Chapter 32: A Secret and Peace
James had completely forgotten that Sirius had kissed Adele until Lily brought it up again on the Hogwarts Express. As soon as she asked him what he thought they should do, it was as though she'd dumped a bucket of cold water on him.
"Fuck, Lily," James said, sitting up. "D'you have to talk about this right now?"
Before she'd said anything, he'd been in a pretty good mood. His head in Lily's lap and his eyes closed, he'd been coming to terms with the fact that this was the last time he'd be riding the train as a student. The thought sent shivers down his spine. But all thoughts of that were thrust from his mind as he glared at his girlfriend, who was glaring right back.
"Don't you curse at me," she snapped. "I have no problem going to tell Rosie without you. I just thought you'd like to talk about it first, that's all."
"What is there to talk about?" James cried. "You're going to tell her no matter what I say. You might as well just do it already." Silence.
"James," Lily said quietly, "you can't just expect me to leave it like that."
"Right. Why not make it worse? Can't you just fucking drop it?"
James was in a rotten mood now. One of the wonderful things about Lily being so unique was that she never stooped to the level of using the maddening double language that it seemed every other girl in the world used. And yet here she was, sounding just like his mother.
"Are you alright?" Lily asked. "You…I mean…I hate to sound rude, but you don't usually talk like this to me." Something about her voice caused him to look over at her, and she looked so hurt that he began to regret what he'd said.
"I'm sorry," James said. "I--" But he didn't know how to explain his sudden change in temper, so he just shut his mouth again. Lily watched him for a minute, then turned back to the book she was reading. James was really starting to regret what he'd said now; Lily had drawn her knees up to her chest, leaving no room on her lap for him to lay his head on. He rested his head against the windowpane, annoyed. He was almost certain that Lily knew exactly what she was doing, and he'd been extremely comfortable where he was.
The silence was broken with the sound of something heavy hitting the compartment door. The glass was at once cracked to look like a spider web, and quickly James whipped his wand out of his back pocket. Glancing over at Lily, he could see that she had too, her book carelessly dropped on the floor. Whatever it was that had hit the frosted window appeared to them only as a massive dark shadow that was slowly sliding down the door.
"Stay there for a second," James said. He couldn't be sure whether they should take the whole thing seriously or not, but the last thing he wanted was for Lily to go anywhere near it. She rolled her eyes at him.
"I don't think so," she said, "as though I'd let you have all the fun." In spite of what she said, she looked a little nervous. They both stood up, and James moved forward, sliding the compartment door open in one large, swift, motion.
"Holy hell," Sirius moaned, falling completely to the ground as the support of the door was removed. "Evans, how the hell were you friends with that bastard?" James was tempted to laugh, but he could see that, in spite of his mock-flippant manner, his best friend was sporting a bloody nose and a black eye.
"Did Sev-Snape do that to you?" Lily gasped, rushing forward to help him up.
"Are you surprised?" Sirius asked wryly, taking Lily's hand and hoisting himself up. "It's not as though he made a promise to try and be a better person this year."
"I bet Snivellus has never heard of a New Year's Resolution," James said seriously. "Otherwise he might've made a promise to try and wash his hair more than once a week." All three of them sat back down, and Sirius gave James an approving nod.
"Right you are, Jimmy. But you're wrong, because Andromeda has informed me that it's once a month, and it's a highly regarded ritual in the Slytherin culture…"
"Oh, do shut up for a moment," Lily snapped. "Sirius, why did he do this? What happened?"
Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Sometimes it's painfully clear that you two haven't been dating very long, Lily my love," Sirius sighed. "There is no reason for what Snape does. Generally, the rule for him is to strike as often as possible, and do it when nobody actually knows he's around. Which is quite often for him, sometimes people know he's around and they just pretend not to."
"I hate to say it, but he's right," James said, nodding. "You just didn't know because you were friends with him and he's secretly in love with you." James was almost as surprised that he said it as Lily was. He'd been exaggerating, but now that he'd said it, it didn't seem so far from the truth. Sirius began to laugh.
"You're kidding. Snivelly fancies your girlfriend? No wonder he beat the shit out of me!" He continued to laugh, but he was the only one. James was watching Lily, who looked a bit flustered.
"It's not my fault he beat you up," she said slowly, "you hated each other before that."
"Wait, what?" James asked. "Hated each other before what?"
"It's nothing. It's ridiculous." Lily leaned down to pick up her book from the floor, but James grabbed her wrist.
"Lily," he said, "what're you talking about?"
"It's nothing!" she said loudly. Sirius had stopped laughing, and he and James exchanged looks. James began to feel a bit nervous.
"Lily," he said again, "have you been talking to Snape?"
She began to turn red.
"Not really," she said. "It's--it's so silly, you don't want to hear about it. Just trust me."
Sirius leaned over so that his mouth was barely an inch from James's ear.
"I can get it out of him," he whispered, "I'll have that bastard singing everything him and Evans have ever done."
"They haven't done anything," James said angrily, pushing Sirius away. He turned angrily to Lily.
"You two haven't done anything."
"Of course not!" Lily cried. "James, how can you even suggest that I--that we--"
"Well, what the hell, Lily? What're you hiding?" James felt the sudden urge to go out and hit something solid and similar in structure to Severus Snape. Glancing over at Sirius, he seemed to be angry too, perhaps even as angry as he was.
"Evans," Sirius said warningly, "you remember what I told you earlier about--"
"Of course I remember what you said!" Lily cried. "I'm telling you, I haven't done anything!"
"What?" James asked, looking between the two of them. "What'd you say? When were you two talking? What's going on with Snape?"
"I told her what I'd do if I found out that she was messing with you," Sirius said, keeping an accusing eye on Lily. "You don't look out for yourself, Mate, so I thought I'd let her know that there's at least one person who does…"
"I'm not messing with him!" Lily exclaimed, looking torn between absolute fury and tears. "There are just some things that he doesn't need to know!"
"Oh, yeah?" James shouted. "Just like there are things that Rosie doesn't need to know about Sirius?"
"I--wha--" Lily turned deep red. "But I'm not cheating on you!"
"Sirius didn't cheat on Rosie!"
"I believe that kissing another girl counts as cheating!"
"What?" Sirius asked, frowning as he tried to understand the sudden shift in the argument. "I--what d'you mean? I didn't cheat on Rosie!"
"See?"
"Sirius, you snogged Adele," Lily said gently, as though explaining to a small child. "You can't do that, not if you're going out with Rosie."
"But--I--"
"Sirius, you did it for us, it's alright. Kissing some other girl isn't like sleeping with them or anything." James knew it wasn't alright, but he felt like he was dying as Lily refused to tell him what was going on with Snape. Wasn't this the same person who had basically said a few weeks ago that she wanted him dead? And now there was a secret between the two of him, the girl he was in love with and the one person that he hated more than anyone except Voldemort. So his words were not meant to help Sirius, but to wound her. He saw at once that he succeeded; she recoiled as though he'd slapped her.
"Is that what you think?" Lily asked him quietly. "You can't mean--"
"No, I know it's alright," Sirius interrupted, addressing James. "I told Rosie about it before I did it. She knew I was doing it for my best mate and his girlfriend, and she was alright with it. I guess she thought that you guys were worth it." He gave Lily a pointed look, and that final thing, which now meant that everything she'd fought with James over was unnecessary, seemed to absolutely crush her. Tears began to form in her eyes.
"You're both just--you're terrible," she sobbed. "I'd never cheat on you James Potter, and if that's what you think, then you don't know me at all."
"Apparently not, if you're sharing secrets with Snape."
Lily covered her face with her hands and sobbed harder into them.
"It's not for me to tell," she said between sobs. "I--it's just him, it's--it's nothing to do with me. I--I don't feel anything for him!"
"If it's just him, then why're you keeping it a fucking secret?" Sirius growled. James found himself agreeing wholeheartedly.
"It's not fair for me to tell you when he--when he just told me. He--it wouldn't be nice for me to tell."
"Nice?" James cried, leaping up. "Who cares about nice? He's killed kids, Lily, he's killed families and didn't care when your mum died and beat Sirius up for no reason. You need to get it through your head that Severus Snape is not, and has never been, nice."
"I know," she said, weakening, "I know he's done that, but his family…his father's a horrible man. There's a little bit of good in him, I know it."
"Oh, Merlin," James moaned. "Oh, Merlin, she's forgiven him."
"You want to know the truth, Evans?" Sirius hissed. "Half of my family are Death Eaters. They know Snape and everyone else in that little circle. They all have shitty fathers. Hell, You-Know-Who has a shitty father. Does that mean it's alright that he goes around killing Muggles and little babies? Oh, and James and I both have fathers from hell. You don't see us prancing around in the countryside killing people."
For a long time Lily was silent, crying into her cupped hands.
"You want to know what happened?" Lily asked finally. "He sent me an owl a few days ago and told me that he was in love with me. He told me that if I kept ignoring him, he'd kill himself."
"He wasn't being serious," Sirius said loftily. "Or if he was, he probably slices his wrists anyway. If he killed himself, it wouldn't be because of you."
"So what'd you do?" James asked tersely. "Did you tell him to shove it?"
"I--I went to his house and I helped him. He's really depressed, so I just tried to…I know I said I wanted him dead, but when someone tells you they're going to kill themselves, you can't just--you can't allow it. I couldn't."
"How'd you help him?" Sirius sneered. "Did you snog him to make it all better?"
"Shut up," James muttered, just as Lily shouted, "Please leave me alone!"
"Sirius," James said, tearing his eyes away from Lily, "could you leave us alone for a while?"
"You'll be alright?" Sirius asked, glaring at Lily. James nodded, and Sirius stood up.
"Hopefully, Snivelly's not waiting out there to kill me," he said lightly. With a slight wave, he opened the door and left, leaving James and Lily sitting in silence, broken only by Lily's sniffles.
"It's such a stupid thing to get upset over," she said to him. He rounded on her.
"How was I supposed to know if it was stupid?" he asked. "You didn't think I was worth telling."
"It wasn't worth telling. It had nothing to do with you."
"But, see, sometimes you're a hypocrite, Lily. Because you'd want me to tell you if I went to some girl's house who was in love with me."
"But I trust you," she said tearfully. "You don't trust me. I knew you'd get upset."
"You can't--damn it, you can't do that!" James shouted, slamming his fist against the wall. "You can't just do what you want because you think you know everyone so well! So, what, you think you can just decide when it's convenient to be honest?"
"You're right," she said softly. "But I…you and Sirius are going to torture him now. Just leave him alone, okay? Maybe if you just left him alone he'd figure out that what he's doing is wrong."
"So it's our fault he's a Death Eater?"
"Stop twisting what I say!" Lily stood up and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're making a big deal out of everything, and none of it is worth fighting over. It's just silly!"
"You don't get to decide what's worth getting upset over!"
Lily shook her head.
"I'm leaving now," she said. "But I still love you."
"Well that's good to know," James said sarcastically. "Good to know that you consider that worth telling me."
Lily let out a small scream and ran out of the compartment. James watched her go and wondered why he found it so easy to be such a bastard.
The thing about their fight that later confused James was that there was no visible time when he and Lily reconciled. Of course, they'd never broken up, but he knew that the few times that he'd seen his parents' fights, they made up in a big, showy way. He knew that it was mostly for his benefit, but nevertheless, he'd always thought that making up would be more of an epiphany, more of a declared thing. Instead, they made up in a more gradual, subtle way; it began with James sitting next to Lily at dinner, then Lily offering her hand to him to hold. By the next morning they were having a normal conversation, free of tension, and that night she kissed him, and he knew that whatever had been wrong had been fixed. It proved to him, once and for all, that this relationship was real.
***
"What's wrong with Remus?" Lily asked one morning at breakfast, soon after Remus had gotten up from the table and left. James looked up from his toast and shrugged.
"I've often wondered the same thing," Sirius said, shaking his head. "Acts like a thirty year old. It's not normal." He let out a short laugh at his own joke, then turned back to the small mountain of bacon that he'd made on his plate. Though it had taken a bit longer, he and Lily were once again on good terms.
"No, that wasn't what I meant," Lily said, still looking in the direction that Remus had gone in. "He looked really sick. I thought you said his transformation was a few weeks ago?"
Sirius's expression didn't register surprise at all, which caused James to believe that he must have found out that Lily knew at one time or other. He couldn't remember; at this point, it seemed that they all knew everything that was happening with one another. In a way it was extremely convenient, but it also made things a little boring. He couldn't say that he didn't like it like that. He liked the calm that came after a long time of drama. He hoped that whatever was going on with Remus wouldn't change that.
"You don't think that he got a letter from the Ministry, do you?" Lily asked, wide-eyed. "It hasn't been long since he lost his mum, you don't think his dad…"
Sirius shook his head.
"I saw him open it," he said, his mouth full. "Regular letter."
Lily frowned.
"I don't know," she said, "but he seemed really upset."
James didn't really pay any attention; though he knew that he should be more concerned, he wanted to prolong the inevitable unhappiness that would come of finding out the contents of the letter. He knew it was unreasonable, but he just wanted there to be a little bit of peace.