Love Till You Hate, Strong Till You Break
"Roxanne, you don't need to put on that red light . . . you don't have to wear that dress tonight . . .Why does my heart cry? Feelings I can't fight – you're free to leave me, but just don't deceive me, and please believe me when I say, I love you. . ." – El Tango de Roxanne (Moulin Rouge)
Severus Snape had planned it out. He had bribed, he had bargained, he had been patient. It was only the first step in making the Marauder's lives hell for what they'd done to him all throughout Hogwarts, and now he finally had the power to do so. Unfortunately, successfully doing so to Potter involved Lily, whom he truly did love. He would always love her – but she'd made her choice.
First, he'd take Lily away from Potter, which had had already somewhat been achieved. Then, he'd expose Lupin as a werewolf. He figured having Black live through all that – his friends suffering – would be enough with the Gryffindor nobility and sacrificial tendencies and whatnot. As for Pettigrew . . . well, he wasn't necessarily the problem anymore. If only Snape could tell them what Pettigrew had been doing behind their backs – that would be enough to torture them. Unfortunately, if he didn't want to be tortured and slaughtered by the Dark Lord, there was no hope in that. They'd find out soon enough.
It hadn't been hard to get Black and Lestrange to help him, along with the cronies that followed them around like dogs – Mulciber, Avery, the lot, considering this deal affected Lily as well as Potter. He mostly just needed them for back up and intimidation.
But finally, the Marauder's would get what they deserved. And maybe being separated from James would make Lily realize he was right for her. It was a long shot – but it wasn't just about Lily now.
XXX
Lily woke that morning earlier than she would've liked. She was out rather late with James, and they spent an even longer time by the fire drinking hot cocoa with Sirius and Dorcas. However, she couldn't make herself go back to sleep after already waking up, so she sat up stretched. It was seven in the morning, she realized in dissatisfaction, but she got up anyway, looking forward to the peace of drinking tea while watching the morning sun. The thought encouraged her out of bed and she padded out of her room and down the stairs, the light outside filled the house with a transitioning gray-ish color, and she could see the sun out the enormous living rooms windows. She passed through into the kitchen and went to the cupboard to get a cup when she heard a chair shift. She whipped her head around, grabbing for her wand that wasn't there, but saw that it was only James, staring at her with an odd surprised, even fearful expression. She frowned and let out a breathy laugh.
"James," she gasped, "You scared me. Sorry, I'm jumpy lately."
She left the cupboard and walked over to him, oblivious to his stiff stature. She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, sighing as she leaned her cheek against the top of his head.
"Why are you up so early?" she asked, frowning against his hair.
"I – I . . ." he stuttered, and closed his eyes. This was all he'd ever wanted, to be together with Lily. Here she was, where he could kiss her, hold her without her pushing him away, and now he had to give it up. If anything happened to her, his parents or anyone else because of this – he just wouldn't be able to live with himself. Snape had hit his Gryffindor sore spot. He would kill him.
"Lily," he rasped, standing. He gazed at her open, slightly confused face and what he was about to say broke his heart. "I – I've been thinking, and . . . and I'm not sure we . . . I'm not sure I –"
"James, what are you getting at?" she asked, looking really worried now.
He sighed. He had to keep it together.
"I just – I'm not sure . . . that we should . . . be together." He forced out, his throat dry, his stomach twisting, his head pounding.
She stared at him, her mouth slightly open and her eyes more than a little hurt. He stood there feeling lower than he'd ever felt and tried to focus on the good reasons he was doing this. For her – he was doing this for her.
"What are you saying?" she whispered, her brow furrowed.
He closed his eyes. God, did he really have to say it?
"I'm . . . breaking up with you." he said quietly, slowly.
"Merlin – James, we were never even officially together, and you're already breaking it off?" she growled, laughing bitterly. "That's typical. You know, I really thought this was what you wanted. What about last night? I just really thought you –"
She cut off and shook her head, looking away. He just stood there. He didn't even bloody mean it, so he didn't know what to say. There was no way to make this better.
She looked back up at him, her brow still furrowed, and swallowed thickly. "So that's it? You're not even going to tell me why?"
"Listen, Lily, I care about you –" She snorted disbelievingly. "—I do. And I know I'm being an asshole right now, but it's just – now the right time for me. That's all."
"Not the right time, James?" she repeated, shaking her head. "That's the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard. What's really going on?"
He eyed her and then let his head hang. He rubbed his hands over his face, beneath his glasses, and finally met her gaze again. "I just need some time."
That was the best he could do.
He couldn't stand the expression on her face anymore, so he brushed past her towards the door.
"I'll give you time, James, alright?" she said quietly before he could walk out. He looked back at her, but her back was still to him, her head hung. "As much as you need, because I really do like you. I just don't understand why you're trying to stop this before we've even begun."
She finally turned to look at him and shrugged weakly. "And I can't stay here with you until you make a definitive decision, because I just know it'll kill me. Just let me know when you make up your mind."
He could tell she was holding back her anger, but she looked weary too, like she almost expected something to go wrong. Why is this happening?
All he wanted to do was grab her and kiss her, hold her, assure her he wanted her, he did – but it just wasn't possible.
"I don't expect you to understand right now," he murmured, "just – wait for me, Lily."
She met his gaze and looked so hurt that he wanted to look away so badly, but something told him he shouldn't.
"Wait for you . . ." she whispered, "James, if this is some sort of payback for all the years you spent after me –"
"No, no – Lily," he cut her off, squeezing his eyes shut. "It's not like that."
She looked at him curiously. "You don't want this. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me, James. What's going on?"
Were they watching as they spoke? Would they notice even the slightest hint of confirmation, that he didn't want this? It was probably too late now, she could easily read him. She knew he was trying to think of a better excuse of the top of his head.
"Just trust me," he finally said, looking at her intently. "Do you trust me?"
She eyed him thoughtfully. "Of course," She replied decidedly, then after a moment, she asked, "Would it be easier for me to leave, James?"
He hesitated. The last thing he really wanted was to be away from her, but he knew it would be easier that way. He nodded. She nodded in return and sighed, her eyes falling on the table beside her. He knew her mind was racing on what could possibly be wrong.
"Trust me." He repeated, and she met his eyes with a wary glint in her eye. He nodded to her in encouragement. Then, she walked past him out the door, leaving him staring at where she'd been. He wondered if they'd ever get another chance.
XXX
It was tie for what was worse: the chastising from his father and mother or the nagging from Dorcas and Sirius. It went something like this, respectively:
"She was such a great catch, Jimmy!"
"James Benjamin, what were you thinking?"
"James, you nitwit! You let her leave?"
"PRONGS, YOU BLOODY WANKER, YOU FINALLY HAD HER, LIKE YOU'VE BEEN WHINING ABOUT FOR SIX YEARS! ARE YOU INSANE?"
He had just brushed off their scolding with simple, unelaborate replies and had, incredibly, managed to get him off his back, during which he escaped to his room. He collapsed onto his bed and felt like his ears were going to fall off from all the yelling. He ripped off his glasses and threw an arm over his eyes, exhausted. He was too tired to think of a legitimate solution, but one thing he was sure of: he would fight for Lily. He wasn't going to give up that easy.
XXX
Lily ended up eating ice cream with her mum and watching old Bonnie and Clyde movies. She felt pretty pathetic and all she really wanted to do was figure out what the hell was going on with James, but she gave into the need to mope. Her mother had whole-heartedly agreed, partly because of her daughter's broken heart and partly because of the excuse to eat as much ice cream as she wanted. Lily knew her mother too well.
As they watched their movie, Lily's father cooked dinner and switched between complaining about "boys these days don't know what they're missing" and "you're going to ruin your appetite with that creamy deliciousness". Petunia was flipping through a furniture magazine at the kitchen table with her feet propped up on it, and ignored their parent's bantering. Since Tuney – which she dind't like to be called anymore – was moving in with Vernon next week, she felt very "independent" and "adult" and was looking through a bunch of boring decorating magazines, even though the apartment they were moving into was already furnished.
"Oh, hush, Zachary, this is what your daughter needs right now," mum said, scraping out the last of her carton of ice cream. "and I love you, dear, but your pasta is always overcooked!"
Lily peered over the back of the couch in amusement as her father's mouth dropped open and he scowled, stirring the pasta vigorously.
"Well, Marie, maybe you just have bad taste in pasta!" he countered indignantly.
Lily chuckled contentedly as her mother retorted, "I'm a food critic, Zachary!"
Lily swore they said each other's name in every single sentence when they were cross with each other. Their bantering continued and only when she couldn't focus on Bonnie and Clyde's intense make out session did she speak up.
"Mum, dad?" she said, and they both looked at her. "Could you stop? Please? This is the best part."
"Yes, and I'm trying to focus on my magazine." Petunia said like it was obvious they should all leave because she was "focusing on her magazine".
"Petunia, you should not be doing something like reading where everyone is bamboozling around and Marie, Lily is not old enough to be watching these movies anyway –"
"Oh, shut it, Zachary, I'll deal with you later." She said, winking at him, and he froze. Then a goofy grin spread over his face and Lily blanched, quickly turning back to the TV. Petunia made an annoyed noise and shut her magazine, leaving the room.
"Don't make me puke." She muttered.
Her mother chuckled at them before she and Lily focused back on the movie and their ice cream.
XXX
Of course, Christmas wasn't as special as Lily had hoped, but she had a nice time with her family – well, minus Petunia, who'd spent the majority of her time with Vernon. Neither of them wanted to be around Lily. However, she and her parents went to town and looked at all the sparkling lights and saw A Christmas Carol. It was the most normal – well, most Muggle Christmas she'd had since she was little, and it really helped her get her mind off James, thought he was always in the her thoughts one way or another.
She was hesitant on sending him his Christmas present, but decided to anyway. She'd already bought it for him after all. It was extremely nice leather Quidditch gloves and knee guards, and a more intimate something – a picture Mary had taken of the two of them on the train ride back home for Christmas break. She'd been taking pictures of everyone like a mad woman because she wanted to hang them up in her bedroom or something like that and she'd sent Lily this one the day before. Lily wanted James to have it, though, and what could it hurt, really?
The picture was of the two of them to looking at each other, then bursting out laughing at someone's joke, and Lily plopping her cheek onto James' shoulder, shaking her head as they continued to laugh whole-heartedly.
She smiled softly as she tucked the picture into the envelope with her letter that simply said: Merry Christmas, James. Much love, Lily, because she didn't know what was appropriate here. So she quickly tucked that into the parcel and started wrapping the others. She got Dorcas the complete works of the Weird Sisters, which was on sale in some shop in Diagon Alley, Mary a charmed bottomless silk bag, Alice a charm bracelet she'd been eyeing when they were last shopping together and, as a joke, a picture of her celebrity crush, Patrick Lionsten (a professional Quidditch player), kissing at the camera and waggling his eyebrows, which she'd charmed it to do. She also got Sirius a Falmouth Falcons poster, Remus a collection of the Charles Dickens book s and Peter some Honeydukes candy, because she didn't really know what else to get him. Besides, she hadn't really seen him for a while to ask him what he wanted. Of course, all this nearly left her broke, in addition to the presents for her parents and even her sister (though it was only a coupon for five dollars off at some nail place). So she was pretty much out of money by the time Christmas came.
She sent them to everyone and sighed afterwards, extremely tired from all the wrapping and then the thought occurred to her that she could have done it with magic.
She slapped a hand over her eyes. "Merlin, I've been in the Muggle world way too long." She chuckled.
She sighed and stood from the floor. She'd already opened her own presents from her parents – a compilation of books and clothes and all that – and the candy from her stocking – which she was secretly glad her parents still kept up – spread out on her bed.
"I'll give you lots of treats when you get back, Pen, alright?" she murmured to her owl, Penny, who was about to take the first round of her friends presents.
Penny cocked her head at her and then seemed to give her a look like 'fine, whatever' and took off. Lily picked up her already-opened Hershey's bar and bit into it, leaning against her doorframe as Penny took off out the window.
"Lily Marie! It's time for the Evans Christmas Karaoke!" her dad sang from downstairs.
Lily smiled softly and called back, "Coming!" before she walked down the stairs, closing her door as she went.
XXX
Sirius and Dorcas were debating on what could've possibly triggered this ridiculous twist of events as they lay on Dorcas' beds, both sprawled out on their backs.
"Okay, I've got nothing," Dorcas declared in exasperation, sitting up. "Everything we've come up with either is impossible or completely stupid."
Sirius lifted his head onto his hand. "Well then what the hell happened? James isn't talking, and he said Lily had nothing to do with all this –"
"Well, James has to crack eventually." Dorcas said, a glint in her eye.
"Oh, no, you've got that evil scheming look on your face." He groaned, flopping his head back on the bed.
She gave him a look. "Take comfort in the fact that most of my schemes fail monumentally. But we've got to try. I'd swear on my life that James didn't willingly break it off with Lily. Something else is going on here that we don't know about."
"Whatever you say." He sang, turning over on his stomach and burying his face into her covers.
She rolled her eyes and hopped off the bed. "Come on, Black, your friend's in despair. We're swooping in for the rescue."
He peered up at her and sighed pointedly. "Maybe we shouldn't meddle this time –"
"Shut up. I wear the pants in this relationship, and I say we're doing this—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you wear the pants in the relationship?" he repeated in disbelief, sitting up.
She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. "Do you have a problem?"
"Please. I definitely wear the pants in the relationship." He scoffed.
She raised her eyebrows at him and he did the same mockingly, then, after a moment, she sighed, "Fine, we're tied. We'll settle this later."
She turned on her heel and started walking towards the door, but then out of nowhere, his voice was in her ear, "Oh, we certainly will."
She smiled, but didn't let him see it, instead elbowing him in the stomach. "Come on, Romeo, let's go play Cupid again."
"Yes, because the last time worked so well."
"Shut up."