Title: Lust…or Love?
Author: Sarinileni
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Not at all. In the slightest.
Mature Subject Matter
Chapter 16: Of
Strangeness and Stories
Date Begun: Saturday, August 21,
2004
Date Finished: Sunday, August 29, 2004
Date
Posted: Tuesday, April 26, 2005
"Only you
Can make me whole
Just one touch
You complete me
Rescue me
From this black whole
It sucked me in
And left me dying
You're the truth
That I've been seeking
`Cause my whole life
I've been lying"
-You Complete Me, Stabbing Westward
……
Lily woke early the next morning with a start and looked around wildly for the cause of the disturbance. For the second morning in a row, Hedwig was right next to her face. Lily made a noise of annoyance and picked up the Jarvey, surprised at how warm she was. It was a very comforting feeling, holding Hedwig, almost like holding a baby.
She looked over at James, still sleeping, his legs sprawled out and his hand hanging off the bed; the other lay in her hair. Lily carefully sat up, cradling Hedwig against her chest. She adjusted the sheet and wrapped it around herself, tucking in the edges so she could walk around.
She studied his bookshelf. Books were shoved helter-skelter on the shelf, thick textbooks she recognized because she owned them herself, magazines, and others she did not recognize. One, however, caught her eye. It was dark red with gold lettering and said, simply, Hogwarts. The writing was familiar; she supposed it was James's handwriting. She pulled it out with some difficulty (she was still holding Hedwig) and flipped the cover open.
It was another album. Lily suddenly remembered his hesitation when he had told her there were no more photo albums.
Just as she was about to study the picture, Hedwig wriggled out of her grasp and darted across the room and onto the bed. If she had not been crawling on top of James and waking him up, Lily would have been impressed by Hedwig's ability to jump so high.
Lily hurried across the room, the album in her hand and the sheet still around her body. She stepped into the hallway and shut the door quietly, biting her lip as she tiptoed down to her door and tried not to wake Mr. Potter, who was lying in front of his bedroom door, snoring. She let herself into her room and winced when the door slammed shut, but no one came running to see what had happened.
She sat down on the bed and set down the album, opening it and glancing at the first picture. It was Hogwarts from the lake and it was slightly crooked. It was taken from one of the First Year boats. Lily looked closer and could just make out the shapes of other boats in the water, underneath the splendidly lit castle. Lily turned the page and frowned. It was picture of her-eleven years old and eating from a plate of potatoes. The picture on the adjacent page was of a bowl of treacle tart.
What a strange person James was.
She was about to flip to the next page when someone knocked on the door. The knob began to turn and Lily shoved the album under the bed. She straightened just as James entered the room, her clothes in his hand.
"What do you want...Potter?"
"Can I have my sheet?" he asked tonelessly.
Lily's cheeks turned red as she stood and handed him the sheet, grabbing her own comforter to cover her body as she did so-still, still!-she was modest around him, embarrassed, shy…. He dropped her clothes on the floor and left the room.
Lily stared after him, bewildered. How…strange.
Oh…they had fought last night. Strange of her to forget that.
Strange, indeed. And she was back to calling him Potter, which was stranger still…and while it was slightly depressing and left her feeling bereft, it was also slightly comforting. She was uncomfortable being as close as she was with him, partly because of Vince, and partly because it was not her nature to know anyone so well, or have anyone know her so well, aside, obviously, from her family.
And she and James knew each other very, very, very well.
Lily looked longingly at her bed, wishing she could finish looking at the photo album, but she had to shower and get dressed. Standing around naked was not making her feel any better about her fight with James.
The water was warm and she stayed under the spray for longer than she should have. When she got out she dressed warmly in a jumper and a pair of trousers, combing out her wet hair and letting it hang down over her shoulders. When she had finished, she made her way to the kitchen.
Sabia was sitting at the table, eating from a bowl of oatmeal and talking amiably with Sirius, who sat across from her. She was wearing the shawl Lily had given her for Christmas. Both looked up when she walked in.
"Lily! Come sit down. I want to thank you again for the shawl. It's lovely."
Lily fought down a blush and smiled, choking out something along the lines of "You're welcome." She half expected Sabia to get up and slap her across the face for sleeping with James only the night before, right down the hall from her room, but there was no way Sabia knew about that.
It was impossible for her to know about that.
"So did you sleep well?"
Lily turned her gasp into a hacking cough and stomped on Sirius's foot when she saw his amused grin. "Ye-es."
Sabia paid her no special attention and greeted James as he walked into the room, his hair dripping wet from the shower he had obviously just taken. James glared at all of them, shaking his head and spraying Lily with water.
"Prat," she muttered, hitting him on the arm.
He grumbled something along the lines of "mental" and his mother raised an eyebrow.
"James, dear…"
"So! My mother sent me an owl yesterday!" Sirius interrupted loudly.
James looked up. "What'd she say?" he asked keenly. "She never owls you if she can help it."
"Well, it wasn't a Howler," Sirius supplied, and Lily threw him a dirty look.
"Please, good sir," she said mockingly, "enlighten us as to what your mother said."
"She berated me for coming to this house, simply because of the terrible relations you have with the Malfoys…my mother holds the bloody Malfoys in the highest esteem. Bastards. All of them." Sirius met Lily's eyes defiantly and she opened her mouth to respond. James grabbed her hand and squeezed it so hard her bones creaked. Lily bit her lip hard against pain and kicked sideways with her foot, hitting him in the shin. He spat out a mouthful of orange juice. The sound of pain he made was a cross between a rasp and a grunt.
His mother gave him a surprised look. "Honestly. What is with the three of you this morning?"
"Tired," James responded immediately. Lily had to smile at his lame excuse.
"We should have a snowball fight. Well-not you, Mrs. P. Wait…you can use your wand!" Sirius's face brightened at the very prospect of going outside in the snow.
Mrs. Potter laughed lightly. Lily suddenly missed her mother. "No, Sirius. I have to get to work. Clark is already there."
"You're going to work?" James asked sharply.
Mrs. Potter hesitated for the briefest second before saying, "Yes. I'm needed."
"Mum-"
"Bee-"
"Mrs. Potter-"
"Quiet, all three of you," she said firmly. "I'm perfectly fine now that I've eaten and had a good rest."
"Having a good rest is no help if you're just going to go exhaust yourself again," James snapped.
"I'm the adult here," Sabia said angrily, "and if I decide to go to work, I'm going to work! Don't hurt each other out in the snow and don't burn the house down!"
She strode out of the room and they heard the front door slam behind her. All three teenagers were silent until Lily cleared her throat. "Well…maybe we should have a snowball fight."
They did. Of course, with the advantage of magic, all three were able to build magnificent forts as long as they did not stray outside the boundaries that protected underage magic from Ministry detection (James was grounded, but his parents weren't home to monitor any preventative and detective spells, so he was safe). Sirius created an extravagant palace while James had something that looked like a pirate ship, along with cannons. Lily's own structure resembled a military base, complete with detachable helicopters that fired snowballs.
They did have quite a bit of time on their hands.
Lily was not altogether amused when James and Sirius teamed up against her, molding their forts into one and bombarding her with snowballs. She stayed under the cover of her walls, occasionally mustering the strength to launch a volley of snowballs at them but cursing them every moment she could not.
Finally, Lily accepted defeat and emerged from her fort, holding out a handkerchief as a truce flag and meeting them in the middle of the `battleground'.
Lily had never considered herself to be truly honorable.
Loosing a torrent of snowballs of them once the came out in the open was only in the interest of survival-that is, the survival of her injured pride. Lily grinned and threw up a shield, similar to the one she had used to protect the den when James and Sirius had dueled. The boys, thoroughly soaked, glared at her before surrendering.
……
Lily had not noticed it before, but now she could tell that James was avoiding her. She could tell from the subtle way he slid his eyes away from hers, from his reluctance to do anything that might let him touch her, from the way he kept a never-ending flow of words going so he would not have to speak to her. However, when he mentioned he was going to wait up for his parents, Lily grinned. Now there was no way he could avoid her. She saw the firelight reflecting off the glow of realization in his eyes as she shut the door after Sirius, who had gone to bed ten minutes earlier, at half past twelve.
"Ignoring me, Potter?"
"I've been talking to you all night," he said stiffly.
"You've been talking to me all night about nothing," Lily fired back, glaring at him. Honestly-who did he think he was? "Is this about last night?"
"Pardon me, Lily, but it's not as if we ever resolved the issue," James said scathingly.
"Well-why the hell would you ever want me to tell Vince that we'd slept together-again, from his perspective? It doesn't make any sense."
James paused, his hesitation clear. "I…" he sighed. "I just wanted to hurt Malfoy."
Lily let out a deep breath. "Is that all? Why?"
James shrugged, looking down. "Because…well, he's a Slytherin."
"James…" She even forgot to call him Potter. "That's petty."
His gaze locked hotly on hers. "No-all Slytherins. Evil, the lot of them."
"Your mother was a Slytherin," Lily reminded him quietly.
"She was," James conceded bitterly. "That doesn't mean she was an evil bitch like Narcissa or Bellatrix Black. You don't understand, Lily. When my mother was in Slytherin, it wasn't considered to be such an evil house. There was plenty of prejudice, yeah, and they weren't very well-like-but Slytherins were respected. My parents graduated just a few years after Voldemort did-and then he came along, and he changed absolutely everything. They-they changed. You didn't…even my mother began to hate her own house. You didn't grow up hearing about how different Slytherin was, how it had fallen from its high level of respectability. Ambition and cunning mattered less during Sorting than cruelty did. I…even though my mother was in Slytherin, I grew up hearing about how I should go to any house but that."
Lily stared at him as if she had never seen him before.
"Vince Malfoy's not a good person," James told her simply, changing tracks. "You know it, just as I do. His family's mixed up in the Dark Arts-Narcissa Black is going to marry Lucius someday…they'd just as soon kill me and my parents as go out to a whorehouse and get a good shag-and who knows who Vince is going to marry. There are hardly any pureblood girls left."
He shut up then.
"You're not on very good terms with the Malfoys, then," Lily said carefully, trying not to make her questions too specific.
"Did Sirius tell you that? No, we're not. We're their sworn enemies. Almost as bad as the Weasleys. See-when my grandfather William killed Lucifer Malfoy-only the Malfoy pride was injured. Lucifer was terrible to his son and his wife-but Arthur Weasley killed Lucius and Vince's brother older brother Tiberius-and everyone loved him. But my parents are meddling with their affairs, so the Malfoys are having trouble deciding who to hate more. I guess they're focusing on us because we can actually do some damage to them. The Weasleys have got no way to hurt them because of…well, because they're dirt poor. Don't get me wrong, Lily, my parents love Molly and Arthur Weasley and the few times I've met them I thought they were great. Bill and Charlie and Percy are great kids-six and four and one years old, but they have no money. And they can't hurt the Malfoys that way. We can, so they'll go after us. That's why you have to pretend Malfoy is just bothering you and that you're not dating him. Well-obviously because they think you're sleeping with me-"
"I am sleeping with you," she said, interrupting him.
He smiled slightly. "I know. I couldn't forget it."
"But…you can't just think all Slytherins are evil-"
"I'm a Gryffindor, Lily. I truly am…and there are very few Slytherins that are even decent, let alone wonderful like my mother."
Lily agreed, but she would never say it. She sat down next to him. "I'm not going to tell Vince about us," she said firmly, and he shrugged.
"I know. I was just-being stupid, of course." He looked at the ceiling wistfully from his place on the carpet, leaning against the couch. "Imagine his face," he said gleefully. "That would make my day."
"And…then he'd kill you," Lily pointed out, laughing. She yawned and his arm went around her. She wanted to push him away but she just leaned in against his shoulder and heard the answering rumble in his chest. She bit her lip as he took his arm away.
"Sleep," James ordered.
Lily cocked her head to the side, then laid down so that her head was resting on his thighs. "Alright."
James looked down at her, a slight smile on his face. Contentment stole over Lily-dangerous, crazy, ridiculously strong contentment.
"James?"
"Yes?"
Lily kept the silence close to her chest, cherishing it, before venturing to ask the question that had been nagging her for a day or so now. "When your mother…when your mother said your father `left', what did she mean?"
James stiffened. Lily felt his thighs beneath her head go tight and he stopped running his fingers through her hair. She looked up and could see his jaw firmly set and his back ramrod straight. Lily contemplated whether she should remove her head from his lap and decided not to.
"Well, he left. Is that what you want to know?" James's tone was so cold she felt a shiver go down her spine.
Lily sat up and met his eyes, leaning forward until she was merely inches away. "But he came back."
"Of course. He loves her."
Lily's breath caught and she felt a deep sensation of sorrow welling up in the put of her stomach. "James…"
"He left, he came back! There's nothing more to the story!" he told her vehemently. Lily held her tongue, looking at him. His face was contorted and he was breathing hard, as if he had just run a marathon. He shook his head fiercely. "That's it. There's nothing more."
"Why…why did he leave?"
For just a moment she thought he would not answer, but he sighed and did. "My mother…this summer, when I was in Diagon Alley with Sirius and Remus and Peter…we were attacked. Well-not really. See, at night, someone Incedioed my room. At least, they were aiming for my room, but they got the wrong one and hit one two down from mine. The boys and I left the Leaky Cauldron and flew home right away but…it was obvious the attackers wanted me." James paused and took a deep breath. Lily scooted closer and put her arms around his neck, lying her head down on his shoulder and throwing her legs over his. Physical closeness and comfort was something she could understand.
"So my mother told my father they had to stop working on the Malfoys-but they've been working on the Malfoys for close to seventeen years…I understand where my mum was coming from-I wouldn't want my kid to get burned alive, but seventeen years is a really long time. It's their life's work, and it was unacceptable to my father to quit. He said…he said I had to learn to take care of myself, and my mother said he could either quit or leave."
Lily hugged him tighter.
"But she couldn't…she cried herself to sleep for a month and by the time I got to Hogwarts…he still wasn't back. He saw me off at the train station but he still hadn't come home and she couldn't take it. She can't stand to be apart from him because they're so…they just love each other so much. I don't understand it but she gave in and he came back. But I've got this protection spell on me now. It's…really powerful. My mum did it and it'll be really hard for the Malfoys to hurt me."
She was gripping his arm tightly.
"Oh-come on, Lily. Everything's alright now! My dad's back and they're happy and so-so am I! Really happy! You can relax-I didn't mean to upset you or anything…" He twisted and put his arms around her, holding her so tightly she felt as if her bones would break.
She liked it.
She clutched at the back of his shirt, pressing her face into his shoulder. After a minute or so of deep breathing, she began to calm down. She lifted her head and met James's eyes, which were bright behind his glasses. "James…I-"
"If you're going to say something you're going to regret," he interrupted immediately, "don't."
She had not even been sure what she was going to say. Perhaps a change of subject was needed.
"Do you-are you scared?"
Not a very good change of subject.
"No. Yes. I don't really know. Of what?" He shifted to look down at her face, his brow furrowed.
Lily paused, not sure what to say. "Of everything," she finally managed, her voice choked.
"I'm scared…of a lot of things. Dying, I guess. I'm not one of those poor sods who thinks that dying's a big adventure. I'd much rather live and have fun. I'm scared witless when I think about Voldemort. But I'm not scared of the Malfoys. Not Vince, not Lucius, not their mother. They can do whatever they want but I'm ready for it. I can beat them, Lily. There's always going to be Malfoys, and when I get older, I'm going to be working just as hard as my parents do to keep them away from the public. Bloody bastards, the lot of them." As if remembering that her boyfriend was a Malfoy, James's hands went to her wrists and he drew her arms away from his neck. He stood and looked down on her. "I'm tired. Good night, Lily."
"It'll be terrible for your wife and kids if you work as hard as your parents do," Lily said quietly, keeping any inflection at all out of her voice.
"Who says I'm ever going to fall in love enough to get married or have kids?" James asked viciously, slamming the door to the room hard behind him.
"Fuck you," Lily said to the empty room, though it was weak and without feeling, for she was wondering why, exactly, his last words had hurt so much.
……
http://www.livejournal.com/community/thegreatbreak/
Join the community, read the intros, introduce yourself-remember to FLOCK!...
-->