When Lily Falls in Love

by MidnightStargazer

Summary:

Lily might be falling for James Potter. The people around her have seen it coming for a long time.

Notes:

Written for the Swifty Hallows Fest, May (Speak Now)
My prompt: When Emma Falls in Love
Easter Egg: "The Whispering Portrait - A painting starts speaking, exposing a long-buried secret"

Lily had never really belonged in Cokeworth. She had always been a bit out-of-place in the mundane, small-town life that the sisters had been born into. There was something in her that made Petunia think of movie stars or queens and empresses from the pages of a history book.

It had been like that long before the letter came. But the letter was what Petunia remembered when she felt most bitter about the whole thing. The letter, and the greasy-haired boy from Spinner’s End who grew darker and meaner by the year and yet looked at Lily with those soft eyes, as if he would give anything to see her looking back at him the same way.

She never did. And thank goodness for that. As far as Petunia was concerned, her sister might be a freak, but she was still far better than that awful boy.

Lily came home from school with her pockets full of potion ingredients, horrible things like beetles’ eyes and frog spawn. She filled the bookshelves with volumes on charms theory and ancient runes instead of sensible topics like finance, or even the silly romance novels that some of the girls at Petunia’s school favored. She was a whirlwind of the strange and eccentric, and she didn’t belong there among the swing sets and the rows of identical houses.

Petunia turned up her nose and spat the word “freak!” at her sister, but she had to admit, at least to herself, that a part of her was envious.

Sometimes I wish I was her, she thought to herself.

But she would find her own way. Pack her bags and move to London. A typing course, a job, a chance to meet a man who wasn’t from Cokeworth. A new life for herself, just like Lily had gotten - and yet totally unlike Lily’s, too.

She knew, from the way Lily talked about “that toerag James Potter” that sooner or later, her sister would figure out she had feelings for him. Not that she ought to. The boy sounded like a nightmare, cocky and arrogant, not to mention far too strange. Part of the world Lily had disappeared to, where Petunia could never follow.

Petunia didn’t approve in the slightest. But she saw the way Lily’s face flushed when she talked about him. She had grown quite tired of hearing his name. And she knew, even if Lily didn’t yet, what they would eventually become.

---

James had been pining after Lily Evans for ages. That was just a fact of life. But Sirius saw the way Lily softened towards him in sixth year, holding back her insults as he learned to reign in his tendency to cause trouble.

No, that wasn’t quite true.

James still caused plenty of trouble.

But lately, it had been trouble of a different sort. There wasn’t much time for pointless pranks anymore, and even their personal vendetta with Snape came in second to more serious matters. Like, for instance, the war raging on outside the castle’s walls, or the fact that about a quarter of the student body was on the wrong side of it.

“That’s not totally fair,” Peter said quietly. “What about your cousin? The one who ran away to marry a Muggle-born. She was in Slytherin, wasn’t she?”

Sirius shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s not just the Slytherins who think like that,” he said. “There are a few blood purists in the other Houses, too. Just not as many. So it still comes out to about a fourth.”

James had made it clear that such nonsense would not be tolerated in the Gryffindor common room. Or in the rest of the school, if he had anything to say about it. He had even ended up in the hospital wing defending a first-year from a group of older kids who Sirius remembered from unpleasant dinner parties, back when he still lived at Grimmauld Place.

Maybe James didn’t see Lily watching. Sirius didn’t think he was just doing it to make her like him; in fact, he rather thought James had given up on winning her affection. It was just part of who he was: arrogant, yes, but you’d have a hard time finding anyone who hated blood prejudice or the Dark Arts more than him.

And Lily noticed.

James not might see it, but Sirius did. He saw her sharp eyes soften. He saw the surprise in her expression, as if she was seeing him for the first time after all these years.

It was only a matter of time, Sirius decided. Sooner or later, the two idiots would realize they both liked each other, and then there would be no stopping it.

And Sirius - who would follow James Potter to the ends of the earth, whose whole world had changed when they met, whose feelings had been blurring the lines between friendship and romantic longing for years - would step aside.

Of course he would.

He wanted James to be happy, didn’t he? And he couldn’t think of anyone better for his best friend. Lily would stand up to him, put him in his place when he deserved it, and love him fiercely, with all her heart.

Sometimes I wish I was her, Sirius found himself thinking.

---

Mary Macdonald had seen it years ago. Everyone with eyes had seen it. So when she found Lily pacing the floor in the dorm room they shared, curtains drawn, looking as if her whole world had been turned upside down, Mary simply smiled.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Lily turned to look at her, face flushing.

“Who?”

Mary glanced over at the half-written letter on Lily’s bed, addressed to her mother. She caught a glimpse of a few words in Lily’s careful penmanship:

What if it goes wrong? What if I’m wrong about him?

“James Potter,” said Mary matter-of-factly. “It’s been two weeks since we came back for seventh year, and you’ve gone back and forth between cursing the fact that they made him Head Boy and blushing every time you mention his name. Don’t even try to deny it. It’s all over your face.”

Lily looked for a moment as if she was going to object. Mary just raised an eyebrow, and Lily crumpled, giving a sheepish nod and sinking into the softness of her mattress.

“It’s silly,” she murmured. “After all these years…”

“You know we’ve all thought you liked him for years, right?” Mary asked.

“I hated him!” Lily protested.

“Come on.” Mary laughed. “You haven’t hated him in a long time, Lily. You just had to be sure. Because that’s how you are. You don’t turn your back on people easily. Not unless you have no choice. So you had to be sure of him.”

Mary thought of Snape as she spoke, remembering how long Lily had stood by him. How badly she had wanted to save him from himself. How much it had hurt her to finally cut him off, no matter that it had been a long time coming.

Of course she couldn’t trust Potter easily. Not after that. Of course he’d had to earn her respect, little by little, over time. Lily would probably never trust her instincts about people again, not after losing her beloved childhood friend to the Dark Side.

“At least you don’t have to wonder how he feels about you,” Mary said. “If you want him, he’s yours. No doubt about it.”

At those words, Mary felt a pang of envy. Not that she particularly wanted to be with James Potter, of all people. But it had taken a great deal of courage to tell Reginald Cattermole how she felt.

Sometimes I wish I was her, she found herself thinking.

Things always seemed to come much more easily for Lily. Both girls were Muggle-born, but Lily had arrived at Hogwarts with extensive knowledge of the Wizarding World. They both did well in their classes, but it was Lily whose brilliance at potion-making had earned her Slughorn’s favoritism. She was bright and bold and effortlessly charming. And now she was falling for the boy who had so clearly had feelings for her for years.

It was selfish, probably, to feel so jealous of a friend. She wanted the best for Lily. Of course she did.

“You’re going to be brilliant,” she said. “James Potter doesn’t know it yet, but his whole world’s about to change. For the better.”

Lily smiled, still uncertain. A girl made of sunshine somehow always expecting rain.

---

The Fat Lady’s portrait had watched many children grow from wide-eyed eleven-year-olds to bold and confident teenagers. She might only be paint on canvas, but she had a long memory, and she had seen the same story play out countless times.

Rarely did anyone share more with her than the password to get into the tower they called home. Or, sometimes, a selection of inventive new swear words when they realized they had forgotten said password. But she knew how to eavesdrop and how to read body language. She understood more about the lives of the young Gryffindors than they would ever suspect, and she certainly knew how to spot when two people liked each other.

“Potter and Evans,” she told Violet. “Mark my words, they’ll be an item within the month.”

Violet wasn’t usually a gossip. But she must have said something to the wrong person - or the wrong painting - because within a few days, the rumors were circulating.

“Potter and Evans,” everyone was saying. “Remember how they always used to argue? But it turns out they’re secretly mad for each other!”

Lily blushed and complained to her friends, but she didn’t really seem to mind, and the woman in the portrait couldn't help feeling envious.

Sometimes I wish I was her.

Not Lily in particular, although there were certainly worse people to be. But alive. Properly alive, beyond the illusions of magic that created movement and sentience out of paint on canvas. With breath and a heartbeat, navigating the world in three dimensions. Changing every moment. Falling in love.

Ah, well. It didn’t do to dwell on what could never be.

---

Pandora Ollivander knew exactly when Lily would make her way over to James Potter, that sunny weekend by the lakeside. She knew the words Lily would say. The incredulous smile that would spread over his face. The sound of the Giant Squid’s tentacles splashing at the surface in the distance, and the laughter in their voices as they recalled what Lily had once said.

Pandora watched from the branches of a nearby tree as it played out, just the way it had in her dreams and visions.

She smiled sadly as they embraced, not one bit jealous. She knew better than to envy the fleeting happiness of the doomed.

But despite the omens she’d been seeing in her teacups and nightmares for years, the happiness persisted. It was real, and it mattered, no matter how inevitable the end.