Chapter 10
“For once in your life, Mulciber, could you activate your two brain cells at the same time?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “It means, you absolute troll, that attacking me right now is stupider than a confounded flobberworm.”
“Oi, what did you call me?”
A slight, pinch-faced Slytherin gave a long, bored sigh. “She called you a troll, Mulciber, which actually I tend to agree with, but that’s not the point,” he sneered, raising his voice over Mulciber’s increasingly troll-like grunts of displeasure. “The point is that filthy Mudbloods should know to keep their dirty mouths shut around their superiors.”
Lily scoffed. She’d been making a slow but determined effort to put her back against a wall so at least there’d be one angle they couldn’t hex her from. So far, her strategy of distracting them with mildly insulting banter was working surprisingly well, but she knew it couldn’t last forever. Having finally accomplished her goal—a nice, wandless bit of wall at her back—she didn’t really know what to do.
It occurred to her that the longer she waited, the more likely it was for her odds to worsen, since she seriously doubted anybody but a Slytherin would be wandering about the dungeons at this hour. But also, despite stereotypes about the stuff of Gryffindors’ fantasies, she really didn’t want to fight seven people at once. She wished so badly for a friendly face. Marlene. Or Mary. James (her stomach lurched). Even Nearly Headless Nick would do in a pinch. Which this was. Most definitely.
Though seriously doubtful it would make the tiniest dent in their thick skulls, she tried to employ reason again.
Lily sighed. Dirty mouth. As if. Mulciber probably hadn’t brushed his teeth since he first set foot on platform 9 ¾. “Look, let’s agree to disagree about my oral hygiene, alright? The actual, relevant point is that my friends are waiting for me upstairs,” (a lie, but nobody needed to know that), “and in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not some helpless first year—not that I’m condoning tormenting first years, but I am Head Girl, which means that unless I walk out of this corridor and up the stairs unharmed, Slytherin will be losing rather a lot of points.”
For half a second, Lily thought she might’ve gotten through. The pinched boy in the front did seem a bit sharper than the rest, but in the next second a slow smile Lily was pretty sure she’d be having nightmares about for the rest of her life spread over his face as he sneered, “Well, we’ll just have make sure you can’t walk much of anywhere when we’re finished with you.”
Right. So. A fight it was, then.
Lily was so mad that the bombarda she aimed straight at the ceiling went off with the force of a small bomb. Casting a quick cushioning charm over her head, she saw to her dismay that only two Slytherins went down with the explosion, knocked aside by rubble. Another appeared to have broken a collarbone, but the other four, while scattered and disoriented, were quickly recovering to retaliate.
Lily used the brief second of confusion to pivot so her back faced the open corridor behind her, but she didn’t dare try to make a getaway yet. There were too many of them, and if she were hit with a curse in the back, she’d be worse off than she was now. Already the first jinxes were flying her way, and suddenly she was on the defensive, which made taking out any others more difficult. She whirled, blocking curses and hexes left and right. She detachedly wondered if this was what Quidditch keepers felt like, and gained a new appreciation for the sport.
Panting, she managed to petrify one of them, but then Avery sent a ball of flame blasting towards her and it took every ounce of her concentration to turn it into feathers, making the hallway look like a giant bird had blundered through it recently.
Above the shouts of her opponents, Lily heard footsteps sprinting behind her and she really, really hoped it was somebody coming to help because she couldn’t even turn to look as she fought off another attack from Avery.
“STUPEFY!” a voice roared next to her. The best voice she’d ever heard. Avery crumpled like a cooked noodle.
James.
She’d never seen anyone or anything more beautiful than he looked in that moment, his eyes dark and flashing with anger behind his glasses, his hair a mess, his chest heaving from having run all the way here.
A movement caught the corner of her eye. The horrible mean-faced Slytherin—the one she still wanted to hex into another century—raised his wand, pointing at James.
“Cru—”
“No!” she screamed, slashing her wand in front of James’ chest. She couldn’t even think of a spell. All she thought was, Not James. Not when he came for me. Like he has again and again. Like he always will. A huge silver doe exploded between them, absorbing the spell meant for James and splitting apart in a blinding flash of white light.
Beside her James shielded his eyes and used the momentary lull to stupefy the last of the group.
It was over.
Those who’d managed to rouse themselves scrambled away, or dragged their friends behind them.
Silence fell.
Lily bent over with her hands on her knees, winded. A warm, steady hand settled on her back.
“Alright, Evans?”
Never had she been so happy to hear those words. Taking a deep shuddering breath, she stood up straight and met James’ eyes. Visible relief spread over his face when she nodded. Lily flung her arms around his neck and hugged him so tightly her arms shook. James’ arms came around her and they stayed like that for a moment. Lily’s whole body was trembling—partly from adrenaline, and partly as realization dawned over her. No matter how badly she wanted to help from St. Mungo’s hospital, she was going to have to fight in this war. Whether she wanted to or not.
Hearing rapid footsteps approach, they broke apart just before Professor McGonagall rounded the corner, her hat uncharacteristically askew. As she took in the state of the hallway, she sucked in a gasp, her eyes darting between James and Lily.
“Merlin’s sake, Potter, can’t you stay out of trouble for five blasted minutes?” she asked.
James ruffled his hair. “Sorry, Professor.”
“It was me, this time, Professor,” Lily interjected, before James could pull some noble martyr act. He glared at her in lieu of thanks. She ignored him, explaining quickly what had happened.
When she’d finished, McGonagall seemed at a loss for words.
“Well,” McGonagall said for the fifth time, looking around at the destroyed corridor. “Well. Five hundred points from Slytherin.”
Lily met James’ look of surprise, imagining her own face mirrored his.
“I mean, I was fighting, too, Professor,” she offered, ignoring the eye roll her over-active honesty elicited from James.
“As well you should have been,” Professor McGonagall said sharply. “True self-defense is never immoral, Miss Evans. And I have no doubt the students you named behaved the way you described—horrible hissing vipers, the lot of them.”
James’ eyebrows rose into his hairline, and Lily could tell he was stifling a laugh.
“Well,” McGonagall said again. “I’ll take this matter to Professor Dumbledore once I set the corridor to rights. I can’t say whether he’ll see fit to remove those criminals from our school, but he will have me to answer to if he does not.”
Warmth and gratitude for her head of house flooded Lily’s chest. She had the urge to hug McGonagall, but thought that might be unwelcome, so she settled for saying, “Thank you, Professor.”
Dumbledore seemed to believe he could save all the future Death Eaters from You-Know-Who just by keeping them at school, and while Lily thought it was a noble endeavor, she also saw how dangerous the halls at Hogwarts were becoming, and was immensely grateful for at least one professor who saw and acknowledged the very real challenges Muggleborns faced daily.
McGonagall softened almost imperceptibly for a moment as she met Lily’s eyes, before straightening and turning to face the corridor with pursed lips. “Run along now,” she said to them both. “The band’s on at the ball for another thirty minutes, I believe.”
Dismissed, Lily and James turned and left together, neither speaking until they were several corridors away.
“What now?” she asked.
James shrugged. “I don’t feel like going back to the ball.”
“Me neither.”
They continued climbing out of the dungeons together, an awkward silence descending between them.
“Thank you for coming,” Lily said, embarrassed to find her voice wobbly again. “I—I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“You didn’t need me—you were amazing. They were about to turn tail. I should be thanking you for that patronus you cast.”
“I thought he was going to crucio you.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been my first time tonight.”
“Severus?” Lily gasped, looking up at James.
James clenched his jaw. For a moment he looked angry, but he seemed to force his face back to neutral. He rounded a corner, taking them higher in the castle. Having a hunch why he was upset, Lily followed.
“James, I know you didn’t start the fight. I’m so sorry that I—”
“Assumed I did?” he supplied.
“Well, yes. James, I’m so sorry—it just looked like—”
“It’s okay, Lily,” he said. The defeated tone of his voice made her heart feel like a punctured balloon. “I know you don’t trust me, for very valid reasons. Given my track record with Snape, your assumption was an understandable one.”
“No, James, it wasn’t like that—” she started, but stopped abruptly. Because it was like that, at its core. Time and again he’d proven to her this past year that he’d changed, that she could trust him, but something still held her back. And she suspected she knew what it was.
Because the truth was, if she fully trusted James, the last barrier would be gone. She would fall in love with him. And that terrified her. Not because of who James was—he wasn’t the same arrogant tosser she’d known fifth year. It was because of who she was.
Two of the people Lily had loved most had left her as soon as circumstances changed. Petunia had cut her out of her life when she learned Lily was a witch. Sev had left her as they’d grown up, and taken separate paths. Both times, Lily felt she hadn’t changed, but they’d stopped loving her anyway. And right now, she and James were surrounded by nothing but changes. They were about to leave Hogwarts and start careers in a world on the brink of war. They’d have to fight—real fights, not just hallway skirmishes. They’d have to learn how to find safety outside the fortress of school.
But the biggest change of all wasn’t in their surrounding circumstances. It was the change of Lily’s heart. If she loved James, she would no longer be his opponent and sparring partner. She’d no longer be the one thing he couldn’t have. What if James didn’t love the version of Lily that loved him back?
“You’re right. I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I’ll try to do better.”
They’d come to a silent and deserted corridor several floors above the dungeons.
James took a deep, stuttering breath, and adjusted his glasses. His shoulders slumped slightly.
“Actually, I’m not sure it works that way, Lily,” he said gently.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think there’s any ‘trying’ in trust. You either do, or you don’t.”
A horrible pit was forming in Lily’s stomach. James wasn’t meeting her eye, instead looking out the arched and leaded windows where snow fell lightly outside the castle.
“I wanted to talk to you, Lily, because I realized something tonight.”
“Okay,” Lily said, feeling a silly lump form in her throat for the second time that night.
“I thought I could hold back, be casual, be whatever you needed. But tonight just proved that I can’t. I can’t be casual when it comes to you.” Finally James turned and met her gaze. His expression of raw heartbreak gutted her.
“Please don’t mistake me,” he continued, his voice rough with emotion. “I can be your friend, and I will always, always be there for you if you get into any trouble, probably whether you want me there or not. If you want me to never speak to you again, I can do that. But I can’t pretend with you, Lily. Tonight was the best night of my life—and that’s including getting crucio’d,” he gave a wry smile. “But it felt too real. I started to believe that we—well, I started to believe things I shouldn’t have. . . things I had no business thinking about when you don’t feel the same way.”
“But—”
“It’s okay, Evans,” James said, cutting across her with finality. “I know you’re not there yet. I know you might never be, and I’m sorry I can’t be what you want, either. But it’s okay—I’ll be okay. The last thing I’d want is to pressure you into feeling something you don’t.”
He tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, the pain and yearning in his eyes bidding her a silent farewell. Lily’s heart throbbed in protest.
“Just promise me one thing, Evans,” he said, “Come and find me, if you ever change your mind.”
And with that, James strode up the corridor, leaving Lily speechless with shock.
That didn’t last very long, though.
How dare he just walk away?!
She steeled herself. There was something she had to tell James Potter.