What Happened to that Cocky Boy who Used to Make me Mad?
It all happened in a matter of seconds. James bent to his knees, his eyes focused on the distance between his feet and the ground, and Lily grabbed him by his waist, pulling him into safety. They fell, their bodies entangled as if they were only one, into the tower floor.
“Ouch!” He exclaimed, standing up quickly. “What the hell are you doing, Lily?”
“What am I, what am I doing?” Lily replied, harshly. “You were gonna kill yourself!”
James stared at her, completely dumbfounded, and his face changed into a horrified look as he comprehended what she had seen, what it looked like from her point of view.
“What? No, no, no, no, no!” He moved his arms violently, as if these would help him sound more convincing. “I often come here to think, to clear my head,” he explained, “I just sit between the bars and let my feet hang, it is relaxing, in a way…”
“I see," she murmured, embarrassed as she turned red, “and… you would never harm yourself, right?”
“What makes you say that?” James exclaimed, horrified.
“I just… You seem so different this year, it feels as if the true James Potter stayed home and a mannequin took over his place.” He looked at her then with a whole new expression, between determination and anger. He walked away from her.
“This doesn't concern you,” James spat, and Lily lost it right then and there. Here he is, she thought, here it is the prick he used to be, behind all that good-boy image he is playing. At the end of the day, it was no more than that, a facade, a role; and, whatever was going on with Sirius had nothing to do with James, he was just making everything about him, as always.
“I am worried about you, you prick! I am trying to help!” Lily exploited. “Why is it always like this between the two of us? You mock me, you pretend to like me and you play a part, hopeful that one day I am going to say yes and you are going to finally take your chance and laugh your ass off about how I believed you could ever be interested in someone like me!”
“And now…,” she added, ignoring James' clear bewilderment. “Something is going on with Sirius and it is clearly affecting you. And I, as a fool who has no self-esteem, am trying to help you (because I have eyes, I know Sirius already has you, and he has Remus…, he doesn't need me) and, somehow, you still manage to make me the object of all your pranks and merciless jokes…!”
To her astonishment, the boy in front of her murmured something extremely similar to “the object of all my desires, more like,” and instantly regretted it by the look of his face. He tried, then, to grab her hand, to stop her from storming out of the place in anger and she got out of the way, out of his touch.
“Lily!” James yelled out of desperation. “Lily! Wait! It is not what it looks like!”
“And what does it look like?” She taunted him.
“Like I am the villain of your story, which I am not, I am just a fool, an asshole who doesn't deserve you. But I am not evil, Lily, just give me one chance, a couple of minutes, to explain… Please.”
His voice broke as he begged her to stay. It completely broke down, and Lily wondered if James Potter had always been that sensitive, if, back home, he had always been one of those boys who kissed their mum's cheeks as a ritual, every fucking morning, and begged them (in quite a different tone than the one used in that conversation) to bake ginger cookies and pasties on Christmas (or the traditional wizarding equivalent, Yule, which Lily did not know very well).
It still was a random, out-of-place notion; but not as much as before… Now, somehow, it even felt familiar, she could hear Euphemia Potter's sweet, mom-like voice coming out of a gigantic kitchen full of house elves. It seemed like something the terrifying, and yet, cuddles-lover of a woman she had met at the station a few years back would do, like the dynamic she would maintain with her son.
Maybe it was that fictional image of the boy in front of her what made her accept; not the actual James Potter, but rather the being hidden behind hundreds of layers that, for a second, ran free before her eyes.
Being as it may, that is how Lily accepted one final and determinant explanation (and if it's not convincing enough, she promised herself she would bother no more with the infamous and arrogant lion of Gryffindor). That's also why she sits by his side, just as the clock strikes two in the morning, and dives herself in his caramel brown eyes, much more vulnerable than one would expect from the biggest bully in the school (oh well, she tells herself, that may be an exaggeration, but anyway…).
“Lily, look…” He starts speaking, unable to avoid her bright green eyes. “I may behave like a prick sometimes (ok, all the time), but it is actually worse when I am around you because you make me nervous, ok? I really like you, and I don't know why anyone wouldn't, you are awesome!”
Lily scoffs. She should have known, she should have expected something like this…
“I am not joking!” He insists, his flustered cheeks a little too real for her not to take him into consideration. “You are really smart, like, I have yet to meet someone as intuitive and talented as you are, and you care about people! Maybe a little too much sometimes, seeing that you did not doubt to run after me and save me, even though I behaved like a total prick in the past…”
“And you are insanely beautiful,” he quickly adds.
“Yeah, right!” She responds.
“You are!”
“I am not slim enough,” she reminds him, “or tall, or pretty…, I am fat!”
“It is a shame you cannot see yourself in the light I see you, oh my Lily Flower!” He teases her to release the tension, suddenly back to his usual self, although she can still see he bears a heavy burden (and that maybe, just maybe, he truly meant those words).
“There you are!” She congratulates him. “Took you long enough…! Now, Romeo, can you tell me what got you into a middle-age crisis at the young age of sixteen, or will I be forced to make you spit it out?”
The ambiance turns black right then and there, once those poorly chosen words leave her mouth. He cringes at her touch and slips away from her fingers.
“Sirius begged me to tell you, actually,” he confesses.
“Really?” She asks, bewildered.
“He trusts you”, he simply says “and he is desperate, he hopes you can help, although I have told him nobody can…”
“Let me be the judge of that, James, yeah?”
“Yeah… So this summer…”
The story turns out even darker in the free and joyful boy's lips. Lily begins sobbing while she pictures Sirius' still and cold body in James' living room. It sounds just like the perfect horror movie, one of those with a selfless hero, an unexpected ally who sacrifices himself for our protagonist and, of course, the usual yet exhausting villains who were there all along, except that everyone took them for two fools without a heart and nothing more. Somehow, she can guess something is missing, that there is more to the story, hundreds of layers hidden beneath the surface of a starless sea she can't dive into just yet—someday she will, she promises herself, someday she will uncover all of them. At some point before the year ended, Lily would figure it all out, all the secrets the marauders were keeping from her.
“This… This is huge, James!” She murmurs as he ends the tale, red-eyed and struggling to breath.
Hesitantly, Lily strokes his arm, hoping it helps him calm down.
“I know, I know… I didn't mean to tell you this much, it is just that…”
“You needed it, and that is ok. But… What was done to Sirius and Regulus in that house? Do you know if we could sue their parents or something?”
“That is not my story to tell.” James interrupts her. “Don't ask, I cannot tell you. And no, we cannot sue the Blacks, they are the Blacks! Dumbledore won't lift a finger…”
He spits these last words in haste, it is obvious that he has been savouring them in his lips for a long time, maybe since the events took place. Maybe he used to play with them in his head, not believing he would ever be brave enough to say them out loud and hoping, in stead, that he would worn them out as an used gum after losing every lasting taste.
“Nevermind, that is not why I wanted to know about it,” she reminds him, “now… What is going on with you?”
“I just… He almost died! I stood there, holding his body, not even brave enough to call Remus until later, it could have been too late and Remus would have never forgiven me!”
“It wasn't, Sirius is fine and he and Remus are in love and happy… It wasn't too late.”
James stares at her, a sense of protectiveness coming over him.
“Remus told me, you idiot!” She explains. “Besides, I have eyes! And I would never break their trust, you know that, right?”
“Right, right…” He mutters, clearly embarrassed.
“James, listen,” she tells him then, “It is not too late about Regulus, we can still help him.”
“We?”
“Of course! I don't need to know the whole story if you do not trust me with it. Just tell me what you guys need and I'll do my best.”
“Thanks Lily,” James mutters, “that means a lot. It is just that… I cannot live without Sirius, I don't know how to! And now things are getting dangerous and I had to hold his body!”
“And that made your fears real,” she comprehends.
“It was more than that, actually.” He corrects her. “I thought about you, you know? About how you made the right decision turning me down so many times. How could you not? I was the bully of the school! I thought it was funny, that they were just harmless jokes, but they weren't, were they? I am just a child, and not in a good way, I am one of those babies that don't let adults watch the film on the big telly.”
Lily censors herself for the sake of James. Do not ask him how on earth he knows what a “telly” is, Lily, she tells herself, this is not the right time.
“Don't you mean the cinema? And no, I don't think you are that annoying.” She confesses. “I think, at first, the pranks were actually funny, you know? Eleven-year-old Lily would sooner die than admit that, but they were! You and Sirius just lost track for a bit and they became sort of cruel. And James, you have to know that I turned you down because I didn't think you were ever serious (for god sake, don't!)”
“I am never Sirius, that's..” He teases her.
“My point is that, someday, you will be more than enough for someone and you totally deserve that. You are not a bad person, James, and I would really, really like to be your friend.”
He looks at her, just as astonished as she is. Has she really said that? She didn't mean to! It just… got out, she guesses. However, she doesn't panic, she realizes that it is true, that she would love to be friends with this new version of the infamous James Potter, no matter how long it lasts.
He, then, offers his hand and grabs her in the strongest hand shank.
“It's been a pleasure to make acquaintance with you, Lily Evans,” he tells her.
“Same.” She mutters, letting a small smile out, just visible in the corner of her lips. “I really hope we will make the bestest of friends, James Potter.”
“Oh, do not doubt that for a second! What a strong alliance that will be!”
They are interrupted by a strong but consistent noise. They look at each other, unable to figure out what it is until a female, intimidating voice shouts “Is anyone there?” and they realise it is McGonagall's and what they were hearing were steps.
“New friend,” James murmurs, getting something out of his pocket, “it is a pleasure to present you… The invisibility cloak!”
He lets out a silent yell out of pure glee, and covers them both with it. Lily watches herself disappear and how professor Mcgonagall makes her way back, hands-empty. She feels, right then and there, an excitement she had never felt before, and wonders if that was how the marauders felt each time they misbehaved, if that brief but fresh wave of fresh air could only be achieved by letting oneself go by the path of mischief.
The next morning, she wakes up and feels it has not been nearly enough, that she had just gone to sleep. She is prone to thinking, like she has done many times before, that everything was the product of a fever dream, but, as she walks to the dining hall and sees an empty seat next to James, she knows it's not, she befriended James Potter, and would be dealing with him from now on.
“New friend!” The boy yells, catching the attention of not only the gryffindor table, but also the other three along with the professors'. “Come here! Don't be shy! I was just telling Sirius all about our many adventures together!”
At least, she thought in that instant, after she noticed Sirius opening his mouth in honest shock and Remus begging the rest of the group to “wake him up,” the old James Potter is back. How much she wishes now she had been right, that life was as simple as one made it out to be.