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!
Recap:
'Hello James,' a sultry voice purred.
When Lily looked up, she felt physically ill. Serena Parkinson was sitting straddled on James' lap, trailing a solitary, seductive finger down his cheek.
-&-
Chapter 32: Repairing The CracksSerena, disregarding the fact that she was still in the common room, lifted the book out of James' hands. He shifted around as she made a show of leaning forward to place it on the side, giving him a perfect, crystal-clear view of what lay down her top.
"James," she mused. "James, James, James." She wriggled on his lap, and Lily saw James flush bright red – clearly her movement was giving him an adverse reaction which he didn't want.
"Go away, Serena," he said, with less force than usual.
"But James," Serena said in a husky voice. She traced a finger around his neck, and James broke into a visible sweat. "Look at you. You need to…loosen up a bit." She undid the top buttons of his shirt, and Lily realised that he had not undone them himself, even though the top few were usually flung open after school hours.
Now Serena was undoing his tie and loosening that too. "I could help you, you know," she said, fingers drifting over his neck before lightly brushing at his lips. James swallowed hard.
"Serena -" he started, in strained tones, his voice gravelly, but he got no further. Serena, apparently tired of toying with him, dragged his head towards hers, and engulfed him in a searingly passionate kiss.
Lily honestly felt like retching, unable to tear her gaze away as she saw Serena part her lips and deepen the kiss. For a few horrible moments, she thought James was going to encourage her, but eventually he pushed her blindly away from him. Unfortunately, the place in which his hands landed were probably the best place Serena could have wanted them. James pulled his hands away quickly.
"Serena – stop it -" he said, breathing heavily.
"Really? You want me to?" She smiled wickedly, rocking her hips so that James wriggled even more in discomfort. "Something down here tells me you don't." She placed her hand down below, and whatever she did was enough to make James jolt out of his chair, as if he had received an electric shock.
Lily had had enough. Getting up, she drew herself up to her full height, and marched over.
"Excuse me," she said coldly, "but can you take your little displays of affection away from the public eye."
Serena's smile turned snide. "Of course. We don't want to upset those who aren't as lucky as us. James?"
James, who was still sweating heavily, and wearing a somewhat dazed expression, snapped his head up. Almost at once, an expression of distaste crossed his face as he looked at Serena, and he stood up, abruptly dislodging her.
"Sorry Parkinson, but I'm not your little lapdog," he said brusquely. He looked at Lily, but could not seem to find anything to say to her; instead, cheeks colouring again, he walked out of the common room.
Without waiting for more of Serena's poison, Lily turned on her heel and headed upstairs, with the cry of "Hypocrite!" ringing in her ears.
The voice shouting it?
Her own.
-&-
"Aargh!"
This cry of outrage came from Emma, who was kneeling on her bed and glaring with all the force of a laser beam.
"You!" she said, pointing a finger at Sapphire, "and you!" The Finger swivelled round to Lily. "You two are driving me round the bend!"
Both Sapphire and Lily had the grace to look ashamed. Emma's face when she had come out of the bathroom to find not one, but two of her best friends hiding out in the dormitory had been priceless. She had said nothing until she was changed and ready for bed, but now the tirade had let loose.
"Right," Emma barked. "Let's get things straight." The Finger moved back to Sapphire. "You," she said, "have a problem with Sirius Black. You are incapable of having any kind of conversation with him to sort out your differences, and I STILL don't understand why." Sapphire looked sheepish.
"And you," she turned to Lily. "You are not telling us something. I don't know what happened in the Heads' Room last night, or how bad your fight was, but whatever it is, it was clearly a big deal. You've been jumpy all day whenever James comes near you, you're avoiding him, and what's puzzling me most of all is that he seems to be avoiding you too. Then I leave you with Tom, hoping that he'll snap you out of it, and fifteen minutes later, I find that you've hared it back up here again. You're not telling me something. Feel like sharing?"
Lily arranged her face in a carefully blank expression, but Emma shook her head.
"Don't try that on me, I've known you for seven years; I could practically write a book on your expressions."
In a neutral tone, Lily replied, "It's nothing…just an unexpected…thing. Argument. Fight. Thing." She walked over to Sapphire. "Besides, isn't this who we should be worrying about? This poor misguided soul who has conversational issues with Lover-boy?"
"EURGH!" Sapphire stumbled backwards so fast she fell onto her bed. "How can you even say that without throwing up?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Quite easily."
"I want nothing to do with Sirius Black. Understood?" Sapphire demanded.
"Funny," Emma said, in a conversational tone. "When you mentioned Sirius' name there, you did something I've never seen you do before. It was almost as if you were acting as though he was a human being." She shrugged, as though she were merely commenting on an everyday topic like the weather. "It's a good thing really. I was beginning to get quite worried you were under some odd spell that made you see some sort of three-headed monster when you looked at him. Good to know you're normal."
"Aargh!" Sapphire blocked her ears for a moment and then, realising that no one was speaking (because they were too busy laughing), removed her hands.
"I'm going to the bathroom," she announced. "And then I'm going to bed."
"To dream of Sirius Black," Lily whispered mischievously as the door clicked shut behind Sapphire. Emma burst out laughing.
"If only that were even remotely likely," she sighed, wiping her eyes.
-&-
"Pass the jam," Emma said. Lily gave no response.
"I said, pass the jam," Emma repeated, raising her voice. When Lily still did not look up, Emma sighed.
"Lily," she said loudly. "James is heading in your direction."
"What?" Lily's head snapped up.
"I asked you to please pass the jam," Emma said innocently. Sapphire stifled a laugh by taking an extra-large gulp of pumpkin juice, and promptly choked on it.
Lily frowned down at the roll of parchment covered with messy lists of numbers which lay in front of her, taking the place of an uneaten bowl of cereal which lay to a side. "It's no good," she muttered, throwing her quill down in frustration and running her hands through her hair.
"What isn't?" Emma inquired, patting Sapphire on the back.
"These accounts," Lily said, gesturing at the figures, which were interspersed with ink blots. "I'm hopeless at them – I can't do numbers." She stared at the parchment hard, as if hoping the numbers would resolve themselves.
"Emma," she said finally, in a wheedling tone of voice, "could you give these to James and tell him I said to finish them, whenever you next see him?"
"Nuh-uh!" Emma protested. "I'm not aiding you in avoiding him!"
"Sapphire?" Lily asked hopefully.
Sapphire, though still apparently unable to talk, was able to manage a coherent head-shake while massaging her throat.
"Fine," Lily grumbled, rolling the accounts up and putting them into her bag. "I'll ask Remus to give them to him. Some friends you are." She pushed in her quills haphazardly. "I'll go give them now," she said grumpily. "I am not carrying them around all day." Swinging her bag onto her shoulders, she set off.
She was so busy cursing her luck as she walked down the corridor, thinking how ironic it was that the one person who could help her was the one person she was going to any lengths to avoid, that she did what she had done so many times before.
"Oomph!" She tumbled to the ground, landing painfully on her bag, and heard the soft crunch as parchment crumpled beneath her weight.
Getting up hastily, she dusted herself off before looking up to see who she had walked into.
Typical, she thought sourly. My life is so over-clichéd.
James mumbled something as he bent down and began to pile up books.
"What?" Lily asked quickly, bending down too and making a pile herself.
"I said, I'm sorry," James muttered, head down.
"Oh…" Lily stood up and then realised, as she looked at the top book, that they were all James'. Nevertheless, she waited until he had straightened up before trading, being careful not to let her hands touch his.
"Sorry I wasn't watching where I was going," she said quietly, busying herself with her bag.
James opened his mouth, but then closed it again as footsteps sounded, and a giggling Ravenclaw fifth-year walked by, hand-in-hand with a Hufflepuff sixth-year.
There was a moment of silence, where neither could quite bring themselves to look at the other.
Finally, James exhaled and looked in the direction that the couple had gone. "Why is it that when everyone around is getting together, we can't even be civil to each other?" he asked quietly.
Lily found it a safer bet to look at the floor and shrug, rather than have to meet his eyes, which were burning into her (or so she thought).
James was silent for a minute, before shifting his weight awkwardly. "Look…about the other night," he said hesitantly. "I know you probably hate me -"
"I don't," Lily interrupted quickly.
"- or are at least angry with me -"
"I'm not!"
"- and have every intention of slapping me -"
"No!"
"- but for what it's worth, I'm sorry I kind of…came onto you like that. I mean, I don't…I don't like you as…anything more than a friend…and I don't know where that came from…it was probably just me transferring my frustrations. I swear it won't happen again…and even though you have every right to be as mad as you are -"
"James," Lily interjected gently. "I'm not upset with you."
James slowly met her eyes. "So why have you avoided me all week?"
Lily flushed. "I was…embarrassed," she said uncomfortably. "It…it wasn't something I was expecting, obviously." She cleared her throat. "Besides, I'm not the only one. Why were you avoiding me?"
James flushed. "I was embarrassed too," he confessed. "And…and I thought you were angry with me. For – for -" He didn't seem quite capable of finishing his sentence.
"I wasn't! I thought you were – well, I don't know."
James exhaled again. "Look, what matters is that we're here now." He took a deep breath. "I just want to say that I don't have any…ulterior motive, and I don't want to ruin what we've managed, so...friends again?" He offered his hand.
Lily tilted her head before shaking hands with him, almost reluctantly. "Friends." A rush of warmth spread through her as they clasped hands awkwardly, and she tried to ignore how warm and rough-yet-gentle his hand was. When she looked back, she would put it down to happiness that problems were sorted out.
"Well…"
"Well…bye, I guess," Lily said uncomfortably. "I'll see you around." Her own voice echoed in her head. I hug my friends when I say goodbye.
There was no way she was adhering to that protocol now.
"Yeah – yeah," James said. They both turned and began to walk away from each other, but several metres from him, she stopped and turned around to stare at his retreating back. As if sensing her, he turned too.
"What?" he asked.
"N-nothing," Lily said hurriedly. "Well…bye."
"Bye."
She turned and carried on walking, but, for some reason, just as she was about to reach the corner, she stopped and turned again. James was still standing in the same spot, one hand holding his books, the other in his pocket, wearing an odd expression on his face.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said vaguely.
"Ok…see you around." Still feeling oddly as though their conversation was unfinished, she headed round to corner, and up the staircase. It was when the bell went just as she reached the Tower than she realised why she had left the Great Hall in the first place.
Damn my stupid mind! she thought, annoyed.
-&-
When she did catch up with James again, it was almost the end of lunch. She thrust the accounts into his hand, hoping that he would simply put it into his bag, but, to her dismay, he unrolled it then and there. For a moment, he stared at it, and then, frowning slightly, he turned it upside down, as if rotating it would make the scribbles any more legible.
"Lily," he said at last, looking up at her. "Is this – were you drunk when you did this?"
'"No!" Lily said indignantly. "I had full control over my mental faculties!"
"Really?" James studied the parchment again. "Because this looks like you have the mental faculties of a five-year-old." He screwed up his eyes, in an effort to make sense of the mess of ink.
"Ok, you know what?" Lily pulled the accounts out of his hand and ripped them up into tiny pieces.
"Lily - !"
"What? All this is crap – you'll be better off without it."
"No – it's just – there was a sheet of real accounts under that. Mine."
Lily looked down at the fragments in her hand. Sure enough, small lines of James' handwriting were dotted around her own scribbles.
Whoops.
"Sorry!" she apologised frantically, trying to piece the shreds back together. "Really, I am – can you -?"
James looked solemn for a moment, but then his face turned into one big grin. "I was just messing with you. That was a sheet of rough notes."
"You idiot!" Lily exclaimed, cuffing him on the arm. "You really had me worried!" She began to laugh as they walked into the classroom. "And there I was wondering how the hell I was supposed to redo them for you!"
James shuddered elaborately. "Please. You'll give me nightmares." His expression made Lily laugh even harder, and she looked around for her friends, her eyes landing on Tom as she did so. He saw her looking and gave her a brief smile; yet somehow, his eyes still wore a bitter expression as they looked at James.
-&-
And now, all too soon, the end of the school term was first in sight, and then upon the. The school population did not diminish in size, as barely anyone wanted to go home when the prospect of the Winter Ball lay ahead. Indeed, it seemed to double – the entire castle was now filled with students doing precisely what they liked, when they liked. Lily and James had decided that in order to compensate for keeping students at school in Christmas Day, the Hogwarts Express would leave in the late morning on Boxing Day to take back the students, so they could at least spend half of the holiday with their family. A Hogsmeade trip had also been organised for the coming weekend; with the Winter Ball little more than a week away, many girls were itching to go into the village and finalise their outfits. Sapphire was working hard on her costume for the finals of the fancy dress competition, and Lily and Emma helped with suggestions wherever they could.
It was after one such session of costume-planning that Lily was sitting curled up in a chair by the fire with her friends, relishing the fact that she had no work to do. The common room was full and noisy, and at least ten games of Exploding Snap and wizarding chess were going on at once. Life could be so peaceful, Lily thought dreamily, as she watched the portrait hole swing open.
She was nowhere near prepared for the entrant. A familiar black-haired figure stepped into the room, and Lily gasped as she saw the person's face properly.
Oh my god.
-&-
A/N: FINALLY free of school for life, so expect more regular updates when I'm not out enjoying holidays to the fullest :D and just as a quick response, no my updates don't take forever because I wait for reviews, they take long because I have a life outside fanfiction, and I had life-deciding exams to deal with…
Anyway, how about a review to pass the time?