to you? You've been dancing around everywhere, messing everything up —'

But Lily had had enough.

'Shut up,' she bellowed over him, hands in fists. Genuine surprise registered on his face. 'Shut up and listen to me, you great, sodding, idiotic twat!'

His eyes narrowed at this last part. 'That's more like the Lily I know,' he said bitterly.

Paying no attention to his words, she advanced on him, finger raised. 'Firstly.' She breathed out unevenly; her voice was tight and shaking with anger. 'Firstly, you can NOT pin Daisy dumping you on me.' It had taken him blaming her to realise this. 'Yes, I am in part to blame and I am desperately, desperately sorry —' her voice cracked ' —for my share of the hurt that has been caused, but she dumped you because you don't feel enough for her, James, and that's entirely on you.' James, frowning, opened his mouth to interject, but Lily said, 'I haven't finished,' so severely that his mouth shut like a trap.

'Secondly,' she took another deep breath, trying not to scream at his absolute obliviousness. She wanted to shake him; rattle his bones until he saw sense. 'Of course I have feelings for you! Of course I fancy you! Could I honestly have made it any more obvious?' She stared at him in disbelief.

And he stared right back, mouth dropping open in a tiny 'o' and Lily realised belatedly that he had just heard what he had most wanted to hear for the last four years. 'Do you get it now?' she said more softly, eyes searching his.

For a few magical seconds, dizzy incredulity played across his face. His breath was coming faster and his hands came up as if to frame her face, but then, quite suddenly, he frowned. Dropped his hands. Took a step back. Lily watched, fidgeting, as suspicion, vulnerability and hope warred on his face. Defensive arms folded across his chest and he stuck his chin out. 'How do I know that you won't just get sick of me?' He was trying to look tough and impenetrable. 'How do I know that you won't just have another miraculous change of heart when you figure out I'm not all I'm cracked up to be?'

Ready to persuade and cajole and convince, Lily opened her mouth, but James was building up steam again. 'I don't know if I can trust you,' he said, frowning deeply now. He took another step back, regarding her darkly. 'How do I know you're not playing me? Is this all a joke? You could just be getting me back.' His eyes flickered to the corners of the stairwell, as if waiting for Lily's friends to leap out yelling 'Gotcha!'

She could have been angry, and a short while ago she would have been, but since her heart-to-heart with Sirius (it was definitely an argument) Lily had known that it wouldn't be easy getting his best mate to trust her again. He was an easy-going guy, was James Potter, but this James was a far cry from the one everyone else knew. Because where love is the greatest, the greatest suspicion can also take ahold, and suspicion stems from self-doubt and insecurity. That sounds like something Dumbledore would say.

If James Potter had taught himself one thing when it came to Lily Evans it was that he wasn't good enough for her.

Hands dangling loosely by her sides, Lily raised her chin, palms facing toward James where he stood, tense and vulnerable and distrustful a few yards away from her. Her face open and determined, her tone gentle and frank, she said quietly, 'After all of this, I'm not worth it. No —' she stopped him when he tried to interrupt, his stiff face transforming with incredulity, ' —I don't feel like I'm worth it. I feel mean and little and awful, because I've hurt you a million times over, and I've hurt Daisy, who is pretty much the most wonderful human being since Jesus —' that got a surprised laugh out of James. Confusion, exhilaration, disbelief and euphoria were flashing intermittently across his face as if he couldn't decide which one he should let take ahold. Taking this as a positive sign, Lily continued. 'I can't —I can't physically express how sorry I am for everything and I want you to realise that I've changed. I think you're funny and I think you're brilliant —' she was rambling and gesturing in the most overdramatic way ' —and I know you that you are good enough. You are so good enough —better, actually, than I deserve at this point. And so…' She took a deep, deep breath, fisting her hands into her skirt. An inebriated Gen Clearwater and her friends had started another chant of 'Get him! Get him! Get him!' inside Lily's head.

'James Potter.' Her voice was shaky.

James's reply was faint; indistinct. 'Yes?' Dazed, he looked as if everything he had ever wanted was being offered to him and it was all a bit much. He looked as if he might tip over. Lily felt dizzy just watching him.

'Will you go out with me?'