A Change Of Hearts

Disclaimer: This is disclaimed. The lawyers can't get me now!

Many thanks to my wonderful beta I Shant Eat Flamingo Tounges for making this story readable. This story is from Lily's perspective, and is set in her third year. It's a one shot. I hope you like it.

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Sometimes it was just nice to sit up there and think about the great whirl I called my life. It was just so right to cuddle up against the ledge of the window, and feel the cool night winds whipping against my face. Sure, sometimes there were couples up there, thrashing about like a pair of eels…but they could be easily avoided if my timing was right.

If I came up to the astronomy tower from eleven o'clock (at night) through to one, on a Tuesday night, everything would be fine.

I walked over to the spot where I had sat every week for the past two years, curled myself up against the side of the window, and dangled my feet over the ledge. I could feel the wind blowing up my skirt, but I didn't care. No one was there to peek anyway.

I felt a sharp push against my shoulder. Something, or some one, was trying to get me out of my window ledge. It was probably Peeves. He liked to play stupid little jokes like that. Then, as I pulled my legs up, and out of the way of this strange invisible thing that Peeves had conjured up somehow, I saw a flash of red. A red pair of trainers.

Quite frankly it scared me shitless.

I jumped up, intending to run away from the red sneakers as quickly as my small legs could carry me. But somehow, sitting in an awkward position, I just got tumbled out of the window. I felt the pit of my stomach drop, and my legs turned to jelly. The soles of my feet were stinging. And I could barely hear the wind over my own heartbeat. I was going to die. Oh fuck, where was everybody! Why couldn't somebody have just cast a charm to get me back up there? Weren't my friends wondering where I had gone? What if I never made up with Petunia about that fight we had over a spud “magically” hitting her backside continuously for a week? What if I never saw Mum and Dad again? Would they even miss me?

I clung to the window ledge and prepared to hoist myself back up. My legs were too weak to do it, but I could get there somehow.

I pushed my arms up, and it was like doing a deranged chin-up. Then I felt two hands gripping me by my armpits. If I had been any less terrified I would have worried about my armpits smelling or having a little prickle of red hair growing. It hurt to be hoisted back through the window, by my armpits… but I guess it would have hurt even more if I had fallen to my death. My death. It seemed so surreal that just a few seconds ago I had thought I would die.

The hands that held me were large, rough and calloused. They dropped me to the floor awkwardly, but gently. My eyes fluttered open, and I stared up into red-rimmed hazel eyes.

James Potter's eyes.

He would have been handsome if it weren't for his thin, lanky body and large glasses. He had taken his glasses off, and was rubbing them with his shirt. His eyes were sparkling and wet. He quickly put his glasses back on, to look at me (or to hide his wet eyes?), but they fogged up. He eventually gave up on his glasses, and just sat down without them.

“Thanks, James,” I heard myself say.

His hand immediately jumped to his hair, and he began speaking “Yeah, sorry `bout that…the knocking you out of the window business. I was just leaving when you came to my window.”

His window? That window was mine! And it had been for a good two years. I had even engraved my initials into the outer edge of that window. He had certainly never visited my ruddy window. How dare he claim it! … Wait, did he just say that he had knocked me through my window? He was the red trainers. How come I didn't see him? He must have drunk some sort of invisibility potion, and it had started to wear off.

“How come I only saw your trainers? Have you been sneaking potions supplies from Slughorn?” That was a really stupid question. Of course James would have been pinching some of Professor Slughorn's supplies, to carry out some of his infamous, brilliant pranks. Along with his friends Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew...the so-called Marauders.

“Erm, no. You really couldn't see me? Maybe you need glasses? Here, give mine a try,” He said as he thrust his glasses out of his hands and tried to put them on my face. It was annoying. Was he blind or was he enjoying poking me up my nose? I could have believed either. So, with an exasperated sigh, I took the glasses from his hands and placed them on my face. They were really thick and blurry. Keeping them on hurt my eyes. So I took them off, and placed them back on his face, crookedly. It was then that I saw how much James' eyes were sparkling with tears.

Leaning up to look at him, I mentioned casually “Are you okay? You've been crying”.

Way to point of the obvious, Lily. That had sounded really dumb.

“I'm not crying! I'm not upset! Why won't you people just LEAVE ME ALONE! Okay, I just came up here, because…because…because” His whole body was shaking violently by the time he finished talking. And tears that I think he didn't even know about were falling down his cheeks.

“It's alright you know. To cry, that is. People don't cry just because they're upset, it's frustration and being overwhelmed that makes you cry. That's why people cry tears of joy, because they're overwhelmed with happiness. Don't worry James, I won't think any less of you just because you're crying.”

I can't believe how much utter crap I talked when I was nervous. In truth, I had no idea what to say. This wasn't the funny, witty popular boy that sat in the back of my classes, randomly charming people's shoelaces together or putting frog spawn though their hair when he felt the class could all use a laugh. The boy in front of me was broken.

“Well you'd be the only one,” he mumbled and slumped back down from my window seat, so that he was on the ground. Facing me. “You know, I reckon they think that I should just get over it. But they could never understand. They never knew her. My cousin. Padfoot wouldn't even know what it's like.”

Was he just talking to fill up the space between us, or was he thinking out loud? Was he talking about his mates, when he referred to this “Padfoot”? The word sounded like a disease. James jumped just the tiniest bit when I answered him.

“How do you know how they'll react, if you can't even trust them with your feelings?” My voice was hoarse and light.

He finally looked up, and the way he looked at me chilled me to the bone. “I trust Sirius, Peter and Remus with my life. I just don't want them to see me…like this”.

His voice was beautiful, as soft as ash.

“You can tell me what happened.”

“Trixie got hurt. Bad. By those fucking Death Eaters. The healers think that she won't make it out. Mum and Dad are going crazy.”

I fought my impulse to reach out and hug him. He really looked like he needed one, but he would have probably just freaked out if I cuddle him. Boys were weird like that.

“Is there anything that you can do to help? You could ask Professor Dumbledore if he'll let you go and visit Trixie, your cousin, and talk to those healer people.”

“I heard that Dumbledore was pretty busy at the moment, dealing with some Death Eaters himself.” He smiled after that, and it lit up his whole face. It made him look very attractive. “Healers work at St. Mungo's, a Wizarding hospital. They're like Muggle doctors. Except they don't do all that barbaric cutting and sewing up skin stuff.” He paused. “You're a Muggleborn, aren't you?”

I nodded, and felt incredibly stupid and ignorant of the wizarding world. I knew so little that he knew I was raised by Muggles! I was so embarrassed that I decided to act like an idiot and laughed, “Damn, I blew my cover! How did you figure that out?”

He let out a chuckle. It was one of those proper laughs that came straight from his stomach, and made his whole body heave up and down. Not like those light, fake laughs that so many people have. When he laughed it was like all the sorrow he felt was being lifted from his face, and the whole room just lit up.

“Do you want to get back to our common room? You look better now. I'm sure that your friends won't notice anything.” I spoke cautiously. I really didn't want to make him upset again.

He cocked his head sideways and squinted at me “Are you a Gryffindor?”

That took me aback. I'd been in all the same classes as him for three years, and he hadn't even noticed that I was a Gryffindor. Who thick was he?

“Duh James, I'm in your year. And in all of your classes.”

He looked as though for the life of him he couldn't remember who I was. I honestly thought that he would recognise me. Even just vaguely. I knew him. Why couldn't he even remember a short little red haired girl who sits next to him in Herbology? I couldn't believe that he would be pouring his heart out to a complete stranger. Maybe he thought I was some random first year, seeking the thrill of being out of bed so late at night. I was small enough to be confused with a first year, so I was told, anyway. Though I liked to believe that I had curves.

I leaned over to James and took off my jacket to dry the tears on his face. I know that I shouldn't have, but I couldn't help it. James started looking at me as if I had grown another head. So I checked that I hadn't in fact grown another head. (I was at Hogwarts, with a well-known prankster. Stranger things could have happened.)

I felt the blood rising to my cheeks and words started to pour out of my mouth like vomit. “Come on James, if we don't leave now Filch will catch us out of bed.”

He thought for a moment, and then mimed the lifting of a blanket in the air. This guy was a nutter. He had completely lost it. No, I was wrong. He held an invisible cloak in his hands. An invisibility cloak.

I should have known. That's why I couldn't see Potter before, only a glimpse of his ruddy trainers. It was because he was wearing that thing. I had never felt so stupid in all my life!

“Come on,” he said, making to grab my hand, then deciding against it. What was so wrong with my hands? They weren't all gross and sweaty. They weren't hairy or feathery. They didn't even have scales. What was so bad about my little hands that he didn't even want to touch them? And that he would probably avoid physical contact at all costs?

I was so deeply buried in thoughts of my non-scaly hands, that I didn't even realise we'd reached the Fat Lady. James spoke the password and she admitted us into the common room with a big smile on her face. She even asked him how he was holding up.

Did James Potter spend his spare time talking to overweight portraits? He certainly was a strange boy. Then again, all boys were strange.

I bade him good night and left him in the common room. I left so quickly that I didn't even see the smile that played on James' lips.

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When I woke up the very next morning I felt like falling straight back to sleep. I had never been what you could call a “morning person”. Maybe it was because I liked to stay up late (A habit which earned me the nickname of “Nocturno”). Maybe it was genetic. Maybe everybody else just rose at unnaturally early hours of the morning. But it was tradition for my best friend, Kirsten, to wake me up by hexing me, or slamming her elbows into my sides. She should have been a wrestler, that one. But she said she was altogether too pretty for that sport.

Eventually, after a ritual one-hour of getting ready for class, I was trudging down the stairs with my army of friends. I heard laughing as we got to the common room, a high shrill sound, coming from Peter Pettigrew, a boy in my class. He was one of James' best mates. They were all huddled in a circle, avidly watching a piece of parchment, snickering. Or giggling like a 5 year old girl, as was the case with Peter.

They sauntered across the common room, oblivious to the many stares of students. Particularly first year girls. They slipped through the Fat Lady's portrait and out into the halls. The lot of them were up to something, probably one of their ingenious pranks.

I felt like a good laugh that day, so I followed them with my likeminded friends.

We dashed madly after them, through halls and various secret passageways that we knew of. The boys were headed down near the dungeons. It was so cold there, because it was directly beneath the Great Lake. James and his friends had stopped outside of an old suit of armour, and leaned casually against the side of the wall, looking so effortlessly cool. Before I could catch up with them, I saw the suit of armour let a wave of students out from behind it. Slytherin students. That must have been their common room, or some secret passage that I didn't know of.

Severus Snape, a rather unfortunate greasy haired Slytherin, was just exiting the hole (behind the suit of armour). Sirius let out a laugh as James got out his wand and pointed it discreetly at Snape's head. His hair turned into a long, lanky dead plant. Slime from it was dripping all over the floor.

That was definitely not the sort of prank that I had expected. That “stunt” didn't even deserve to be called a prank! It was downright cruel. All Snape had done was walk out of his common room, he hadn't even done anything. Sure, he was a bit of an oddball, but nobody deserved that! I knew exactly what getting picked on for being strange was like. My Muggle school was horrid, and things like that had been done to me all the time.

James and his friends suddenly looked like a group of immature bullies, not the fun easy-going boys that I remembered them as. How could the sweet boy that spoke to me last night possibly be that nasty twit? For the love of Merlin, he must have seen my friends and I staring at his group. He winked at me. What an arse! Was that horrible display supposed to make me laugh? I felt as though I was going to throw up.

The “Marauders” had made their way over to me, when I stood stunned by what had just happened. Marlene let out a nervous giggle, and Kristen shushed her. James tilted his head to the side and looked at me.

“I didn't catch your name, when we were in the astronomy tower last night. So, you are…?”

Was he implying that I snogged him up in the Astronomy tower last night? In front of his friends, and mine. James bloody Potter was an even bigger arse than what I thought. I can't believe I had fallen for his act last night. I didn't want anything to do with that toe-rag.

“Going,” I replied scathingly, as I whipped around and walked away.

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Hope you guys liked it. Any type of review is welcome.

Ciao

LaurenDawnie

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