“Why is it that finding an empty compartment is always the hardest thing in the world?” Sirius grumbled, fighting his way down the Hogwarts Express.
“I don’t know,” said James from his elbow. “You’d think it would be less crowded after Christmas Break, but it’s not.”
A few steps ahead of them, Remus popped his head out of a compartment. “In here!” he called. “We found one.”
Sirius brightened. “Good old Moony!” he said. “Trust him to get the job done.”
James followed him into the compartment in which Remus, Peter, and Lily already sat. Sirius, characteristically, flung himself across his seat with all the subtlety of a tornado, blowing his hair out of his eyes. James, for his part, sat down cautiously, as far away as he could from Lily. He was, perhaps, a bit more understated than usual; although he had mended things as much as possible with his friends, his long absence from their company had left its mark. It would be a little while longer, he knew, before they were back in their usual rhythm. But still, he was glad to be back, and more ecstatic than he could say that he had Sirius on his side once again.
They had mended their last fence the night before. With Leda gone, the general mood in the Potter house had been high, but the night before they were due to return to Hogwarts, James had gone into his bedroom to sleep and had been surprised to find Sirius instead of Remus sprawled on the air mattress on the floor. “All right,” Sirius had said before James could get a word out. “We’re going to act like a couple of girls tonight.”
James, wary of this statement, had surreptitiously checked the room for nail polish. He was relieved when it turned out that all Sirius meant was that they were going to talk. And talk they had, all night, about everything that had happened since Halloween, leaving James, this morning, exhausted but happy. In fact, he thought as the train began to move away from the station, practically the only topic they hadn’t covered last night was Lily Evans.
Lily was, as always, a different story. Sirius, for all his hotheadedness, was open and easy to understand, but Lily was more complicated. Or at least, James thought ruefully, trying his best not to look at her as she talked animatedly with Peter and Remus, complicated when it comes to me. But she was the last, the only person left in this whole debacle that he had yet to say anything to. Aside from that single brief encounter at the window, they had barely acknowledged each other. But James didn’t know what to say to her, didn’t even know where to begin. He could barely look at her these days without nearly bursting with everything he was trying not to say. Without, despite everything, breaking down, confessing how much he wanted to be with her, how much he wanted her to want him back.
But that was the whole problem, wasn’t it? He’d told her how he felt, told her everything back in October, and it still somehow hadn’t been enough. If he’d kept his mouth shut then, maybe none of this would ever have happened. So he didn’t know, and he was tired of wondering and second-guessing, and because of that, for the life of him he didn’t know what to say to her.
---
James, of course, had no idea that, so many feet away from him, Lily was arguing with herself exactly the same way.
If its meant to be, it’s meant to be, she thought. I don’t need to push anything. I don’t know if he even feels that way about me anymore. Obviously I can’t just assume he does.
It was logical. It made sense. But still, she couldn’t help but remember what Sirius had said to her that night in the Potters’ kitchen: “You seem to think that there’s some sort of perfect schedule, and that things will work out better if you wait for Merlin-knows how long. And I don’t get that. Life’s too short.”
He’s right, you know, said a tiny little voice in the back of her head. And Leda’s gone now, you’re out of excuses”
It was somewhat ironic that, as she thought this, the compartment door slid open, and Mary Macdonald, her hands on her hips, stood in the threshold, scowling ferociously at all of them, and demanded, “What on earth did you people do to Leda?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Sirius and James exchange a glance.
“Um,” James said nervously, “is there a right answer to that question?”
Mary, who looked, Lily noticed suddenly, rather tired, sighed and put a hand to her temple. “Please just tell me,” she sighed, “that Sirius didn’t hide a mouse in her bed or anything.”
“Ugh, why didn’t I?” Sirius murmured, and Remus elbowed him.
“No one did anything like that,” said James tolerantly. “But, uh, I did break up with her.”
To everyone’s surprise, Mary brightened. “Oh, that’s all?” she asked, skipping over to sit next to Lily. “And here I was thinking, well, she’s in such a bad mood that they must’ve done something awful.”
Sirius frowned. “She’s on the train?” he said. “I thought, when she left, that she’d have gone back to Hogwarts.”
“Yeah, she’s on the train,” Mary said. “She and Annabelle are a few compartments down. They were all at Leda’s for the rest of the holidays. Leda’s older brother”you know, the one that’s married to Annabelle’s sister? They had a baby a few weeks ago, a little boy, they named him Oliver””
“Well as fascinating as this is,” Sirius interrupted, “what are you doing in here, anyway?”
Mary gave him a look of deep disgust. “Well I cane to yell at you for making Leda impossible to deal with, obviously,” she said. “But if all that happened was James breaking up with her, then there’s no need.”
“There’s not?” James asked cautiously.
“Of course not,” Mary said, tossing back her hair. “I mean, you were always the weirdest couple. It’s much better this way.”
“You sure about that?” muttered Sirius, looking, not without some trepidation, at the compartment door.
For the second time, it swung open, and they all turned to look. This time it was Leda who stood there, looking back at them all. Her gaze fell on Mary, and her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.
Mary blinked up at her owlishly. “I’m talking to my friends,” she said, a steel edge in her voice. “You can’t possibly have a problem with that, can you?”
Sirius, Lily noticed, looked impressed.
“No,” said Leda, dropping her gaze. “I just came in here to talk to James.”
“What about?” James asked suspiciously.
Leda turned to look at him, suddenly smiling so widely that it made Lily’s face hurt just to look at her. Ignoring everyone else in the room, Leda took a few dainty steps forward until she was standing just in front of James. “I’ve decided,” she said, still beaming, “that I forgive you.”
“Oh,” James said uncomfortably. “Well, um. Good.”
“And I’m willing to take you back,” Leda continued, causing Sirius to choke violently on nothing.
“Okay,” said James wearily, standing up. “Okay, Leda. Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else.”
“Why?” Leda said, looking up on him innocently. “Here’s fine.”
“Right,” James breathed. “Okay, then.”
“So we’re back together then?” Leda said brightly. “Like none of this ever happened?”
Sirius went suddenly still. A moment later, however, he relaxed, as James simply said, “No.”
Instantly, Leda dropped her bubbly demeanor. “It’s because of her, isn’t it?” she snarled, thrusting a finger towards Lily. “I bet you took up with her as soon as I left.”
Lily felt Mary grasp her wrist”however, when she looked over, the other girl was watching James and Leda with an expression of mild interest, her legs crossed, elbow on her knee, chin in hand.
“No,” James said honestly. “It’s got nothing to do with her. It’s about you and it’s about me, and how we just aren’t a good match.”
“Yes we are!” said Leda emphatically, actually stamping her foot.
James sighed, reaching past her to slide open the compartment door. “No, we aren’t,” he said, nudging her outside and then following. Lily caught one glimpse of Leda’s furious face before the door shut.
“We should probably duck and cover,” Sirius said instantly, causing everyone still in the compartment to look at him quizzically.
“What?” he asked, looking around at them all. “She totally looks like she’s about to explode.”
Suddenly, there was an outburst of shouting from the corridor. Remus grinned. “An explosion of sorts,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Sirius.
“So,” Mary said, “now what to we do?”
Sirius looked at her suspiciously. “What are you even doing here?” he asked pointedly. “You’re friends with Leda.
Mary shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “She’s fun to hang out with sometimes. But she’s been so obnoxious about James.”
“What, about the break-up?” Peter asked, piping up for the first time.
“Oh, well, sure,” Mary said. “But not just that. The whole time they were dating. He never did exactly what she wanted him to do, and she was always complaining about how she liked him more than he liked her…I was like, um, duh, he’s clearly hyst trying to make Lily jealous. But she never listened to me, just whined.”
“Evans is blushing,” Sirius pointed out inconsequentially.
“I am not,” said Lily, who was aware that she was. Sometimes, she hated being a redhead.
“I have Exploding Snap cards,” Mary interjected, and whether she was offering Lily a way out of the conversation or had simply not been paying attention, Lily didn’t know, but she was grateful nonetheless.
A quarter of an hour later, a rather haggard-looking James reentered the compartment. They all looked up from their cards expectantly.
“We’re broken up,” James said without preamble. “Officially. She knows it now, too.”
“Do we applaud?” Peter stage-whispered to Remus, and even James laughed a little.
He looked over at the table, spread with Exploding Snap cards. “Got room for one more?” he asked, scooping up a handful of cards just as the train wobbled a little on the tracks. The excess motion was too much for the cards, and they ignited in his face.
“Typical,” James sighed, as a widely grinning Sirius reached up, pulled the ash-covered glasses off his best friend’s face, and began polishing them on his robes.
---
It was not quite dusk when the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station, but the color was starting to fade out of the sky. James squinted out of the window, noticing that the village seemed to be oddly empty for this time of day. Standing, he shouldered his pack with a feeling of vague uneasiness, looking around”no one else seemed to have noticed anything. As they walked off the train, he watched Sirius talking animatedly to Remus, Peter bouncing along behind them, and he tried to smile, tried to shake off the foreboding that none of them seemed to be feeling.
But he couldn’t, and as he stepped off the train, the feeling only intensified. Sirius, too, now seemed to be feeling something; he broke off in midsentence, looking around warily. James caught his eye as chattering students gathered behind them, and took one hesitant step forward just as Lily appeared at his side.
“The carriages aren’t here,” she said, looking slightly out of breath, her brow furrowed. He looked down at her and they exchanged a glance full of shared trepidation, and for right now, they weren’t themselves anymore, and were instead stepping seamlessly into the roles of Head Boy and Girl as though they had never left them.
“Maybe we should get everyone back on the train,” James said, and Lily nodded slowly.
“Just in case,” she agreed. “And then maybe””
She broke off with a yelp, flinging herself sideways as the first curse flew by, narrowly missing her and slamming into the side of the train. James looked around in alarm, but a moment later, Lily was back on her feet, and the village was suddenly alive with shadowy, cloaked figures and bursts of light.
James and Lily held each other’s gaze for one long moment before, in silent agreement, turning swiftly in opposite directions, Lily to the pack of students now huddled together near the train door looking petrified, and James to his friends.
“First through third years on the train,” James heard her say, somehow calm even as she ducked another jet of light. “Everyone else follow them on, wands out, block the door…and anyone older who wants to fight, then stick with me.”
James watched just long enough to see the small group of older students close behind her, and then turned to his friends. He surveyed them for half a second”Sirius looking collected as ever, Remus pale but determined, and Peter small and shaking.
James looked at them, his mind racing; Remus would be more reliable in a fight, he knew, but he was also better at Apparating, and they needed someone to get to Hogwarts as quickly as possible.
“Moony,” he said, making a snap decision and turning to Remus. “You need to Apparate to the Hogwarts gates as quickly as possible, and then find Dumbledore as quickly as possible. And any other teachers you meet along the way.”
Remus nodded. “I have the map,” he said. “It should be quick.”
“Does it work?” James asked.
“Well enough,” said Remus.
“Go,” James said, and with a crack, Remus vanished. Then he turned to Sirius and Peter. “Come on,” he said, and sprinted towards Lily.
She looked up as they approached, her wand at the ready. “What’s going on?” she asked in an undertone.
“Remus went for help,” James replied in a low voice, peering into the gathering gloom of the village. “What’s going on in there? What are they waiting for?”
Barely had the words left his mouth when a long jolt of fire hissed towards them; the students who had been clustered together near the train scattered.
“They’re splitting us up!” Sirius roared over the melee as he rolled to his feet, bursts of light and smoke suddenly in the air all around them.
James had no idea what was going on, no idea who their attackers were or why any of this was happening. But, he realized, that was probably the point”by keeping them confused like this, the strange, cloaked figures kept the upper hand.
Tightening his hand around his wand, James started forward into the heart of the village. “Come on, then,” he called through the fog. “We’ll take this fight to them.”
Somewhere nearby, he heard Sirius laugh.
---
Lily had never been in a fight before, had never dueled outside of the classroom. She heard James call out through the smoke, and she started cautiously forward, her wand gripped tight. In some part of her brain, she was terrified, but mostly, it didn’t feel real”just another practice, another test. And she’d always tested well.
A dark shape hurtled in front of her; she raised her wand but hesitated for a moment, unsure if it was friend or foe. He, however, had no such illusions, raising his wand to send a Stunning Spell at her that she barely managed to duck. She flung her own arm out, sending a Stunner in retaliation, but her aim was wide, sending the spell flying harmlessly past the man who was now advancing on her.
He was huge, towering over her as he approached, his eyes and nose shielded by a black mask. In one swift movement he reached out and grabbed her wrist, twisting back the hand that held her wand. She tried desperately to hold onto it, but he squeezed her wrist hard, his thumb pressing painfully into the soft skin over her pulse, until finally, with a small yelp, she dropped it, the wood clattering uselessly onto the stones by her feet.
The masked man hauled her forward by the arm, scrutinizing her carefully. With the hand not gripping her wrist, he pressed the tip of his wand into her neck, sliding it slowly down towards her collarbone as twisted futilely in his grip, looking back at her wand, lying on the ground behind them.
“You’re Lily Evans,” he said, his eyes cold behind the mask, his voice harsh and unfamiliar. She was so surprised that he recognized her that she stopped struggling for a moment, looking up as he peered down at her. “You’re one of them,” he muttered, almost to himself. “You’re coming with me.”
Curious as she was by this, Lily had no intention of going anywhere with him. He tightened his grip in her, starting to turn as if to Apparate, and, wandless as she was, Lily did the only thing she could think of to do, and hauled back her arm to punch him in the jaw.
The pain lanced through her hand and up her wrist”she staggered backwards, wondering if she had hurt herself more than him, but whether it was the punch or just the shock, he loosened his hold on her. Yanking her arm free, she whirled around, diving for her wand. Behind her, she heard him roar a spell, and ropes shot out of nowhere, twisting around her legs, and she fell hard to the ground. Her wand was just in front of her, and she scrabbled forward, her fingers grasping at the rocks, reaching…but he was standing over her now. She rolled onto her back, trying to get out of the way as he raised his wand, angry now, she could tell by the set of his jaw and the flint in his eyes. She threw up her hands helplessly, knowing they would do nothing against his spell, but it was all she could do…
Suddenly, a jolt of red light came flying out of nowhere and hit him squarely in the chest. He looked down, almost in shock, and then fell slowly over, collapsing on top of her legs, Stunned. For a moment, Lily just lay there, breathing, scarcely believing what had just happened. Then she pushed herself out from under him, grabbing her wand and severing the ropes that bound her legs, her hands somehow steady, before finally getting to her feet and turning around to see how it was that had saved her.
To her everlasting surprise, she saw Leda standing there, white-faced and shaking, her wand arm still outstretched. For a moment, the two girls just looked at each other, blinking through the fading smoke.
“Thank you,” Lily said quietly. “I…thank you.”
Leda just blinked at her, then down at the man still sprawled across the village street, looking horrified, before turning and bolting through the village. Still slightly stunned, Lily looked down, suddenly desperate to get away from the dark, sprawled shape of the man who had attacked her.
Turning, she ran in the opposite direction Leda had gone, making her way towards the sounds and lights of skirmishes still occurring in the heart of the village. She had to wonder, as she ran, where all the village people where, but a moment later, all thoughts were driven from her mind as, just ahead of her, she saw James Potter, his brow furrowed in concentration, battling another masked figure. Lily hesitated for a second, balancing on the balls of her feet, not wanting to interrupt but anxious to help, when suddenly, a jet of light sped swiftly through the air, and James fell, hard, to the ground.
For a moment, it was as if there wasn’t enough air in the entire world to keep her breathing. And then, without thinking, without hesitating, she’d whipped her wand forward, screaming “Stupefy!” at the top of her lungs. The masked shape fell, and she rushed forward without another thought, falling to her knees beside James.
She reached out, a hand on his chest, searching to see what the spell was and where it had hit, when suddenly, he reached up and grasped her wrist. It was the same place the man she had fought had grabbed earlier, but the touch was unbelievably different; he held her arm loosely, his hands curled lightly, his fingertips just brushing the place where her pulse thrummed.
“I’m all right,” he said, and she could feel his laughter against her hand. “I’m all right.”
“How?” she asked, more relieved than she could ever express.
In response, he sat up, holding out his arm, and she saw the round hole in his robes at his side. “Just missed me,” James said, grinning, as they both got to their feet.
Lily looked at him for a long moment, and he looked back, the grin fading slowly from his face. It was the first time in months that they had truly looked at each other like that, and Lily felt it, singing in her blood, clear through to her bones.
“That was close, wasn’t it?” she asked him, a little shakily.
Looking suddenly self-conscious, James shrugged. “I mean,” he said hesitantly, “I’m all right. That’s what counts, right?”
Wordlessly, Lily reached out, brushing the small hole in his robes, so close to his chest and his heartbeat, with her fingertips. Then she tilted her chin upwards, and the way he was looking at her…
She wasn’t thinking again, was barely breathing, and perhaps, in the end, that was the excuse she had for fisting her hands in his robes, stretching onto her toes, and pulling him forward so she could press her lips to his.
Stars Apart by Willow Rosenberg
Chapter Notes: Something always brings me back to youI know I haven't been up to my usual speed on updates here, and I'm sorry about that--the only explanation I have is that real life does have to take precedence, I'm afraid. But you all have been really patient, and I'm grateful for that--here's the next chapter!
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