heartbeat on the high line
Lily is digging through the boxes she shoved under her bed, an unenthusiastic attempt at spring cleaning, when she finds it.
An age softened jumper, nearly old enough to call it vintage. The red has faded a bit, but the gold detailing - added with magic she’s sure, still sparkles under the lights of her bedroom.
She traces the stitched letters, remembering nights cozied up in the Gryffindor common room, quiet mornings dragging him to library to study for NEWTs, and cold afternoons cheering on the Gryffindor quidditch team.
The sweater, emblazoned with Potter, and his designation of Captain had been her standard uniform for all Quidditch match days that last year. Even matches when Gryffindor wasn’t playing, James insisted the entire team show up in uniform. An “intimidation tactic” against the other teams, he said. And as James’s professed good luck charm, he had begged and pleaded with her until she finally agreed to wear one of his kits. Sirius had similarly been forced into a spare shirt of James’s, and the two of them would keep each other company while cheering on the team.
She hadn’t realized she still had it. Somehow the jumper had made it through multiple moves, years of worth of spring cleanings, but she thinks this is the first time she’s seen it since that awful spring of seventh year when everything had gone to shit.
At the time, it had felt like the end of the world.
She found out her boyfriend, the boy who had chased her for six years at Hogwarts, had cheated on her over the summer break between their six and seventh years. Practically immediately after they got together in the first place.
Worse, he was actually in love with the third person in their unfortunate love triangle.
Not that he could recognize it at the time.
She had believed James when he swore up and down it was just a summer thing, over and done with by the time they all returned to Hogwarts on September 1 for their final year. Considering they spent practically every waking moment together that fall and winter, there simply wasn’t time in the day for James to be running out on her - even factoring into consideration his invisibility cloak and his knowledge of every hidden shortcut and secret room in the Castle.
When she had refused to take him back, all of her friends - and even her mother, who had met James once and immediately loved him - had cautioned her against acting rashly.
They too could read the sincerity in his apology, could see how much James loved her.
They told her she’d regret this decision, that James could be her “happily ever after,” her once in twenty lifetimes chance for love.
And maybe he was.
In the nearly decade and a half since, Lily certainly hasn’t had much luck with love. She’s dated of course, even had some long term relationships with perfectly lovely people. But she knew she’d be settling.
She wanted a love that lit her up inside. A love that would mark her as forever changed. A relationship with kisses that lingered and laughter that was free flowing.
And maybe she could have had that with James, but she could tell, even then, that he had found all of that, just not with her. He loved her, sure. And they probably could have been happy together. But if she loved him as much as she said she did, didn’t he deserve her giving him the chance - pushing him into the opportunity, really - to share a life with the best possible person for him?
Her friends told her she’d regret it when she got older, or got some distance from the initial hurt and betrayal. Her mother told her she was young, and just didn’t know what she wanted yet.
But Lily knew she wasn’t the one for James. Knew that by continuing to date, and probably eventually marrying her, he’d be taking the path of least resistance, giving in to what everyone around them had thought was best.
James never would have had the courage to pursue him publicly if Lily hadn’t turned him down, and practically dared him to do it.
Everyone around her had assumed Lily would regret her decision, and had thought she was making the wrong choice.
But even then she had known.
Had seen the way James looked at him and talked about him. And after seven years of sharing a House, and nearly a year of dating, Lily knew James. Knew him to his core.
Folding the old jumper in her lap, Lily thinks she might send it to them.
Their oldest kid must be starting at Hogwarts soon. Bet they’ll end up on the Quidditch team eventually, or at least would find it fun to wear this in the stands.
Lily hasn’t kept up with James’s family in the years since they broke up. Not out of any anger over how their relationship ended, they just drifted apart. Their groups of friends had never really been joined, just forced together due to proximity while they were still in school.
But it might be nice to reach out, catch up with the couple and see how they’ve been doing. Lily chatted with James briefly at a pub night they had both ended up at, but the Leaky had been so loud they could only hear every other word spoken.
Yes, she thinks, I’ll send them the sweater and see if they want to meet for dinner. James and Lily’s relationship was long over, barely a blip in either of their lives, but Lily thinks that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be the ending. Maybe now, they could be something like friends.