Riders On The Storm

It snowed. It started as small drifting flakes that melted as soon as they hit the window. Hours past and the flakes became tiny white puffs that stuck to the window, the packed snow becoming thicker until the room was so dark he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. He really should be sleeping. He had classes in the morning and a mess to clean. He wondered how long Lily would stay mad at him. Surely, someday soon, she'd see sense and they'd talk this out and they'd be friends again and she would trust him again. He should take her to a concert this summer, she'd like that. She'd probably dress in muggle clothes just as a fuck you to the purebloods.

The thought of it made him smile and the tension, he didn't realise his body was holding, released. How long had he been that tense? Since his fight with Sirius? Obliviating Eilidh? Since he woke up in the hospital bed? Or before?

But he refused to think about that now. It would only awaken that horrible angry, scared feeling that made his stomach fill with acid.

He blinked and saw flashes of lights from spells he didn't know, angry faces laughing with malice.

He sat up.

Those moments between sleep and consciousness had once been so peaceful. It had been his time to daydream about flying on his broomstick. Or, when he was homesick, he'd think about sitting in his kitchen with his mother humming a random tune, his father would join in with his booming voice from another room, somehow always knowing the song; and when he was stressed he'd add his friends: Sirius laughing his laugh that rumbled, Remus calm and content usually holding a cup of tea, and Peter happy, genuinely happy. Now, his imagings were harder to hold onto. His mother would turn to smile at him and he'd see Mulcibers face. His father's singing became Abbott's taunts. Sirius would laugh, Remus would melt, Peter would smile and just as he'd notice the sparkle in his usually dull eyes there would be a flash of angry white light and he'd jolt awake, the stabbing pain in his chest somehow worse, and he'd have to start all over.

He thought maybe Sirius would understand this but how was he supposed to put it into words. 'Hey mate, I keep seeing shit while I'm falling asleep and now my chest hurts all the time. I'm still sane right?'

He could see Sirius's worried expression, hear his attempt to laugh it off. Later he'd tell Remus and then Remus would get so worried his lip would do that twitching thing and then Peter would find out and do that thing with his hands and start stuttering and being too nice. It'd be a disaster from start to finish. He was alone in this and he needed to remain alone. It would pass eventually and all he'd have to worry about is how to work in another vow of silence, how he was going to get Sirius to come home with him this Christmas because Merlin knows what really happens at his house, and Remus - everything about Remus from his grades to his sleep schedule.

Dear Godric, he couldn't think anymore.

He got out of bed. The floor felt cold even through his socks. It was quiet. Too quiet. It was itching at his ears like a bug.

"Sirius?" he murmured, hoping he was awake but not wanting to force him to be if he wasn't. Sirius moaned softly on his steady exhale, it was an unconscious response. Feeling heavily disappointed and lonelier than he ever had in his life, James started to dress for a trip out of doors.

He had been told by not only Madam Pomfrey, his mother, and Professor McGonagall, but Cresswell too, that he was exempt from Quidditch practice for the time being and that if he was seen on the Quidditch field "I'll put you back into the hospital myself," but that didn't include a quick midnight fly to clear his head. If some fresh air didn't help the aching in his chest he didn't know what would. So, with his broom in his hand, he all but ran out of his dormitory, afraid that he'd be stopped.

Eilidh was in the common room, working furiously by a dim candlelight, stressfully pulling at her hair. At the sound of his boots hitting the stairs, she looked up.

"James?"

She was going to tell him to go back to bed, to not put himself in harm's way, he could hear it in her voice.

"I couldn't sleep," he said, with an edge of defiance.

"I forgot about the Transfiguration essay due tomorrow, until about an hour ago," she said, passing a hand over her face. A moment passed. Then two, while he tried to think of what to say. He needed to get outside and she needed to let him go.

"I'll let you copy mine." If you let me go. If you keep your mouth shut.

Eilidh chuckled then looked contemplatively at her scribbled essay.

"Can I come with you? I could use the air," she said finally. "Unless you wanted to be alone?"

"Be quick about it then," James said, nodding to the girls' dormitory because surely she needed to put on warmer clothes. It was a wonder she wasn't freezing in the drafty common room in such thin pyjamas.

She smiled her appreciation and dashed up the stairs. James waited patiently as the air got thinner and gravity's pull got stronger until finally, she came down with her broom over her shoulder, looking more awake and much more excited than she had minutes before.

They walked quietly and with vigilance under the Invisibility Cloak, bonding in the camaraderie. James realised that this was the first time he had ever been actually alone with her and smiled at how easy it was before the guilt took over him and he had to stop thinking about that too.

"So what's with you?" he asked, stuffing the Cloak into his pocket as they skipped down the snow-covered steps, his hair already damp. She looked at him curiously and with an unconscious smile on her face. James decided he liked her best like this, late at night, inhibitions down, right on the edge of irresponsible. "Do you dream about Transfigurations essays or were you having trouble sleeping?"

She laughed nervously and looked off into the horizon.

"It's midnight, Nicnevin. If there was ever a time for a soul-baring conversation, now would be it," James prompted.

"I couldn't sleep," she answered. Their feet sunk low into the snow, well past their ankles, which meant that they were off the steps. James stayed quiet, waiting for her to talk more. She sighed, probably realising what he was doing, but still continued, "Christmas is coming."

"Most people wouldn't say that so ominously," James observed.

"Most people have something to look forward to during the holidays," she returned. It took a minute for James to realise what she meant.

"Your dad?" he asked. The only time she had ever spoken about her father was when she told them that he died and she had been an emotional mess then.

James had never lost someone he cared about; he hadn't even known anyone who had died. He couldn't imagine what it must be like and it surprised him a little to find that the loss still grated her so many months later.

"And, you know, Sirius is really confusing," she said, brightly. "I mean, he says he fancies me, asks me out, then acts like none of that happened until he sees me with another bloke and he gets all possessive. Then he kisses me, but only because of you. He's just… confusing."

"He cares about you a lot," James said, remembering their fight and how intense his eyes were when he defended her. "He was the same way with us in our first year and a little in second year. I don't think he really knows how to bond with people."

At his words, a realisation seemed to dawn over Eilidh. She leaned against the stadium's steps, looking thoughtfully at nothing in particular.

"What?" he asked. She blinked rapidly at him as if startled.

"I just - I think that might be a rich people thing. Both of my parents, my mother and her husband, are distant, even with each other. Lucas and I were close but as he got older and he started working with Ulric more, he became distant. Like Sirius, I guess. I just didn't realise it," Eilidh explained then mounted her broom. "It still doesn't explain the possessiveness, though."

She kicked off the ground before James got a chance to answer. She flew higher and higher until Hogwarts was nothing but a miniature figurine. The air was thinner and colder up here, the snow thicker, obscuring his vision, and the wind whipped at his ears deafening him. They had reached irresponsible and she had found peace, with her arms stretched out on either side of her, her head tilted back, the wind ripping through her hair.

"I don't care though!" she screamed. "Not when he makes me feel like this!"

And he understood because Sirius was just as wild as she was only in a different way. Sirius stood his ground, rooting himself to the spot, the longer he stayed the more entangled you became.

She liked to run with the wind. She was a bird. He was a bull. She was alive with the wind. He was alive with a punch. He was just as unfathomable and as dangerous as the wind.

It was a thrill. A rush of endorphins and adrenaline, knowing that you shouldn't but wanting it anyway.

It was explosive.

Safe.

Risky.

And probably doomed.

He was her Lily. The only difference was, Sirius wanted her back.

She was his punch to the gut. She could tear into him as easily as a sharpened knife through paper. The untouchable bull was injured by the bird.

"James!" she yelled fearfully. Lightning struck the ground a few miles from the Quidditch pitch.

They had been waiting for an electrical storm since last year. They had gone out of their way to perform the animagus charm twice a day, every day, counting the days until such a storm manifested. And here it was. Two days too late. Perhaps it was meant to mock him for his failure but he felt that second heartbeat, the one that belonged to his animal self, as lightning struck a second time, further away now. Anger warmed his ears despite the cold.

They landed on the top step, the harsh wind pushing them into the front doors and onto the stone floor of the entrance hall they had once covered in ice when things were simpler.

Eilidh scrambled to close the heavy doors and James helped by kicking it closed, clutching his shoulder that ached from the force he had fallen on it with.

"Did you hit your head?" she asked, sliding next to him to gently caress his forehead, inspecting him for new lumps.

"Are you in love with him?" he asked, surprised at how angry his voice sounded. He hadn't meant to sound so threatening. It was just a question.

"No," she said, pulling away from him. James stared at her, wondering how he could put his thoughts into words when his thoughts didn't make sense to himself.

"Sirius doesn't like being an option. He wants to be the option," James said because he knew that Sirius hated being second to Regulus in everything. "He's all or nothing," he said because Sirius worked in absolutes; he hated you or he didn't, he was good at something or he wasn't. "If you want something ask because he doesn't know." Sirius didn't know how to be around people, he only knew how to be better than everyone. "Don't hurt him," because Sirius was a hell of a lot more sensitive than he seemed.

"I don't want to," she breathed. "Hurt him, I mean."

"Then you won't," James said, helping her to her feet. "As for Christmas, you can make plans with us."

"Thank you. I think I want to see what it's like at home first," Eilidh answered, nervously.

"You think?" James questioned.

"James?" She stopped, very suddenly. With her on the first step and him on the ground, they were eye level and James could see the storm of emotion burning inside her just as furious as the one out there, but she just said, "are you okay?"

Perhaps he was thrown off by her questions but James felt for the first time in a long time and it was horrible.

"No," he whispered before he could stop himself.

Eilidh hugged him and James hugged her back because she knew what it was like to hurt, to be scared, and alone, and…. She just knew

Thank you, Love Fiction 2018! (for some reason it has a problem with the dots in your name but you know who you are) I hope you continue to. :D

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