"You have to talk to me someday, Lily!" James called as a flash of red hair disappeared around a corner. He quickened his steps, determined to talk to her- she'd been ignoring him (and everyone else) for weeks. James was not one to wait for the opportune moment to speak with someone.
He would do it now.
"You can't avoid me forever!" He was running now, scanning the corridors. He came to a fork and stopped, looking around critically. Shaking his head, he took the right side and decided to head to the Great Hall for breakfast.
Lily has escaped again.
She hadn't acted like this for a year. They had forged a bond, a friendship, which James supposed he may have overstepped, but it was not as though he had kissed her. No, he was able to control himself, as much as he may have wanted to take her then and there.
Now she was rescheduling patrols. Remus and Evelyn, among others, had come to the Heads patrols in her place and when James tried to find her during her replacement patrols, she seemed to disappear. He tried using the map to locate her a few times, but he lost heart the second time when he saw her standing very close to Severus Snape.He decided to stop searching her out on the map after the sixth time, when he found her in the Ravenclaw common room.
James felt a bout of jealousy as he thought about who she could have been visiting and decided it was most likely her ex-boyfriend. Stupid git, trying to steal James's girl.
He would learn not to mess with her.
Lily sighed with relief as James took the opposite corridor and headed, presumably, to the Great Hall. Lily herself was quite hungry, but not hungry enough to face her fears.
She was avoiding them. Still.
Sirius was the easier boy to avoid, as he wasn't searching her out. Still, she could not be in the common room at the same time he was, lest he approach her. After it happened once, Lily was not prepared for it to happen again.
James was the bigger issue. Lately, he'd taken to stalking her on her patrols and chasing her down the halls, screaming, and had attempted to be her partner in various classes.
Evelyn repeatedly told Lily just to talk to James and get it over with, but Lily couldn't bring herself to do it. She still hadn't made a decision; the list was still incomplete. Lily still did not know how she felt about Sirius Black.
Even now, three weeks after their falling out (Lily preferred that term to "break up." A break up sounded too harsh, she insisted, but Evelyn, without fail, told her that she was suffering serious denial and would never get over Sirius at that rate.), chocolates were still being delivered to her along with bouquets of tulips (Lily was impressed with the fact that he had remembered her favorite flower was not, in fact, a lily, and jotted that down on the positive side of her list) and badly written poetry (which had been good for a laugh).
He was doing all he could to make it up to her, but as she surveyed her gifts every night, she couldn't make a decision. Evelyn refused to help her.
"If you still can't decide, Lily, he's probably not the right one," Evelyn would say, eating from the box of chocolates.
That piece of information did little to help her dilemma.
She made sure the coast was clear before kicking it back to the Gryffindor common room. She raced up to her dorm, frightening Evelyn who sat on her bed, reading.
"He chased me down the hall again!" Lily cried, throwing herself next to her friend, who shut her book.
"And did you talk to him this time?"
Lily shook her head and Evelyn rolled her eyes. "You need to talk to him!" Evelyn dictated, shaking Lily by the shoulders. "He'll keep following you until you do."
"I can't talk to him," Lily muttered, smothering her face in a pillow.
"Why not?" Evelyn asked, stroking Lily's hair.
"He'll ask."
"He'll ask what?"
Lily just shook her head. "He'll ask."
"Ah," Evelyn said, leaning backwards. "The infamous list. Where is it?"
Lily summoned the list, handing it over to Evelyn. "I see sincerity has been added to the pros," Evelyn observed. Lily said nothing and Evelyn sighed. She hated to see her friend distressed, but three weeks of moping was just a bit too much. Lily was stuck in a limbo that she would never find her way out of:
James wanted Lily. Sirius wanted Lily. Lily didn't know who the hell she wanted.
James was the only proactive person of the trio. He finally decided that he wanted Lily too much to sit around and complain about how much he wanted her and about how depressing his life had become- Evelyn knew because he had talked to her about it, much to her surprise.
All Sirius had done, Evelyn noticed, was send Lily things. Chocolates, flowers, books, you name it. There wasn't much action to word, however. His promises were empty, but Lily was hanging onto them for all they were worth (admittedly, not much, at least to Evelyn) while she avoided making a decision regarding her love life.
The choice could not have been more obvious.
"The thing is, Lily," Evelyn started, delicately, after a bout of silence, "how sincere has Sirius really been all this time?"
"He's been amazing, Ev!" Lily cried, looking at her friend. "He sent me my favorite chocolates and flowers, remembering the types that I love more than anything, which is sweet, and he wrote me really cute poetry, and he sends his owl to deliver these things for me, which is the sweetest thing I've ever seen."
"But has he even spoken to you about any of this?" Evelyn pressed.
"Well, no," Lily stuttered. "But there's not a need for words with us. He's really a great guy. I just had a bout of misjudgment a while back. I feel like Sirius and I are really meant to be together, you--"
"Stop!" Evelyn cried, standing up from the bed, staring at Lily. "Do you hear what you're saying?" She threw her arms in the air. "Sirius cheated on you- as in, he had sex with another girl, Lily!"
"We don't know that they really had sex--"
"Lily, stop it! Stop and listen and think. Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how stupid you sound? What Sirius Black did to you was not a mistake- it was a conscious decision to be with another girl. In three weeks, he hasn't said more than ten words to you. Ten words in three weeks, Lily!
"In the meantime, you had a guy who's mad about you. He knows your favorite flowers and he knows your favorite type of chocolate. He also knows your birthday, the name of your cat, and your dress size! James Potter bought you a gown. Lily, he's probably never shopped for a girl in his life, and he still wanted to buy you a gown for a ball. You went to that ball with his best mate."
Evelyn paused, staring hard at Lily.
Lily looked shocked. Eyes wide, she stared at the wall, deep in thought. Evelyn knew Lily was seeing that dress in her mind- the gorgeous gown that had shown up in their dorm, with a simple message- Have fun. Lily had wondered, but hadn't thought twice about it afterward.
Sirius and Lily had danced the night away and had left early to stake claim on the Room of Requirement.
"Did you help him?" Lily asked softly.
"No."
Lily blinked. "Then how did he know my size?"
"Some other girl from the dorm," Evelyn told her. "James let it slip to me while you and Sirius were off getting frisky."
Lily was silent.
"He cares about you, Lily. He really cares about you. Don't blow this. Don't choose a guy who's all talk but no action."
"How do I know James is really the better pick?" Lily wondered aloud. "How do I know he's really action, and not just talk?"
Evelyn began to pack up her school books. "Who bought you stuff and who tried to talk to you?" She asked as she headed out of the room. She paused at the door. "If you really don't know, then you shouldn't be with either of them. But I think, deep inside, you know the answer, Lily."