The Truth Of The Heart

Summary: Lily Evans has always, ALWAYS hated James Potter. So when they become Head Boy and Girl, nothing could be worse. But could working with him change Lily's opinion? Has she been ignoring the truth in her heart all along?

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this….except a few minor characters, so please don't sue me, JKR, 'cause I have nothing you want….unless you're into human flesh (you're not, are you?)

A/N: Thanks to ALL of you who reviewed, because you all rock my socks ENORMOUSLY!

-&-

Chapter 29: On Both Sides of the Wall

There was silence. James and Remus were both watching Sirius intently, whose expression was twisted up into a half sneer. Emma had a warning hand on Sapphire's arm, and Lily was half out of her seat. Peter had got to his feet, watching them carefully. Sapphire herself was using her height to her fullest advantage – standing up, she towered over her arch-enemy, who was still lounged on his beanbag seat.

"What?" Sapphire demanded angrily. "Is it my hair that offends you, or the way I speak? What is it that constantly makes you taunt me? Why do you have such a huge problem with me? Why can't you just leave me alone?"

She was so worked up in a frenzy of angry emotion that she did not realise the wisps of hair lying on her face as they drifted out of her bun. All her energy was being used in her glare – if looks could kill, the boy opposite would have been six feet under by now, with third-degree burns.

Sirius, his expression still that of a mocking sneer, opened his mouth. "I ha -" he started, in a disdainful voice.

Then, all of a sudden, he stopped and shut his mouth. Lily watched as he frowned, opened his mouth, took a breath as if to speak, and then closed it again. His frown deepened, his eyes still fixed on Sapphire's furious face.

It seemed as though all five of the onlookers were holding their breaths for Sirius' reply, but he appeared to have no intention of giving one soon. His forehead creased even further as he looked at her, and he narrowed his eyes.

Suddenly, he froze, his body tensed up. A look of shocked realization spread across his handsome features, and a tinge of…horror?… followed it. His face drained of colour.

For the first time, he dropped his gaze from Sapphire to the carpet, shaking his head, much like a dog, as if to clear it.

"Padfoot?" Peter said uncertainly. Sirius ignored him, and looked back up at Sapphire. For a few moments, the surprise was still evident on his face, but slowly, and clearly with a lot of energy, he forced his face back to a carefully neutral expression.

"Well?" Sapphire said, sounding almost at the verge of hysterics. "What's it going to be? Why do you have such an issue with me?"

Sirius' thin self-control was slipping – it was clear to everyone how he was losing it. A fixated glare from Sapphire brought him to his feet, facing her, and traces of anger began to creep through.

"Fine," he ground out, through gritted teeth. "You want to know?" The moment the words were out of his mouth, he looked as though he regretted them.

"Finally, he gets it!" Sapphire cried, with a half-hysterical laugh. "Finally, I've got through to Black's thick head! Yes, you arsehole, I want to know why this always happens!"

Sirius breathed heavily, patches of pink appearing on his cheeks. Not until he had himself fully under control, face blank of emotion, did he open his mouth again.

"I…like you?"

Even as he said it, Lily saw the honest shock in his eyes at hearing himself say the words out aloud, as if that had finally cemented what he had just realised.

Deep blue eyes met stormy grey ones.

"Well?" Sapphire said, as though she hadn't heard his words. "Are you asking a question, or telling me the reason, Black? Time's ticking."

Sirius' face was unreadable. "I like you," he said in a low, controlled tone. "Happy now?"

He wheeled round and walked out of the common room.

-&-

For the second time in ten minutes, there was complete and utter silence. Every single face looked shell-shocked, apart from Sapphire, who was wearing the most horrified expression Lily had ever seen.

After a few moments, James cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh…sorry, excuse us…" The three boys got up and walked out, leaving all three girls more or less motionless.

Slowly, Sapphire sank back into her chair and put her face into her hands. After a moment, she raised her head slightly.

"Someone tell me the last few minutes were just figments of my imagination," she said through her fingers.

Lily could only shake her head dumbly.

-&-

As James led Remus and Peter down the corridor, part of him was wondering where he was going to find his best friend. The other, rather larger part was busy replaying and re-replaying the last conversation, and wondering if it was possibly for someone to have taken Polyjuice Potion to act as Sirius. Perhaps he was about to find out that this was all a big joke.

Perhaps not. As they rounded the corner, a dark figure was sitting down, curled up with head in arms against the wall, and without a shadow of a doubt, James knew that this was the real Sirius. So much for hoping that this was an elaborate prank.

"Padfoot?" Remus said quietly. "It's us."

There was nothing, and then Sirius raised his head off his arms. "Tell me I did not just say what I think I said back there," he said hoarsely.

Peter shrugged. "Wish we could, mate."

-&-

"Okay," Sapphire wiped her cheeks, "so can someone tell me this is just some stupid prank Black's pulling on me?"

Emma shook her head. "He didn't look like he was joking, Saffy."

"But – but this has to be a prank!" Sapphire burst out. "Black doesn't like me – I don't even – and he knows I hate his – this is all some set-up – they probably just went out so they could bust a gut laughing – it can't - " She held up her hands, as if in surrender. "Look, I can even take it well. Ha ha, very funny, joke's OVER."

"Saffy." Lily enunciated each word carefully. "I really don't think this is any kind of joke."

-&-

"Please let this be a joke," Sirius groaned. "Some sick twisted joke my mind is playing on me!" He looked up hopefully. "Or someone could just shoot me and get it over with..."

James, Remus and Peter all exchanged glances.

"We would," James said, with a straight face, "but seeing as we're the only people here, we'd be incriminated too easily. Not Marauder style at all."

Sirius buried his head in his arms again and let out a muffled groan. "You know what? From now on, just carry one of those gags around with you, and if I ever look like I'm about to put my foot in my mouth, use it."

"Right," Peter said, trying to get a laugh out of Sirius. "That can go on your Christmas list."

"Uh, Padfoot? Seriously, just to clear all doubts, was this some sort of prank gone wrong?" Remus questioned.

Sirius shook his head.

"So you do like her?"

-&-

"HE DOES NOT LIKE ME!" Sapphire nearly threw herself out of her chair, hands pressed over her ears. "Don't say that! You're all in this together with that bastard!"

Emma and Lily winced at her choice of wording.

"No we're not," Lily said placatingly. "We're with you all the way, you know that. We're just…"

"…telling you what we saw." Emma looked earnestly at her friend. "I think he really does…you know…"

"No he does NOT!"

"Saffy, face the facts. You saw the look on his face as well as any of us."

"So?"

"So…I think he only just realised…that he, uhm…" Lily paused, trying to put it in the way that would be least offensive to Sapphire's ears, "…that he…had feelings for you."

"The question is," Emma put in, "do you like him?"

-&-

"No! Yes! Maybe – I don't – I don't know."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Sirius, that made it perfectly clear to all of us poor souls who don't live in your world."

"I don't know! I opened my mouth to tell her I hated her, and – and I couldn't get the words out."

"So you do like her then?"

"I - "

"I'll take that to mean a yes," James said dryly. "Mr. Sirius Black, Player Extraordinaire, the original Bad Boy himself, has fallen for the one girl who won't fall for him."

"Prongs!" Remus shoved James with his elbow. "Be a little tactful."

"James Potter's the name, brutal honesty's the game." James cocked his head. "Face it Padfoot, you act like a five-year-old every time she comes near you."

-&-

"It's not my fault!" Sapphire moaned, head on the table, apparently not paying attention to Emma. "It's not my fault that he had to go spew out a load of crap – not that he doesn't do that every time he opens his mouth, but still! Pricks and arseholes are only meant to like other pricks and arseholes! I'm not a prick or an arsehole!"

Lily raised her eyebrows. "I take it you don't return his feelings?"

"Do I LOOK like I return them?" Sapphire demanded furiously.

"Clearly not," Lily muttered.

Sapphire put her head in her hands again. "Why did this happen? Why did it have to happen to me?"

-&-

"It's not my fault!" Sirius protested. "She just always brings out the worst in me."

"Well apparently that didn't stop you from…well, liking her."

"This is so wrong," Sirius groaned. "It wasn't meant to be like this."

The four of them were quiet for a moment, casting flickering shadows against the wall as they considered the best course of action.

In the end, there was only one course of action.

"Padfoot," Remus said carefully. "You know what you have to do, don't you?" He paused. "You have to talk to her."

-&-

"What?!?" Sapphire cried.

"You know that's what you have to do, Saffy. You have to talk to him and get things straight."

"That's just plain unfair!"

"Well, that's life," Emma said comfortingly.

"I don't like life!" Sapphire said petulantly.

Deciding not to point out the fact that this statement made little sense, Lily sighed. "Saffy, seriously, you need to talk to him. Now."

-&-

"Noo!" Sirius half-shouted.

-&-

"NO!" Sapphire yelled.

-&-

"Come on Sirius, you'll have to do it some time – if you're going to spring a bombshell on her, you owe it to her to explain a bit. Walking out doesn't tell her much," Remus reasoned persuasively.

Sirius looked around him. "Actually, I'm quite happy out here. I could Summon a few cloaks to sleep on for the rest of the year, and you guys could bring me food."

-&-

"Saffy, you'll have to talk to him some time – you can't tell me you can avoid him for the next – well, for the rest of the school year."

"Yes I can," Sapphire said obstinately. "I'll stay in the girls' dorms. Emma can bring me food, and you can lend me your notes from all your classes."

-&-

"Try to feed your bottomless stomach? Yeah, right," Peter retorted. "Remus' right, as usual. Realistically, Sirius you have to talk to her soon, so you may as well get it over with now."

Sirius leaned his head against the wall, and let out a long breath. "I suppose you're right," he said, in a strangled voice. He stood up and dusted himself off. "Now or never, right?"

"Right," James said encouragingly.

"Full steam ahead," put in Peter. Remus raised an eyebrow at him, and Peter shut his mouth, rolling his eyes when Remus turned away.

With the slow step of a doomed man walking to the scaffold, Sirius began to head back to the portrait. His expression? Well, it would not have been out of place at a funeral.

James turned to Peter, the encouraging tone fading from his voice. "Dead man walking."

-&-

"If you think," Lily said firmly, "that I am going to encourage you staying in the dorms, then you've got another think coming."

"Look, Saffy," Emma pleaded. "All you have to do is have one little, five-minute talk with the boy, tell him thanks but no thanks, and then IT'S ALL OVER. Forever. Is that so hard?"

"Yes," Sapphire said stubbornly.

Emma sighed and looked over Sapphire's head at Lily. "Any blackmail material we can use against her?" she asked.

Lily looked thoughtful. "Nope, don't think so. Not at the moment."

"Ha!" Sapphire said triumphantly. "You can't make me do anything!"

Emma sighed again. "Well, that does only leave one option," she said. "Force."

"What?" Sapphire screeched, as her friends grabbed her by the elbows and dragged her bodily out of her chair. She scrabbled frantically at the table in a useless attempt to gain purchase. "You can't do this!"

"You've given us no other choice," Lily pointed out. She and Emma frogmarched a struggling Sapphire halfway across the room before she suddenly gave in and went limp, making them stop.

"Fine," she said wearily. "I'll talk to him." She rubbed her eyes. "But I am NOT responsible for anything I do or say out there."

"Duly noted," Lily said impatiently. "Now go get this over with."

As they watched Sapphire take the smallest, slowest steps possible to the portrait hole, Lily looked round at Emma. "God, this is like the Titanic, except without the romance, because the ship sank before it even set off."

Emma looked confused.

"Muggle thing," Lily said quickly.

-&-

Sirius managed it almost up to the Fat Lady. James and Remus were both poised in case he turned and ran, but so far, there seemed to be no trouble.

It was when he opened his mouth, presumably to say the password, that he shut it again, and sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "I can't do this," he said quietly. "I honestly can't." He slumped against the wall next to the portrait, his back against the stone.

-&-

Lily and Emma watched as Sapphire dragged her feet reluctantly towards the entrance, half-expecting her to turn and flee, but she didn't. Slowly, she put her hand on the back of the picture, to push it open, and then dropped it back to her side.

"Forget it. Really I – I can't go through with this," she said wearily. "Not now."

Lily opened her mouth to argue, but Emma put an arm on her shoulder, effectively silencing her. They observed Sapphire lean back on the wall next to the entrance and sigh, her hands flat against the stone, supporting her back.

-&-

Unbeknownst to the other, both Sirius and Sapphire, leaning on either side of the same wall, one in the bright light of the common room, the other in a dark corridor lit only by torchlight, groaned quietly and put a hand to their foreheads, before simultaneously uttering just two words.

"Why me?"

-&-

By the time Sirius re-entered the common room, it was more or less empty. Without bothering to look around, he headed straight for his dormitory, clearly having no intention of talking. Not that it would have done much good if he had, as the only person left on the couch was Lily, her head turned away from them. Sapphire had gone up to bed with Emma, who was ever the persuasive peacemaker, and Lily had enough sense to let Emma calm Sapphire down a little more before she went up herself.

Remus, seeing Lily watching the dancing flames, nudged James. "Go talk to her," he whispered.

"Why?" James muttered.

"Because, you idiot, we need some kind of communication going on, or this will never get sorted."

Accepting this as a valid point, James let his best friends go on up, and walked over to Lily, sitting down opposite. She turned, startled.

"Oh, it's you," she said, smiling with relief. "Hi."

"Weird night, huh?" James said, stretching himself out and yawning.

"Tell me about it," Lily agreed. She eyed him. "You should really go to bed, you know."

"So should you."

"I'm waiting for things to calm down in the dorm."

"So am I."

"Point taken."

"Good." James put his hands behind his head. "You know, when I told Remus I was sure we would have an exciting night, after McGonagall handed out those essay questions, I was being sarcastic. I didn't expect this."

"I don't think anyone did," Lily said sleepily.

"It's a pity Sapphire had to go and start things off, isn't it?" James yawned again, but Lily had lifted her head suddenly.

"Come again?"

"Well, if she hadn't asked him to shut up, they wouldn't have ended up like this."

Lily had sat up fully. "Saffy start this? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all I heard was her asking politely if he could let her finish her essay, and he started in on her. No 'shut up' there."

"Well he wasn't doing much, was he? Besides, take away the politeness, and you've got a basic 'shut your trap'. That's what she meant."

"How would you know? And anyway, she still said it politely, so there was no call for him to start making fun of her!"

Both girl and boy were now glaring at each other, eyes narrowed. Their voices were rising. Each time Lily's grew a shade louder, James' tones rose to match it.

"She told him to shut up!"

"She asked him politely!"

"She still told him to shut up!"

"But she still asked him politely!"

"It's not illegal to talk!"

"Well, we were all working, he could have talked some other time!"

"He was trying to lighten the mood! God knows you needed it!"

Lily stared angrily at him. They were both so caught up in glaring at each other that everything else, including the slight click of the portrait hole closing, escaped them.

"Since when did this get personal?"

"Since you started insulting my best friend and blaming him for things he didn't do!"

"You are the most infuriating boy – no, PRAT – that I've ever met!" she declared.

"Good to know I've gained a title." James smiled sardonically.

Lily huffed. "I'm going to bed before this gets even uglier."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

They got up in unison and walked towards their respective dormitories, but neither had actually reached the stairs when Remus came clattering down the stairs.

"Is -?" Stopping, he looked round the empty common room, and his face turned slightly paler than usual. "Ah. James, we have a problem."

James raised his eyebrows. "What's the matter?"

"Uh…Padfoot's not in the dorm." Remus caught sight of Lily, still staring at them from her staircase, and seemed to choose his next words very carefully. "He's not on the..uhm, Marauder's…aid, either."

James' eyes widened. "You're not being serious? He's gone to H-?" Remus quirked an eyebrow at him, and James, remembering that Lily was still in the room, cut himself off as Remus nodded. "How did he -?"

"I left him on his bed and went to the bathroom, and when I came back, he wasn't there any more," Remus said miserably. "So I checked the, uhm…thing that I checked, and he wasn't on it. That only leaves one place he can be."

"Oh shite," James said, in a voice that, for him, was close to frantic. He ran a hand though his hair and looked at his watch. "And at this time too – God, what was he thinking?"

"Knowing him, he wasn't thinking at all. Which is why we have to go bring him back from You-Know-Where, using You-Know-What. You know what he'll be like."

"Are you kidding me? Okay, so we do it on f -" remembering Lily, James changed mid-sentence, "special days, but this is different. Isn't there anything else?" He tilted his head, wearing an expression which Lily couldn't see, but Remus evidently could see and understand, because he rolled his eyes.

"Yeah Prongs, mastermind idea, let's go up, sit on our beds, and twiddle our thumbs while singing Ten Green Bottles so we can pass the time until he comes back." He snorted sarcastically. "Are you crazy?"

"Are you crazy?" James shot back. "Hate to have to bring this up, but I'm Head Boy – I'll get murdered for - "

Remus looked exasperated. "Who else is there? Pete's disappeared, and I can't do it by myself. Besides, he only listens to you. Take the damn badge off and let's go."

James seemed to deflate a little. "Okay, yeah, you're right," he said, grimacing. "Have you got the, er - "

Remus held up a satchel. "I've got our cloaks, plus Sirius' knife, the uh, aid, and your…spare cloak which makes you extra…warm." A look passed between the two of them which Lily did not understand.

"Right then," James said, putting the satchel on. "We'll get our stuff on outside."

"Hold on a minute," Lily spoke up, stepping forward from her stairs to face them. "Where're you going?"

James turned impatiently. "Not now, Lily, it's none of your business."

He had said the wrong thing – again.

Lily's eyes glittered dangerously as she took a step forward. "You may have forgotten your responsibilities, but I'm still Head Girl, therefore it is my business if you decide to go gallivanting around in the middle of the night."

"Like hell it is!" James snapped, his temper getting the better of him again. "What I do is none of your concern! And anyway, I'm not gallivanting."

"Then what's wrong with Sirius?" Lily persisted. "Where is he that so worries you that you have to leave the common room at this time of night?"

"He's…" James searched for an appropriate excuse.

"…drowning his sorrows?" Remus murmured under his breath.

James elbowed him. "Shut up!" he hissed from the corner of his mouth. He took a deep breath. "Lily, just go to bed." At Lily's rebellious look, he almost groaned out loud. "Look, I don't have the time to spoon-feed you the details of everything I do. Sirius is fine, I'm fine, we're all fine, we just have things to do. Go to bed, and I'll see you in the morning." Without waiting for a reply, he and Remus took off.

Lily watched the portrait hole swing shut. Angrily, she walked back to the sofa and sat down, determined to wait for them, even if it took all night. She fully intended to give them a piece of her mind when they got back from whatever god-forsaken jaunt they were off on.

She would sit and wait.

And so, lulled by the gentle crackle of the dying flames, she fell asleep.

A/N: I seriously apologise for the LOOOOOONG delay in getting this chapter up. The fact is, this term has been the most stressful of my life, and I've been caught up in applying to university. What I DO want you guys all to know is that I will carry this on and finish it, but that I can't guarantee updates on a regular (i.e. weekly) basis. But thank you to all of you who reviewed and prodded me to update so much - I appreciate it :D

Also, yeah, I know the Titanic thing is a bit of an anachronism, because the film wasn't around when they were, but bear with me. It fitted, so I stuck it in. Sorry if you didn't like it.