Yea, sorry for the long wait...and sorry its so short. I was going to put all of next chap. Into this one, but that seemed like too much……..so….without further ado…
****Chapter 11::I’m Done here**
Lily was exempt from all further classes until the Christmas holiday. Sarah and Alice graciously brought her all the work from all of her classes each day after classes had let out, and even brought her breakfast, lunch and dinner without complaint.
However, Lily could sense the annoyance that came with her meals and homework, and knew that her friends were getting tired of bringing her meals every few hours, even though they didn’t dare say it to Lily herself.
Lily hadn’t seen or talked to anyone else for almost a week. The last person that she talked to other than Sarah and Alice was Remus, and she of course, hadn’t been too pleasant.
She had also yelled in Albus Dumbledore’s face. She had thrown a fully-fledged tantrum right there in front of him. And she remembered how calmly he just sat there, as his head girl, calm, cool and collected Lily Evans screamed at him. What must he think of her now?
It wasn’t as though she couldn’t go back to her classes, she was perfectly capable of returning and handling the work; she was doing it every night in her bed anyway. Lily just didn’t want to have to deal with all the people around her. The whispers. The questions. The pitying glances. She needed time to heal….alone.
Alice had told her last night that Remus wanted to make sure she was alright. And she had also said that James had wanted to talk to her. This stirred something in Lily’s mind, she knew that James was only being nice to her because…well, she just knew that the niceness wouldn’t be permanent.
But she didn’t forget how…comforting he was toward her that night. How he made her feel safe in his arms and how he stroked her hair and held her, rocking her until she could stand back up and go upstairs. She didn’t remember how long they had sat there; it could’ve been ten minutes or an hour. There was something about the way he talked to her, or how he didn’t get freaked out by her hysterical screaming that made her feel funny about James Potter. Could he really have a heart after all?
There was a knock at the door, then Alice stepped in. “Hey Lily,”
Lily sat up and pulled the hangings open from her bed. Alice was standing there with a tray in her hands, smiling kindly.
“Thank you, Ally,” Lily said gratefully, as Alice walked over to the bed and rested the tray onto the bedside table. “You don’t know how much I appreciate this, and I know it bothers you,”
“Bothers me?” Alice asked, tying her long mane of brown hair into a ponytail and opening her trunk. “It’s my duty as your friend to do this kind of thing for you in your time of need. It’s like a law or something.”
“Well, thank you,” Lily replied.
“You already said that.” Alice grinned and put a pair of jeans into her trunk, then another, then a sweater.
“What are you doing?” Lily asked curiously, and she continued to watch her friend load her trunk.
Alice glanced at Lily before bending over and pulling a shoe out from underneath her bed. “I’m packing for Christmas, silly,”
Lily looked at her fingers. She had forgotten that Alice and Sarah and basically everyone at school were going to be leaving for the holidays. She too of course, had plans to leave and go home to her family but….
She had spent every single Christmas of her entire life with her parents. Now Christmas only seemed like it was going to be nothing more than a lonely loveless Valentines Day or a rainy, cloudy Easter. All the magic of the holiday season had drained out of her. Spending Christmas here alone at school just seemed so absolutely...
Lily reached over to the dinner tray and took a bite out of her roll to prevent a lump from forming in her throat. She hadn’t cried once since the night with James. She didn’t want to cry anymore, in fear that once she started, she wouldn’t be strong enough to stop again. She never felt pleasant though. It was almost as though a big dark cloud was looming over her head, seeping away every ounce of happiness she had ever possessed.
“You better get packing too,” Alice’s voice brought Lily back down to earth. “We leave first thing in the morning,”
Lily looked up at her, eyes surprised and confused. “We…?”
“Well, only if you want to,” Alice said quickly, “My parents invited you to come and stay with us for the holidays. You don’t have to, I mean. If you’d much rather stay her I’d understand.”
But Lily was smiling. A girl who, just seconds before, thought she’d never smile again.
***
“Sarah? Sarraahh?” James sang as he sat down next to Sarah at the table at breakfast the next morning.
Sarah looked up from her bowl of cereal and saw James Potter inches from her face.
“Gaah!” She slid backward on the bench so there was a reasonable amount of distance between their noses. “Why are you sitting so close to me?”
“Well, you didn’t answer me the first time I called your name, or the second, so I thought I’d just-,” James began, but Sarah cut him off.
“What do you want, James?” She asked, irritably.
“Where’s the lovely Miss Evans?” he asked, “Is she still up in her room? I’ve been meaning to talk to her for a week.”
“No, she’s not up in her room.” Sarah grumbled, shoveling a fork-full of eggs into her mouth.
“Excellent.” James stood up. “Where is she, then?”
“Not here.” Sarah said, raising her eyebrows at her plate.
“Could you possibly be a little bit vaguer for me, Sarah?” James sat back down again.
“She left with Alice to go to Alice’s house for the Christmas holiday.” Sarah said sourly, “Not that she invited me to go or anything…,”
“Ah, so that explains why you’re particularly petulant this fine morning...I thought it was my presence. What a relief that is,” James grinned, and Sarah rolled her eyes.
“Where are you going for the Holidays, then?” James asked the grouchy curly-haired girl.
Sarah frowned. “I’m going to go home. But my parents are going to go see my absolutely wonderful older brother’s cauldron shop. It just opened for Christmas and they’re so proud. So of course they can’t pick me up until TOMORROW so I get to stay an extra day at Hogwarts ALONE…,”
James looked around the hall. On any other morning, it would have been filled with students, but as it was the first day of the Christmas holiday, it seemed that at least half of the school’s population had already left, and it was only 7:00 in the morning. He also found it quite odd that there weren't any teachers at the staff table at all, except the cantankerous Mr. Filch, who was watching him with his eyebrows narrowed. As of right at that moment, Sarah and James were the only two sitting at the Gryffindor table. Sirius, Peter and Remus were all still there, but they were all in bed sleeping.
James picked up a slice of bacon off of Sarah’s plate and bit into it.
“Yes, I was going to eat that, you know,” came Sarah’s snippety retort.
James looked from the bacon in his hand to Sarah’s face, and held the half-eaten piece of meat out to her. “You want it back?”
Sarah scowled and threw her fork onto the table. "Never mind! I'm not even hungry any more!" James watched as she got up and stormed out of the hall.
“Was it something I said?” He asked to nobody in particular, grinning, as the doors closed behind Sarah.
At that very moment, the oak doors opened again and Sirius strolled in, followed by Peter and Remus.
“Hullo, Prongs,” Sirius said cheerfully as he sat down across from James, Remus and Peter taking seats on either side of him. Peter was looking sleepy, and kept rubbing his eyes, and Remus was looking upset about something, though trying to make his face look expressionless.
“Hey,” James said absentmindedly, thinking about Lily once more. He didn’t ever get a chance to talk to her since that one faithful night. He didn’t even know if she was going to be okay or not. That instantly made him irritated towards Sarah; she could’ve told him that Lily was alright.
Sirius looked at James just as he frowned. Then he turned his head and glanced at Remus, his eyebrows shifting and his mouth a thin line, and Peter, who had his eyes closed and his head down on the table.
“What is up with everyone today?!?” Sirius burst out, looking from friend to friend.
James snapped out of his Lily-induced coma and looked at Sirius. “Sorry, mate, I was just thinking about…something.”
Remus cleared his throat quietly and spooned some scrambles eggs from the tray on the table onto his plate.
“Come on, it’s Christmas!” Sirius said joyfully, “You should be happy!”
"I am happy.” James shoved a mouthful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
“Me too,” Peter mumbled groggily, his head still down on the table. "I couldn't fall asleep last night, that's all,"
Remus was examining the eggs on his plate with a crease in his brow, and didn’t say anything.
“Okay, Mooney, you are going to tell us what’s up. You’ve been like this for almost a week!” Sirius said to his silent friend. “You haven’t spoken a single full sentence to anybody since-,”
“Since the night you tried to make me kill somebody?” Remus said lowly, not looking up. “Since the night I almost attacked an innocent student?”
“I can’t believe your still on about that!” Sirius cried, and James glared at him, “I mean, he wasn’t that innocent,”
“I can’t believe you would even put me in a position like that!” Remus gripped his fork so tightly that his knuckles were white, “What if I had killed him? I would be out of school for sure!”
“Look, I’m sorry about all that but it was just a-,”
“A prank!” Remus cried, “I know, Sirius, but that still doesn’t-,”
“We’ve been over this before!” Sirius said exasperatedly, “I already told you that I was sorry!”
“But I didn’t say a thing about it!” Remus was almost shouting now, “and you know why? Because I was scared of making you mad. Afraid of angering Sirius Black, for he might, what, kick me out of his posse?”
“What?” Sirius asked, looking at Remus as if he was going mad.
“For seven years I’ve let you walk all over me, take advantage of me and use me.” Remus looked straight into Sirius’s face. “And I’m tired of it! I can’t take it anymore!”
“Mooney-,” James began, slowly, not expecting this kind of outburst from his kind,timid, quiet friend.
“No!” Remus interrupted him, “You’re just as bad as he is! You walk all over me too! You both do! If you need to copy my homework, what do I do? I let you copy it! If you are going to get caught because you are out past hours, what do I do? I sneak you back in so you don’t get a detention! Not once did I ever tell you no, not once did I ever refuse to do one of your favors! And she was right! Lily knew, Lily saw what you were doing, she even confronted me about it…,”
“Lily?” Sirius asked, “What’s this got to do with Lily?”
“Mooney, you need to calm down!” James said, hoping that their little scene wasn’t attracting an audience.
“No, I’m not going to calm down!” Remus dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter. “I’m through doing what you say! I’m going to stand up for myself,”
sorry that was so short, [but whoeffingcares.]
haha. sorry it took so long to finish this..school is AMAZING. pssh.. well you know what i'm going to say, but i like repeating myself for EMPHASIS, so.... PPPPUHHHLLLEASSSEEE LEAVE A REVIEW!!!
[[i'll be eternally grateful!]] and i'll review for you too of course. haha.
NEW CHAPTER COMING sooooooooooon!
LEX :]
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