When It Rains

Lily had expected James to jump all over that little slip-up. Normally he wouldn’t have wasted a second in coming out with some creative innuendo that forced her to reiterate how she would rather date the Giant Squid than him. She had been fully expecting the complete and utter breakdown of their deal. But no, it seemed that James was just as keen to keep this thing going as she was. He’d actually saved her the embarrassment of having to put up with whatever he came up with, and she felt a small surge of gratitude for that. She got the impression that the ending to his sentence hadn’t been his first choice of words, which made her all the more curious. Normally he just said what he thought and be done with it, much like her. For them both to be so considerate of what they were saying to one another was unheard of. She almost wished someone was here to witness it, because there was no way Alice or Ted would believe her when she told them she’d had a shockingly enjoyable evening having a quiet chat with James Potter. It was like saying she’d had a shockingly enjoyable evening cleaning out the thestral stables.

“Oh yes, I’m sure they’d love that,” she replied, settling into her seat again comfortably once more. “After you and Sirius, they’ll relish the thought of coming to boring Aunt Lily. They’ll come round telling my kids about how daddy lets them play with the flying candlesticks that try to bite your finger off when you put them out and all of a sudden they’ll be queuing up outside your door for you to adopt them. I don’t think even my wonderful, obedient, academic influence will have any calming effect.”

Wonderful, obedient, academic influence? Now, Lily knew her good points very well, as her parents had always taught her and Petunia to be aware of their strengths, to use them to their advantage. However, the Evans children were also taught the value of humility, and that sentence had sounded far from it. In fact, Lily wouldn’t have been shocked if it had come from the mouth of the boy sat in front of her. Was it possible that after so short a time of being civil – even friendly – with one another he was already becoming a bad influence? Or was he simply just able to bring out the pride she had in the form of joking arrogance? It was the sort of comment she’d always had a biting retort for.

Listening to his reasoning on scaring off all other men, Lily was uncomfortable that she found herself understanding his twisted logic. If all it took was a threat from James Potter to scare someone off, would she really have been interested? She needed someone who could stand up for themselves, someone who could engage her in intelligent conversation and quick, sharp banter, someone like Ja - wait. No. She refused to even go there in her head. She could not possibly be considering that someone like James Potter was what she needed in life. Could she?

She let out a small smile at his assessment of the Ravenclaw, silent in her agreement. If anything, Lily had found she disliked the girls James had dated on odd occasions more than she did him at the time. They were always so simpering, looking at him with those wide puppy eyes and acting grateful simply that he had allowed them to be in his presence. That’s not what he needed. He needed someone who could knock him down a peg or two, ground him into some sense of reality and oh lord she did not like where this train of thought was going. What was wrong with her?! One little storm and a few moments of honesty and she was all over the place. She very much desired to go and stick her nose into a book someplace and end the torture her poor brain was currently enduring trying to keep check of her thoughts. Through the haze, however, thinking about what he had said, Lily did have one thought come through bright and shining.

“James,” she began, her fingers picking busily at the bobbles of fluff on the blanket over her knees and her eyes all but burning a hole through it, “I want to ask you something. But if you answer, I want it to be honest, and if it is I promise it will have no bearing on the terms of our little agreement that’s been going so nicely.”

Breathe, Swallow. Good. She laid her hands flat in her lap as she crossed her legs, wanting to be as comfy as she could physically whilst saying this, because it was quite possibly going to be the most awkward sentence ever muttered in her life. Though it was against her better judgement, she raised her face to look at his, sat back all relaxed and chilled. God she hoped she wasn’t about to ruin this whole thing while it was on its best legs...

“Over the past seven years, apart from this evening, I’ve never once been nice to you. I’ve yelled at you, insulted you, cursed you, hexed you, avoided and ignored you. I’ve called you every name under the sun and then some. I’ve been best friends with people you downright hated, I’ve been honestly quite unfair to any girl you’ve ever dated and brought in here. I’ve ruined more of you and your friends little outings than I can probably remember, and I’ve turned you down more times than you’ve scored in Quidditch.”

Here it was. She braced herself, taking a deep breath, suddenly terrified of the answer he might give.

“So why have you never given up on me?”

As soon as she had asked the question, Lily immediately wished she had a Time Turner to hand. She’d have happily given up her wand for the opportunity of going back in time to tell her past, unconfused self not to start this conversation. In fact, she would have told herself to ignore James completely, go straight up to the dorms and not speak to him for a week. She wouldn’t have needed to give a reason. There had been so many times in the past where he had said or done something so insignificant, but it had bothered her so much she had cut off all contact until she felt she wouldn’t punch him in the face as soon as he opened his mouth to speak. But no. Her brain, in all its wonderful, calculating and curious wisdom, had made her ask the one question she’d been avoiding the answer of for years now.

A part of her desperately wished for him to turn the whole thing into a joke. Never had she been so keen to hear him boast about how she would just be the perfect person to emphasise his glorious good looks and suave mannerisms. Never before had she wanted so badly for him to ask her to go to Hogsmeade with him, just this one time, to give him a chance. She wanted him to lie, to squirm out of giving a real answer, because she didn’t know if she was ready to hear the truth from James Potter. She had spent so long denying there was any real emotion involved. Lily had convinced herself his persistence was only because she was the one girl to always say no, the girl he would never get. Unattainable, as she’d heard herself described on more than one occasion. But when the glasses came off and his voice dropped as he started to answer, she knew her fairy godmother was nowhere to be seen this evening.

She couldn’t say she hadn’t asked for this.

Hearing that he had contemplated giving up –was doing so right this second – should have sent her into full excitement mode. Lily knew she ought to have been thrilled, should be smiling and dancing around the hallways accepting his resignation from pursuing her. She knew that’s how she should have felt. She’d been looking forward to this moment for so very long now. So now it was finally here, why did she feel so empty? The fact that he couldn’t even look at her spoke more than anything else. She’d had the same opinion of him for years. James had been the arrogant, cocky, inconsiderate, bullying git she’d put up with only because she had to share classes with him. Yet in the space of one evening, he’d managed to at least dent if not completely shatter every last one of those impressions.

It was the smile that was the final nail in the coffin. She couldn’t just sit there after this, pretending everything was normal, or worse, acting as if nothing was different. Speaking to him like a normal person had made Lily’s walls that little bit weaker, and she’d always hated seeing someone look so downtrodden, like they weren’t worth it. And it was her that had caused that. Lily Evans was not that person. She was not the person who broke hearts, who made others feel like they weren’t worthy of her attention, who made someone feel so completely dejected. At least, she’d never thought she was. It was time, she decided, to make that the truth. Pushing herself up, she stepped right in front of James’ chair, reaching forward to straighten his tie into a perfect knot.

“Nobody likes a quitter, Potter,” she said, a soft smile lifting the corners of her lips. “So I’m afraid I just can’t accept your resignation. Not just yet,”

She straightened herself, still smiling, resisting the urge to reach out to try to fix his stupid, windswept-ruffled hair. She had let herself go too far already, and had no doubt she would be getting quizzed by Alice later if she found out, which she always did somehow.

“Now, we’re meant to be patrolling the dungeons this evening, but obviously you’ve got lots to prepare, so. I’ll cover tonight, just this once mind, if you make sure we absolutely thrash Slytherin.”