Work Text:
She just wants the tears to stop.
The tears mean she still cares, and she doesn’t. Severus Snape and his death eater cronies could be swallowed whole by the Giant Squid, and Lily would like to think she wouldn’t bat an eye.
The tears mean that her eighteenth birthday- the one she’s been looking forward to her whole life, muggle born that she is- is being ruined by a selfish prick.
A selfish prick who used to be her friend.
Lily pulls her legs closer as her breaths continue to be shaky. She’s snuck away to a random hallway in Hogwarts because it houses her favourite hiding spot: an alcove with a high window and ledge no one else seems to know about.
The ashes of the howler are scattered around her, and the words continue to ring in her ears. Snape had sounded irate, ranting about her abandoning him, choosing the ‘wrong side’ and hanging out with ‘blood traitors’, and then he had had the audaciousness to say that if she could forgive him he would forgive her.
She was going to punch him in the fucking face. Forgive her for what? She had done nothing but believe his lies blindly for five years, as he spun story after story about their great future and her importance in his life.
And then he had the gall to end the howler by wishing her happy birthday.
Two years of avoiding him like the plague and he still manages to get under her skin- a parasite that will always worm its way in.
How many tears does her body have left? Lily wants to get back to the common room, where she can plaster on a smile and get drunk beyond feeling at her party because Snape will not ruin this for her.
Of course, there’s always one person ready to wreck her best laid plans. “Lily?” A voice calls down the hallway.
James bloody Potter. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d put a tracking spell on her, hellbent as he used to be for her attention.
But he’s her friend now, so she chalks it up to one of those odd intuition things that James claims to have in abundance.
Still, she slides closer to the window, praying that James will give up and leave, because her reasons for not wanting to see him have swung wildly away from hatred in the last few months, and the way butterflies erupted in her stomach at the sound of his voice is really not helping her calm down.
“Lily? Are you around here?” He calls out again. She imagines his face, scrunched up as it often is when he’s trying to solve a problem, glasses falling down the bridge of his nose while the gears in his brain turn. “No one’s seen you since transfiguration, and your party’s in an hour. Hello?” His voice is getting closer now, and Lily closes her eyes. Keep walking. She thinks. Keep walking keep walking-
“Lils?” It’s the nickname that undos her.
“Go away James,” she says through a thick voice.
His footsteps stop underneath the ledge. “There you are,” he says softly, and before she’s said another word he heaves himself up. She watches him register her face, bewilderment-concern-anger. “Lils what-“
“I said go away,” she mumbles again, turning her face towards the window.
“I can bring you someone else. Marlene, maybe? Alice? Mary? Dorcas? Remus or Sirius?”
“James!”
“Okay, I’ll stay,” he says, barely suppressing a grin.
Lily scoffs. “I’m not telling you what happened.”
“So something did happen?”
She whips her head around, hoping a glare might scare him off.
James holds his hands up. “Sorry, sorry. I won’t say another word.”
“Then you’d be a terrible window ledge partner,” she responds. If he’s insistent on being here, he may as well be a distraction.
“My apologies. What do you want to talk about?”
“How did you find me?”
That question makes him flinch, Lily notes curiously.
James scratches the back of his neck. “Oh, you know. My Potter intuition.”
“Right, of course. How could I forget.”
He grins at her. “Are you excited for the patronus lesson on Monday? I’ve cast mine a couple times, but it’ll be nice to see everyone else’s.”
Lily knows he means well, but the thought of patronus’ almost sends her spiralling again. It doesn’t feel like she’ll ever have a memory happy enough, one untainted from Snape or Petunia filling it with sorrow. All she’s ever managed are a few wisps of blue light. “I don’t reckon I’ll try, since I probably won’t be able. And it’s not even for a grade.”
James’ eyebrow creases, and she knows he’s going to push back, but when he puts his hand forward in emphasis it lands in the ashes of the howler.
She watches this reaction play out on his face too, and when it lands on angry understanding she wishes she had burned the pieces when she had the chance.
“Lils, who sent that?“
She shakes her head. She doesn’t want James to go after Snape, to end up in detention or worse on her birthday, just because Snape decided to be a coward.
“It’s not worth it, James.”
“You are always worth it,” he strains, but she’s already swinging her legs down.
“Lily, if someone hurt you-“
“He didn’t hurt me. All he did was catch me off guard.” She doesn’t really mean to say it, but she has to convince someone, if not herself.
James understands immediately. There’s a righteousness in his eyes as she jumps down and he follows suit. She tries to quell it. “We’re going back to the common room.”
James scoffs behind her. “I can’t believe him. Somehow manages to get scummier by the day. And you don’t have to protect him anymore, Lily, I understand-“
“Do you?!” She yells, turning to face him, voicing echoing throughout the empty halls. “Do you really understand what it’s like for your childhood best friend to one day decide he’s going to join a cult hell bent on killing people like you, and then call you the most vile slur possible when you try and help him? Because I don’t think you do.”
James doesn’t say anything to that, only stares at her with eyes that have been haunting her dreams for months now. She buries her face in her hands. “I’m not even mad at you. This is going all wrong.”
She feels tentative hands on hers, bringing them down from her face. “Help me understand,” he says quietly.
Lily takes a deep breath. He’s here, for her. That has to be enough. “You want to protect me, I know. But that’s not what I need from you. What I need is exactly what you’ve been doing: To reach for me when I’m drifting, to distract me when I’m falling. Snape isn’t important. He wants me to react to him and I won’t.”
James nods. “Okay. I understand that… but he hurt you. I can’t stand to see you hurt.”
“Lots of people are going to hurt me James. As my… as you, I don’t want your energy wasted on him.”
He smirks at her. “Right. But when Snivellus is commentating on the Quidditch match next week, and the bludger accidentally ends up in the commentators box, that won’t be energy expending at all.”
“James.” Lily scolds, but a smile breaks through anyways.
“You are simply everything, you know that?”
James says suddenly. “Don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise.”
And Lily doesn’t know what to do with that. James is looking at her the way he always does- soft admiration, a coy smile- but now she finds herself desperately searching for more, wondering if the look in his eyes could mean what she wants it to.
“James, you can’t just say things like that,” Lily says, almost desperately.
James’ brow creases, “And why is that?”
“Because then I start to think…” but Lily cuts her sentence off. It isn’t worth it to lose James over some silly feelings. Remus would roll his eyes if he heard that, but he isn’t here to.
“Can we just head back?” Lily says, and she starts to walk without waiting for a response.
“No no Lily, please.” Now it’s James who sounds desperate. He grabs her arm to stop her, and Lily turns to find a look on his face that she can’t decipher. “What were you going to say?”
“I-“ Lily shakes her head. “Nothing. I can’t remember.”
“Lily… I meant what I said.”
“Please. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
James blinks. “Pretend? What have I been pretending?”
Lily laughs, a sound that sounds bitter to her ears. “Oh, come on. You spent years pretending to be in love with me, proclaiming your affections for everyone’s entertainment. And it’s okay, I’ve forgiven you. I know you probably just thought the concept of a rich pure blood loving an unknown muggleborn was funny, but I would really like to move on.”
James stares at her. For a count of eight, nine, ten, until Lily tries to walk away but then realizes her arm is still in his grip.
Then he drops it suddenly, blinking rapidly. “You- you thought I was joking? All those times?” He sounds incredulous and Lily can’t understand why.
“Obviously?”
“Lily,” and there it is, that soft look in his eyes. He grabs her hands. “Lily I-“ he shakes his head. “I can’t believe this. I am in love with you, Lily Evans. That is not a joke, or a prank, or some ballsed up illusion. I have been in love with you since third year, and ever since I’ve watched you become the most confident and kind person I know. You outscore me in every class, pulled Remus out of his shell, and you saved Sirius when I couldn’t. There isn’t a part of you that I don’t admire. And this last year- being head boy with you- I would do anything to live in the happiness it’s brought me.
“My feelings have never changed. The way I went about them before was awful, and then we became friends, and I thought it was better to have some of you in my life over none at all. But it was always real. Did I mention I love you?”
Lily laughs. She laughs and she cries and she feels a searing weight lift from her chest. She can’t believe she didn’t see it before and she really can’t believe that this isn’t another dream she’s about to wake up from. It’s better than any dream, really.
“I love you too,” is all she responds with, because the rest will come later.
James pulls her in, and wraps his arms around her as she reaches up and around his neck, her feet lifting off the floor. “Do you have to be so bloody tall,” she mumbles, but he laughs and the sound washes her annoyance away in seconds.
He puts her down eventually, leaning so that their noses almost touch. “My Lily. Can I kiss you?”
“Yes,” she says emphatically, and when their lips touch Lily thinks of an ocean wave, washing over and making them anew. He pulls her in closer and closer and she never wants the moment to end, but when they finally break away James’ eyes widen.
“I almost forgot.” He rummages in his pocket, yelling out ‘aha’ as he pulls out a long, velvet box. “Happy birthday.”
Lily opens it carefully, gasping at what she sees. It’s a simple gold chain with a cadeceus hanging from it, inlaid with emeralds. Lily looks up at James. “It’s beautiful. How did you…?”
James grins. “Muggle Studies class. We learned about it being the medical symbol, and since you’re going to be kicking ass as a healer soon, I thought it would a way for you to always have the muggle part of your life with you.”
She throws her arms around James again, clutching to the box. It’s the most wonderful gift she’s ever gotten. “Will you put it on me?”
James does, and then he kisses the back of her neck where it clasps on, fingers gentle on her shoulders.
Lily feels a wave of exhaustion overcome her. She wants to go back to the common room, find a cozy couch to collapse onto with James and-
“SHIT!” Lily twirls around, grabbing James’ hand. “My party!”
James’ eyes widen too, and they set off running.
“Wait, wait!” Lily slows them down. “If we show up looking too disheveled people will think that we… you know.”
James laughs. “Please. After we found Sirius and Remus necking in the broom closet last week? They won’t say a word.”
“You doubt how shameless Sirius can be.”
“Mm, I’ve got too much blackmail on him,” James says, leaning in for another kiss.
Lily leans in too, but stops halfway. “Race you there,” she whispers, and then she sets off running.
“HEY!” James’ voice calls behind her.
“Use those quidditch legs James!”
Lily feels it, when she reaches the portrait hole. She had imagined so many things for her eighteen year old self as a kid, and most of her life is so different but the love- the love is there. Her life is brimming with it.
And when James comes up behind her and lifts her up, she realizes she’s got a lot more patronus memories to choose from.
That’s all.