clearing the air

by lovelystag

Summary:

“Can we talk?”

“Look, I’m not really looking forward to having another row with you–”

“Me neither, I just want to clear the air.”

OR

A series of events in which James and Lily (and sometimes the others) end up talking things out, finding common ground.

Chapter 1: prince amongst men

Notes:

This chapter takes place after The Prank™️, giving context on Snape's and Lily's fight in one of his memories in The Prince's Tale.

“Oi, Black!” He could recognize that voice anywhere. The four boys turned around, used to working as a unit, to find the red-headed girl walking up to them with fury in her eyes.

 

“Evans, to what do we owe this pleasure?” James said, letting his classic smirk lay easy on his lips as he messed up his hair. He was well aware that both of these things annoyed her, but it wasn’t his fault that Lily being annoyed was so attractive to him. He stepped toward her, but she simply held up her finger at him, making him stop.

 

“I was not talking to you, Potter,” Lily said sharply, not even dignifying his presence with a quick glance. She was determined to glare at Padfoot, who was fighting back a laugh. Sirius always found it funny when people tried to tell him off, which never worked in his favour. “Black, can we talk for a moment?”

 

“Sure, go ahead.” Sirius shrugged and grinned, Lily looked around the hallway as a way to point out the amount of people around them. “We can talk here.”

 

“Are you sure you want to have this conversation here ?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Fine,” Lily crossed her arms, shifting her weight to her right leg. “Why did you try to get Severus killed.” James was sure she meant to end it as a question, but her tone was quite the opposite. It was simply an accusation. The four boys tensed up immediately and Lily’s lips twitched slightly, almost smiling at their reactions.

 

“This doesn’t really concern us, so we are gonna…” Moony grabbed Wormtail’s arm and started walking away awkwardly, but Lily turned to glare at him, stopping him in his tracks.

 

“No, you are not.” She demanded, to which Remus simply let go of Peter and looked at the ceiling, sighing. She turned back to Sirius, still completely ignoring Potter’s existence. “So?”

 

“I was doing the world a favour, Evans,” Padfoot said with an easy grin, laying an arm lazily on James’s shoulder. “You’ll understand someday.”

 

“D’you not listen to yourself? You could have killed him!” Lily exclaimed, exasperated.

 

“Evans, relax-” James tried to interject, but the girl was quicker.

 

“Potter, the adults are talking.” Lily finally looked at him. She always did that, teasing James about being one of the youngest Gryffindors in their year. It always got the best of him, especially since it was the only common ground that Lily Evans and Sirius Black seemed to find. “Shut up, will you?”

 

“If Snivellus minded his own fucking business, none of this would have happened.” He snapped, much to Sirius’s satisfaction.

 

“Are you all Sherlock Holmes characters? ‘ If I tell you, I have to kill you’ kind of thing?” Lily mocked with a scoff.

 

“As far as you need to know, yes, we are.” Sirius stepped toward Lily, daringly. They seemed to be having an unspoken staring contest of some sort, neither of them blinking as they glared at the other. “Why don’t you fuck off before you end up making the same mistake?”

 

“Padfoot,” James said dryly, trying to remind his friend that there was a limit. That limit had a first and last name, with fiery red hair.

 

“It’s only true, Prongs. Isn’t that why he ended up down there? Asking questions that he doesn’t need the answer to?” Sirius was talking to James but still focusing on Lily. They were a foot from each other, therefore, she had to tilt up her head to stare up at him. James could tell that Sirius found it amusing. “Maybe next time he won’t be so lucky to get someone to rescue him.”

 

“ Please , who rescued him? You ?” Lily scoffed again, rolling her eyes with disbelief. He could have sworn that Sirius’s eyes sparkled at the idea of him being the one to tell her who saved Snape.

 

“Let’s not get stuck on the details, alright?” He cut in before Padfoot got a chance to open his mouth. “Snivellus is fine, okay? Leave it at that.”

 

“No, I’m not leaving it at that.” Lily stepped away from Sirius to round in on him. “I don’t give two shits about what you guys are hiding, okay?” James felt Remus shift uncomfortably behind him, reminding him that he had to end this conversation quickly. It was unclear how since Lily’s tone kept getting sharper by the second. “But my best friend almost died five nights ago and I would like to hear an explanation straight from the psychopath that you call ‘ friend’ .”

 

James Potter always tried to keep himself composed in front of Lily Evans. Even at times when she was incredibly confusing and infuriating, he wanted to remain charming at the very least. Now, all of that went out the window. Calling Sirius Black a psychopath in front of James Potter was something nobody would ever get away with. Not even her.

 

“ My friend is the psychopath? Did you know about Snivellus's other friends? Are you aware of how they like to pass the time?” This was the first time in the entire conversation where he saw Lily’s anger waver. He was close to striking a nerve, but he wanted more. “From what we hear, they are into some pretty dark stuff, Evans, I hope that you aren’t in on it.”

 

“This is off the point, Potter, stay in your lane.” She said coldly, which only signalled him that he was reaching the breaking point. He wanted to see the breaking point.

 

“Oh, of course, they aren’t going to include you! You couldn’t possibly go around calling other Muggle-borns that word, would you? Not like those Death Eaters would want you there anyway,” his sarcasm was cold and cutting, Lily took a small step back and quickly glanced away before glaring at him again. He was getting there. “I’m sure you know about what Mulciber tried to do to Mary, don’t you? I mean she’s your friend, I thought that you cared about her-”

 

“Of course , I care.”

 

“Well, Snivellus sure doesn’t. I bet he even found it funny .”

 

“How about you?” Lily turned the focus back around on him, but James almost laughed at the attempt. She really had no idea. “Didn’t you find it hilarious when your dear Padfoot almost killed him?”

 

“I didn’t, but now that I think about it, maybe your dear Snivellus deserved the scare that he got, Evans.” He took a step toward her, stopping her from interrupting him before he could do the final reveal. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone down there to save his ungrateful arse.”

 

Lily blinked, hesitating before finally asking: “What?”

 

“Didn’t you know?” Sirius walked around her and stood beside James again, the same lazy grin on his face. “Prongsy here saved Snivellus’s life.”

 

“That isn’t- that doesn’t make sense-” Lily stuttered, her glare being replaced by a look of pure disbelief and confusion. This was the closest to a breaking point that anybody can get with Lily Evans.

 

“Don’t make me regret it, Evans.” He said coldly before pushing past her, making the conscious decision to knock her shoulder with his own.

 

It was when he finally walked away that he noticed the amount of people witnessing their discussion. Hogwarts had really turned into a gossip-hunting community and James was sick of it. Especially since a large part of the rumours that went around always involved at least one of the Marauders. It’s not their fault that they were so much more interesting than anybody else at the damn school. Everybody made way for him as he left the corridor, thinking that if they crossed him they might earn themselves a hex or two. James was neither confirming nor denying the truth in that.

---

Lily couldn’t focus for the life of her. Apparently, her brain had frozen two hours ago, when James admitted to saving Severus from whatever there was below the Whomping Willow. She wanted to be angry. It was much easier to be angry at everyone involved, but it wasn’t true. She wasn’t angry, she was hurt. She was hurt by the fact that she heard about the incident from Marlene, not Sev himself. She was hurt because what James said was true, Severus was friends with those blood purists. Severus and his friends were said to do dark magic and call Muggle-borns that word. Severus’s friends did try to attack Mary, and she hadn’t talked to Lily for the past two weeks, ever since it happened.

 

They just didn’t understand Severus. At this moment, Lily found herself understanding even less about him, too. Maybe there wasn’t anything to understand, maybe that was the true Severus Snape. But that never made sense to her. If he truly considered her a friend –which she was confident that he did–, he couldn’t genuinely believe in “blood purity”. He must have been trying to fit in. There must be a way to fix it.

 

The one thing she knew for certain, which was the one thing that occupied her brain the most, was that she had to talk with James Potter. She had tried to convince herself out of it in several ways, but none of them were good enough. She had to rise above it. The view from the high road was not as good as people liked to tell her.

 

“Hey…” Lily said hesitantly. James was sitting alone on a bench by the courtyard. He didn’t even turn to look at her, only scoffing at the sound of her voice. Not only was she dreading the fact that she had to do this, but he was going to make her work for it. “Can we talk?”

 

“Look, I’m not really looking forward to having another row with you–”

 

“Me neither, I just want to clear the air.” Lily sat beside him, which made him finally look at her with surprise. He narrowed his eyes warily and nodded, letting her begin. Lily sighed. “You saved him?”

 

“I hate the bloke, but I’m not trying to get anyone killed,” James shrugged with a frown on his face. “I don’t like how surprising you find this.”

 

“It’s just…” Lily hesitated before saying: “It was Sirius that tried to get him killed…”

 

“Well, Sirius hates him a bit more than I do.”

 

“But why ?” She asked impatiently, to which James rolled his eyes.

 

“Because he’s him , Evans!” James was clearly just as impatient. “Because Snivellus is insufferable and nosy, and he’s friends with the wrong people.”

 

“He’s friends with me !”

 

“Trust me, that makes it worse in my eyes.”

 

“I thought you at least tolerated me, Potter.” she frowned, more offended by his words than she’d like to admit. Could it be possible that he didn’t even like her? If she had ever been confident about something, it's that James Potter always wanted her full attention. Maybe she had understood him wrong. Maybe he thought lowly of anyone who associated themselves with her–

 

“I do tolerate you, Evans,” James finally admitted, putting a stop to Lily’s thoughts. He seemed a bit amused by the choice of words, like telling himself an inside joke.

 

“So, the fact that I’m friends with Severus should make you think that he must have redeemable qualities.” She tried to explain patiently, but James scoffed and turned away from her, looking around the courtyard.

 

“The fact that you’re friends with him just reminds me that you’d rather get along with Death Eaters before giving me the time of day.”

 

“Severus isn’t a Death Eater.”

 

“Not yet , at least.”

 

“He isn’t–”

 

“Evans, you are a smart girl,” James turned back around to look at her, running a hand through his hair with exasperation. “You are smarter than most of us, you have to realize that Snape is not the exception when it comes to Slytherins.”

 

Lily decided to save her thoughts on that matter for later, trying to stay on the topic she actually was willing to discuss. “Look, you know that what Sirius did was wrong. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have gone down there to save Sev.”

 

He let out a dry laugh, not really amused but purely sarcastic. “If you are trying to make me admit something against Sirius Black, you must not be as smart as I thought.”

 

“What? Are you incapable of admitting that your friend has faults?”

 

“ You are one to talk.” He snapped, looking away from her again. It felt like he couldn’t maintain eye contact while being angry. This only irritated Lily even more. “Evans, I can admit my friends make mistakes, but that’s something I take up with them . Not with people that are dying to hear me speak badly of them.”

 

“We have that in common, then.” Lily sat back on the bench and let out a sigh. James was hunched over, resting his arms on his legs. They had found some common ground at least. “You can’t act like the reason you started to pick on him is because you think he wants to be a Death Eater.”

 

“I know he wants to be a Death Eater.” He clarified while looking at his fidgeting hands, his tone wasn’t as cold anymore. “But you’re right, I simply don’t like him.”

 

“That doesn’t mean he deserves what Sirius did.”

 

“I stopped him, didn’t I?”

 

“You know that you, more than anything else, were thinking of saving Sirius’s neck.”

 

“Partly, yes.” He admitted. Lily, despite herself, took great notice of the choice to use ‘ partly ’ as an answer. “Do you think that, if my life was in danger, he’d care? Do you think he would have gone out of his way to save me ?”

 

“If my neck was also on the line, then yes, he’d save you.” Lily shrugged, completely confident in her answer. Although she was aware that it didn’t make her case any stronger. James scoffed, a bit amused.

 

“What a relief, Evans.” He said sarcastically. “A true prince amongst men, isn’t he?”

 

“You are no angel either.”

 

“Mary told me she hasn’t talked to you in a while.” James acted casual as he changed the subject abruptly. Lily jerked her head back in surprise. Why would Mary confide in James? Why was he bringing it up now? “I’m surprised that Marlene is still talking to you at all .”

 

“What are you getting at?”

 

“Is Severus Snape really worth losing everyone else?” He finally turned his head to look back at her. Lily blinked, unsure of what she could possibly say to that. Ever since the incident between Mulciber and Mary, her answer had begun to waver.

 

“That’s none of your business,” was all Lily could work out as a response, she sounded defeated. Not because James had won, but because her own doubts were getting the best of her. James sat back on the bench, their shoulders touching.

 

“Padfoot is not a psychopath,” James muttered.

 

“Sev is a good friend,” Lily retaliated. The two were slouching back on the bench, equally exhausted. They remained silent for a moment, letting the students passing by fill the empty space.

 

James sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and spoke again. “Padfoot just wanted to give him a scare, alright? He’s been on our asses all year, Sirius thought that this would get him to stop.”

 

“It’s going to get worse now, you know?”

 

“I know.”

 

“Good luck,” Lily said softly, although she had intended for it to come out as sarcastic. James gave her a small smile, still looking incredibly tired. She smiled back at him. These occasions were rare between them, but when they happened, she’d get a strange warm feeling in her stomach. She had no way of explaining it, but it wasn’t upsetting her either–

 

“Bloody perfect,” a familiar voice said from behind her, breaking her out of that weird train of thought. She turned around to find her greasy-haired friend scowling at them. “This is exactly what I needed today.”

 

“Sev, wait a minute!” She glanced apologetically at James, wanting to maintain the weird truce they had managed to make. Lily stood and went after Snape, who was walking away with determination. “You don’t get to be upset right now!”

 

“I don’t? So that wasn’t you? All cosied up with Potter?” He spat as if the mere thought of it disgusted him greatly.

 

“We weren’t all cosied up, we were talking !”

 

“Are you friends now or something?”

 

“ Please ,” Lily laughed sarcastically, “you know we are not. And if anybody here has problematic friendships, it’s you .”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“You know what I’m trying to say.” Lily snapped. “At this rate, I’d be better off not being your friend anymore.”

“What?” Severus was taken aback by this, making Lily regret even saying it. It’s not like she actually meant it. “I thought we were supposed to be friends? Best friends?”

Notes:

Everyone being an asshole to everybody? Now THESE are the marauders I love. This is just my take on what the context was for that canon fight that Lily and Snape had in Deathly Hallows, chapter 33 The Prince's Tale. The underlined text is exactly where the book picks up the rest of the conversation.

I might do a second chapter that happens right after Snape's Worst Memory, but we'll see....

Chapter 2: benefit of the doubt

“I agree with you, you know?” Lily looked up to find Sirius Black sitting down in front of her. She was trying her best to focus on the books before her, but there was no use.

 

There was only one word in her mind and it was with her best friend’s voice: Mudblood . She had gone on so long holding onto a thread of hope, blindly believing that Severus Snape wasn’t like the others. That she knew him better than anybody. She had been naive to think that as long as he didn’t call her that , she could still fool herself into thinking that it wasn’t true. That everything people said about him wasn’t true. Now she felt furious, frustrated, but mainly humiliated. How could she face her other friends? She could already hear Mary’s tone of voice as she said ‘I told you so.’ Lily Evans hated many things, and being wrong was one of them.

 

She was at the library, the only place where, if any of the subjects involved tried to approach her, she was forced to stop herself from screaming. It had only happened one hour ago, but she expected one of them to look for her, she knew them well enough. What surprised her was that the first person to do so ended up being Sirius Black. Sirius I-don’t-care-about-anything Black.

 

“With what?” Lily asked dryly, making Sirius smirk by instinct. It’s like he enjoyed being on people’s nerves.

 

“James can be very conceited.” He propped his chin on his arm as if he were bored by the conversation that he started. Lily narrowed her eyes suspiciously and he chuckled. “What?”

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Because it’s true.”

 

“D’you expect me to believe that you came over here to tell me something bad about James Potter? You ?” Lily asked with disbelief, frowning at the boy in front of her.

 

“I needed to establish some common ground first.” He explained simply, shrugging.

 

“What for?”

 

“For the conversation we are about to have.” Lily looked at him warily, but remained both seated and silent. The last thing she was interested in was listening to what Sirius Black had to say, but the curiosity was consuming her. She nodded once, and so he began. “James can be conceited, trust me, it drives me crazy sometimes.”

 

“Okay..?”

“A ‘ bullying toerag ’? I wouldn’t describe him as such, but it did amuse me when you said it, so I’ll let it slide.” Sirius sat back lazily on his chair, resting his feet on the seat beside Lily. “But to say he is just as bad as Snivellus ? After what he did? This is where we part ways, Evans.”

 

“And I should care because..?” Lily rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, matching Sirius’s attitude. He shook his head, the smirk melting away. She felt like she achieved the impossible. Making Sirius Black actually care about a conversation.

 

“ You don’t have to care, but I sure do.” He leaned on the table, face stone cold. “You see, I don’t understand how, after everything that happened out there, you could possibly pin it all against Prongs.”

 

“I’m not pinning it all against Potter, but you are not going to try and tell me that what you two were doing is excusable, are you?”

 

“I see nothing that needs excusing.”

 

“Right, because hexing the life out of Severus for no reason is fine.”

 

“He deserved it.” Sirius shrugged as if it were nothing, Lily scoffed.

 

“He did nothing to provoke you.”

 

“I was bored, he was walking by, that was enough.”

 

“Do you not hear yourself?”

 

“Always, I love the sound of my voice,” Sirius said dryly, it was a different form of sarcasm to James’s, but sarcasm nonetheless. “Evans, you are the only person at Hogwarts that doesn’t want to hex the living shit out of Severus Snape.”

 

“I don’t care , Black,” Lily snapped. “Regardless of what he did, I have principles.”

 

“You are stubborn, you mean.”

 

“Like you are any better.”

 

“Never said I was.” Sirius yawned, and Lily could have sworn he was faking it to feign disinterest. She was getting more irritated by the second, but walking away from him would be admitting defeat. “It’s not James’s fault.”

 

“I must have imagined him hexing Severus, then.”

 

“No, that he did,” Sirius rolled his eyes impatiently. “It’s not Prongs’s fault that Snape called you… that .”

 

“I know–”

 

“I’m clarifying because sometimes memory can pull funny tricks.” Sirius interrupted her, no longer looking disinterested. He finally had gotten to the part of the conversation that he wanted to engage in. “You may start to think that the circumstances that James and I created made Severus say that and that he didn’t really mean it. I’m sure that’s the bullshit excuse he will try to sell you.”

 

“Do you really think I’d fall for–”

 

“But you must remember that everybody in this school that has ever remotely cared about you has warned you about him.” His jaw tightened, speaking through gritted teeth. “ Everybody tried to tell you that Severus Snape was bad news, that he and his Death Eater friends were no good for you to be around. You refused to listen.”

 

“So now it’s my fault?” Lily leaned on the table, glaring at the boy across from her. “I deserved it because I wanted to trust my best friend?”

 

“That’s not what I said,” Sirius pointed at her to accentuate his point. “I’m saying that maybe your judgement on people isn’t quite as good as you like to believe.”

 

“That’s–”

 

“ And I’m saying that maybe you could benefit from giving us , who you are so determined to hate, the benefit of the doubt.” Lily was taken aback by this. She had never been fully capable of grasping Sirius Black, she didn’t think anybody could, other than the Marauders themselves. Sometimes, when she believed she had begun to understand him, he would go in the opposite direction. This was the perfect example.

 

She leaned in even further, narrowing her eyes at him. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she said: “I don’t like you, any of you.”

 

“Why?” Sirius leaned in as well, unbothered by the intensity with which they both spoke. “Because we mess around? Because we hex somebody from time to time? You would end up hating half the school–”

 

“You could have killed him,” Lily said through her teeth, the memory of the situation being enough to bubble up the rest of her anger. Sirius seemed confused for a moment, and she could see the moment his brain clicked. He rolled his eyes.

 

“That was ages ago–”

 

“You were going to have him killed –”

 

“I didn’t mean to,” Sirius said, his voice rising above his usual casual tone. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. Lily looked at him expectantly. “I was trying to protect my friends.”

 

“Killing Severus would protect your friends?” Lily mocked, making Sirius’s jaw tighten.

“I didn’t want him to die ,” Sirius said impatiently. “It’s just… he was getting worryingly close to finding out about something he shouldn’t know. I thought that giving him a good scare would shut him up for long enough. Besides, it’s not like I forced him to actually do it.”

 

“You knew that he would, though,” Lily noted coldly, and Sirius shrugged like he didn’t really care about that detail.

 

“Look, I’m not proud of it, but I’m not gonna lie and say I regret it a whole lot either.”

 

“I appreciate the honesty at least.” Lily scoffed as she sat back on her chair, and so did he.

 

“The way I see it, he was gonna find out how to get under the Whomping Willow eventually , he was obsessed with it.” Sirius continued explaining. Lily looked off to the side to try to ignore him, but she couldn’t. It was true. Severus kept going on about that theory about Remus and the Whomping Willow and the full moons– “He was gonna end up down there whether I told him or not. If he had gone down there all on his own, nobody would have known and nobody would have gotten there in time to save him.”

 

“Oh, so technically he should be thanking you.” Lily mocked and he took an exasperated deep breath.

 

“No,” he closed his eyes in order to keep his composure, “I’m saying that it happened this way for a reason.”

 

---

A long time after Sirius left, Lily finally started picking up her books to head back to the Common Room. He told her that, since he had given her enough of a hard time already, he'd make sure nobody would talk to her about Severus Snape for the rest of the day. She didn’t even bother to ask how he would ensure this, but she also didn’t doubt the determination with which he said it. She was too tired to care about his methods, and she was definitely grateful to not keep talking about the incident.

 

She turned to the corridor on her left, instantly crashing against somebody and dropping all of her books. She cursed and bent down to pick them up, but the boy had quicker reflexes and was already doing it for her. Lily noticed the head of messy curls, one that she could recognize anywhere.

 

“Potter,” she blurted out, despite herself. The boy sheepishly stood up, handing her the books and smiling awkwardly. A rare sight on James.

 

“Hey,” he ran a hand through his hair, rather anxiously. “Can we talk?”

 

“Potter, I’d rather not…” Lily said, clearly exhausted, but James looked at her desperately.

 

“I just want to clear the air.”

 

Lily sighed, hesitating before she said: “Fine, let’s talk.”

 

They walked over to the closest bench they could find, which was luckily one hallway away, and sat down. Lily noticed that he was on edge, taking deep breaths before finally speaking again.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, Lily didn’t want to let her guard down just yet.

 

“About?”

 

“For being so impossible earlier,” he sighed, looking away from her to gather his thoughts. “I thought we were just messing around, I didn’t mean for it to get so serious.”

 

“That’s no way of messing around, Potter. I mean, picking on someone because you were bored , that’s just–”

 

“I know,” James said, still looking away. Lily had expected him to make up some excuse, the same way Sirius had done. She had expected him to bring up that Severus had called her that , to use that as an excuse to forget about everything else. He didn’t. “I’m sorry.”

 

“You say that now , but in a few days you’ll go off and do it again, won’t you?”

 

“No, I won’t,” James looked at her, and she could feel the determination in his eyes. She tilted her head slightly, trying to get a read on him. There was nothing to analyze, he was being genuine. “I’ll stop, I promise.”

 

“You expect me to believe you?” Lily looked at him with disbelief. Mostly at herself, for actually believing him.

 

“That’s out of my control, Evans,” James said simply. “I’m just telling you, I’ll stop.”

 

“Why are you doing this? Because I rejected your romantic invitation to a date?” She wasn’t sure as to why she kept trying to provoke him. She just wasn’t used to seeing James Potter lose a fight so willingly. It was unnerving. Instead of being upset, he chuckled.

 

“ Please , I was just messing around about that,” before Lily’s thoughts could get the best of her, he added quickly: “when I finally ask you on a date, you’ll know I mean it.”

 

Lily bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from asking any further, but the small easy smile returning to James’s face made that warm feeling in her stomach return as well. She made the conscious decision to ignore all of it. “Why are you doing this, then?”

 

“Because if you really think all those things you said earlier, you must really hate me,” the boy admitted in defeat, looking at his hands instead of the girl beside him. “Which means I must have become some unbearable arse, haven’t I?” It sounded like a question, but since he kept talking, Lily figured it was rhetorical. “My mum wouldn’t be too proud if she ever heard what I’ve been getting up to at Hogwarts.”

 

“Oh…”

 

“I guess fifteen is as good a time as any to grow out of it, isn’t it?” James chuckled to himself and stood up from the bench, offering his hand to help Lily stand up as well. “So, am I forgiven?”

 

Sirius’s words kept repeating themselves on a loop from the back of her mind. And I’m saying that maybe you could benefit from giving us , who you are so determined to hate, the benefit of the doubt . Severus had betrayed her trust, revealing himself to be something like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Marauders were so unapologetically themselves, that she was already aware of what she would be getting into. No tricks and no deceit, there were no surprises to be had.

 

“You are forgiven,” Lily said before accepting his hand. He pulled her to help her stand and let go, fighting back a smile. “This doesn’t mean we are friends yet, Potter.”

 

“I know,” James nodded. “How about a clean slate? Soon the fifth year will be over, we’ll have vacations and come back to start over.”

 

Lily looked at him for a moment, catching the hopeful spark in his eyes. A kid’s optimism that she couldn’t help but find endearing. There was nothing to lose, not anymore. “Fine, we’ll start over.”

 

“Perfect,” James nodded, beaming.

 

He stood there, watching her walk away until she turned the corner. When he finally turned around to leave, Lily stepped back into the corridor.

 

“Potter?”

 

He stopped walking almost instantly, turning around to face her. “Yeah?”

 

“I never hated you, not really.”

 

“Oh, okay.”

 

“See you around.”

 

“See you, Evans.”

Notes:

So, this was clearly right after Snape's Worst Memory from OotP. My lilypad heart couldn't help but make most of the chapter about them, but they had very big things to sort out and this is a start.

Lowkey inspired by kaymar's one-shot (titled: twin flame, so cold), so go read it because it's really good: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65903614/chapters/169773652

Chapter 3: good witches

It had been five days since the Severus incident and Lily Evans was not feeling any better. She was nine years old when they became friends when he introduced her to the concept of magic. Petunia had left her on her own, at a time when Lily’s perception of reality was constantly changing. Severus never left her, he was the guiding hand that helped her through it all. He never let her fall into the abyss, keeping her steady as they walked through this unknown path. Her family could never understand what it was like, regardless of how much they wanted to. Severus Snape understood her, and Lily Evans understood him.

 

They had other friends, but not out of need. They didn’t feel the need for anybody else. At least that’s what Lily thought at first. When she got to Hogwarts, she felt incredibly wary of the girls that she shared a room with. If her own sister left without hesitation, what could ensure her that these girls wouldn’t do the same? She had Sev, why risk it with anybody else? But by her second year, she found herself becoming fascinated by the bond between the two girls. She felt jealous. It was different from her bond with Severus. There was a new level of trust and vulnerability that Lily had never known possible in a friendship.

 

She ended up giving in, approaching them during one of their late-night talking sessions. She was sure that they would laugh at her, mock the way she’d avoided them for their first year at Hogwarts and suddenly wanted to form a friendship. They didn’t. They braided her hair, laughed at her jokes, and made cheeky remarks that Lily was sure no boy would ever even think of. They looked after each other. Saving seats for each other, waking each other up in the mornings, and comforting each other during dark nights. Coming back to her dorm after a long day was the closest Lily had ever felt to going home at Hogwarts.

 

Their bodies changed. It was a part of life and that time was arriving for everyone in their year. Lily got her first period at Hogwarts. It was also the first of the many things that she felt she couldn’t share with Severus, the first thing he wouldn’t be able to understand. She ran to her dorm and cried, unsure of what to do with herself. When her friends, who were chasing after her, walked in and found her crying on the bathroom floor, they hugged her and left small kisses on the top of her head. They explained everything she needed to know, but they didn’t know a lot more than Lily herself. They guided each other through it, sometimes stumbling but always sure that they wouldn’t fall. Not when they were holding her hand, and she was holding theirs.

 

Neither of them were Pure-bloods. They understood the novelty that magic represented to her, but they didn’t understand Cokeworth or Petunia. They would comfort her when they talked about it, but they didn’t get it like Severus did. Not that she blamed them. Nonetheless, they were all aware of the impending war. They were all aware of the kids whispering ‘ Mudblood ’ in the corridors. The three of them were good witches, that’s all that mattered at the end of the day. That’s what they told Lily every now and then when her confidence faltered. As the years went on, Lily realized that she didn’t know what she would do without those two girls.

 

It had been five days since the Severus incident and Lily Evans had successfully avoided both Mary and Marlene. It was ridiculously difficult given the fact that they shared classes, a Common Room and, most importantly, a dorm, but it wasn’t impossible. She had started to wake up extremely early and, thanks to her privilege as prefect, she managed to stay out pretty late. She made sure to get to her classes later than everybody else, making sure the seats beside her friends would be taken by the time she arrived. She made sure to never stay at the Common Room for too long. They were only a couple of weeks away from the Summer holidays, and Lily was determined to survive the little time she had left. If her friends decided to send her owls once they were back home, maybe she’d respond. That was a problem for future Lily.

 

“Mary is looking for you, you know?” James said one breakfast morning. Ever since she started waking up early to avoid her friends, she discovered that James Potter did the same. Only he didn’t do it to avoid anybody, he only did it to get his day started as soon as possible. It seemed like he was allergic to sleeping. They almost never talked, mainly because Lily was too tired to even try. “She even asked me to tell you, which means she’s gotten desperate if she thinks I could possibly convince you.”

 

“Since when are you two friends?” Lily asked, purposefully ignoring everything else that James had said.

 

“Honestly, I’m not too sure,” he chuckled, “I think we drank too much fire whiskey at the Halloween party and bonded for life, or something.”

 

“Sounds about right,” Lily laughed half-heartedly, she was still too sleepy to fully laugh.

 

“Why are you avoiding her?” He asked bluntly, catching her off guard. Lily directed her attention back to her food.

 

“We,” Lily pointed back and forth between them, “still aren’t friends, Potter.”

 

“So?”

 

“We are still not close enough for me to confide in you,” Lily stated simply, with a small smirk on her lips. “Don’t be nosy.”

 

“Alright, I won’t be,” James shook his head, smiling. The shift in dynamic was evident, at least to them. Lily was still distant and cold, but there was less disdain in her words toward him, and given the number of times they had talked since the incident, this was a lot of progress. “Mind if I give you some advice?”

 

“If I say yes, will you tell me anyway?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Go ahead, then.”

 

“The longer you wait to talk to them, the harder it’ll get,” James stated simply before taking a casual sip of his tea.

 

---

Lily had walked around the castle for the entirety of her afternoon, perfecting the apology that she would give her two friends. She had a lot to apologize about, but mainly, she had to explain her reasoning for avoiding them. Although, she truly only needed one word to explain it: cowardice.

 

She was standing in front of the Fat Lady, taking deep breaths and gathering up the courage to finally face her dearest friends. As soon as she opened her mouth to say the password, she heard steps behind her, coming up the stairs. Lily turned around to find a familiar face. A big mass of dark curls that had been tied up into a somewhat neat ponytail, black eyes that widened with surprise, and the Hogwarts uniform worn in a way to make it as stylish as possible. Or at least that’s how Mary liked to wear it, everything looked stylish on her anyway.

 

“Lily!” She exclaimed, freezing in her spot. It seemed as though she thought that by making any sudden moves, Lily would run away.

 

“Hi,” Lily said anxiously, waving an awkward hand at her friend, who was only three feet away from her. “I was looking for you.”

 

“If you were, you would have found me five days ago,” Mary noted, a light teasing tone in her voice, but her expression remained serious, wary. “I heard about what happened.”

 

Now it was Lily’s turn to be surprised. Not by the fact that Mary had heard, but about the bluntness with which Mary mentioned it. “Oh, yeah, I figured you would.”

 

“He’s a git.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Severus.”

 

“Right, of course…” Lily spoke with uncertainty, “he is.”

 

They stood quietly for a moment, looking around everywhere else but the other. The silence was deafening, filled with all of the things that were being unsaid. Mary cleared her throat and started walking toward the Fat Lady, but Lily stepped in her way impulsively, trying to put the apology she prepared into practice.

 

“Can we clear the air for a moment?” Lily asked shyly, not being able to hold eye contact for too long. Mary remained serious, but her gaze softened slightly as she took notice of her friend’s state. They were both hurt.

 

“Okay.” She replied simply, turning around to walk over to the next corridor, sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. “Go on.”

 

Lily sat next to her and sighed. She was ready, she had practised all day. “I’m sorry about avoiding you this week, I was just embarrassed and, frankly, humiliated. I couldn’t face you.”

 

“That’s it?” Mary asked, frowning at her. Lily was taken aback by this reaction, especially by the look the curly-headed girl was giving her, waiting for her to keep talking.

 

“What do you mean?” Lily treaded the waters carefully.

 

“You avoided us because you were embarrassed ?” Mary stood up, pacing the corridor as she wrapped her head around what Lily had just said. “Are you dense?”

 

“What?” Lily stood up as well, immediately getting back to the defence. “I’m not dense , I’m telling you how I was feeling!”

 

“It’s not good enough, Lily!” Mary came to a stop, right in front of her friend. She was angry but never capable of actually glaring at her. “You changed your entire sleeping schedule for five fucking days because you were a little ashamed? I don’t care if that’s how you felt, it’s ridiculous!”

 

“I know!”

 

“We were worried about you!” Mary’s voice cracked for a moment, tears starting to form in her eyes. Her hands had balled up into fists, out of pure frustration. “One of your best friends just betrayed you in front of half the school! I wanted to be there for you and you disappeared!”

 

“I didn’t think that you would want to hear it.”

 

“No, you just didn’t think .” Mary snapped and Lily realized she had never seen her this angry.

 

“I know you’ve never liked Severus, alright?” Lily ignored how Mary scoffed at her words. “The last thing that I needed was for you to tell me that ‘ you told me so ’.”

 

“So you were cutting me out because you were too proud?” Her voice was cold, Lily realized she was digging herself a hole that she didn’t know how to get out of. “And I would have never said that to you, especially not then . You act like we don’t know you or something!”

 

Lily blinked, completely speechless. She was racking her brain for something to say in response, but she found nothing good enough. Mary scoffed again, taking notice of Lily’s sudden loss of her ability to speak.

 

“You want to actually clear the air? Fine,” Lily took a deep breath, getting ready for what her friend was about to say. “Marlene and I have always gotten second place next to the Great Severus Snape. We didn’t mind because you had known him a bit longer, you come from the same town, he knows your family, everything else. We didn’t understand the dynamic very well, but we decided it wasn’t our business.”

 

“Mary–”

 

“He was never very nice to us, but we made the effort to remain cordial for your sake,” Mary seemed to be getting angry by the mere memory of it. “You kept defending him by saying he was a good friend, but you know what? He stopped being a good friend to you the second he decided to associate himself with Mulciber and those other Death-Eater wannabes.”

 

“I know–”

 

“And you stopped being a good friend to me when you let it slide!” The first tear dropped, followed by countless others, but didn’t stop her from talking. “His friends attacked me and you didn’t care, Lily!”

 

“Of course, I cared!” Lily exclaimed desperately. If she could have one wish, she’d ask for a Time Turner to fix all of it. Mary ignored her. “I had a fight with him about it! I was trying–”

 

“You two fought, you apologized to me and I thought that was it between you two. Marlene thought the same. Hell, even James Potter thought the same,” Lily was caught off guard by the last name she mentioned, but that wasn’t important at the moment. “But a week later, I caught you two frolicking around Hogsmeade as if nothing had happened!”

 

“I didn’t–”

 

“Think? Yeah, I know,” Mary was determined to finally get her word in, brushing off any word Lily would utter. “Once again, the Great Severus Snape was more important than me. Once again, you risked it all for that greasy boy who has never risked anything for you !”

 

For some reason, Lily kept thinking back to something James Potter, of all people, had asked her so many months ago. ‘ Is Severus Snape really worth losing everyone else? ’ She hadn’t answered at the time, even if the answer was ridiculously clear. Her heart broke as she realized that Mary had, at one point, assumed the wrong answer. That at one point, the girl that Lily couldn’t imagine living without, thought of herself as expendable, as a second option. And it was Lily’s fault, nobody else’s.

 

“Even after all of that, I knew how much he hurt you!” Mary was close to screaming at this point, the tears rolling off her cheeks like waterfalls. “I love you so much that I wanted to hug you and tell you that he never deserved you, and you didn’t let me!”

 

Lily couldn’t hold herself back any longer, crashing against her friend as she wrapped her arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. Mary hugged back, with just as much force. It was then that Lily realized that she had been sobbing just as much as her. “I love you and I’m so sorry, if I could go back in time, I would,” Lily whispered in between tears and Mary tightened her grip. “You’re right, I wasn’t thinking. You’ve never been second place to Severus, in fact, I truly think I don’t deserve you.”

 

“You don’t,” Mary said, but Lily was relieved to feel a smile growing against her shoulder. They laughed, sheepishly at first and slowly louder, more comfortable. They broke apart, standing one foot from the other. “Christ, it felt good to let that out,” Mary noted, wiping the tears from her eyes.

 

“I bet it did,” Lily chuckled, doing the same. “I am sorry, Mary, for everything.”

 

“I know you are,” She reassured, giving her a small smile and delicately tucking back a strand of red hair. “I did, by the way.”

 

“Did what?”

 

“Tell you so.”

 

“Piss off,” Lily laughed and Mary laughed even louder.

 

They finally walked into the Common Room, their arms linked and bright smiles on both their faces. It felt like Lily's heart was being pieced back together. Like a Dementor had kissed her and, somehow, her soul returned anyway. As they arrived at their dorm Marlene stood up from the bed, wide-eyed as she looked between the two happy girls.

 

“Are you two alright now?” Lily and Mary nodded at the same time, back to being a unit. “Lils, are you okay?”

 

“I am,” Lily said, beaming at her two friends. Marlene launched herself at the two girls, pulling them into another tight hug.

 

“I swear, if you try to disappear on us again, I will keep you hostage until you talk to us,” Marlene noted as she broke away from the hug, Mary nodded in support.

 

“It won’t happen again, I promise.”

 

“Good, because we will always find you.”

“I know,” Lily smiled even brighter. As long as she had these two in her life, she could work out anything else. They guided each other through it, sometimes stumbling but always sure that they wouldn’t fall. Not when they were holding her hand, and she was holding theirs .

Notes:

sue me but mary and marlene are the most important people in lily's life, you can't tell me otherwise.

I don't care that this is a Jily fic, I needed a chapter focused on my favorite girls. Especially since what canon gave us had so much potential for something like this! This fic is mainly about the characters "clearing the air", so here you go

Chapter 4: great discomfort

“I take it that you worked it out with Evans?” James asked Mary, noticing the smile that was growing on her face at the mention of her friend.

 

They were sitting on the Common Room couch, talking during the last night of their fifth year at Hogwarts. Everyone had gone to sleep, but they decided to stay behind. They didn’t get many opportunities to talk on their own, especially since their friend groups were so divided. This was their last chance to hang out before the Summer holidays.

 

James, unlike what he told Lily, remembered perfectly how this friendship came to be, although neither of them was proud to admit it. It had been during the Halloween party, but there was no involvement of fire whiskey, or maybe a little. James had left the Common Room for a moment, in need of a break, and he found a grumpy version of Mary, sitting on the steps of the staircase right in front of the Fat Lady. After talking for a few minutes, they found some unexpected common ground –a mutual enemy: Severus Snape.

 

The next Monday, Mary had subtly thrown him a note during History of Magic, it was a joke about something Severus had said to Professor Binns. In the next class, James passed her a quick drawing of Snape, in which he was frying eggs with the grease on his head. It was a cheap joke, but Mary laughed anyway. These little notes and doodles snowballed into actual conversations, late at night in the Gryffindor Common Room, the only time when they weren’t busy with their other friends. They didn’t take place as often as they would like, but they were refreshing nonetheless.

 

“Yes, we are better than ever,” Mary nodded excitedly, she was focusing intensely on the movement of her quill on the parchment before her. After a moment, she gave it back to James with a proud smile. “Thoughts?”

 

“It’s getting really good, actually,” he meant it. He had been teaching her how to make her own doodles of people, mainly Snape. He took the quill to point out the small mistakes she made. “You have to make this portion of the hair less dark, so it looks like the light is shining on it.”

 

“Right, let me try again,” she took the parchment back and started drawing on another portion. “And how are you doing with Miss Evans?” She raised an eyebrow at him playfully.

 

“What?” James chuckled nervously and Mary laughed.

 

“I heard that you asked her out recently, but given the circumstances ,” Mary looked at him pointedly, reminding him of that afternoon again, “the answer wasn’t great.”

 

“I apologized for that,” he said simply, “we are fine now.”

 

“ Your version of fine isn’t saying much.”

 

“I take what I can get,” James teased and Mary laughed again. One thing about Mary, she could be laughing at a person and it would not feel like an offence. She was simply a bright person. “Look, I don’t know if I feel like talking about this specific topic, especially with her best friend, you know?”

 

“I get it, but as a girl, I could give you some insight…” 

 

“I might take you up on that,” James said, taking out the Snitch he was used to keeping in his pocket. At first, he used it to show off, but now it turned into a thing to do with his hands while he hung out with his friends. If Peter was easily fascinated by it, that was just a bonus. “But on another time, and not about Lily.”

 

“Why not?” She complained, disappointed to be denied the chance to hear about his crush on her best friend. James could hardly blame her, he would do the same.

 

“Because I’m done with trying to get her to like me,” James shrugged, a little defeated. “The more I’ve tried, the more I end up looking like an arse. I’m calling it quits.”

 

“So, all this time, you were trying ?” She asked with disbelief, holding back a laugh. James rolled his eyes. He slouched back on the couch as he put the Snitch back in his pocket, feeling deflated. Mary put down the quill and parchment, shifting in her spot to face James. “Maybe you are right…”

 

“This is the first time you’ve ever said that.” 

 

“Keep up the good work and it won’t be the last,” she teased, making him chuckle despite himself. “Look, clearly you have no clue about what you are doing.”

 

“Clearly,” he dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling as he listened.

 

“So, yeah, maybe it’ll be good for you to stop for a minute,” Mary said sweetly, trying her best to not say it too harshly. “Bottom line is, you might end up moving on, and you are left being friends with one of the best people I know.”

 

James thought for a moment. He remembered how he promised Lily to come back in their sixth year with a clean slate. What more of a clean slate is there than trying to move on completely? Maybe he’d finally stop making an idiot of himself. Maybe she won’t only not hate him, maybe she might get around to liking him. Platonically, of course. Although the other way would be fine, too.

 

He turned to look at Mary with a small smile. “It’s about time I got over her, isn’t it?”

“A crush can only last so long,” she added reassuringly, returning the smile.

 

A crush .

 

---

The four of them were sitting in their usual compartment from the Hogwarts Express. Normally, they’d be excited for the start of the Summer, but now they all were sombre. Every year they’d meet during holidays, visit each other, go out for meals and walk through Muggle London. James loved hanging out in Muggle towns, being easily entertained by the funny ways that Muggles would work around their lack of magic. They made tunnels underground to go from one place to another, and James found it hilarious. 

 

This Summer would be different. They had all tried to tell Sirius not to worry, that his parents couldn’t possibly keep him at home. That his parents couldn’t possibly stop him from going back to Hogwarts when September rolled around. The truth was, none of them were certain, they were getting increasingly worried that their fifth year was going to be Padfoot’s last year in school.

 

“Mum would love for you to come over, you know?” James said to Sirius, breaking the silence that filled their compartment. Sirius let some air out of his nose, feigning amusement.

 

“I know,” he nodded, “and tell her that I’d love to go, too.”

 

“We could keep you hidden at King’s Cross,” James insisted, always trying to come up with a plan to fix things. “You could sneak out with us, Walburga wouldn’t know a thing–”

 

“I don’t want your parents arrested for kidnapping, Prongs.”

 

“But–”

 

“Leave it!” Sirius exclaimed impatiently, turning away from him and crossing his arms. This was a sign that he would refuse to speak until the topic was changed. James didn’t want to change the topic.

 

They stayed silent. Things had been tense between James and Sirius for the past week. Mainly because this conversation kept repeating itself over and over. James would come up with a plan and Sirius would notice every flaw in it, shutting it down. Padfoot understood that he was desperate, but that didn’t grant him any more patience. Remus stared out the window, zoning out the entire fight that happened around him. He never worried too much about them, because he was confident that they would always end up together again. He had admitted this to James a long time ago. Meanwhile, Peter glanced anxiously between the two bickering boys, concern and worry always being his reaction to conflict.

 

James’s thoughts were cut short by the abrupt opening of their compartment door. 

 

“Sorry to intrude,” Mary poked her head inside, smiling brightly but a little shy. The four Marauders smiled back, feigning normalcy. “Do you mind if we join you?”

 

The four boys remained silent, exchanging looks as they tried to get a read on each other. It didn’t work, they were out of sync. Remus sighed. “Yeah, sure, come in.”

 

“Thanks!”

 

Mary stepped right in, pushing Peter and Remus on their side of the compartment to sit down. Marlene took the last of the small amount of space next to Mary. James chuckled at the redness growing on Peter’s cheeks, caused by the extreme and sudden proximity of the two girls. He was about to laugh at Moony’s face of full discomfort, when he noticed a head of dark, fiery red hair coming closer toward him. She simply sat next to him and his heart skipped a beat. He needed to get a hold of himself.

 

“To what do we owe this great discomfort?” Sirius joked dryly, which caused Mary to laugh, which caused Sirius to roll his eyes.

 

“We are on the active mission of avoiding a certain someone,” Marlene explained simply. “A certain someone that wouldn’t come close to your compartment.”

 

“ That narrows it down,” Remus said sarcastically.

 

“Who is getting the pleasure of being avoided by you three?” Sirius asked. Lily shifted in her seat, her knee accidentally knocking against James’s for half a second. He felt his face heat up like he was on fire. He wanted to move on, but the distinct smell of her vanilla shampoo wasn’t helpful.

 

“That doesn’t concern you, Black,” Marlene replied quickly, matching Sirius’s usual disinterested tone.

 

“It does concern us, if you are going to be squished next to us all the way to London.”

 

“So much for helping out your friends.”

 

“Since when have you considered yourselves our friends –”

 

“I’m avoiding Severus, okay?” Lily blurted out, looking past James to stare at Sirius. 

 

The boy froze for a second, processing the girl’s words. He seemed surprised for a second, but then he went back to his neutral demeanour. However, James could notice that he had a proud glint in his eyes. “Ah,” he replied simply, “alright then.”

 

“Are you not talking to him anymore?” James asked carefully, although he had tried terribly hard not to address this specific topic. He didn’t want to come off as happy by this piece of news, even if he was.

 

“Nope,” Lily shrugged,  it was clear that she wanted to act like it was unimportant. It was also clear that it wasn’t. “I guess my judgement on people isn’t quite as good as I like to believe.” Sirius snorted and Lily fought back a small smile by this reaction, leaving a confused James between them.

 

“The important thing here is that I don’t have to tolerate that boy anymore,” Mary noted happily, subtly kicking James’s foot in front of her, making him laugh. “ That deserves celebrating.”

 

“The candy’s on me,” James added playfully, matching Mary’s tone.

 

“If that’s true, I’ll definitely be calling you my friends from now on,” Marlene joked.

 

---

The girls’ arrival at their compartment was the thing they needed to ease the growing tension between James and Sirius. The dynamic became different but in a good way. It was unexpected, exciting and new. It made travelling back home feel like a breeze. The energy around the seven of them was electric. They just made sense. Marlene could not only handle but also matched Sirius’s tone, poking fun at him just the right amount to amuse him. Mary was as lively as always, her laugh being so contagious she made the rest of them forget the sombre mood they were originally in. Lily was strangely quiet for most of the train ride, but occasionally added her own dry remarks, obviously entertained by the general conversation. She sometimes smiled at James after he made a good enough joke. James beamed the entire way to London.

 

It had to come to an end. The girls left the compartment first, giving them quick goodbyes before going off to talk by themselves, probably wanting to have one last private conversation before Summer. The Marauders did the same. They all stood up and exchanged awkward looks, unsure of how to address the elephant in the room.

 

“Padfoot, we’ll see each other soon, alright?” Remus said with certainty, although the sadness in his eyes contradicted him. “It’ll be fine.”

 

“I’ll see you around, Moony,” Sirius hugged his friend tightly, closing his eyes to focus on the feeling. It felt like a goodbye, regardless of the words they chose. James bit his tongue. They broke away from the hug and Sirius ruffled Peter’s hair. “I’ll see you around, too, Wormy.”

 

“Soon, I hope,” Peter said sadly, hugging Sirius as well.

 

The two boys grabbed their things and left. They didn’t bother to say goodbye to James yet, they could do that on the platform. It was different with Sirius. Every year they said goodbye to Sirius inside of the Hogwarts Express. He insisted it was for the best, to hide them away from Walburga and the rest of his family, but James was never fond of this tradition. James was never fond of most things regarding the Black family. The two boys looked at each other, waiting for the other to begin.

 

“Come with us, Padfoot,” James said, desperation showing through his voice. Sirius rolled his eyes.

 

“I can’t.”

 

“You don’t even want to try!”

 

“Is this how you want to say goodbye?”

 

“I don’t want to say goodbye at all !”

 

“Too bad, Prongs!” Sirius yelled, turning away to grab his trunk, but hesitating to do so. “You can either say goodbye or say nothing else.”

 

“You have to leave that house, you know that!”

 

“I can’t !”

 

“You’ll be seventeen soon! It won’t matter, then!”

 

“I can’t have Death Eaters hunting you and your family because of me!” They were getting louder by the second, but it didn’t matter. They were probably some of the last people on the train.

 

“We are Blood-traitors, Padfoot! They are going to come for us either way!”

 

Sirius opened his mouth to retort but held back. They stared at each other for a moment. Sirius finally picked up his trunk and headed toward the door. “Say goodbye or I’m leaving anyway.”

 

James ran his hands through his hair with force and frustration. Padfoot couldn’t go back to that house, because every second that passed, James was even more certain that they wouldn’t let him return to Hogwarts. They all knew that Walburga didn’t approve of Sirius’s friendships. Each year her punishments became more drastic, but something had shifted last summer. Something about her threats felt more real, more possible. The Dark Lord was becoming more relevant every day, the Death Eater attacks were increasing constantly. Everything had higher stakes. Everything felt like a bet of all or nothing . The Black family were already restrictive enough, and Sirius had finished up their last bit of patience. If he went back to that house, James feared that they would never see each other again. He was not going to say goodbye. 

 

“I’m not saying goodbye because you should be coming home with us ,” James argued at last, “you know I’m right.”

 

Sirius Black, always so stubborn, turned stone cold. “Fine,” he said with a shrug, leaving James alone in the compartment as he stepped out of the train. Into the arms of his captors.

Notes:

we didn't really end on a high note here, but isn't Mary and James's friendship the cutest. We barely get Mary & James representation, I had to make my own.

anyways, good luck on the next chapter ig

Chapter 5: friends, allies and companions

There are billions of people on this Earth walking around with their own thoughts, ideas and dreams. It’s a wonderful world because of it. The contrast between every person makes the planet keep spinning. But at the end of the day, once the sky turns into the perfect blend of blue and orange and the sun hides behind the sea, regardless of how different everyone’s thoughts and beliefs are from the next person, most people can’t help but admire the sunset. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, other people are staring at the very same sky, admiring the sunrise. The same blend of colours and gradings being seen by millions in one minute of peace and understanding. It’s funny how there are very small instances in which the entire universe seems to be in sync.

 

On the third day of their Summer holidays, two different households on two different sides of England, at the very same second, received an unexpected knock on their respective doors from two extremely different visitors. Despite the aggressive differences between these two individuals, they both were desperate and lost. In urgent need of the one person that they associated with home. They knocked again and, at the very same time, James Potter and Lily Evans stood up to find out who was waiting for them to answer. The stark contrast between these two instances was defined by the stark contrast between the answers they chose.

 

---

After peeking through the peephole to make sure it was him, the door swung open. It was raining and the boy had been a victim of it. His hair, always perfectly at shoulder length, was soaking wet. His eyes were red, one could try to believe that some raindrops had irritated them, but it was clearly from crying. Right beside his feet, he had put one large trunk on the floor, a signal that he was meaning to stay away from home. Stay away for a long time, in fact.

 

“Prongs…” Sirius said in one heavy breath, breaking his friend out of the trance he had entered. James realized he probably looked like a deer in headlights. He tried to speak, but his throat blocked up. He remained speechless for long enough to make Sirius talk again. “Remember when you said that you wanted me to stay for the summer?”

 

James nodded once. It was nearly impossible to get over the shock of finding Sirius Black looking so helpless. Defeated.

 

“Would you mind if I stayed for a bit longer–” Sirius couldn’t reach the end of his question before James pulled him inside, into a tight hug. As Sirius hugged back, he tightened his grip like he was trying to piece Padfoot back together. James promised himself, at that very moment, that he would never let Sirius feel so lost again. Sirius Black could be many things, but helpless was not going to be one of them. 

 

They had always considered themselves to be each other’s brothers, but it had never felt real . It felt like something kids would say to their best friend, well-intentioned but still inaccurate. This moment was real. This moment consolidated everything they believed about the other. Every doubt and fear was forced away. They used to be friends, allies and companions. From now on, they would become family.

 

---

She opened the door, a little more hesitant than he had hoped, but it was to be expected. Her face remained unsurprised, stone-cold and slightly disdainful. Nonetheless, Severus identified how hurt she was. He mentally cursed himself for causing it. Who gave him the audacity to hurt Lily Evans’s feelings? In his head, he had committed the highest offence. If he wasn’t going to Azkaban for it, it might as well be punishable by death. It’s not like he would mind it, life without her was like living without the sun every day. Wandering in the dark and hoping that he had stayed on the right path.

 

“Yes?” Lily said coldly, crossing her arms and leaning on the doorframe. She didn’t open the door all the way like he no longer had the right to see what was inside. Severus realized that, in fact, he didn’t. He had tried to apologize already at Hogwarts, but Lily had shut him down. He decided to try again now that they were back home. Their small town felt silent without each other’s company. Without the little bubble they had made for themselves, Cokeworth felt like it actually was: dark and grey.

 

“Hi, can we talk?” He could barely hold eye contact, focusing on his feet as he made sure that he was actually standing there, in front of her. Sometimes it was hard to believe that they weren’t talking anymore. Like a nightmare that just wouldn’t stop but at least it wasn’t real.

 

“Severus, we’ve talked enough already,” Lily’s tone wasn’t getting any softer. He winced as she said his name, used to hearing her voice saying ‘ Sev ’ sweetly. Nobody else said it as sweetly and brightly as she did.

 

“I just want to clear the air, Lily,” he tried to keep his composure, but he heard his voice come out as pleading. This was not far from how he was feeling. “I’m sorry, I’ll apologize as many times as I need to–”

 

“Don’t apologize anymore, because I won’t forgive you anyway.”

 

“Why?” Severus asked desperately. “You know that I never wanted to call you a Mudblood, I would never–”

 

“It’s so much more than just that, Severus. The fact that you called me a Mudblood was just a wake-up call.”

 

“What does that mean?” He frowned, extremely confused.

 

“I’m tired of choosing you, Sev!” Lily exclaimed, stepping outside and closing the front door behind her. Severus was startled by the change in her tone. “I can’t keep choosing you when you’ve never chosen me!”

 

“I’ll always choose you!” He meant it. Dear God, or anything that’s up there, he meant it.

 

“You never have! I told you to stop hanging out with Avery and Mulciber, but you didn’t. I told you that engaging with Dark Arts was awful and dangerous, but you kept doing it anyway!” Lily started listing, disgust in her voice at every new thing she mentioned. “There’s a war out there, they are out to get people like me , and you are going to join them! How could I ever forgive you?”

 

Severus blinked, eyes widened at the girl who was glaring at him, something he never thought she, of all people, would do. He was joining the Death Eaters. They promised him power and influence. It was a club in which he was not only invited but welcome . It all sounded too enticing to back out from it. He always felt hunted by the genes of his arse of a father. Not only a Muggle but a git, Severus hated anything that man could have brought to him. He felt dirty carrying his bloodline. He liked what the Death Eaters wanted, keeping other bloodlines clean. Maybe Lily was right, he hadn’t chosen her.

 

“So, what? Are we not going to be friends anymore?” He asked helplessly, fearing that he already knew her answer.

 

“That’s right, Severus,” Lily said, her stone-cold expression breaking slightly, tears forming in her eyes. Tears that he caused. “Like I said at Hogwarts: you’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”

 

Lily sent him one last look, filled with anger and hurt, before turning around and slamming the door. He stayed in his spot, frozen. Like the world stopped spinning and was coming to an end. It might as well have for all he cared, he didn’t have Lily by his side anymore. She let go of him, and he had fallen into the abyss. Severus had to accept that this moment was no longer a nightmare. This moment was real. This moment consolidated everything they feared about the other. Every ounce of hope and faith was forced away. They used to be friends, allies and companions. From now on, they would become strangers.

Notes:

a short but necessary chapter. i had to break into snape's tragic little head, sorry. i'm kinda proud of how this turned out ngl

Chapter 6: say 'hi'

The place was packed. Lily couldn’t remember a time when she had gone to Flourish & Blotts and it wasn’t absolutely packed to the brim. The calming sense that bookshops tended to give her was broken by the flood of wizards of every age trying to get everything they needed as quickly as possible. It was her own fault for only ever going the day after her Hogwarts letter arrived. As she made a mental note to visit the store on a slow day during her next summer, she crashed into what she first believed to be a wall, but it turned around and revealed itself to be her very tall friend.

 

“Oh, sorry about that– Lily!” Remus exclaimed as his gaze finally landed on her face. He was carrying an unusually large stack of books.

 

“Remus, hey!” Lily replied just as brightly. “Fancy seeing you here.”

 

“Right back at you,” he smiled softly at her, a familiar expression on his face. 

 

She never understood how he had possibly become friends with two of the most obnoxious, self-absorbed and insufferable boys at Hogwarts. If anything, Remus Lupin was sweet, patient and –most importantly– responsible. Surely there was an explanation as to how that friendship came to be, but she could never put her finger on it.

 

“How has the summer treated you?” She asked him as they made their way to the line to pay for their books.

 

“Can’t wait to get back to the castle, if I’m being honest.”

 

“Yeah, me neither.”

 

After a beat, Remus asked carefully: “Had a bad summer?”

 

‘Bad’ didn’t even begin to describe it. Summers at Cokeworth were never anything resembling good. The mere contrast of the Wizarding World, Hogwarts and the fuzzy feeling Lily would get when she was surrounded by enormous amounts of magic in the air, struck by the bleak and grey atmosphere back at home, was enough to make anybody miserable. It was a change that she would never manage to get used to. Other years, she would have coped by spending her days with the one person in that sad old town who could understand. This year, she ended up slamming the door in his face. Both literally and figuratively.

 

Instead of drowning in her own thoughts, Lily shook her head. “Not really, I just miss doing magic.”

 

“Me too,” Remus replied absentmindedly, his mind also going elsewhere, for which Lily was grateful.

 

They each paid for their books, and Lily couldn’t help but notice that half of Remus’s books had been paid for already, by owl. As they pushed the exit doors open and Lily was about to ask him why he would pay for only half his books beforehand, she realised the answer was standing in front of her, talking with Marlene, who had been waiting for Lily right outside the bookshop.

 

He was wearing Muggle clothes. She was aware that it shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did, but she had never seen James Potter in Muggle clothes. They were only some jeans, a Puddlemere United jumper and a pair of beaten-up black Converse. It wasn’t anything revolutionary by any means, but it still had captured her attention enough that she almost ran into an innocent passerby for the second time that day.

 

“Moony, what took you so long?” James exclaimed as they approached, running a hand through his hair and smiling brightly. 

 

“It looked like a bloody war zone in there,” Remus said impatiently, grumpily handing James one of the two bags he had been carrying. “You are welcome , by the way.”

 

“My knight in shining armour.”

 

“I hate you,” Remus said unconvincingly, and James scoffed with amusement.

 

“Nah, you’re just hungry. What if I bought you lunch?”

 

“Then, I would hate you a bit less.”

 

“I’ll take what I can get,” James grinned at his friend and turned to look at the two girls who were still standing with them, acknowledging Lily’s presence for the first time since she arrived, but never quite looking her in the eye. “Good to see you, Evans.”

 

“Hey, Potter,” Lily replied hesitantly, and she felt Marlene rolling her eyes next to her.

 

“Well, have a nice lunch, lads, we still have errands to run.” The blonde linked her arm with Lily’s and started stepping away from the two boys.

 

“Wait, um…” James said quickly, eyes widening slightly when the two girls actually turned around to see what he would say. Almost like he hadn’t thought it would work.

 

“Yeah?” Marlene raised her eyebrows impatiently after the boy remained quiet for longer than necessary.

 

“Would you… er…” he seemed to cut himself off, as if he was rethinking the question entirely. Lily could see that look in his face that meant he was about to make an undesired invitation. She was already making up her excuse to deny it when James finally made up his mind. “Would you say ‘hi’ to Mary for me?”

 

The girls blinked as they processed the simple request.

 

“You can tell her yourself, you know?” Lily sounded more defensive than intended. James had always possessed the ability to annoy her with ease. For the first time in the entire interaction, he made eye contact with her, although it seemed like he was forcing himself to do so.

 

“It’s a bit difficult, her being in Ireland and all,” James’s usual nonchalance quickly masked the strange nervousness that had taken over him, his smirk going back into place. The only thing giving him away was the light redness flooding his cheeks. As soon as he could, he went back to looking at Marlene instead of her. “I figured you’d meet with her before classes, so just tell her I said ‘hi’.”

 

“Alright, Potter, we will,” Marlene said with a slight tone of confusion.

 

“Great, thanks,” the boy smiled, quickly grabbed Remus and hurried off to the Leaky Cauldron.

 

Once they were out of sight, the two girls, still standing on the very same spot, turned to look at each other and immediately broke into a fit of laughter.

 

“Was James Potter blushing , or have I gone mad?” Marlene asked in between giggles.

 

“I’m pretty sure he was,” Lily linked her friend’s arm with her own and started walking toward the Broom Shop around the corner. Marlene always had to see the new broom in stock, and Lily always enjoyed watching her excitement.

 

“I knew those two had gotten all close this past year, but I never thought Mary had him all nervous and blushing ,” Marlene spoke with disbelief and amusement. Lily had to try her hardest to match the girl’s smile, but something had weirdly punched the air out of her. “I mean, what a turn of events, isn’t it?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, a couple of months ago, he asked you out in front of half the school, and now he’s all smitten with Mary,” Marlene explained simply, leaving a bitter taste in Lily’s mouth. He hadn’t actually asked her out; he had told her so himself. “I will never understand blokes, I swear.”

 

“He was kidding about that, though.”

 

“About what?”

 

“When he asked me out,” Lily explained, “he told me that he was just messing around.”

 

Marlene scoffed at the comment, dismissing it as if Lily had just said something ridiculous. “Yeah, sure.”

 

“I’m serious!”

 

“Look, he fancied you long before that entire incident, so my point still stands.” Lily stayed silent for a beat. He must have actually fancied her at some point; he even said that he would ask her out ‘ for real ’ after the incident happened. Then again, maybe she was reading too much into James Potter’s words. How could a person fancy a girl one day, and pursue her best friend the next? She should have been relieved, if anything, not having to carry that burden any longer.

 

“Well, clearly he has moved on from it,” she shrugged, making an effort to sound nonchalant. “Poor Mary, she has no idea what she has gotten into.”

 

“Oh, no,” Marlene stopped in her tracks and widened her eyes with horror.

 

“What?”

 

“Imagine Mary rejects him and he starts hitting on me .”

 

Lily burst out laughing, linking her arms with Marlene’s once again. “He wouldn’t survive a week.”

 

“No, he wouldn’t,” Marlene said at last, with a hint of pride in her voice, as they finally entered the Broom Shop.

 

---

It was always fun to go to the Leaky Cauldron the day after Hogwarts letters arrived. There was this frantic and restless energy from people entering and leaving the establishment. It was easy to guess which families came from a long line of wizards and which were only now being introduced to the Wizarding World. People from all over England could be seen walking through the crowds. James took a deep breath, trying to soak in all the energy around him. He loved it when a room felt alive without the need for any magic.

 

“What took you so long?” Padfoot asked as soon as Remus and James were in sight.

 

“Apparently, Flourish & Blotts was like the bookworm version of D-day,” James said, sitting down and setting the books carefully on the floor next to him. They were at a small round table, and some empty butterbeer glasses were already occupying it. It would be the best they were gonna get with the number of people at the establishment.

 

“That’s why I give a little extra tip and get my books delivered home.”

 

“That’s an option ?”

 

“It’s one of the few good things Walburga ever taught me,” Sirius said with a shrug.

 

“Bribery?” Remus asked.

 

“That’s right,” Sirius nodded and took a sip from his half-empty butterbeer.

 

“Fair enough,” Remus chuckled with amusement and hesitated for a beat, clearly debating whether to say the following or not. He chuckled to himself for a second and went on with it. “On another note, apparently Prongs has it bad for Mary now.”

 

“What?” Peter and James asked in unison; meanwhile, Sirius nearly choked on his drink.

 

“No, I don’t!” 

 

“What was that all about, then?”

 

“What was what about?” Peter asked, looking frantically between Remus and James, like that would help him piece the mystery together.

 

“What are you talking about?” James furrowed his brows, making an effort to figure out what would warrant such an accusation.

 

“Telling them to say ‘hi’ to Mary for you? We are in our sixth year, Prongs, it’s about time–” Remus was interrupted by Sirius loudly clearing his throat.

 

“Who’s them ?” Padfoot couldn’t even hide how much he was enjoying tormenting James, even if he didn’t understand the context of it.

 

Remus raised his eyebrows at James, pushing him to explain. James hesitantly gave in, slouching back in his chair. “We ran into Lily and Marlene.”

 

“I see,” Padfoot leaned forward on the table, an amused smirk plastered on his face that would have been impossible to remove. “...And?”

 

“And that’s pretty much it,” James shrugged, genuinely confused and raising his hands innocently. Remus scoffed.

 

“And James got all nervous and asked them to say ‘hi’ to Mary for him.” 

 

“As a friend .”

 

“Oh, to be young and in love,” Sirius mocked, drinking the last bit of butterbeer he had left.

 

“I’m not in love with Mary,” James rolled his eyes. He started looking around for any waiters, wanting a drink himself, until he noticed that his friends were still staring at him, waiting for more information. He sighed. “I was gonna invite the girls for lunch, but decided to backtrack in the middle of the sentence, that’s all.”

 

Sirius’s grin grew even wider. “So you are still on Evans?”

 

“Padfoot–” James closed his eyes and took a deep breath, struggling to find patience. This was the one topic of conversation he never liked getting teased about. He felt the traitorous flush flooding his cheeks once more, something that only ever happened to him when it came to her. “I’m over Evans, and… I decided that I’m swearing off girls for a while.”

 

“First girl to reject him and now he’s gonna start snogging blokes.”

 

“Oh, piss off.”

 

“Why are you swearing off girls?” Peter asked curiously, with a tone as if he expected it to wind up being a joke.

 

“I’m starting this year on a clean slate, alright?” James explained simply, but the three boys stared at him as if he had just spoken a foreign language.“I’m trying to have a relaxing sixth year.”

 

Peter, Remus and Sirius kept looking at him, their expressions blank, trying to get a read on James. Once, they realised that the boy wasn’t kidding in any way, concern overtook them.

 

“Are you ill?” Sirius was the first to break the stunned silence.

 

“What?”

 

“That must be it,” Peter nodded emphatically, as if the pieces of the puzzle had fallen together.

 

“I’m perfectly fine.”

 

“Did Marlene hex you while you waited outside?” Remus asked, resting his chin on his hand and narrowing his eyes at James.

 

James ran a hand through his hair and stood up from the table, defeated. “You know what? I’m gonna get some butterbeers.”

 

“And some chips, too, Loverboy,” Sirius exclaimed as James walked off.

Notes:

FINALLY i wrote this chapter, i apologize for taking so long to update! also, no fights this chapter bc we are now entering pure fanon and so we gotta set them up first

Chapter 7: clean slate

She had said that it was not a necessary precautionary measure to arrive at that hour, insisting that she would easily stop any trouble that could occur, but Sirius preferred to avoid conflict altogether, a new and temporary outlook on life for him. He ended up being the only one truly affected by this decision, especially after spending most of the Summer getting used to waking up at noon. Meanwhile, James, like everybody else in his genetic tree, took waking up early as only another day in his routine. This was the first time, and only time, that he would step into a completely desolate Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. He was even more surprised to find the train already there, waiting for the hundreds of students to excitedly board it.

 

After Euphemia gave both boys a proper and warm goodbye, they finally boarded the Hogwarts Express. Once they sat down at their usual compartment, James stopped himself from speaking when he noticed a peculiar glint in Sirius’s eyes as he looked out the window. James knew that his best friend – more accurately known as his new brother– must have been elated to be able to return to Hogwarts, especially after being so close to never doing so. Besides the fact that they had successfully avoided running into Walburga or any other Black family member at King’s Cross Station. Everything still felt surreal to the Potters; he could only imagine the whirlwind of thoughts in Sirius’s mind. He decided it’d be best to stay quiet and let him sort through whatever had made him so silent, a grand task for James Potter.

 

He took out a copy of another small Muggle book that he had started reading at his father’s insistence. James hated to admit it to his face, but Fleamont Potter had quite the refined taste in literature. He had an inclination toward the Muggle authors, and James did notice that there was a definite level of creativity in those books that Wizards lacked. Focusing on the humanity of the characters was, apparently, a Muggle tendency that Wizards didn’t like to partake in. As his dad introduced him to more books, James came to terms with the fact that one was clearly superior to the other. So, there he was, reading his book and, as he could tell from the corner of his eye, Sirius was dozing off to sleep. Not quite the time for reflection that James had expected.

 

Around twenty minutes into Sirius’s loud breathing, which was somehow more annoying than the classic snoring, there was a knock on the compartment door. James shot a glance at Sirius, already seeing him get into the mood of when his sleep was cut short, something that James would now have to deal with. The boys exchanged a quick, confused look; neither Peter nor Remus would ever knock before stepping into the compartment. Another knock. Sirius rubbed his eyes as he gave the person permission to finally step in.

 

The door slowly slid open, revealing a head of auburn red hair that James could recognise anywhere. He silently took a deep breath, trying to calm his heartbeat before someone would have to call a healer to assist him through a heart attack. Thankfully, the breeze entering through the open window was enough to stop the warmth flooding his cheeks. The girl hesitantly leaned on the doorframe, crossing her arms casually. James found that slightly insulting. How come she got the right to nonchalance while he was using all of his efforts to look her in the eye without his face turning as red as, well, her hair?

 

“All right, Evans?” James could do nothing but hope that his voice was even. His right hand twitched, accustomed to instantly jumping to his hair at the sight of her, but he managed to stop it.

 

She ignored him, going straight to the point of her visit. “Is Remus running late?” 

 

“Actually,” Sirius said, “we are running early.”

 

“Well, just tell him to look for me when he gets here,” she said, giving them a forced, tight-lipped smile before stepping away from their compartment, ready to walk away.

 

“What for?” James asked quickly, trying to extend the interaction for a moment longer.

 

“The prefect meeting,” the girl explained simply. “The Head Boy said that it would start earlier this year.”

 

“You could wait for him here,” James heard himself say. For a moment, he was convinced that he had imagined those words escaping him, but Lily’s frown (and Sirius’s grin) said otherwise.

 

“What?” They both said in unison. Lily, with confusion, and Sirius fighting back a laugh.

 

It was like his mouth had a life of its own as James kept pushing through the million ‘STOP’ signs in his mind. “Have the girls arrived yet?”

 

“Not… yet,” Lily replied carefully.

 

“Then it’d be better staying here than waiting alone, no?” From the corner of his eye, he could see Sirius leaning back in his seat, pure delight written all over his face. “Besides, he’ll come straight here when he arrives; it’ll be easier.”

 

Lily seemed to be going through every possible answer in her mind, which James didn’t quite appreciate since he thought his heart was trying to dig a hole through his chest. “...Okay,” she finally said, allowing James to let out a breath that he was apparently holding.

 

She sat down next to Sirius and in front of James. He took a chance to really look at her at last, only because she was determined to stare out the window, unable to notice his attention. Merlin, he hadn’t seen her in a while. The brief encounter in Diagon Alley didn’t count, not really. Especially since he had done everything in his power not to look directly at her, and when he did, he ended up blushing in an instant.

 

Her hair was short now, sitting slightly below shoulder length, and framing her face in the same way artists would darken the background of a painting so your eye directly goes to the subject. He had noticed this back at Diagon Alley, a big reason as to why he had been unable to look her in the eye. Also, James could have sworn that she had even more freckles decorating her cheeks, probably after spending some part of the Summer bathing in the sunlight, but he could have simply been remembering wrong. Although he doubted it. Her eyes hadn’t changed, though, if that was even an option. They were still that shade of green that he had always wanted to get just right, but could never get close enough to be sure. Needless to say, she looked as lovely as ever.

 

It was at this moment, once he was finally able to look away from the siren in front of him, that he noticed Sirius folding his hands together, waiting to see what James had planned when he invited Lily to sit with them. That’s when it hit him, they had been sitting in complete silence while James unabashedly stared at her, while she was distracted. Had she noticed? He desperately hoped not.

 

He opened his mouth to say something, until he realised that he had nothing to say. He followed Lily’s gaze and looked out the window, as if someone would be standing outside with a big sign instructing him on what to say to the girl. The silence was eating away at the compartment, both James and Lily growing more uncomfortable as a clock, somewhere, ticked by. Jumping out the window suddenly seemed like the safest option, and, honestly, the most tempting. He had decided to become friends with this girl, but why did he feel so much pressure to come up with something good to say? He just had to make easy conversation, a stepping stone.

 

“How was the Summer?” He said at last. Small talk would have to suffice.

 

Lily turned around, as if remembering that James was sitting across from her, and nodded awkwardly. “Uneventful…”

 

“Right,” James joined the awkward nodding, trying to think of a new question to ask, which would only take another million years.

 

“Yours?” Lily asked back, more out of decency than interest, but James took what he could take.

 

“Eventful,” James replied. He had thought of this as the perfect response. It both referenced what she had just said, and it gave her room to ask him about what he had done, establishing a fun back-and-forth.

 

Instead, Lily nodded. “Great.”

 

James should have been able to foresee that possibility. Now she probably thought that he simply didn’t want to tell her about his Summer, and she didn’t want to be nosy. Damn her for being respectful of the usual social boundaries. Also, damn the social boundaries. He looked at Sirius again, who still seemed amused yet fighting through some level of second-hand embarrassment. James couldn’t blame him. When he looked back at Lily, she seemed to be fixated with something in his hand, which is how James noticed that he still was holding his book.

 

“Were you reading?” She asked, her tone finally showing some interest and throwing him off completely.

 

“Uh… yeah, I was,” James answered, opening the book for a moment, to make sure he had marked the page where he had stopped reading.

 

“Tolstoy?” Lily seemed surprised more than anything, looking at the cover of the book as he bent the edge of the last page he read. James could have sworn she had just made up a word.

 

“Huh?” That was what the mush in his head, also known as his brain, came up with.

 

“The author.”

 

“Ah… I suppose,” he shrugged. “Is he famous or something?”

 

“Well…”

 

The compartment door slid open once more, and Remus Lupin barely stepped in when Lily was already on her feet. The boy noticed her instantly; it was impossible not to, and jerked his head back in surprise. A rare sight to witness, Lily Evans hanging out with Sirius Black and James Potter, willingly.

 

“Remus, hi!” Lily exclaimed, and James decided to ignore the relief flashing through her eyes. Even if he also felt his shoulders drop.

 

“Lily? What are you doing here?”

 

“The meeting should be starting any minute now,” Lily pointed out, rushing out of the compartment.

 

“Oh, all right.”

 

“Don’t be late!” The girl exclaimed, already walking out to the corridor.

 

Remus closed the door and turned to look at his friends. It was the same accusatory and suspicious look he would throw them when they’d pulled a prank. It felt like he was blaming them for holding Lily hostage.

 

“Merlin, I think I just discovered what the cruciatus curse must feel like,” Sirius exhaled dramatically, stretching his feet onto the seat across from him.

 

“Piss off.”

 

“What happened?” Remus asked while he struggled to store his luggage.

 

“I told Evans that she could wait for you here,” James shrugged, trying to play it off as no big deal.

 

“And she agreed ?”

 

“After Prongs struck down every reason not to,” Sirius grinned, relieved by the presence of someone who would make fun of James with him.

 

“God, I wish I had seen that,” Remus laughed, taking the seat beside Sirius.

 

“It wasn’t that bad,” James ran a hand through his hair. He imagined this was what his friends felt when they smoked after a long day without a cigarette.

 

“I was about to jump out the window,” Sirius deadpanned. James wanted to call him out for being too dramatic, but he had also thought of the same alternative. Instead, he just sank into his seat, took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt.

 

“Didn’t you say that you were over Evans?” Remus asked the one question that James was dreading to hear. He was determined to move on. A crush could only last so long, Mary had very wisely said so herself. James wanted to become friends with Lily, and he thought that by the time he finally managed to do that, he’d be well past these feelings for her. That was the plan. He realised it would be harder to accomplish with his friends’ constant teasing.

 

“I am over her,” he lied, “I was just being friendly.”

 

“Friendly or embarrassingly whipped?” Sirius chimed in, helpful as always.

 

“Can’t a man be both?” Remus added, and James narrowed his eyes at him. The one friend he trusted to go easy on him.

 

“Don’t you have a meeting to get to, Moony?” James pointed out, wanting to get rid of this allyship between his two friends.

 

“Fuck,” Remus muttered as he scrambled to his feet. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

---

She always had a rough time trying to fall asleep on her first night back. Every time she was back at home, it felt like this entire world had only ever been a dream. Lily always felt beyond elated to be reminded of its reality. Magic was not only all around her again, but flowing through her. This time, for the first time, she had wanted to stay back at Cokeworth. Her dad had fallen sick during her fifth year, and it seemed to only ever get worse. How could she sleep when her real, non-magical world was falling apart? When her mom and sister were struggling to keep that from happening? Lily had no right to go off on a train and sleep and enjoy herself while they had to go through that. At her mother’s insistence, she ended up boarding the train anyway. Now, there she was. Rolling around in her bed, her eyes refused to remain closed for more than a minute or two.

 

Lily gave in to insomnia, pushing the covers off and sliding open the curtains around her bed. She scrambled to find her wand on her bedside table, lighting a small Lumos charm as soon as she found it. Looking around her dorm, she noticed that Mary’s bed was empty. Lily was relieved. There was no better distraction from the rabbit hole of her own thoughts than her friends. They were the only thing that she was looking forward to about her return to Hogwarts. She stood up from her bed and checked that the bathroom door didn’t have any light coming from beneath it. The only option left for Mary was the Common Room, so Lily put on her slippers and silently made her way outside her dorm and down the stairs.

 

She heard Mary’s stifled laugh, which could only mean that she had some company. Maybe Marlene was awake too, and she hadn’t noticed. Lily smiled at the sound of her friend’s laugh and kept going down a few more steps. Suddenly, nearing the end of the staircase, a male voice stopped her in an instant. A male voice that she, unfortunately, could recognise anywhere. She looked up, and her eyes immediately fell on his head of unruly hair. 

 

Lily had figured that those two had become friends after several off-handed comments, but that didn’t mean that seeing it up close was any less surprising. They were sitting on the couch, hunched over a piece of parchment that James was holding while Mary wrote on it. Something strange twisted in Lily’s stomach as she took notice of how comfortable the pair seemed with each other. How could this have been happening without her even suspecting it? Right before she could follow that train of thought, Mary looked up and instantly noticed her, smiling brightly.

 

“Couldn’t sleep either, Lils?” She asked sweetly, making James turn around and finally spot her, his eyes widening ever so slightly. Not that Lily would notice such a thing, of course.

 

“Not really,” Lily answered, internally debating how bad it would look to turn around and go back to bed.

 

“Come on, then,” Mary waved her hand, inviting her to sit with them on the couch. “Join the club.”

 

For a second time that day, she was unable to find an excuse to sit with James Potter. “All right…”

 

Although James was sitting closer to the staircase, Lily made the conscious decision to walk around the couch and sit beside Mary. By the look on his face, she doubted that he actually minded. Her curly-headed friend grabbed the piece of parchment from James, whose hand had gone limp, and continued scribbling on it.

 

“Can you believe that James had never seen a pen before?” She asked as she doodled with a pen of her own, right next to an impressively good drawing of a flower. Not only did Lily not know that Mary was close with James, but she didn’t know that her friend was a drawing prodigy. Even worse, Lily realised the flower was, in fact, a lily. “It’s the first time he has seen one, let alone used one.”

 

“Much better than a quill,” James stated, eyes fixated on the movement of Mary’s pen on the paper.

 

“I imagine,” Lily noted, not knowing what else she could possibly have said. Even if she didn’t have to imagine, she had used both supplies many times in her life.

 

Mary, a natural at never letting a conversation go dry, kept talking. “Wizards should really look into more Muggle stuff, I’m sure you would love to draw with some pencils.”

 

“Pencils?” James asked, making Mary chuckle.

 

“I’ll owl my mom to send me some, if you want.”

 

“That’d be great, Mary,” James said, looking genuinely touched. “Thanks.”

 

Mary smiled at him before looking back at Lily, probably noticing how awkward she was feeling. Then, the girl did something truly inexplicable. She looked back at James, raised her eyebrows pointedly and proceeded to yawn, which Lily suspected was fake by how exaggeratedly she had stretched her arms to seem convincing.

 

“I think I’m gonna head up now, get some sleep,” she said, slowly standing up from the couch, handing the parchment and pen back to James.

 

“Already?” Lily asked rather anxiously, trying to find an excuse to join her friend and leave.

 

“Yeah,” and as if playing a mean prank on Lily, she added, “But you two stay! Don’t let me spoil the fun.”

 

Fun , she said. It’s not her fault that she hadn’t witnessed the dreadfully uncomfortable exchange that James and Lily had shared that very morning, in the Hogwarts Express. Still, there was a possibility that he had told her about it, and Mary decided to have a laugh and prank them. This idea made Lily come to the appalling realisation that they had probably talked about her before. What if that had brought them together in the first place? Better not open that can of worms.

 

“See you tomorrow, Macdonald,” James smiled, folding the parchment and putting it in his pocket along with the pen. It was such a small gesture, but, for some reason, it made Lily’s stomach twist into a tighter knot.

 

“G’night, Mares.”

 

“Goodnight, my darlings,” Mary exclaimed as she started going up the stairs.

 

They stayed silent for a minute or two. Lily focused on how the fire moved across from them, cracking every once in a while. She could feel James shifting in his seat, not too far away from her, but she decided to ignore it. Maybe they could simply stay quiet in each other’s company, saving themselves the trouble of starting a conversation neither of them was interested in. But silence would only lead her into the thoughts that had forced her to stay awake. She’d rather open that can of worms on her own, not accompanied by James Potter. She had to go back to bed, but Mary would still be awake and would easily tell that something was wrong. How long would she take to fall asleep so Lily could sneak back? Probably around five more minutes, Lily hoped, but she wasn’t sure the boy next to her would be able to stand five minutes of pure silence.

 

“All right, Evans?” James said, proving Lily correct. She almost laughed at how predictable it had been, but managed to hold it in.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“It feels good to be back, doesn’t it?”

 

“Mhm,” she hummed dryly. It felt anything but good to be back, but she had to save those thoughts for when she went back to bed.

 

The silence filled the room again. Had that been his attempt at conversation? Lily had always thought of him as quite the conversationalist, at least from afar. His voice always seemed to be playing like background noise during meals at the Great Hall, or long nights studying at the Common Room. That was one of the few things she found that made sense in his new friendship with Mary; they could both make a wall say something back to them. Apparently, Lily was wrong. This boy had not been able to spark one conversation that lasted more than four sentences on two separate occasions. Sure, she hadn’t been much help either, but there’s no reason why she should have been. He seemed to be perfectly capable of striking up an enjoyable conversation with Mary just a few minutes before.

 

It confused her, that friendship. It had started some time in the past year, which she was aware of, but the nature of it was simply… confusing. Mary was never one to indulge people with high levels of arrogance and self-importance. She did not care for careless cruelty of any sort. She never refrained from mocking wizards, especially Pure-Bloods, finding most of their traditions to be ridiculous at best, a risky thing to do in the current climate, so she had been trying to keep her comments in the privacy of their dorm. Still, none of these qualities seemed to be compatible in any way with James Potter.

 

James was reckless. He did not seem to be very bright, even if he got consistently high marks. He had been reading on the train, but didn’t even remember the author of the book. Yes, it was a Muggle book. Yes, it was Leo Tolstoy, but he was clearly only starting the story and would probably drop it soon after twenty pages. Accidentally picking a critically acclaimed novel did not signify intelligence. Also, he seemed to be troubled by the mere concept of staying still, as he was now drumming the pen on the parchment, which also reminded her of how simply annoying he could be. He had a tendency to be casually cruel in the past, although he had assured her that he would stop. It was only their first day back, so it had yet to be proven.

 

He seemed to like Mary; it looked like he was actually enjoying their conversation right before Lily walked right into it. The fact that Mary, for whatever mysterious reason, seemed to like him back was also a point in his favour. What bothered Lily the most was that her friend had never mentioned this blossoming friendship. There were a plethora of reasons that could explain this. First, she didn’t consider it important enough for it to become a conversation. Second, she could have been embarrassed, given that Lily had never been his biggest fan. Third, she might be developing non-platonic feelings toward the boy. Not that Mary was one to hide or be ashamed of her crushes, but there’s always the possibility of an exception.

 

That could explain why James had been so strange (in other words, shy) that afternoon in Diagon Alley. Also explaining why he had tried to make conversation with Lily earlier, on the train. Making friends with the best friend of your budding romance is a classic. Mary was incredibly beautiful, so there was no room for surprise in terms of James being drawn to her. He himself was not entirely painful to look at. In fact, she could allow herself to say that he was, objectively, rather handsome. Quidditch training did him many favours; he was undeniably fit because of it. She would rather jump from the Astronomy Tower than say this to his face, but she liked the way his hair seemed to have a mind of its own. He had hazel eyes that turned golden even when the dimmest ray of light fell on them. These were all objective facts, though. Things that anyone with a pair of eyes could notice.

 

Before Lily could stop herself from asking the question that had sparked this gnarly train of thought, her mouth was quicker. “Is anything going on with you and Mary?”

 

James turned to look at her, eyes widened with surprise and a hint of confusion. She couldn’t tell if it was because of the matter at hand or because she had chosen to speak at all. 

 

“What?” He blurted out, raising an eyebrow.

 

“I just…” She hesitated, but she figured that she might as well get an answer now. “You two seem awfully close out of nowhere, and she hasn’t mentioned anything to me…”

 

“No,” he said rather quickly, “nothing’s going on.”

 

Lily felt like a weight had been taken off her shoulders. She nodded. “Okay.”

 

“I’m not lying, Evans.”

 

“I believe you.”

 

Queue the silence, again. It felt different now, weirdly tense. There was something left unsaid, but Lily couldn’t figure out what it was. She picked at the nail polish on her nails, hoping that would be enough of a distraction. Surely, Mary had fallen asleep by now, although Lily doubted that five full minutes had gone by.

 

“Did I do something?” James blurted out, like he couldn’t help himself from asking.

 

“What?” It was now Lily’s turn to be caught off guard.

 

“Not to be rude,” always a great start to a sentence as far as Lily was concerned, “but every time I’ve tried talking to you, it’s like I hit a wall.”

 

He would never know how kind she was for not laughing at this statement. Instead, she schooled her expression as she said: “Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough.”

 

He had the nerve to scoff. “The only reason you are still sitting here is because you are waiting for Mary to fall asleep.”

 

Either Lily had been embarrassingly transparent about how much she wished she could go back to her dorm, or James was a Legilimens prodigy and was well aware of everything that Lily had been thinking before. The latter was horrifying and, thankfully, the least likely.

 

“What do you want from me, Potter?” Her tone was exasperated, and she rolled her eyes as a mere reflex. James’s frown deepened.

 

“Why are you acting this way?”

 

“I don’t know if you lost your memory over the Summer, but we have never talked.”

 

“You agreed to start off on a clean slate,” James countered, audibly frustrated. His hand almost went to his hair, but at the last second, he dropped it back onto his lap. “It’s our first night back, and you’ve already made up your mind again.”

 

“A ‘clean slate’ doesn’t mean we are friends.”

 

“No, it means you’d be open to giving me a chance.”

 

“I changed my mind.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because there is no such thing as a ‘clean slate’!” Lily exclaimed, losing the last bit of patience that she was willing to waste on such an argument. “I forgave you for what you did, but that doesn’t erase it from existence. If you want me to give you a chance, earn it.”

 

James opened his mind to retort, but nothing came out of it. He was frowning but didn’t look upset, only conflicted. Not that Lily cared what his facial expression wished to display. Instead of fixating on mindless details, she stood up and went for the stairs. There was no point in enduring this situation any longer; Mary must have fallen asleep already.

Notes:

4.6k words in one chapter? remarkable. Also, I really broke into their heads for this one and it'll probably stay that way for the rest of the story. Notice how Lily TOTALLY doesn't notice little things about James because why would she care? This is my favorite denial stage.

I wanted to clarify that I have no plans on making Mary part of the equation btw, it's just a bit of misdirection for Lily and Lily ONLY. And James's book was "The Death of Ivan Ilych" because I'm reading that right now and I feel like he'd enjoy it, also because it's the only short classic I could come up with right now lmao

Chapter 8: potions class

Regardless of how many times Lily would tend to sleep for fewer hours than recommended, she never truly got used to the exhaustion she would feel the next morning. Marlene had to be the one to wake her up, telling her to be quick so they could get breakfast. Lily dragged herself out of bed and went into the bathroom, using everything in her power not to blink for longer than five seconds. She took a very brisk shower, purposefully using colder water than usual in order to activate the totality of her brain. She wrapped herself in a towel and walked toward the mirror, remembering what she had done to herself that Summer.

 

In her defence, she hadn’t been in her best state of mind. It had happened one afternoon, after slamming the door on one undesirable visitor, that she immediately locked herself in the bathroom and broke down into a puddle of tears. It had been a long day of errands with her mom, reading in her dad’s room as he slept –lately, that was the only thing he did– and backhanded comments from Petunia and the nasty boy she kept bringing home. Severus’s visit was the last thing she needed that day, and the very thing she got. So she locked herself in the bathroom and cried, muffling the whimpers against one of the folded towels. When she stood and looked in the mirror, unable to recognise the thing looking back at her, but completely capable of realising how she hated it, a pair of scissors seemed to be the greatest temporary solution. After the deed had been done, it just worsened the problem. Petunia’s comments only doubled, if not tripled; her mom had gasped in surprise (and probably horror), and her dad had barely been able to recognise her. It was like walking straight into a nightmare.

 

Now here she was, staring at the mirror, trying to do the best with what she had left on her head. At least Josephine March would have been proud of her, if that helped. It did, a little. Just like Jo, her hair had always been her only beauty, only to go off and chop it off. At least Jo had done so for a noble reason. Lily was simply in a self-destructive streak. Mary and Marlene insisted she looked good, even cooler than before, but that’s what friends are supposed to say. It was unsurprising that James Potter quickly moved on after seeing her that day at Diagon Alley; anyone would have. Not that she cared what that boy thought. It was only an example.

 

That boy could hate her for all she cared. After what she had said the night before, he probably did. It wasn’t her fault that he always got on her nerves easily. Sometimes she even felt like he enjoyed needling with her, finding amusement in her anger. Although in this case, he had not done it on purpose, or Lily didn’t think so. Maybe she had been a bit harsher than necessary, losing her patience too quickly, but history showed that James Potter wasn’t deserving of her patience. And maybe she had told him that she’d look past said history, but it would take a memory charm to actually make her forget it. She didn’t control what she remembered; it was his fault for building such a poor track record in the first place.

 

He was trying to be nice and make conversation. Lily did shut him out rather harshly.

 

There was no point in dwelling on it; the chances of her ending up in yet a third situation where she was forced to interact with James were very slim, and she wouldn’t be doing it willingly. So the only thing left to say on the matter was: good riddance.

 

After breakfast, Transfiguration and History of Magic, it was time for the first Potions class of the year. The three girls in the back of the classroom, hoping that Professor Slughorn would take long enough to arrive to solve their predicament. Lily had always partnered up with Severus, which meant that Mary and Marlene partnered up with each other. Needless to say, Lily’s previous partner was no longer an option. They found themselves in quite a conundrum.

 

“I’m sure Slughorn would let you join us,” Marlene hypothesised, “I mean, you are obviously his favourite.”

 

“I think favouritism can only go so far,” Lily said, dragging her hands down her face in frustration. If only her best friend hadn’t turned out to be a bigoted prick, this wouldn’t be happening. In fact, a lot of things would have been better.

 

“Well, that’s the only solution I can conjure up at the moment,” Marlene crossed her arms, slightly offended by Lily’s quick dismissal of her idea.

 

Mary seemed thoughtful, looking around the room for any stray or lonely students. Everyone seemed to not only have a partner, but also had already picked their respective desks for the rest of the year. Lily noticed that Mary’s eyes stopped wandering, fixating on one specific spot in the room. Following her line of sight, Lily figured her life had to be some sort of comedy in which the writers had no mercy for the lead of their story.

 

Three boys, who usually came in a pack of four, were seemingly struggling with a similar dilemma as the girls. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they had made the fourth member bugger off to execute a proper prank on Lily. She would not take the bait for it, that was for sure. They hadn’t even noticed Lily’s lack of a partner, hence she could still make a run for it and change all of her life goals as she walked out of the classroom. Did she need to pass her N.E.W.Ts on Potions to become a Healer? Absolutely, but that would stop being a problem if she simply decided to take on a simpler job. Maybe she could be the new Hogwarts Express driver, if the train didn’t drive itself already. Maybe she could become Filch’s assistant; he’d probably love the benefits of magic when cleaning. Or maybe–

 

“Oi, James!” Mary yelled out, and almost the entirety of the class jumped and turned to look at her. Lily spent too much time thinking of future, totally viable careers, rather than actually executing her escape plan. Now James Potter had turned around and was smiling brightly, although a bit startled, at Mary.

 

“Yeah?” The boy asked. He was standing on the other side of the classroom, meaning that no part of this conversation was exactly hidden from all of their other classmates.

 

“Need a partner?”

 

“Desperately.”

 

“I’ll send reinforcements,” Mary said at last, before grabbing Lily’s shoulders and turning her around.

 

Mary looked at her pointedly, as if she were telepathically trying to make her understand the circumstances. Over breakfast, Lily’s refusal to go into detail about her conversation with James the night before only made Mary suspicious of the fact that something had gone wrong. She was right, of course, so Lily had thought that she would understand the impossibility of this solution. If anything, these suspicions were only making her try harder.

 

“Lils, it’s the only solution,” She explained rationally. Lily hated it when she wasn’t on the rational side of an argument.

 

“Why don’t you go?” Lily bounced back, feeling victorious when she saw Mary’s hesitation to respond.

 

“Well, Marlene and I already have some sort of system…”

 

Lily scoffed and rolled her eyes at the ridiculous response, her eyes landing on Marlene for support. “Bollocks.”

 

“Actually…” Marlene, the Traitor, said awkwardly.

 

“You are kidding me.”

 

“Lils,” the Traitor began, reasoning, “Potter always gets good marks in Potions, it can’t be that bad.”

 

“He probably just cheats off Remus or something.”

 

“He gets higher marks than Remus.”

 

That was true. She didn’t quite understand the logistics behind it, but it was true. She still remembered the time in her third year when James beat her for the highest mark. It did not help the growing grudge she was holding against him at the time. What if he mentioned it now? She did not want to slap one of her classmates, as she stood strongly against violence, but she would have no other choice but to do it. Then, they’d be sent to a furious Professor McGonagall, who seemed to have a weak spot for Potter despite everything, and Lily would get sent straight to the Headmaster, to be rightfully dealt with. Albus Dumbledore, the revered pacifist that he was, would make sure that such a violent girl as Lily Evans would never step into Hogwarts again. Could Mary and Marlene not see that partnering up with him would end in her ultimate expulsion from the Wizarding World? It was perfectly clear.

 

As Lily racked her brain desperately, searching for some sort of alternative that would not end in her assisting Argus Filch, Professor Slughorn finally arrived. He made his way to the front of the class, happily smiling at everybody before organising the things on his desk. She only had a minute to surrender before the class started, and Slughorn solved the problem for her, which could potentially be worse somehow. Followed by the Professor, the Slytherin students finally arrived, taking the rest of the available desks. Her eyes landed on a familiar face, who had already been staring at her.

 

He looked the same. Not that she expected him to change drastically in only two months, but it disturbed her how it came across like time stood still for him. His dark eyes still wore that pleading look she saw right before slamming the door. For only a second, she recognised her best friend. Everything was fine; she had just been waiting for him to arrive so they could partner up as always. Nobody could beat them at Potions, especially when stuck together. There was no reason not to stick together. He had said so himself: best friends, always.

 

Severus took one small and hesitant step toward her. She blinked.

 

No, they weren’t best friends. He had betrayed her. He had chosen his side of history, and it was something that Lily should not forgive. She wouldn’t. She knew he was sorry for what he said that afternoon by the lake, but that was only half of the problem. He had meant what he said, even if he did not mean to use it against her . He said it against others. He believed in blood purity. He believed that what Mulciber did to Mary was nothing. He believed that Dark magic was merely a toy to entertain himself with. Her only misconception when it came to Severus Snape is that he had actually been deserving of her friendship.

 

“Fine,” Lily muttered, breaking eye contact with Snape and walking over to the front of the class where James was seated, with her head held high.

 

James Potter wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She knew exactly what to expect from him. She didn’t expect the best, but at least there was no room for unpleasant surprises. So there she was, in yet a third situation in which she was forced to interact with James Potter. The universe was getting a real good laugh out of her.

 

“Evans,” James said once she had sat down beside him, surprise written all over his face. “Didn’t think that you would be the reinforcements.”

 

“Desperate times,” she shrugged.

 

“Right.”

 

That was it. Soon after, Slughorn began the class, oblivious to all the drama that simply choosing a desk had meant for his students. James remained quiet; he did not make any sort of attempt to talk to her. They each had a cauldron, so interaction was not entirely necessary yet, but Slughorn warned that as the year went on, the projects would warrant everybody working in their respective pairs. Lily decided not to stress about it; there was no use. Although James had not said a word to her in the entire duration of the class, he remained as restless as always. Either he kept bouncing his leg, or drumming his fingers on the table, or a maddening mix of both. Lily could have sworn that he had raised his hand to run it through his hair around fifteen times, but always changed his mind at the last second and went back to tapping the desk. She preferred it when he ran his hand through his hair. At least it was silent… and not entirely displeasing to the eye.

 

Once the class was over, Slughorn dismissed them, and Lily hurriedly picked up her things. She wasn’t running away from the boy beside her; she just wanted to catch up to Mary and Marlene, which she did. When she left the classroom, her two friends were standing there, waiting for her. Lily decided that it was enough of a gesture to forgive Marlene’s earlier betrayal.

 

“How’d it go?” Marlene, the Former Traitor, asked, with a playful smirk that Lily decided to ignore.

 

“It went fine ,” Lily admitted reluctantly, rolling her eyes.

 

“It went better than fine if he is coming back for seconds,” Mary pointed out as she giggled, looking right over Lily’s shoulder.

 

“Huh?” That was all Lily could manage to get out before feeling someone’s presence right behind her.

 

She sighed in defeat, already knowing who it was because of how amused her friends looked. Lily slowly turned around, eyes widening slightly as she noticed that the boy was standing a lot closer than she had expected. It was not exaggeratedly close, but half a meter was more proximity than she was used to. She could detail his eyes much better from there; even in the dungeons, they looked like honey. Damn him for winning the genetic lottery. There were plenty of people far more deserving.

 

“Can I talk to you for a second?” He asked rather shyly. He held her eye contact, but it looked like he was struggling to do so. It reminded her of the day they ran into each other in Diagon Alley. He raised his hand up to his face and pushed up one side of his glasses with his knuckle, accidentally tilting the other. Lily had the urge to reach up and put them correctly on his face, but decided against it. That was his cross to bear. She also realised that, by tracking all of his movements, she had forgotten to say anything back to him. She had been staring at him while he waited for a response. “I’ll just be a second.”

 

“Okay…” She muttered, only because curiosity got the best of her.

 

James nodded and stretched out his arm to the side, as if telling Lily to lead the way. So she did, going up the stairs to escape the mouldy air from the dungeons. They walked over to a corridor close by, which appeared to be quiet enough. James leaned on the wall while Lily crossed her arms, waiting for him to speak. He took the hint, a true miracle.

 

“I wanted to talk about last night,” James said, shoving his hands in his pockets. The way he decided to refer to the whole situation made it sound a lot more suggestive than it was. Lily didn’t think he had noticed this in his own choice of words, but some warmth flooded her cheeks nonetheless.

 

Lily had been harsh on him the night before; she had come to the conclusion that very morning. She didn’t exactly regret what she said, but the tone that she used could have definitely been less rough. She wasn’t planning to apologise for it, but she did not need to have an entire conversation about it. Therefore, she tried to cut it short. “Oh, I just needed some sleep, you don’t have to–”

 

“You were right.” She jerked her head back in surprise. It was odd listening to her three favourite words being spoken by James Potter, of all people, but that made it all the better.

 

Lily’s brain short-circuited, only being able to make a sound that was similar enough to: “Huh?”

 

“The fact that you forgave me doesn’t mean we are suddenly friends,” James shrugged.

 

Lily blinked. “Yeah… exactly.”

 

"The thing is,” he took a deep breath. Here was the catch. Here the world would go back to normal as soon as he opened his mouth and went back to being annoyingly dense. “I don’t really know how to talk to you, Evans.”

 

Confused didn’t even begin to describe how she was feeling. “You are doing a pretty decent job right now.”

 

“It’s weird when I’m not purposefully trying to bother you,” her theory had been proven correct. He did enjoy making her angry, which would have gotten on her nerves if she didn’t slightly agree with what he said. It was weird for them to have conversations, not the incessant fighting that served as the sole foundation of their dynamic over the years.

 

Maybe that’s why her first instinct was always so defensive. This interaction wasn’t an exception. “Let me get this straight,” Lily began, stepping into her comfort zone of attacking James Potter. “You can easily make conversation with a statue , but you can’t talk to me .”

 

He just nodded, chuckling slightly. Lily definitely did not blush because of it, why would she? “It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that, but yeah.”

 

“It is ridiculous.”

 

“Maybe, yes,” He pushed himself off the wall, taking two steps toward Lily. “I’m just trying to ask you for a small favour.”

 

“Which is…?”

 

“Go easy on me.”

 

“That’s it?”

 

“Yeah, just go easy on me,” James affirmed softly, a small smirk forming on his lips, but it wasn’t arrogant, just amused. Not that Lily could tell the difference. “I’m really trying here.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“Yeah…?”

 

Lily hesitated, giving it one last thought. It was an incredibly vague request, but also extremely simple. If he really was trying, this might as well be her side of the bargain. “Yeah.”

---

The sixth class. Not that he was keeping count —which he definitely was— but it was finally in the sixth Potions class when he stopped fearing the possibility of a heart attack because of Lily’s arrival at their desk. He hated sitting at the front of the class; it always reduced his creative liberties when seeking alternative methods of entertainment during a lecture. This year, he had decided that he didn’t care, because he was trying to be a bit more responsible, pay attention and stop messing around with Sirius every class. Hell, he might even earn more House points than he loses this year. He was turning a new leaf, or at least a slightly different one. He already got good marks, earned a decent amount of House points here and there, and his amount of time in detention had already gone down considerably as of fifth year.

 

But there he was, sitting at the front of the class, in plain sight for Slughorn to easily spot him doing anything but pay attention and work on his potion. If he were being honest, he had chosen this desk for Lily. Six Potions classes ago, when Mary had told him that she’d send ‘reinforcements,’ he had the slightest bit of hope that she had been talking about her red-headed friend. He knew that she liked sitting at the front of every class, so he chose that desk in order to make her feel a bit less miserable for having to partner up with him. Luckily, it hadn’t been in vain, since Lily had joined him after all. 

 

Back to the matter at hand, though. In the sixth class working together, James finally managed to get a grip on his heartbeat, making astounding progress in his mission to get over Lily Evans. It was also in this class that this progress was almost instantly lost, because when James turned around to greet his partner right as she sat down, she smiled at him. 

 

It wasn’t a full smile by any means, but it still succeeded at making him feel that nauseating and fluttery feeling that he had become so familiar with, despite the fact that it was always unwelcome. She had only pursed her lips, the corners lifting upwards and forming a soft expression that travelled all the way up to her eyes. Her eyes had narrowed slightly, a faint, unique sweetness behind them that James rarely ever got to see. James realised that he would be willing to spend his entire fortune in order to see her fully grinning back at him. He would probably die soon after, no longer needing the money anyway.

 

Far too quickly, Slughorn began the class. James was snapped back into reality, a reality in which he was on a mission to move on from a silly crush. A crush could only last so long. She had barely even smiled at him, and his mind had already floated away. He needed to stop that. He had to keep himself in check, or his plan would never work. He had to stick to the plan. Move on.

 

It was clear that Lily did not hate him, but he didn’t want to overstep and change that fact. Not-hate would suffice.

 

And so James kept doing exactly what he had been doing for the past five classes, keeping his distance. 

 

He bit his tongue every time his brain generated a funny comment, one that Sirius would have probably enjoyed. He tried his hardest not to mess with his hair, a habit that had proven to be more difficult to get rid of than he had initially imagined. One thing he couldn’t stop doing was handing Lily the ingredients for a potion at the exact moment she appeared to need them. It wasn’t because he could read her mind by any means; it was simply impossible for him not to track her every movement, so he always knew what step of the potion she was on. 

 

Other than that, James considered that he had been doing pretty well as her desk partner. No wonder he had earned a smile from her that day.

 

When the class ended, Lily shot him another small smile – Merlin, he hoped it would become part of their routine.

 

“See you, Potter,” she said, hurriedly picking up her things.

 

“See you, Evans,” James thought he deserved a prize for keeping his composure so well.

 

Lily, as always, rushed out of the classroom, and James, as always, let his eyes wander after her as she left. Once she was out of sight, his eyes landed on the last person he wanted to interrupt his thoughts about Lily Evans.

 

The greasy prat was staring daggers at him, probably hoping that he could make James vanish into thin air out of his willpower alone. James, the classy man that he had grown up to be, poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue to stop himself from laughing, smirked and shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. Somehow, Snape’s glare seemed to intensify. James knew it was wrong to keep trying to get a rise out of him, but it was just so easy. He could breathe a little too loudly, and Severus would want to kill him anyway, so he might as well have fun.

 

That had been enough, though. No need to pick on Snape and have it end like the last time, that afternoon by the lake. James decided to be the bigger person and go on with his day, but at the exact second that he was about to look away, he found Snape smirking back at him. Then, the greasy-haired boy turned around and left the classroom. Suddenly, it all stopped being funny.

 

James didn’t need anybody to explain to him what that boy was planning. He had to find Lily before Snape did.

 

“Oi!” Sirius exclaimed when James tried to pass right by them. “Where are you off to?”

 

“I need to go check on something.”

 

“All right, just hang on a minute,” Sirius started packing his things a bit faster, but James couldn’t wait.

 

“It has to be now .”

 

Sirius kept shoving things quickly into his bag, ignoring what James said. Remus, on the other hand, simply nodded and said, “We’ll see you at lunch.”

 

“Perfect,” James smiled at his friend and hurried out of the classroom before Sirius could go after him.

 

James walked into an empty corridor and took out the map. It was their newest accomplishment, that map. It hadn’t been designed for these occasions, but it turned out to be incredibly useful anyway. His eyes went straight to the dungeons, scanning frantically to find her name. The intensity of Snape’s glare came back to him in a flash; there was no possible way that he meant no harm. James had caused Snape to hurt Lily once already, that afternoon by the lake; he refused to allow it again.

 

He found the floating name, ‘ Lily Evans ’, currently being backed into an empty corner of the dungeons by ‘ Severus Snape ’. Again, there was no possible way that he meant no harm. James ran over. Once he started to get closer, he slowed down by the sound of Lily’s voice. A voice he could recognise anywhere.

 

“I already have a partner,” she said dryly.

 

James had three options. First, he could walk away and trust that Snape would not hurt her, as if he would ever trust that twat. Second, he could walk away because Lily was perfectly capable of defending herself from such an average duellist, such as Snivellus. Lastly, he could stick around and jump in if he heard the fight intensify. If the discussion remained calm, he would just leave. The third option, obviously, seemed like the most promising one, especially since he now felt the need to know the context of Lily’s statement.

 

“I noticed,” Snape replied just as dryly, if not more. “Look, just because you don’t want to talk to me doesn’t mean you have to put yourself through the pain of talking with that twat .”

 

“I’m talking to a twat right now and I’m doing just fine.”

 

“Lily, come on,” Severus’s tone changed into something James had never heard. Was it soft? Or maybe pleading? It sounded wrong in such an awful voice. “We don’t have to talk; we’ll keep it strictly professional.”

 

“And what? Potter partners up with Mulciber ?” James jumped at the mention of his name.

 

“Why does that matter?”

 

“I don’t want one of our classmates killing another because I didn’t want to stick with my partner.”

 

“I’m serious, Lily, we work great as a team, despite everything else.”

 

‘ Despite everything else ,’ he said. The nerve on that greasy-haired, self-pitying boy. How could he dismiss everything that was wrong with him as ‘everything else’? Like it should only be an afterthought. Like he didn’t betray Lily’s trust in front of half the school.

 

“I don’t want to be your partner,” Lily’s voice turned cold, and James could easily imagine what expression her face was wearing.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I can’t stand talking to you,” James thought she was off to a good start. “Because you chose to be partners with Mulciber, of all people. Because I am not gonna ditch Potter because someone, who I don’t even want to look at, asked me to. Because I, unlike you, mean the things I say, so if I told him I’m gonna be his partner, I will be.”

 

He wished he could have captured those words in a bottle and kept them forever. Maybe a Howler could work, but he doubted that Lily would be willing to repeat them.

 

“Since when did you become so loyal to Potter ?” Severus asked, a slight tone of disgust in his voice that made James not know if he was insulted or weirdly proud. Either way, Snape had finally asked a decent question.

 

“It’s not about him, Severus,” definitely not the answer James had hoped, but the one he should have expected. “I know loyalty is a foreign concept to you, but–”

 

“Potter doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

 

“And, apparently, I didn’t deserve yours.”

 

Severus stuttered. “That’s not… You aren’t… You aren’t listening to me!”

 

“I don’t want to listen to you!” The conversation was leaving the safe state of calm. “I don’t even want to look at you, but my wishes rarely ever come true,” Lily exclaimed at last. James heard a few footsteps approaching and panicked; he had not thought of the part where he needed to hide. The steps stopped abruptly, followed by a gasp.

 

“Lily, don’t go,” Severus asked pathetically.

 

“Let go of me,” Lily demanded between gritted teeth.

 

He had grabbed her. He wasn't letting her go. This was the dangerous territory that James had specifically come to prevent. So he went back into character, shoving his hands in his pockets, along with the map, and walking casually toward the fighting pair. He turned the corridor and cleared his throat. Severus, who indeed had taken hold of her arm, let go of her and stepped back in surprise. On the other hand, Lily rolled her eyes at James’s arrival.

 

He played the part. “Am I interrupting something?”

 

“Yes,” Snivellus replied a bit too quickly, as if James even cared about his response anyway.

 

“I guess there’s no way to split this dynamic duo, huh?” James lazily leaned on the wall, wearing his well-practised, over-confident smirk that always worked to get on Snape’s nerves.

 

“Potter, can’t you push ‘being insufferable’ a bit later into your schedule?” Lily, who had smiled at him a few minutes ago, had also snapped right back into her usual disdain for him.

 

“Nah, I’m all booked up after this.”

 

“How is it that you don’t float away with all the air occupying your brain?”

 

“Pure magic, Evans. We are wizards after all, anything is possible.”

 

“Anything except getting rid of you.”

 

“Lucky you.”

 

Although Lily opened her mouth to retort, Snape was quicker, rudely interrupting her. The nerve on this guy. “What do you want ?”

 

“Thanks for asking, Snivellus,” James said, in the same cadence a Professor would use on a student. He stepped away from the wall in order to make himself look taller. It was always a good thing to remind your rivals of. “I actually wanted to borrow Evans from you.”

 

“We were in the middle of a conversation.”

 

“Actually,” Lily was quick to correct him, “we were done talking.”

 

“Perfect,” James forced a smile as he turned to look back at Severus. “Run along then. I’d hate to keep you third-wheeling.”

 

Snape’s jaw tightened, struggling to fight back the urge to call James every bloody name in the book. James kept smiling at him, as condescendingly as he could manage. Severus looked at Lily, expecting her to say something.

 

“Go, Severus,” the girl said, with not one bit of patience left.

 

He scoffed in disbelief. “Fine.”

 

With one last hateful look at James, Severus stomped off. James took that moment, as they waited for him to leave, to inspect Lily. She seemed annoyed, not necessarily upset, which was a good sign. He hadn’t been able to tell how aggressively that git had grabbed her arm, but she didn’t rub it, or even pretend to hide a bruise. She put her hands on her hips and looked at him impatiently. James thought of checking the map to make sure that Severus was really gone, but there was no possible way for him to hide that from Lily. He decided it didn’t matter if that prat listened to them or not.

 

“Are you all right?” He asked, needing to be completely sure. He didn’t intend to stay there much longer, wanting to stick to his plan of maintaining distance.

 

Rather aggressively, Lily rolled her eyes. “What do you want?”

 

“Nothing, really,” he was a bit surprised by the unpleasant reaction, confused if anything.

 

“What?”

 

“I was just bored, Evans,” he lied, because it was easier than going into detail as to why he got so worried. It was easier than having to admit that he cared a lot about her, even if she didn’t want to be friends with him. It was easier than having to explain that he had purposefully gotten on Severus’s nerves yet again, and that he feared it would spiral into a similar situation to last time. It was just easier to tell a small lie; he didn’t think it would matter anyway.

 

Judging from how quickly Lily’s face turned stone cold, he realised that it did , in fact, matter. “So you went back to your favourite game? Torturing Severus?”

 

“Technically, I was bothering you …” He couldn’t help himself; he knew talking like that would make it worse, but he couldn’t stop. It felt comfortable. It was like walking through the Forbidden Forest; at first glance, it seemed dangerous, but at this point, he knew his way around. Lily being upset with him was just another day to him, even if he felt miserable because of it. It was so easy to fall back on something so familiar.

 

“Why?”

 

“You see, I’m just madly in love with you, I can’t have Snivellus stealing you away.”

 

“Get a new joke,” Lily spat before walking right past him, bumping his shoulder. James wasn’t used to this. She usually stood her ground. He had hurt her feelings this time, and now she was walking away, and he was the biggest git on the entire planet.

 

He caught up to her easily, walking by her side and matching her speed. “Come on, Evans–”

 

“I don’t know what kind of satisfaction you are getting from trying to make me feel miserable, but that doesn’t work on me!” She exclaimed, walking even faster.

 

“I was not trying to make you miserable!” James replied helplessly.

 

Lily stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him. She was both frustrated and angry. “Then, what do you want ?”

 

“I wanted to help!”

 

“ Help ?”

 

“I saw him going after you when the class ended. I figured he’d end up being trouble.”

 

Lily rolled her eyes so far back that James wondered if she saw the inside of her own head.“My saviour.”

 

“I was not that far off, though.”

 

“I don’t need you helping me, Potter! In fact, I don’t want you helping me.”

 

“I know that, I’m not stupid,” she didn’t get it. He knew that she didn’t need help, but that didn’t mean that people didn’t care enough to still try to. She didn’t get that the last thing he wanted to do was underestimate her. Maybe his execution had been poor, but she seemed to think that he was always out to get her. Nothing he ever did would make her think otherwise. No plan would ever work. Whether he tried to change her mind or not, Lily Evans would never come around.

 

“You are great at acting like it.”

 

“I’m great at many things.”

 

She shook her head, incredulous. “So much for a bloody clean slate, huh?”

 

This time, when Lily walked away, he didn’t follow.

---

Even hours after it happened, Lily couldn’t shake the anger off her shoulders. She kept replaying the scene in her head, remembering how easily he had snapped back into the cruel and arrogant James Potter that she always knew would make a return. The smirk, the fake smile, calling Severus names, the vile humour, everything returned so quickly that Lily felt like it had never left. She had been foolish to think he had actually been trying to change; it was only their second week back at Hogwarts. The first chance he got to be his worst self, and he took it. And to believe that there was a small instance when she was willing to believe he had actually been worried about her.

 

The only way to explain why she decided to do the following was that she had stored up too much anger, and this was the best way to let it out. Besides, the anger was caused by him, so it made sense he’d be on the receiving end of this. He deserved it.

 

She stood up and walked over to where he was sitting in the Common Room, a couch near the fireplace, surrounded by Sirius, Remus and Peter, as always. She ignored them, fixating solely on James.

 

“Stop calling him that,” she stated. He jumped at the sound of her voice. He had been so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice her approaching. The other three boys turned around as well, sharing a look of confusion amongst themselves.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Severus.”

 

James sighed, realisation kicking in. “Hold on.”

 

He stood up, turning to his friends for a second. He faced away from Lily to do so, hence why she couldn’t tell what he did, but the three boys just nodded and kept on with whatever they had been doing beforehand. James turned back around to Lily, placing his hand gently on the small of her back to lead her to an empty corner of the Common Room. She definitely did not notice how warm his hand was, or the weird sensation she felt when he finally removed it.

 

He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, tired. “You want me to stop calling him… Snivellus?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“He’s a prat , Evans,” James said, like that was a sufficient and rational excuse for it.

 

“Calling him names doesn’t make you much different.”

 

James blinked. He appeared to be thinking of something to respond, but was struggling. Finally, he said, “Okay, fine.”

 

“Fine…?” She had not expected it to be so simple.

 

“Yeah, you made a good argument, so I agreed.”

 

“Great.”

 

Lily had expected the usual fight, the usual struggle to get one word of hers to enter through that thick skull of his. Instead of letting Lily have one thing , he decided to finally remove the tag from that brain of his and finally wear it. Neither of them moved, though. So many things were being left unsaid that it was difficult to pick one.

 

“I didn’t need help,” was the option that Lily picked. James’s jaw tightened slightly. Finally, the reaction she had hoped for.

 

“You made that perfectly clear.”

 

“I was perfectly capable of handling that situation; it wasn’t even a situation .”

 

“I know that.”

 

“Then, why did you feel the need to meddle?”

 

He sighed again. “I wanted to make sure that nothing happened, Evans.”

 

Lily scoffed. “Touching.”

 

“That,” James pointed his finger at her like a lawyer would point at the evidence in a courtroom. “Why are you always so determined to assume that I have the worst intentions?”

 

“Maybe because the way you handle things makes it hard to believe that you meant well.”

 

“If you think so lowly of me, you might as well take up Snape’s offer and partner up with him.”

 

“So being my knight in shining armour gives you the right to listen in on my conversations?”

 

“Does being insufferable give you the right to selective listening?”

 

“Look,” Lily began,” just because you are on this weird quest of being nice to me doesn’t mean that–”

 

“I’m not on a quest –” James interrupted, but she ignored him with ease, refusing to let him stop her from expressing her point.

 

“-gives you the right to police my every move–”

 

“That’s such an unfair–”

 

“-because you want to come strutting in like some hero–”

 

“I do not strut.”

 

“-when the biggest danger I was facing was a distasteful conversation!” She finished her point. James ran a hand through his hair.

 

“You were in a desolate hallway in the dungeons with a blood purist, don’t act like it’s irrational to imagine the worst.”

 

“Severus is harmless.”

 

“You trust him a lot for someone with his track record.”

 

“ You want to talk about track records?”

 

“You aren’t even friends anymore. Why are you defending him?”

 

“And we were never friends, so why don’t you mind your bloody business?” Lily exclaimed at last. She felt a few heads turning nearby, but the only thing she noticed was how upset James looked. He was not angry; instead, he seemed hurt. This was odd.

 

“Fine, I will.” He slid past her, with not even one last quick glance, and went back to join his friends on the couch.

 

Lily turned around, her eyes instantly falling on the familiar face of her blonde friend. Marlene was staring at her, wide-eyed; she clearly witnessed the entire exchange with James. Lily was grateful that Mary wasn’t sitting with her, because that would have meant that an interrogation would take place. Instead, Lily simply shook her head, and Marlene sent her an apologetic smile before going back to her reading. 

Lily went up to her dorm. She just needed to scream into her pillow and everything would be fine.

Notes:

this chapter was almost 6k words?? damn. it's always one step forward and three steps back with these two. i promise it'll get a lot better soon. it's a bit my fault because i like to write their fights, hence the entire premise of this fic lmao. this is the lowest point they will be reaching for now

by the way, you can follow me on Tumblr because i have started posting occasional snippets of new chapters over there. you can find me as @lovelystag :)

Chapter 9: quidditch try-outs

She entered the Great Hall, already furious. Her glare at James was so intense that he must have felt it the second she arrived, because he turned around almost instantly. Mary and Lily were trying their best to walk at the same pace as their blond and enraged friend, but it proved to be incredibly difficult.

 

A few minutes before, they had been leaving the Common Room to go get some breakfast when Marlene’s gaze landed on the board of announcements right before they stepped through the portrait of the Fat Lady. Her expression went ice cold, she tore a piece of paper from the board and quickly left the Common Room, an almost murderous look in her eyes. After exchanging a quick look, Mary and Lily rushed after her.

 

At the Great Hall, Marlene made her way to the spot where the four boys had been calmly eating their breakfast –now they just stared at her with mild fear, but her eyes fixated on only one of them. She slammed the piece of paper beside his plate, startling them all.

 

“Potter, what is this rubbish.” It was probably supposed to be a question, but that’s not how it came across. Lily finally got to read the infamous announcement, which read: ‘If you want to be a chaser or a beater, come this weekend (Sept 18th and 19th, at 2:00 p.m) to the Gryffindor Quidditch Team try-outs!’ Instead of clarifying, this only confused Lily more.

 

Just as confused as her, James Potter replied, “The announcement for the Quidditch Team try-outs?”

 

“You are trying for beaters,” Marlene stated, and it all clicked together. Marlene had been a beater during their fifth year alongside Henry Fernsby, who was now a seventh-year student. The previous Captain, Abbott, had kept Marlene at the bench for the entirety of the Cup, but at the final game, he finally gave her a chance to play. She was an amazing player, if Lily could say so herself. 

 

“Well, yeah..?”

 

Marlene took the seat beside James, her mood only worsening. Mary sat beside Remus, right across from Marlene, grabbing a plate and serving herself with some breakfast, as if no fight was taking place at all. Lily hesitantly sat beside Mary, dreading the fact that her friends would probably end up staying there for the rest of the meal.

 

“You approached me in Diagon Alley to tell me that, since you were named Captain, you needed to make sure I’d be on the team.”

 

“I remember.”

 

“And now you are making me try out?” Marlene spat, as if this were the greatest insult to her obvious talent. James’s lips twitched, almost forming into a smirk, before he kept himself in check.

 

“It’s only protocol, McKinnon, you are probably gonna get it anyway,” he said as he turned back to his food.

 

“PROBABLY?” The blonde yelled, indignant. Several startled students turned around to look at them. 

 

“This is just fantastic,” Sirius Black said, grinning brightly at his breakfast, clearly enjoying the chaos surrounding him. James shot him a nasty look.

 

“Listen,” James turned to Marlene, giving up on the idea of calmly eating his breakfast. “Fernsby said that, since you only played one official game, which we almost lost because a loose bludger nearly hit me, I should open my mind to other options.”

 

The girl’s eyes widened in shock, frustration and, still, rage. “We almost lost because Fernsby was distracted, not me! Why would you listen to him?”

 

“He has longevity.”

 

“The only reason he has lasted so long on the team was because he was friends with Abbott!”

 

“I know you are a great beater, McKinnon,” he said calmly, “Trying out doesn’t mean you are out of the team. I just want to give everyone a fair shot.”

 

Marlene took a deep breath, the compliment helping her slightly. “Fine,” she gave in. “But if some of the other contenders end up injured after my trial, I will not be taking responsibility.”

 

James snorted. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

 

That was as close as Lily got to another interaction with James Potter for the rest of the week. Not only did he keep his distance, but she was pretty sure that he was actively avoiding her. Soon after that discussion with Marlene, he excused himself and left the Great Hall, food remaining on his plate. There was even one night where Lily entered the Common Room and he was already halfway up the stairs, as if he had a way of knowing that she was approaching his vicinity.

 

The only thing he wasn’t able to escape were the Potions classes. Instead, he completely ignored Lily’s existence. He didn’t greet her with a shy smile. He stopped handing her the exact ingredients that she needed, which she had always thought was incredibly unnecessary, but still found it rather sweet. He even stopped fidgeting during class, something that Lily had imagined to be impossible, and was fairly convinced that it took him great amounts of effort to accomplish. He started leaving the classroom before her, making her realise that he had always waited for her to leave first.

 

Needless to say, she felt bad. A while after screaming into her pillow that Friday night, following their fight, she started to calm down. As the rage wore off, clarity flooded her senses. He hadn’t deserved what she said to him. She stood by the fact that his help was in no way necessary, but that didn’t erase the fact that he did help anyway.

 

James hadn’t done anything to her. If anything, based on their past interactions, he had been trying to be friendly. He wanted to be her friend, and she had shut him down time and time again. For the past year, Lily had been rejecting James Potter for sport.

 

Not that it wasn’t justified, at least mostly. During their fifth year, he may have asked her out a couple of times before the afternoon by the lake. She turned him down because of incredibly logical reasons. First, she did not fancy him. Second, he had given her no reason to believe that he wasn’t the arrogant toerag that she believed him to be. Third, she was unwilling to be the butt of one of his cruel jokes. Recently, though, he had not been asking her out on dates; he was just attempting to talk to her. How could becoming her friend turn out to be a prank of some kind? There was very little room for possibility for him to have an alternative agenda other than… befriending her.

 

James saw Severus go after her, so he followed. He wasn’t going to follow otherwise, and she realised that because he hadn’t gone after her on any other day. Only the time that Snape had done so too.

 

You were in a desolate hallway in the dungeons with a blood purist, don’t act like it’s irrational to imagine the worst, he had told her.

 

Lily knew Severus was harmless, but why would James Potter assume the same? He was right. Severus was nothing but another blood-supremacist Slytherin, at least as far as James was concerned.

 

Why was she always so quick to assume the worst about James? A survival instinct, she supposed, but at this point it proved to be useless. Lily had built those walls to keep herself safe from harm’s way, but it was ridiculous to protect herself from the boy who had gone out of his way to make sure she was okay. Even if she had never been in any danger, he didn’t know that. He acted on that uncertainty, and she yelled at him for it. Brilliant.

 

It was on Thursday night when she finally mentioned this to someone. She was patrolling with Remus around the second floor. She liked walking with him. They could either talk or remain silent, and it would be equally enjoyable. He always seemed so calm and put together; she hoped that someday it would become contagious.

 

“Did you do much this Summer?” Remus asked a while after patrolling even began.

 

“Nothing much,” Lily lied with a shrug. Remus raised a suspicious eyebrow at her.

 

“You changed your hair, for starters…” He noted, mentioning it as if it were the ultimate evidence to prove his case. She instinctively grabbed her hair, now just below shoulder-length, as if making sure that it was still as short as she remembered.

 

“Er… Yeah,” Lily replied, “I just needed some sort of drastic change.”

 

“Well, it looks nice.”

 

“Thanks,” Lily said as a reflex. Why did everybody feel obligated to lie to her? Not everyone was destined to be beautiful, and she was willing to gracefully take that role. Still, she appreciated the intentions. “What about your Summer?”

 

“More of the same,” Remus shrugged. “I spent a few days at the Potter Estate, but that’s what I do most Summers anyway–”

 

“Potter Estate?” She interrupted, unable to hold in her disbelief.

 

“...Yeah?” The boy replied carefully, narrowing his eyes like when you are expecting something to burst.

 

“Of course he has a bloody mansion, doesn’t he?”

 

“...No?”

 

Lily scoffed incredulously. Before she could help herself, she found herself muttering, “I just don’t get it.”

 

“Get what?”

 

“Never mind.”

 

“Lily.”

 

She sighed. “I just don’t get why you are friends with him, that’s all.”

 

“Oh,” Remus raised his eyebrows with mild surprise. He remained silent, pushing her to keep talking and elaborate. She figured it was only fair.

 

“I know it’s not my place,” she began, “and you’ve been friends with him for a lot longer than you’ve been friends with me, but you are just so…”

 

Lily let her voice trail off, which only managed to pique the boy’s interest. “I’m just so… What?”

 

“Nice.”

 

“And James isn’t?”

 

“He can be, on rare occasions… But, usually, he isn’t”

 

Remus snorted as he shook his head. “You’ve got him all wrong.”

 

“Doubt it.”

 

At Lily’s dismissive comment, Remus stopped walking. He was frowning at her, with narrowed and suspicious eyes. Lily, who had kept walking for a moment longer, stepped in front of him.

 

“Why are you so committed to hating his guts?” His tone wasn’t indignant or defensive, simply curious. As if he knew that there was an ulterior motive to this conversation. He was right after all.

 

“I am not!” It wasn’t a lie, per se. She didn’t want to hate James, but at a point where guilt was getting the best of her, she wasn’t very willing to hear his best friend tell her about how great he was. It was her fault for deviating the conversation into this topic. Somehow, for reasons unbeknownst to her, her mind would always wind up on the topic of James Potter. She was no fan of it.

 

“Mhm,” he hummed unconvincingly.

 

Lily gave in with the little pressure applied to her. “We had a fight.”

 

This only confused Remus even further. “All right, what else is new?”

 

“What’s new is that,” it pained her to admit out loud, “I think I was wrong.”

 

He blinked.

 

“What?”

 

“There’s no way I just witnessed Lily Evans admitting she was wrong,” Lily shoved his arm, laughing as they started walking once more.

 

“Piss off.”

 

“Or admitting to James Potter being right.”

 

“Enough,” Lily said through her laugh. After a beat of silence, while Remus processed the new information that somehow seemed to fascinate him, she had to ask, “Did he not tell you about it?”

 

“He usually keeps quiet about this sort of stuff,” he replied with a shrug. “He has been acting a bit odd since the weekend.”

 

“That’s not funny.”

 

“I wish I were kidding.”

 

“The point is,” Lily went on, trying not to dwell on how affected by everything James appeared to be, “that I just wanted to know if it was worth feeling bad about.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Do I what?”

 

“Feel bad.”

 

“Well,” it also pained her to admit this out loud, “yes, actually, I do.”

 

Remus pondered for a moment. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he appeared to be debating whether or not he should say anything at all. Conflict of interests, Lily supposed.

 

At last, he spoke. “Want my advice?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Apologise,” Remus stated simply.

 

“I can’t just… Apologise…”

 

“Do you feel sorry for whatever happened?”

 

“Don’t make me admit it again.”

 

“So, apologise.”

 

“It’s not that easy.”

 

“Being proud isn’t gonna solve any problem for you.”

 

“Gee, thanks.”

 

“You are welcome.” 

 

It wasn’t until Lily finally agreed to apologise that the subject was dropped. So, she spent a great part of her Friday thinking about what she could possibly say. Remus was right, being proud would not do her any favours, but apologies had never been her greatest strength, no matter the person she had wronged. Last time she was in this situation, Mary had yelled at her for several minutes. Lily hoped this time it would not turn out that way.

 

One of the very few things that she was certain about when it came to James Potter was that flying on a broom always made his mood inexplicably better. Lily planned to use this to her advantage. Therefore, she decided that it would be best to do it after the Quidditch try-outs were over. It was merely strategic.

 

Around three in the afternoon, on Saturday, she headed to the Quidditch pitch, preparing herself psychologically for what was to come. It was on Sunday that the beaters would be trying out, which Lily purposefully avoided. Marlene didn’t want her friends to watch her trial, and Lily didn’t want her friends to know anything about this rather shameful situation. It worked out for both of them.

 

As she approached the pitch, she noticed that the try-outs were far from over. Lily had assumed that one hour would have sufficed, but apparently, there were a lot of contenders for the chaser position on the team. This is something that Lily did not even try to understand. She went up the stands, hoping not to be spotted by the Quidditch Captain, greatly regretting the decision not to bring her book.

 

“I must have gone mad,” a voice said from above her. “Is Lily Evans interested in Quidditch all of a sudden?”

 

Lily looked up to find Sirius Black on his broom, hovering just above her. Brilliant. “You know, Gryffindor pride and all that.”

 

“It could be that, or,” the boy smoothly got off from his broom, taking a seat beside her, “you are on the active mission of making the Captain jump from the Astronomy Tower.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Sirius went on, ignoring her indignance, or maybe even enjoying it. “I don’t care if you like the bloke or not, but at this point it’s driving me insane.”

 

“I’m sorry my personal affairs are such an inconvenience to you.”

 

“I appreciate your apology,” he said, always using the disinterested and mocking tone that he was a master at. “Although it was a tad too sarcastic for my liking.”

 

“Too bad,” Lily forced a smile, “will you fuck off now?”

 

“I’m afraid not.”

 

“Don’t you have some try-outs to attend to?”

 

“I’m not trying out. I’m keeping James company.”

 

“If that were true, you’d be all the way over there,” Lily pointed vaguely to where James was currently standing in the pitch, “and leaving me alone.”

 

“That would make talking to you a bit difficult, no?”

 

“A shame.”

 

Sirius snorted, stood up and crossed his arms. After a moment or two, he turned to her, his perpetual smirk suddenly gone. “Stop making James your punching bag.”

 

Lily raised her eyebrows, both offended and surprised. “What could possibly make you think–”

 

“Stop calling him that”, Sirius recalled her words from last Friday, doing a rather poor impression of Lily with a high-pitched voice and twirling his hair. This only annoyed her further.

 

“Your point being?” She asked dryly.

 

“You confronted him when he did nothing to deserve being confronted.”

 

“I don’t know what version of the story he told you, but–”

 

“He didn’t tell me!” Sirius exclaimed impatiently. “Which only means that he’s feeling like absolute shit, and I know it’s because of whatever you two talked about that night.”

 

“How come you assume that I’m in the wrong?”

 

“Because James wouldn’t let a week go by without saying he’s sorry.”

 

“Leave me alone, Black.” Lily stood up, unwilling to get yelled at for something she was already planning to apologise for. She started walking away, but Sirius followed closely.

 

“Leave him alone, Evans,” he kept ranting. “I don’t know where you get off coming to his first day as Quidditch Captain trying to throw him off, or remind him about how awful he’s been feeling, or whatever mind-fuckery you plan on doing, but I’m not putting up with it.”

 

“I’m not planning anything!” She cried out, turning around to face the boy. He was unfazed.

 

“So you came here because you are a passionate fanatic of Quidditch?” 

 

“I came here to apologise!”

 

Sirius frowned, opening his mouth to respond but closing it back up. He tilted his head as he processed, in a very dog-like manner. He narrowed his eyes at her, suspicious. “Really?”

 

“Yes,” she rolled her eyes, “really.”

 

“Hm,” he hummed. “Well, sorry about all that, then.”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t like seeing him so miserable, that’s all,” Sirius shrugged, as if that justified his erratic behaviour. Lily, on her path to forgiveness, realised that she, too, was somewhat impulsive when making her judgment on people.

 

“That’s fine, I suppose," Lily said, still feeling the whiplash from his change of tone.

 

“Let’s watch the try-outs, then,” he walked back toward their previous seats, and lazily waved her over. “Are you coming or not?”

 

“Why would I sit with you?”

 

“Beats sitting alone, doesn’t it?”

 

So they sat there in silence for the following hour, sharing each other’s presence. To say that Lily enjoyed it would be an exaggeration, but she didn’t hate it half as much as she had expected. Sirius Black was someone whom she always found extremely confusing. He always kept everyone around him on their toes –everyone except his three closest friends. How he managed to keep those three boys by his side is something she would not understand, but the more she thought about those four, the fewer things would make sense.

 

One thing that she had noticed about them was how undeniably loyal they were to each other. They were all basically glued together. Sirius himself, who always tried to keep a disinterested persona, was the one to confront Lily to defend James. Almost a year ago, Lily had fought with James because he refused to let her believe that Sirius Black was a psychopath.

 

He had almost killed Severus, yet James defended him. She remembered what Sirius had told her back then, when he explained his motives.

 

“I didn’t want him to die,” Sirius said impatiently. “It’s just… he was getting worryingly close to finding out about something he shouldn’t know.

 

Now, Lily wondered what that ‘something’ could have been. It probably was another of the secrets those boys kept amongst themselves. Secrets that they kept to their graves. Secrets that Severus was probably very close to uncovering. Not that it excused attempted murder, but it lined up with the few things she knew about them. They were loyal. That was undeniable.

 

When the Quidditch pitch finally cleared, Sirius and Lily walked over to James, who was picking up the equipment and brooms they had used. He felt them approaching and looked up, his gaze instantly landing on Lily. Just as quickly, he looked away, but she noticed his jaw tighten ever so slightly.

 

“I’ll meet you at dinner, Prongs,” Sirius said, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head pointedly toward Lily. James hummed, in a tone resembling agreement, and Sirius turned around and left.

 

Lily stood awkwardly in front of James, who was fixated on the equipment that he was very slowly picking up from the grass. Her heart was beating hard enough to carve a hole in her chest. She took a deep breath. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what grounds she wanted to cover with this conversation, but she had never thought of what to say to start.

 

“Marlene didn’t come today because the beaters try out tomorrow,” James broke the silence, his tone ice cold. He never did well with silence, Lily noticed, even when he was faced with the person he wanted to talk to the least.

 

“She might have mentioned it a couple of times,” she replied, shifting her weight from her left foot to her right.

 

James straightened up to his full height, crossed his arms, and finally looked her in the eye. “What are you doing here, then?”

 

“I wanted to clear the air.”

 

“I’m not in the mood.”

 

“Come on, Potter–”

 

“I don’t get you, Evans,” he stated with exasperation. “You don’t want to be friends with me. You don’t want to talk to me. You always expect the worst from me. Why would you possibly want to clear the air?”

 

“I changed my mind.”

 

“You didn’t, and you won’t!” He cried out. “I know you won’t change your mind because I’ve already done everything I could think of, and you still hate me!”

 

“I don’t hate you!”

 

James ignored her. “I stopped myself from talking in class, from messing with my hair, from playing with my bloody Snitch. I stopped trying to approach you altogether and, somehow, I still get on your nerves!”

 

“You didn’t need to do all those things, Potter.”

 

“I give up, Evans!” He uncrossed his arms, dropping them in defeat. “Think whatever you want, it’s beyond me.”

 

Everything Lily had planned to say was well-forgotten, deep in the back of her brain. She was left alone to fend for herself, with whatever she could improvise to say. “Two weeks ago, you said that you didn’t know how to talk to me without starting a fight.”

 

“I did.”

 

“Me neither,” she took a deep breath. “We are in the same House, so it’s impossible to evade the other; our friends keep befriending each other, and we are Potions partners. We keep ending up pushed together, and I think the logical way to handle it is by finding some common ground.”

 

He stayed silent for a moment, looking at her incredulously. For only a second, Lily thought that it had been enough, that this whole problem would be a matter of the past. Until James scoffed. “So you want to talk things out to make your life easier? I’m touched.”

 

“Potter-”

 

“I mean, truly touched,” he didn’t let her speak, every word he spoke dripping with sarcasm. “Merlin, for a second there, I thought you cared about my feelings, but thankfully I was mistaken.”

 

He shook his head in disbelief, grabbed some brooms that were on the grass and put them on his shoulder. He turned around and started walking off. This couldn’t be the end of the conversation. She had to do this. She was able to apologise; she had to be.

 

“I’m sorry!” She yelled out, and the boy stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. “I’m sorry for making you feel like you had to change all those unimportant things for me to even tolerate you. And for always expecting the worst from you. And for making you feel like an arse for only trying to help me.”

 

Lily felt breathless. James stared at her, his expression unreadable. It was disturbing, especially for a bloke who always wore his heart on his sleeve. He never had any control over his facial expressions, a quality she now missed. She decided to keep on going.

 

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I’ve had a whole lot of shit going on, and I accidentally ended up using you as a punching bag, and that wasn’t fair.”

 

James –not that Lily noticed, or cared–also seemed a bit breathless. “...It wasn’t,” he said, almost to himself.

 

“I know.”

 

James looked to the side, his jaw loosening. He sighed. “I’m sorry for listening to your conversation with Snape; I should have minded my business.”

 

“You had the right intentions.”

 

“I’m also sorry for being so insufferable for so long that you had such low expectations for me.”

 

“As long as you keep proving me wrong, you are off the hook,” Lily said, in a lighter tone. James’s lips formed into an involuntary, amused smirk.

 

He let out a huff of air, which Lily didn’t notice he was holding, and hesitantly stretched out his hand. A peace offering. Finally.

 

Lily shook his hand. It was warm, that’s the first thing she noticed. He had a firm grip and, for some reason, she felt a buzzing sensation all the way up to her face, which was probably now redder than she would like. 

 

“...Friends?” Lily asked shyly. James jerked his head back, his hand frozen midair.

 

“What?”

 

If she hadn’t been blushing before, she definitely was now. “I just… I wanted to know why you end up with such loyal friends.”

 

James narrowed his eyes at her, reading right through the lie, but he smiled nonetheless. “We’d be friends for research purposes?”

 

“Yep, that is all,” Lily nodded, fighting back a smile of her own.

 

“All right, I’ll allow it,” James said, letting go of her hand. A sensation that she did not mind at all, whatsoever, not even remotely. “I’ll warn you that I’m dangerously charming, so you might become obsessed with me.”

 

Lily scoffed at him. “I think I’m fairly immune to your charms, Potter.”

 

“You crush my heart, Evans,” he feigned hurt, placing his hand dramatically on his chest. Lily bit back a laugh.

 

“Well, I gotta…” She pointed vaguely to the castle, signalling that it was time for her to go. He nodded a bit too quickly.

 

“Right, yeah…” James said. He pointed toward the Quidditch equipment that had not been picked up yet, and added, “I also gotta…”

 

“See you later, Potter.”

 

“Talk to you soon, Evans.”

Notes:

i hope the chapter doesn't feel too rushed, i just wanted to get this done so we can get to the good stuff: friends to lovers FINALLY.