Chapter 2

Lily itched to face Potter and tell him exactly what she thought about him and about what he had done, but her only weapons were a dust brush and a broom, as opposed to the Master's undisputed authority. So she spent her first two days at the house flooded with sullen thoughts and plans of revenge that she knew she would never go trough with.

While she was confined to the rooms that required thorough cleaning, Potter was not limited by Mrs. Chambers's strict orders and watchful eye; so he spent most of his time outdoors, flying on his stupid broom and doing God- knew- what else.

Friday morning broke rainy and gray. After breakfast Lily had the first opportunity to clean the library. She had hoped to spend the whole day with the books, alone with her thoughts, but Potter had to destroy her plans by deciding to sit down to read there, on the couch in front of the blazing fireplace. The first hour passed swiftly while he acted as if she weren't there, and she didn't complain as the magical brush gently cleaned the dust off the books that then floated into her hands and to their rightful place on the shelf. It was the first time she had been alone in the room with Potter since she arrived, but she couldn't find the courage to tell him what she was thinking for fear of losing her job and being sent home. So she kept silent and hoped she would be able to spend the whole summer that way.

But Potter was not going to let her do that after all. He closed his history book decisively and sat up to look at her over the back of the couch. "All right, you win," he said in a final tone. "You managed to break me. Say something Evans, I can't stand this silent treatment anymore."

Lily almost fell into the trap, but at the last moment she held her tongue and turned to straighten the books on a nearby shelf. She wasn't going to take part in this game and let him spoil the good impression she had been making on Mrs. Chambers.

"Come on," he pleaded with her, trying to use his famous personal charm that had long since ceased to affect Lily. He made a great effort to pretend to be sincere and apologetic, while she kept up solid wall of silence. "I know you're angry, I would have been mad too if I were you, but Mrs. Chambers was so pleased when she wrote me about you, and I know how hard it is to find someone she likes. I didn't want her to clean the house by herself all summer. She doesn't show it, but her hip is killing her – "

"Maybe you help her if you care so much," Lily snapped at him. She immediately regretted her sharp words, as she often did when she spoke her mind without thinking. She turned her back on Potter, waiting tensely to hear him laugh, to hear him say it was much easier than he had expected, and that now Mrs. Chambers was going to fire her...

He did no such thing, though. To her amazement his response was, "You're right."

"What?" It was the last thing she expected to hear him say. She turned from the books to see him standing up resolutely.

"You're right," he repeated, rolling up his sleeves. "I'll help. What should I do?"

Lily was speechless. James Potter, the spoiled and insensitive pure- blood, wants to help her clean?

"I know!" He said, "Mrs. Chambers always complains that the curtains are dusty." He aimed his wand at the velvet curtains. The spell he cast was so strong that they got torn off and fell to the floor. Lily put a hand to her mouth. "I'll fix it," Potter said quickly. With another spell he managed to hang the curtains back in place and breaking the lock on the window at the same time. It swung open with force, letting in the rainy wind from outside. A book at the top of a pile on a nearby desk opened with a rustle and its pages were almost got torn out.

"Stop!" Lily intervened, leaping forward to close the window. Meanwhile Potter managed to cast another over- powered spell; the window slammed shut and shattered. The rain came streaming in and soaked the books.

"Repairo!" Lily repaired the broken window hastantly. Potter tried to cast yet another spell, but Lily blocked his path before he could do any more damage. "No! Sit!"

Potter sat down on the couch obediently, slightly ashamed. Lily turned to save the books with a drying spell before they were completely destroyed. The damage was prevented just in time, except for the volume of modern spells at the top of the heap, whose some of the pages had almost completely been ripped from it's spine.

Lily tired to estimate the the damage when Potter said, "I'm usually aces at household charms, I don't know what came over me ..." The uncertain tone in his voice made Lily look up at him. He sat with his elbows on his knees, passing his wand between his hands with uncharacteristic nervousness. Lily tried to remember whether she'd ever seen him in a state of insecurity, even only a little, but she couldn't.

"You're using too much force," she heard herself saying, "it's good for Transfiguration, but Charms require more subtlety."

"Yeah, Flitwick tells me that all the time ..." Potter admitted, contradicting the claim that he was "aces" in household charms. "I'm sorry," he added. "I was just trying to help."

Lily put the damaged book aside, planning to find a way to fix it after she finished cleaning the library. "Maybe you should stick to Quidditch," she said. Potter grinned, although Lily wasn't joking. He must have seen it in her face, because the smile quickly disappeared from his face.

"Listen," he said more seriously. "I'm sorry. if you want to leave here I can talk to Mrs. Chambers, I'll tell her it's my fault."

Lily considered the offer briefly. The thought of Petunia's sour face and her father's shriveled body in his wheelchair frightened her.

"I can't leave," she said quietly, returning to her work. Potter didn't repeat the offer ever again.

The next day the sun came out again. Lily wore a light- blue dress and put on her best shoes. It was Sunday, the household workers' day off, and she planned to go to church in the nearby town.

She entered the dining room a few minutes before seven. To her surprise Potter was already there, hunched over the morning paper. Until that morning he was never in time for a meal.

"Good morning," Lily greeted the rest of the table, which included Madeline and Mrs. Chambers. As they replied quietly Potter looked up from the newspaper. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all that night, and the fatigue made his face look frighteningly more mature and serious. Then his gaze found Lily, and as he smiled the vision vanished without a trace.

Lily slipped away from his gaze and sat down at the corner of the table, in the seat farthest from him. Their conversation the day before didn't change the fact that he had made her feel deceived.

"Where's Maxwell?" She asked. She hadn't exchanged a single word with the sullen gardener since she had arrived, but every other person in the room that separated her from Potter was a blessing for her. To her surprise it wasn't Mrs. Chambers who answered, but Potter who replied, "He's running some errands for me."

For some reason the words left a tense echo in the room, so Lily didn't go on asking about the mysterious errand. Apparently she wasn't the only one who felt it, because Mrs. Chambers sounded almost too enthusiastic when she asked her how she intended to spend her day off. Lily said she had planned to go to church, and the rest were amazed and intrigued by the idea. Like many of Lily's classmates who had come from magical families religion was a confusing idea for them, and church services seemed for them almost like circus events.

Lily had never let this approach undermine her faith and what going to church on Sunday mornings had symbolized for her, even if sometimes their point of view had made her doubt. But no matter how far she deviated from the way she was raised, in the end she always returned to her faith in the difficult moments. It comforted her to know that no matter what happened faith will always be there for her, even when no one else would.

"I'll take you there," Potter suggested after she'd finished giving a brief explanation about Christianity. "I have an Appearation license, and I visited town lots of times."

"No," Lily said at once. Then, pretending to be very focused on her toast, she added, "Thanks, I'd rather walk."

"It's a long walk," Potter insisted lightly. Maybe it was his way of trying to make it up to her for what he had done, but he didn't realize he was only embarrassing her in front of Mrs. Chambers.

"It's a nice day," Lily replied in a final tone.

He didn't bring the subject up again for the rest of the meal, so when Lily finished eating and went out the back door into the crisp morning air she was sure she had slipped away from him. But as soon as she began walking down the path between Mrs. Chambers' dear vegetable patches Potter called for her to wait.

"I want to show you something," he said. "Please, it'll only take a few minutes, and it's on your way."

Lily agreed, feeling she has no choice, and knowing that he wouldn't let go until she gave in to at least some of his wishes. She followed him to an open shed on the edge of the estate, near the deserted road. To her surprise it was filled with a variety of Muggle objects that were arranged in cabinets shelves that covered every inch of the wooden walls. From radios to glass snowballs, the objects were sorted and neatly arranged as if by a collector. At the center of the space stood an old but well-preserved car, bright red with an open roof.

"My mom loved Muggles," Potter told her as she studied the objects. "She used to say that they were much smarter than us, because instead of using magic to do everything they built tools to help them. You like it?"

He was talking about the car, which Lily was examining from every angle. Her father used to be a car enthusiast, so Lily accompanied him to a lot of car shows when she was young. He even taught her to drive when she returned from her third year at Hogwarts, just before he became bound to a wheelchair. Today he probably won't be able to tell the difference between a race car and a hay wagon.

"It's in good shape," Lily replied, feeling a sweet- and- sour emotion at the sight of the shiny wheels and bright leather seats.

"Mom made up spells especially to maintain it. She was good at it," Potter said proudly, standing on the other side of the car. Like Lily, he too seemed torn between sweet memories and the sour reality.

For the first time since Lily arrived at the Potter household she realized Potter was in fact an orphan. She knew his parents passed away at the beginning of that school year; He had been in a leave of absence from school for three weeks, and everyone talked about it because no one really knew what had happened to the Potters. Even for a single moment Lily didn't feel she should give him any slack because of it. But now the realization was beginning to sink that he had in fact changed since he had lost his parents. After he returned to school he was quiet, almost withdrawn. He was no longer so conspicuous that by the end of the year Lily had almost forgotten that he was there. He stopped trying to talk to her and be friendly, he even stopped harassing the Slytherins. James Potter had become a ghost in the school corridors, and Lily, preoccupied with her own troubles, had forgotten he even existed.

"I had been wanting to take it on a test drive for a few days now," Potter said, reminding Lily where she was and with whom. "I can drive you to the village if you want."

"Do you even know how to drive?" Lily asked doubtfully.

Potter grinned mischievously, unable to conceal his slight embarrassment. "How hard can it be?"

Lily found herself smiling slightly and shaking her head. "Maybe some other time," she answered, taking hold of an old bicycle that was leaning on the wall, shaking the dust off and checking that the strap was intact. Potter didn't insist, just shrugged.

Lily sat on the bicycle, adjusting her skirt, when she realized he was looking at her. She looked back at him and he didn't flinch. Something in his glance suddenly reminded her that for a time during their fourth and fifth year he kept stubbornly asking her to Hogsmeade. He only stopped trying after what had happened with Severus at the end of their fifth year.

During their sixth year he went out with almost all of Lily's female classmates. They kept telling her that she was a fool for missing the chance to go out with James Potter, who had been chasing her for almost two years with an interest far greater than he'd ever shown in anyone else, and their envy was clear. She, on the other hand, had more serious issues to deal with than James Potter's romantic life. She was just glad he had stopped bothering her. But now the way he looked at her made her think that this chapter had not yet come to an end, as she had thought.

"Goodbye," she said, trying to dispel the uncertain tension that made her want to run away.

"Bye," Potter replied without looking away, putting on a strange smile.

Idiot, Lily thought and rode away.

As soon as she was alone between the trees, paddling rhythmically along the road, she felt much better. The freedom and the breeze in her hair felt nice, reminding her of why she loved loneliness so much. All her woes seemed small in relation to the sturdy trunks and the pristine river that she had crossed over an ancient stone bridge. These were the things that always made her feel better, reminding her that even when she would be gone, life would continue to exist. It was a thought that made every problem seem small and insignificant.

During Mass she sat in a wooden bench in the back of the hall, where she had a view of all the Muggles who filled the benches, and of the stained glass windows that decorated the high stone walls. She wasn't in the mood to pray or sing. Not because she felt estranged, but simply because for a moment she wanted to feel like she wasn't really there, but watching from above. As she listened to the priest's sermon she decided to take his advice and forgive the world – forgive Petunia and Severus and her classmates, who were supposed to be her friends but were never there for her. And to try and forgive James Potter, too.