Chapter 4
Lily’s had a rough day, a rough two days actually. First their sister decided the morning before the train ride was the perfect time to pick a fight, then when boarding the train Severus tried to reconcile —again— but there’s nothing to be reconciled, there isn’t any forgiving how he acted or what he said. Not only had he called her an awful slur because they turned him down, but he called them a slut too because she ‘went out with Potter and not him’ . There is no redemption or reconciliation for that.
Following that, Lily, along with several students, some of which included their close friends, were outed to the entire student body, then they’re told they have to take an extra course to teach them about boundaries and safe-sex and responsibility and blah blah blah. Topping it all off, letters are being sent home to parents and guardians? That’s outing students for a second time.
Lily knows their sister most likely reads all the letters they send home to their parents. Petunia doesn’t exactly understand the boundaries of privacy, it seems she has something in common with whichever dickhead made that map in the first place.
Petunia and Lily already had such a strained relationship since they discovered magic, this would drive a wider wedge between them. Lily desperately wants her sister back, every time they would be sent a letter by their parents and a lack of message came from Petunia, they would find themselves sitting alone in the Common Room late at night, trying to think of what she could have possibly done wrong.
Back when Severus and Lily were still friends, they would have confided in him. The only other person they would go to about strained relationships was Sirius. He understood, as much as he hates his family, he loves his dear little brother.
Sirius could say all he wants; he doesn't care what happens to Regulus as long as it’s not him and he can say all he wants he hates the entire Noble House of Black, down to every last member, but Lily knows.
Lily knows Sirius would go to war for his brother. Lily knows Sirius would burn the school down for Regulus. Sirius would go to Hell and back for his brother, Lily knows it. They just wish their own sister felt the same.
Instead, they are left with this shitty feeling that their sister is disgusted by them and having no idea what they can do to fix that relationship. She wants to try, God Lily really wants to try.
Right now, the last thing Lily finds fun is a party, but here they are, sitting with Mary on a couch in the Gryffindor Commons currently packed with students from every house. If she really wanted, Lily could probably sneak off to her room and stay up there until morning, but all their friends were down here, having fun and wanting to spend time with her.
Mary eventually got up, heading off to find Emmeline, having promised them a game of beer pong against Sirius and Peter. That left Lily alone on the couch, wallowing in the fear that once their sister finds out, she’ll be even more disgusted by them.
The couch dips when James added his weight beside her, he had a drink in his hand but as he took a sip he never grimaced. Either he was already extremely drunk and couldn't register the burn of the alcohol, or he’s drinking water. Responsible, Lily respects it. She’s impressed, if they’re being honest.
Distantly, Lily wonders if life would have been simpler if they just stayed with James. If she never went through with exploring those other feelings and stayed in the safe atmosphere they had created with James, would life be easier? They certainly wouldn’t be this afraid of a letter going home, that’s for sure.
They think back to the stupid map, the spray paint exposing every fling, every decision people made. Remus and Lily were each other’s first kisses, but James was Lily’s first everything else. First boyfriend, first date, first proper kiss, first love —even if it wasn’t the right kind. Then they remember that gold line, the one that made their stomach feel uneasy, connecting Lily’s name to Severus.
It made Lily wonder if maybe the person who made that map was meddling in other people’s lives. Were some of those connections orchestrated? Was this just some sick joke to someone? Why were Lily and Severus supposedly destined to be together? What if that’s not at all what Lily wants? And it is definitely not at all what Lily wants.
“Why the long face there, Red?” James asked, his voice confirmed Lily’s earlier thoughts, James is definitely sober. Lily’s been around him long enough to tell the difference in his voice. When James is drunk, his English accent gets stronger, almost as if he tries to get rid of the Spanish undertones completely. Like he’s trying to assimilate into English culture fully, or prove that he lives here, that he belongs here.
Lily noticed it for the first time two years ago, at the start of term party in the Ravenclaw Commons. James got wasted, accentuated the accent, had a fairly bad episode and fell asleep in a bed in the infirmary after lashing out. Second time Lily noticed this habit, the mid-term party last year, that was definitely one to remember. James had gotten absolutely trashed, put a lot of emphasis on the accent, made out with at least three different people, did a strip dance on the table, threw up then passed out and Lily had to help Remus take him back to the dorms.
Hearing the hints of the Spanish accent now, the way his R’s rolled, the subtle way he sometimes pronounces things wrong then looks at whoever he’s speaking to for a sign of confirmation or clarification, that’s a telltale sign to Lily that James is sober.
They may not have dated for long —two and a half months when they were fifteen— but Lily knows James. His unbothered clarity in this situation is exactly what Lily needs.
“Just thinking,” they shrug, turning their body to face him properly, “do you ever think things may have been easier if we never broke up?” James furrowed his brow, pursing his lips together as if he’s trying to understand. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, would things have been simpler? Would we be in this situation right now where your best friend is trying to control a murderous rage because you hooked up with his brother and I’m not wallowing at a party because I’m scared my sister is going to hate me more than she already does?”
“Your sister doesn’t hate you, Lily—”
“Yes, she does,” they cut in, “she told me as much before I left for the train station.”
“So you think it would’ve been simpler if…” James trailed off, as if he wanted Lily to clearly state what they thought. “If we stayed dating, if we never broke up,” Lily said.
There was a beat of silence between them, James slowly nodding his head while he thought over what Lily had said. His lower lip sits between his teeth and his eyes narrow slightly.
“You mean you think it would have been easier if you never acknowledged any of your actual feelings and just continued to go along with what our friends wanted?”
Oh. Lily hadn’t thought of it like that.
“Look, I agree with you on the whole ‘my best friend wouldn’t be wanting to murder me right now’ part, but I think you’re wrong about it being simpler,” James said, taking a sip of his water as he leaned back on the couch. He looked out and around at the people partying in the Common Room. “I think we would have grown to resent each other.”
It was Lily’s turn to furrow their brow, “what do you mean?” James chuckled, “Lils, we work as friends, not as a couple,” he said, “you know I love you, I absolutely adore you, but we both know it can only ever be platonic between us. I mean, come on, you’re going to tell me it didn’t feel weird to kiss me? Thought you were smarter than that, Red.”
James is right, which is something Lily doesn’t think too often. They didn’t work as a couple, they worked as anything but. He was right, it had felt weird to kiss him, everything just felt off. It almost felt as though they were trying to put on some performance for their friends.
They had always been close friends, and then they tried to switch to friends who just happened to kiss each other. In hindsight, that should have been the first clue that it didn’t work. It was having sex that was even weirder. Lily doesn’t regret it, but she admits it felt awkward. At first they had thought ‘oh it’s because it's both of our first times’ but apparently it wasn’t James’ first, just hers. James had confessed it felt weird for him too, even if he had done it before, so clearly it wasn’t experience that was the issue, just them.
If Lily’s being honest, conversation with James always came easy. They didn’t want to be at this party but she came anyway. She came and sat on this couch and felt sorry for herself but James comes over and makes them laugh and Lily forgets about how shit the first two days of the school year have been already. They forget and they just laugh and smile.
They forget and find a way to feel happier and just exist with James on this couch. People watching together.
Sitting on a couch with Lily, he feels relaxed. James had felt uptight all day, a part of him was afraid what happened at last year’s term party would happen again. He took precautions this time, only drinking water instead of any substance offered in the Commons. James even avoided the drink table completely.
He was having fun, he gave Remus the first two dares of the night, one was to choose one of the girls for Sirius to switch clothes with. It may not seem like a dare for Remus, but James would like to think the actual dare was to see how long Remus could hold back from pouncing on Sirius wearing a skirt. Naturally, Marlene had been chosen to swap clothes.
The second was to flirt with the next person who walked through the portrait. Unfortunately for him, or maybe fortunately, that person ended up being Pandora, who remained oblivious to Remus’ flirting. James silently thanked whatever forces were at play there that it had been Pandora who walked in first, with Regulus close behind her.
Oh, Regulus. James has been trying not to think of him tonight. Trying to not even look at him. Regulus walked through the portrait looking as if he had just been sculpted by the ancient Greeks. Whoever convinced the normally conservatively dressed youngest member of the Black family to wear a fishnet top… James wants to personally thank them.
Regulus was beautiful. As much as James loves it, he thinks it should be illegal for him to wear a black fishnet top and ripped faded black skinny jeans and whoever did his makeup deserves a fat kiss. Regulus was sporting beautifully and perfectly winged eyeliner and silver shimmery eyeshadow, he even had a subtle shade of pink lip gloss coating his lips and James desperately wanted to kiss it off. Just to taste it.
He tried not to stare at Regulus the entire night, but he kept an eye on him. He watched as Regulus denied no less than four people’s advances. He watched as Barty tried to get him to let up and dance and Regulus kept saying no until Pandora asked. He watched as Pandora managed to get him dancing and smiling. He watched as the typical cold and bored and overall poised exterior melted to one of freedom and lightness as he moved around the Common Room with a quite giggly Pandora.
“She’s pretty,” Lily sighed from beside him. “Who, Pandora? Yeah, I guess,” James shrugged. Lily gasped, “ooh! Let’s play ‘was it weirder’!” They exclaimed, slapping his shoulder lightly as he laughed. ‘Was it weirder’ was a game the pair made up back in fourth year. James can’t even remember why they started it, but it was fun nonetheless. You take two things the other person has done and ask which one they think is weirder. Pretty simple. Very stupid. “Alright, go.”
“Was it weirder having Marlene crash at your house or having Sirius move in?”
“Marlene crashing, easy. I had already been living with Sirius, I knew what to expect,” James said, “plus I’m fairly certain Marlene has a crush on my mum, so that definitely made it weirder.”
“Alright, was it weirder going from living in the Muggle world to Hogwarts or leaving Hogwarts and going back to the Muggle world for the summer?”
Lily chuckled, “both, honestly, it was an adjustment both ways.” James could understand that, it was an adjustment moving from Spain to England, he’d imagine shifting your perspective of the world would be more difficult than just moving countries.
“Hmm… was it weirder hooking up with me or Emmeline?”
“Er… you, probably,” James answered, “I’m closer to you than to Emmy. I think the weird part of hooking up with Em was how we just didn’t talk about it after. Like at all.”
“Okay, what about hooking with me or with Marlene? Which was weirder?”
“Oh, Marlene, for sure. She’s somewhat like family to me now, that’s definitely weirder.” Lily laughed loudly, “so you’re saying it felt like incest?” James laughed along with them, “oh absolutely. Like kissing your cousin, who kisses their cousin? That’s weird!”
James felt the couch dip on the other side of him. A Ravenclaw in his year sitting there, clearly having adjusted her top to hang low on her chest in an attempt to show as much cleavage as possible, even going as far to lean over and give a more accentuated view. “Hi James,” she said and James guessed she was trying to speak seductively, but the slurring of her words was not at all seductive to him.
“Er, hi?”
The girl tried to snuggle up next to him, paying no mind to how fast James leaned away. He faintly heard Lily’s name yelled from over the volume of the crowd and turned to see them slipping away from the couch.
“No–no Lily! Lily don’t— don’t leave me— Lily!” They left. Shit. Lily leaving was apparently a trigger for at least three other girls to sit on the couch.
It was blatantly obvious what they all wanted. They wanted James to hook up with them. Nevermind what he wanted, that’s what they were after. Every word James said, they laughed, and he wasn’t even saying anything funny. He could have said ‘oh’ and they’d laugh. These girls were twirling their hair between their fingers, they were angling themselves to try and make him look at their chests, they were trying to run their hands over him. He felt gross.
He searched the sea of people, hoping to spot a friend and praying they’d make eye contact and save him. James would give anything for Remus to just appear near him at this moment. Remus could tell him Sirius managed to get himself in trouble and James would probably sigh out of relief.
The person who did catch his eye was Regulus. The same person who always captivates James. Who looks beautiful in any condition. He saw Regulus talking to Pandora, smiling and giggling, and in his peripheral vision, he noticed someone staring. James recognized him, Preston; he was a sixth year on the quidditch team. James had always been a little weary of Preston, sometimes at practice he’d say things that just… they irked James.
Half the time it would sound harmless but he’d slip in innuendos wherever he could. The other half, he would unabashedly say something sexual, or concerning, or disturbing, or just overall inappropriate. James had brushed it off as maybe he just didn’t know better. You know, the whole stupid notion of ‘boys will be boys’? Sirius hadn’t known better until Mary slapped him across the face in fourth year. He never realized the way he heard seventh years speaking was rude and unacceptable until Mary and Lily told him so. James thought maybe it was the same with Preston and he’ll just talk to him after practice.
The girls around him kept talking, yet James wasn’t listening to a word they said. Best he could tell, they were trying to compete for his attention, except that had already been taken up by someone else. He kept an eye on both Regulus and Preston, watching as Preston started towards him with a drink in his hand and a look on his face that James couldn’t quite understand and Pandora leaving Regulus’ side with a small thumbs up and what looked like her mouthing ‘you got this’ to him.
“So… you’re like… a slut, huh?” One of the girls giggled.
James saw as Preston dropped something into the cup with his free hand just before reaching Regulus and offering him the drink. “Er, yeah, sure, I— I got to— I’ve— excuse me,” James said, leaving the
couch and heading straight to Regulus.
He put on a drunk persona as he slid up beside Regulus, slinging an arm around his shoulders with a fake dopey smile on his face.
“He-ey! Baby Black, you made it! What’s this? Can I have a sip? I’m parched!” James didn’t wait for an answer before grabbing the cup and tipping it up to his lips. He may not have been drinking tonight, but he knows what proper firewhiskey tastes like, this was far off. He didn’t swallow it, instead having spit it back into the cup while keeping eye contact with Preston.
“What the fuck, Potter!” Regulus exclaimed, groaning in frustration as he pushed James off of him, but failing to do so in his intoxicated state, which only made him all the more frustrated. James wasn’t shaken, he continued to stare at Preston with the tainted drink in hand. “Next time you try to roofie someone, I want you to remember this,” James said.
Preston scoffed, “remember what?”
James poured the remainder of the drink over Preston’s head. “That.” Retaliation came quick, Preston grabbed a cup from another student passing them and tossed it at Regulus’ clothing.
Sirius came up beside them, to anyone else he would have appeared calm, but James knew him. He could see the angry features on his best friend’s face. “What’s going on here?”
“This pollo needs to leave, he threw a drink at Regulus,” James said smugly. Sirius is fiercely protective of his friends and family, that one sentence was all he needed to grab Preston by the shirt and drag him out of the Common Room. “Oh! Hang on,” James called, getting the two to stop, “as your quidditch captain, you’re off the team, and as Head Boy, I’m sending you to detention, goodnight!”
“You can’t do that!”
“Oh, actually I can! Three days, and I’m being nice.”
James turned to Regulus who stood in place quietly livid at his now drenched shirt. Without thinking further about it, he grabbed his hand and pulled him along up the stairs to his dorm. “You can borrow a shirt,” he said as he opened the door.
Regulus huffed as the door closed, “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.” He turned around, glaring at James. If there’s one thing he knows about the Black family, they have all perfected the most intimidating stare James has ever experienced. “I— I wasn’t trying to, I just—”
“You did, that’s exactly what you did.”
“Okay, would you have rathered I let you get drugged?”
“I could have dealt with it on my own! Look, I know it’s hard for you not to swoop in and ‘save’ people but I don’t need saving!”
James didn’t understand.
“I don’t need you saving me, I ju–just wanted my brother in my— in my life and you know what? You took that from me.”
James was taken aback. He knows Regulus is drunk, he can hear it in the slurring and stuttering when Regulus is normally perfect with his words. He doesn’t stutter. He is articulate and vicious with his words.
“Reg— Regulus I— I didn’t take Sirius from you, he—”
“Yes! You did!”
“I didn’t take him, he showed up at my—”
“You took him from me the moment he met you!”
James fell silent. He didn’t know what to say and Regulus just stood there fuming, panting after shouting. “Reg…”
“You took him. The moment you two met, you became his brother and he abandoned me. I loved him, James, and he left me! For you! Everything is always you! I fucking hate you for taking him from me!” That hurt. Regulus hates him? “Why you? Why are you so much better than me? Why does he always pick you?”
All he could do was stand there. Stand there and listen as Regulus cuts him with hatred. Listen while the person who holds James’ heart in his hands looks at him with such loathing. Listen to all the ways Regulus describes despising him.
“You may have swooped in to save Sirius, but I don’t need you to save me. I didn’t need it then and I will never need it from you. I can handle myself, Potter!” Regulus shouted, he casted a drying spell over his clothes and stormed out of the dorm room. Still, James could only stand there. He didn’t want to go back to the party, he wanted to stay up here forever now.