Why did she feel so guilty?
The only thing she did was get into a fight with her boyfriend, something happening to couples all over the world. He pissed her off; she yelled a bit and pissed him off. All daily occurrences on planet Earth.
But this….this weight pressing heavily on her chest? This was something else, bigger than just one person. Why did it bother her so strongly?
Ah, that's it. It's not just because she got into her fight with her boyfriend. It's because said boyfriend is James Potter, and she's Lily Evans. And, apparently, the two of them fighting does not compute.
The entirety of the school had bore witness at least once to the ground-shaking fights between Lily and James. When they started dating in seventh year, the school thought that the love they undeniably felt for each other would cause everything to work out, because they were the golden couple, the ones people looked on with envy.
And the pressure of it was just killing her.
Did people honestly think that they would no longer argue because of a simple change in relationship? Old habits die hard. But, of course, they didn't know that.
It wasn't just the sympathetic shaking-of-the head when she would stomp furiously away from him. It was the smirks of those who thought their dating was fated for disaster in the first place, the victorious smiles of the girls who wanted James in their beds.
It got to be so much sometimes that she wanted to break up with him, looking for an easy out.
Whenever this thought popped into her head, she would suddenly spot Potter making his way over to her (his telepathic senses tingling). He would sit down next to her on the couch, cup her face in his hand, use the other one to trace delicate patterns on her thigh (her thigh, for chrissake) and would ask her what was wrong in a low, throaty voice.
And she would break down and tell him what was eating her, and he would laugh, and tell her she was being silly, and they would go for a ride on his broom and everything would rainbows and sunshine again. Stupid James Potter.
The problem was, she mused, it was completely worth it.