Why Lily Fell
By Yo-yo
A/N: I'm revealing myself here, I love naming chapters after music! I hope the music here is intriguing, it's all over the place, but all that can be revealed is Lily has great music tastes… Or maybe I'm just projecting.
Some of the slang and spells may be unfamiliar to you, as they are to me, I got them from Wikipedia. If you search "British slang" or "List of spells in Harry Potter" you should be able to understand some things that aren't explained, that will be helpful for later chapters as well.
My last comment is a thank you to Princess Juliet Rose, harrypotter554, Overalls Tintype and Eleonora's-Spirit. Just like reading these fanfics makes you happy, getting reviews, especially constructive reviews, really makes the writer's day. I really like writing this story, and although it's not all about the reviews, reactions are very helpful.
If you can leave a review, I would be really thankful. I want this story to get out to as many readers as possible, and I know the combination of the description, rating, and reviews helps. If you like reading this story as much as I love writing it, please drop a review.
-Y
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright:
This was where he was meant to be.
This place where the moon's surface was so bright and near that he could just make out the Sea of Tranquility. Here, he felt so high up that he could reach out and grab a star. This place where the unrestricted winds whipped his hair wildly and his soul seemed to transcend his body and mingle with the forces that made up this world where he was meant to belong.
His stomach lurched, every time. It was a mixture of exhilaration with just an iota of fear. However, every time, even with the tiny sinking in the pit of his stomach, he thanked Merlin he was part of the world where this type of elation was possible.
"Potter!" Fly's voice bellowed, breaking him from his reverie.
"What?" He groaned, soaring down to her altitude.
"Just because you're on the team doesn't mean you can do what you want," she glared, "you've still got to tryout."
"Yea, whatever," he frowned looking down in the direction of the other players.
"James, I know you're the best player-"
But he wasn't listening. Instead, his attention was on the three huddled heads in the stands. A silent groan rumbled through his frame as he identified Lily, Sunny and Remus, all equipped with notepads.
Merlin, Lily looked beautiful, even then.
From her place beside Remus, he found himself unable to control the lust-filled appreciation that kept his eyes on her form. Her dark red curls seemed to shimmer from below, acting as his beacon in this dark. With the air still comfortably warm, she'd chosen only a pair of shorts and a tank to maximize her exposed skin. And Potter wasn't complaining, following her strong legs with his eyes, itching to bring his fingers to her long, exposed neck.
"What are they doing here?" he asked pointing. "I mean, she doesn't even like Quidditch."
Fly sighed, unable to identify his expression, but finally interpreting it as contempt, the sentiment they both currently shared for one another.
Ever since Lily had come back from her night in the Infirmary, Lily and James hadn't so much as looked at one another. Of course, their civility had been as "normal" as possible- meaning they barely spoke- but their tension was having a strain on everyone else. Sensitive to Lily's feelings, both Fly and Sunny had almost completely stopped talking to him and the other Marauders.
"James," she began softly. "What exactly happened between you two? First you guys were something sort of like friends, but now… you guys are back to where you were last year after her birthday. What happened?"
"Nothing happened," James frowned, looking away from the trio. "We had an argument, and then we stopped talking. In the past five years, how many times has that happened?"
"Well, that's what I don't understand. Why has it happened so many times in the past five years? What do you guys have against one another?"
"Against?" he asked, his eyes rose in surprise. "I have nothing against her. It's her that has the twelve foot pole up her ass! Merlin, everyone knows I'm fond of her, including her, and yet she still insists on treating me like trash! Snivellus gets off better'n me."
Fly watched him as he looked everywhere but at the girl sitting below with the flaming red hair, and inspiration struck her.
She looked down at the girl who'd sworn to hate James, as realization dawned on her.
"She fancies you." She whispered.
"What?" he asked, turning to Delia.
"What?" she asked looking up, not realizing she'd spoken those words aloud. "I didn't say anything," she lied.
"Yes you did, you said, maybe she might fancy me." He insisted, his eyes burrowing into hers.
"N-no I didn't," she frowned, his dark eyes making her falter.
"Delia Flynn…"
"Ok," she sighed, failing under his penetrating stare. "I'm not sure, but sometimes… sometimes it's as if there's something she isn't saying. Sometimes, it's as if she knows something that she'd rather not. She is scared of something, I don't know what, and you can't quote me… but it may be her feelings for you."
James turned and looked down at the trio in the stands, his eyes falling on the redhead.
"…I told her she was afraid of me…"
"What?"
"I told her she was afraid of me, and that's what made her mad." He closed his eyes, and opened them to look at Fly, "Could it be true?"
"I dunno, but maybe," she turned away from him, moving toward the other players. "C'mon, we've got tryouts to conduct."
Lily stared up at the moon, basking in its silver glow.
The celestial satellite hadn't reached fullness yet, but Remus was already getting antsy.
Tomorrow, Remus would be escorted from class, and carted off to the Shrieking Shack, under the guise of visiting his sick aunt, Flo.
Yes, she knew.
In the beginning of their third year, a week after Professor McGonagall had introduced the class to Animagi, Lily found herself learning more about the wizarding world, and The Marauders, than she'd ever thought possible.
That night, after Lily had sneaked up to the tallest Astronomy tower, one of her favorite spots on campus, to watch the sunset, she'd heard a rustling in the chamber beneath her.
That incessant curiosity, that got her in more trouble than she liked, caused her to turn on her stomach and peer through the crack in the trapdoor. There, she gasped silently at the appearance of four boys, who appeared out of seemingly nowhere.
As they pulled apart and pulled a few candles and snacks from their sacks, Remus pointed his wand at the door beneath him, sealing it with an Imperturbably Curse, never thinking to place one on the trapdoor above.
With that, they'd deemed the room safe, lighting the candles and making themselves comfortable on the floor.
"Did you guys hear Professor McGonagall in Transfiguration the other day?"
"Yea, cool, id'nit?" the all agreed, as James took a seat between Peter and Sirius.
The tone of the boys conveyed fraternity, but the ambiance of the room foretold something mischievous. There was something about the way the candlelight distorted their faces that kept Lily's breath still.
"Well, it's been stuck in my head ever since she said it. Do you guys think we can do it?"
"Do what?" Remus asked cautiously, his brown eyes dark as they regarded James.
"Well, become Animagi." James answered, as if it were one of his most intelligent ideas.
"You want us to become Animagi?" Peter asked, his watery blue eyes skittered over each Marauder's face.
"Yea-"
"I'm game," Sirius said, without missing a beat, a smile settling on his face at the thought. "I could use a challenge."
"What?" Remus exclaimed, almost jumping up from his seat. "Why in the hell would you even consider it? Didn't you hear McGonagall? She said that Animagus transformations have been known to go horribly wrong-"
"…turning yourself inside out, being permanently covered in fur, only half turning yourself so you look like some wrong centaur, killing yourself… blah, blah, blah," Sirius deadpanned. "It was the most interesting lesson to date… I still agree with James, we should-"
"How can you possibly agree with James? He hasn't even said anything worth agreeing with! He always comes up with cockamamie schemes, and this one is the most outlandish, not to be outdone by its aspect of danger." He turned to James. "Why would you even consider this?"
"For you," James shrugged simply, smiling as though already anticipating Remus's reaction.
"What?" Remus asked, his brown eyes opened wide.
"Once every month, you've got to suffer under the moon in the Shrieking Shack, alone. Three days later, you're always terribly hurt… Maybe we can help you. Maybe we can make it a little easier for you to go through this. And just mayb-"
"And just maybe you'll get yourself killed. Or even worse, you could be bitten."
"We won't get bitten," Sirius waved away Remus's fear.
"And how do you know that? How can you be truly sure?" Remus turned to him. "Did you even think how I'd feel? Did you even-"
"I thought you'd be ecstatic! I thought you would love getting to share your experience with us, when before you'd been by yourself. I thought-"
"No offense, but you think like a berk, James," Remus began. "You thought I'd want to put my friends in danger? You thought I wouldn't be upset, fraught with an insurmountable feeling of guilt if something had gone wrong and I accidentally bit you, cursed you to the same life I live? You thought I would risk you guys' expulsion? Ruin your lives? Have to explain to Dumbledore and your parents why I've disobeyed the rules of my admittance and in the process turned you guys into snarling beasts? Turn everyone who had ever accepted my 'furry little problem,' as you call it, against me? Make them all re-evaluate, my, OUR, station in the wizarding world? Really, James, you thought I'd get behind this?"
"You're too pragmatic," Sirius leaned over, punching him in the arm, Lily suspected to dissipate some of that released tension.
"Yes, both dramatic and pragmatic, you prat!" Remus shot back.
"Look, I've been doing some reading on pack mentality," James pulled a book from his sack and offered it to Remus. "A few ethnographies and studies have documented how well you guys socialize when out of isolation. This one anthropologist, M. McKinnon, she notes that in the wild, your people have been noted for your hunting skill and cunning. In fact, she says except for those random fights for dominance, which none of us would ever challenge you to, your people are no more dangerous to humans or animals than, say, a hippogriff."
"In the wild, James. In… the … not wild," Remus struggled for the opposing term, "In 'society,' we're known to wreak havoc. I don't know if you've ever noticed Hogwarts or Hogsmeade, but they aren't epitomes of-"
"The forest- I thought that could be our stomping grounds. There are loads of magical creatures there, stuff to chase, make you feel like you're in the wild… And we could assume the role of your pack. Just think about it… Read up." James pushed the book into Remus's hands and grabbed a cracker.
"Yea man, open your mind," Sirius mimicked a "hippie."
"Remember man, save for Lily Evans, Potter would never sacrifice his good looks for someone else," Peter snuck in the jab. "He's not taking this lightly; you aren't just anyone."
"Shut up, you arse!"
"Are we thinking the same thing?" Sirius peered around James to grin at Peter.
"Ya, that jinx she put on him in Charms?"
"And how easily she escaped reprimand? Classic."
"All, 'this is tricky wand work, Professor Flitwick. How was I supposed to know that the Slug Vomiting Charm was preformed similarly to the Anapneo charm?' 'It's so very hard to distinguish a forty-five degree angle from a forty-seven and a half degree angle, as the spell specifies.' 'I'm only following directions, Professor-'"
"And that look of pure innocence, she should teach a class on it!"
"James would be the first to sign up for private tutoring sessions," Peter kicked his legs from beneath him as he rolled on the ground laughing.
By this point, Remus had let down his guard, recognizing his friends' tactics at relieving the tension and joined in.
"How she catches you off guard like that, I'll never know," he grinned, "But she's quick. No wonder she's on the top in Charms… she always has you to practice on!"
Remus, Peter and Sirius all erupted in another fit of laughter so great that soon, they were rolling on the ground, clutching their sides with tears rolling down their cheeks.
"Shut up!" he groaned, pushing his black hair from his forehead.
"You gotta' admit," Remus said, only upset with James a few moments ago. "You gotta' admit, that came out of nowhere. You were just as bewildered as everyone else before Flitwick preformed Prior Incanato on all of our wands."
"SHUT UP!" James growled, his eyes brown flames.
Finally, after many long moments, they finally calmed down and decided to leave.
Lily was relieved, but her mind was also reeling from the new information.
Remus Lupin was a werewolf.
Remus Lupin, the boy she usually sat up with, studying and discussing wizarding politics. Remus Lupin who'd told her many things in confidence. Remus Lupin who'd been her first male Gryffindor friend, was a werewolf.
She'd been so consumed in the new information that she'd forgotten to be more careful leaving the tower and ran into a very solid… nothing.
"Lily?" Four voices gasped in hushed whispers.
Sighing, she trudged behind them toward Gryffindor tower, mentally preparing herself for interrogation.
As soon as she climbed in after them, she was met with four pairs of blazing eyes: two blue and two brown.
"I-"
"You heard us, didn't you?" James accused.
"N-no," she lied, but cursed her own failed attempt at trickery. It was her famous Evans' eyes: they always gave away her lies. Those damned, almond-shaped green eyes always revealed whatever she was feeling. There was no use in her ever lying, with those huge, expressive orbs, even Veritaserum was a waste.
"Lily?" Remus said, his eyes wide and she felt her heart break.
"I-" she sighed, looking away from them. "I- I didn't mean to. I was just watching the sunset and suddenly I hear you guys come in the trapdoor and I just… froze."
Her eyes flickered back to his, growing wider at the tremendous fear in his eyes.
He wasn't only scared. He looked hurt, betrayed. Someone he'd considered a friend had spied on him, as if she didn't trust him… as if she didn't know him.
And she had learned his deepest, darkest secret.
"I- I'm so sorry, Remus," she whispered with a small and watery smile. "I didn't mean to do that. I- I didn't know what to do!" she trapped his gaze. "You're my friend, and I had no right to spy on you. But… but I guess I always knew…" she grabbed his hand, "You're a werewolf."
All four of them started, Remus wrenched his hands from hers, as though she'd uttered an obscenity.
"I- I didn't know they were real." She said, her eyes burrowing into his, beseeching him to forgive her.
"How-?" Potter began, but stopped.
She was Muggle-born. She didn't know werewolves existed, which meant she didn't know the stigmatism that surrounded their kind.
"Lily-" Remus's shock broke, taking her in a hug.
"I won't tell anyone. I'm so, so s-sorry. I thought… Muggles use them to keep their children in at night. Only once have I heard a wizard reference them, and that was to keep people away from the Forbidden Forest. I thought it was just a myth… I didn't mean to- God, I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be you. Always in secret- God, I'm so damned nosy! My Mum is always telling me to be more considerate- and eat less chocolate- but she says I don't think about the ramifications- I'm so sorry!"
By the end of the night, she'd been sworn to secrecy and been made a silent member of The Marauders. Over the years, she'd kept many of the group's secrets. It was she that presided over their first Animagus transformations. It was she who'd helped them prepare, brewing the potion and perfecting the incantation. It was Lily who'd helped them pick their animal, and it was she who at first assisted Remus in trying to dissuade the Animagus endeavor.
Gently blotting the moisture from her hair, with a fuzzy yellow towel, she stepped out of the perfects' bathroom, humming Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl.
With her eyes closed, she softly sang the chorus. It had been one of her favorite songs, which of course she'd never own up to in the real world. One Mother's Day many years ago, she and Petunia burst into her parents' room, singing it and bearing breakfast, effectively waking her mother and getting them both grounded.
Suddenly, she crashed into a very firm- something. When she looked up, she wasn't surprised- with her luck- to find herself staring into the most beautiful set of hazel eyes ever crafted.
"Evans."
"Potter."
They'd both breathed simultaneously, only to follow the acknowledgement with awkward silence.
It was obvious that he'd just gotten back from Quidditch practice. It'd been a week since tryouts and, of course, he'd kept his old position.
He stood before her, with his black hair plastered to his forehead from the rain, curling at the ends, quite handsomely. His face dripped with a mixture of sweat and rain, with small rivulets running down his rather long nose, making little drops at the end, which were rhythmically dropping to his soaked robes.
From first catching sight of him on the King's Cross Platform 9 ¾ after summer break fifth year, she could only describe James Potter as one thing: beautiful.
It seemed over the summer months he'd transformed into this… Adonis.
He'd hit puberty, and hell, it agreed with him.
He now towered above her, standing respectably above six feet. His body had grown strong and limber, nascent muscle sculpting his form. His beautiful face, with its square jaw and slim lines, had turned him into an object of admiration in the halls. But those weren't the things that drew her to him… what made her turn away. What made her run and sometimes stay in place were his eyes.
His eyes…
No matter how much he'd grown in person, he'd never seemed to lose that boyish charm that lit his eyes. His eyes were the only part of him that made her feel small at times and in other moments gave her strength. His eyes threw her into a tantrum, and soothed her to sleep. Their intensity made her care for him more than she wanted or cared to admit.
It was in his eyes where the reflections of the effects of his over-confidence, upbringing and genetic make-up collided.
He'd now become the prince he'd been raised to be, in stature, form and in presence.
It seemed ages later when they'd both broken from their trance and realized they were both standing in an empty corridor, wet and staring at one another.
"I'm sorry," they'd said at the same time.
In that moment, their eyes met, silently recognizing that truth.
Finally, as if she couldn't take the silence, she began,
"I had no right to blow up like that. I don't know where it came from. I'd blame it on the Virulent Vines, but I fear we've done this so often that that'd be a copout… I've tried to control my anger, but I guess something about us, triggers… I shouldn't have done what I did or said what I did."
"It's not your fault," he continued, never taking his eyes from hers. "I shouldn't have begun the whole conversation at all. As I play it over in my head, I have to admit, I was unconsciously goading you or something. I shouldn't have done that."
"So, we both agree that we said some hurtful things and we apologize?" she asked him, their eyes locked.
He took a moment to reply, his eyes entranced by hers. He felt as if his body was lifting from the ground, being sucked into her, her eyes acting as a wormhole and he knew he'd never escape their magnetism.
"Yea."
"So," she said casually, "I guess you're on your way for a bath?"
"Yea," he mumbled, his hands running through his damp hair. "Remus gave me the password, figuring I could use a soak."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," she smiled, tilting her head to one side. "Well, the water's great. Try the lavender scent, it's the lilac colored one, it'll put you right to sleep."
"Yea, I'll probably not do that," he offered a sincere smile, "I can't go around this place smelling like a girl."
"Yea, it'd hurt your dating prospects, I'd assume," she smiled, his infectious.
"So, uh, how'd you do on that last Potions exam?"
"I misidentified the dried ginseng root with a dried mandrake, effectively ruining my draught. Slughorn offered me an apology; apparently the seventh year that arranges his stores mixed up their boxes. But I should have known from the smell, I just assumed that it was a perfectly dehydrated mandrake. It was really a rotten root."
"I got perfect. My Mum sends a package with refreshed ingredients regularly."
"Must be nice, having wizard parents. They already know the ropes."
"Sometimes."
"Uh, are you excited for the Halloween Feast? I hear there will be a few parties all over campus, Slug Club, Great Hall and the fall N.E.W.T. formal."
"I guess," he shrugged. "It's always great, but the guys haven't decided on what prank we want to play on the Slytherins, so we're not there yet."
"Great, you're going to hex them again," she sighed, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice.
"This is awkward, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Us, trying to be cordial, it's really weird, right?"
"Yea," she said, her eyes holding his. "Was it always this way?"
"I don't know."
"Have we ever been civil to one another?"
"Maybe on that first day, between the Platform and the Hogwarts Express?"
She wrinkled her nose, thinking back to that day.
"I never knew you then. I first met you on the train."
"Well then, apparently we've never been civil to one another. I guess, literally the first time we'd met, I'd offended you, then jinxed you and you vowed to hate me for life."
"Why did you do it?" she asked.
"That, I can't answer."
"Why not?" she frowned, looking away.
"Because I don't know. I just did it. Maybe it was random, maybe it was on purpose. But I can't go back to my eleven-year-old self and ask why. All I know is I did it and you've never liked me since."
"Well, have a nice bath… and watch out for Myrtle. I hear she's sweet on you and Moony says she's been on the lookout."
"Thanks," he moved his face in her line of sight, offered her soft smile, to alleviate her knit brow.
"Well then, I guess, I'll see you later," she moved away from him, a pseudo smile attempting to uplift her downward turned lips.
"Bye Lily," he whispered as she moved away from him.
"Bye," she called over her shoulder, continuing to blot her curls dry as she made her way to Gryffindor tower. Except this time, tears in her eyes as she softly began to hum Bob Dylan's, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.
TBC…
P. A/N: I hope you really like this chapter, it's so fun to write this… their tension is building into something quite nice… believe me, in a few chapters, you're going to get your release. Happy times! Remember review!
With love,
Yo-yo