Rules

Lily Evans did not often defy the rules. She was Head Girl, a former Prefect, and very opposed to rule-breaking in principle. Of course, her principles often battled with her wishes, and occasionally her wishes would put her principles into a headlock, resulting in the bending or outright breaking of regulations. And Lily, like any other teenager, liked a bit of mischief now and then. But these events were so few and far between that Lily deemed them insignificant. When asked if she abided by the rules, Lily always answered yes, because, on the whole, she did.

But, sometimes, rules have to be broken.

This was one of those times; one of those times when the circumstances were so dire that she had no other choice but to sneak out of her dorm room at 1 am and tiptoe as silently as possible through the halls of Hogwarts. If she was caught, the consequences were too frightening to contemplate. She could have her Head Girl privileges revoked or worse...she could get a detention! Lily shuddered at the very thought.

The trick was to focus on her goal, her duty, her most sacred mission. And so Lily pushed all thoughts of punishment out of her mind and focused on her destination: the Hogwarts kitchen, and the enormous cookie jar that lay within.

She arrived at the portrait of the bowl of fruit and commended herself on a job well done. This wasn't so hard, this sneaking about, although she should have known that already due to the fact that James Potter had been doing it successfully for over 6 years. Anything James could accomplish, Lily could surely accomplish, and with both hands tied behind her back and a giant feather tickling her silly.

No, not James, Lily scolded herself gently. His name is Potter. That’s the rule. But it had become very hard, the past year, to think of James (Potter! her mind screamed) by his surname, and, if possible, even harder to restrain herself from calling him by his first name. Lily could not begin to think of him with such familiarity. She was not allowed to fall for James Potter's charm or arrogance like the rest of the school had. He was to be just another classmate. Not James, not a friend, not anything more. Those were the guidelines she had established years ago; guidelines that were becoming increasingly more difficult to follow because Potter himself was becoming increasingly less difficult to be around. So she whispered his last name like a mantra, reminding herself who he was and what he was to supposed to mean to her: just another troublemaker. Just another Head Boy. Just another Gryffindor in her year.

"Potter, Potter, Potter, Pott-AHHH!"

There was something there, something just in front of the portrait, and Lily had collided with it. Its hand was on her mouth, preventing her from shrieking again. Well, it felt like a hand, but she couldn't see it, couldn't get it away...

...wait a moment, she could. Lily steeled herself, opened her mouth, and bit down on the invisible hand still attached to her face. There was a bellow, and a scuffling of feet, and James Potter's head appeared. Lily shrieked again.

"Evans! Stop screaming, it's just me!" Ja...Potter said, the rest of his body appearing as he pulled some sort of cloth off of himself and shoved it into his bag, all the while shaking his bitten hand. "There's nothing to be scared of!"

"Why? You are a pretty frightening sight, don't you know, Ja...ust what are you doing here, anyway?" Lily asked, catching herself. He did not answer. "Sneaking around after hours? That's a punishable offence, Potter..." she said, a note of malice in her voice.

"Why, yes it is, Evans," Potter said, with same malice in his words. Lily colored slightly, having forgotten how she had come to bump into him in the first place. "I assume you're going to the kitchen, then?" he asked.

"You assume correctly...for once."

Potter, infuriatingly, only smiled at the edge in her voice. A cute smile...no, no. She couldn’t think that. "Care to join me?" Lily stared at him uncertainly. "I don't bite...unless asked." He winked, and Lily, despite the voice in her head threatening to slap her, laughed and nodded her head.

"Sure, why not? Even the sight of you isn't enough to make me lose my appetite tonight."

Lily tickled the portrait and led the way into the kitchen, heading straight for the cookie jar. Now all she needed was some milk...she looked around, searching for a house-elf and spotting a small cluster of them around what Lily knew was a small, square table in the back of the kitchen. It was hard to make out the shiny wooden surface at the moment, though, due to the congregation of elves and the small mountain of food they were setting down. James (well, if you must! her mind grumbled, but it's a serious violation) was sitting at the table, thanking the house-elves and cutting an entire loaf of bread into 2 pieces. Lily found herself intrigued and approached his table.

Upon closer inspection, Lily could make out some of the food-- lettuce, onions, marshmallow fluff, mayonnaise, peanut butter, jelly, jellybeans, some very pungent cheese, and more. James seemed to be piling bits of almost everything onto the bottom half of the loaf. Lily eyed him until, finally, he put the top half of the loaf over the enormous bottom part. He grabbed the sandwich with both hands (and even then he seemed to be struggling with its weight) but then stopped. Lily watched, oddly fascinated, as he put a dab of peanut butter on top of the sandwich and stuck a cherry onto it. Only then did he seem to notice Lily.

"Just having a light snack...care to join me?" James pulled out a chair for Lily. She hesitated, remembering the ‘do not sit within 5 seats of James Potter or else you will end up ogled and/or covered in pumpkin juice’ rule. James, noting her pause, unearthed a bottle of milk and a small glass from somewhere inside the food pile. He shook the bottle and waggled his eyebrows. Lily sat with a sign and a feigned eye-roll.

"That's all you're eating?" James asked, watching Lily chew on a cookie and pouring her a glass of milk.

"We don't all eat like horses, Potter," she said nonchalantly.

"A horse, you say? I always thought I resembled a stag, more," James said, smiling to himself inexplicably. "So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? Insomnia, or hunger?"

"Hunger," Lily answered immediately. James looked at her over his sandwich, his hazel ideas staring at her intently. She shifted a little under his knowing gaze. "...maybe a little of both."

He nodded. "Same here. I'm too worried to sleep...keep thinking about things..." James trailed off and took a bite of his sandwich.

Lily didn't need him to elaborate, though; she knew what was on his mind. It wasn’t just the usual worries of NEWTs, Voldemort, and graduation. It was the worries that accompanied going home each holiday and seeing a parent grow grayer and weaker everyday. She looked into his eyes, giving him her own intent, knowing gaze. "Same here," she said quietly.

They ate and talked, chatting lightly about fellow classmates and not-so-lightly about Prophet headlines. He was very easy to talk to, a fact that comforted Lily but infuriated the voice in her head that kept reminding her of all the rules she was breaking, personal and public. She sensed that James was dying to talk about what was preventing him from sleeping, but he didn't bring it up. Lily herself was desperate to talk about it to someone who understood, so after an hour or so she broached the subject. "So...what's your house like?"

James looked down at his plate of sandwich remains and fiddled with them for a bit. Lily waited patiently.

"It's wonderful...at least it...it..." He looked up from his plate, "it used to be."

He told her about the small Quidditch pitch his parents built for him, the hours he would spend zooming around his broomstick, doing loop-de-loops in the air and scoring goal after goal. His mother watched him all day, at first from the stands, and later from the window, wrapped in a heavy blanket. "She loves Quidditch...used to play herself, until she got too weak. She passed the obsession on to me, so you can blame her for that." He told her about how his father used to do all the household chores without magic. "He always said that wizards were too reliant on their wands and didn't know how to use their own two hands. He also said it was a daily reminder of how lucky he was to have magic, and of all the hard work Muggles do every day. He used to be a very big advocate of Muggle-protection laws and such. But now...well, he's too ill to...he can't really campaign like he used to, and we had to get house elves to help manage the house, 'cuz he and Mum can't." James trailed off. "But whenever I'm home, I do the dishes by hand. You should see him, he gets so ridiculously proud when I pick up a washcloth," he said with a smile.

There were more stories-- about magic and Muggle cooking gone horribly wrong. About trophies and accidental transfigurations when toddler-James threw a temper tantrum. And more. Sirius featured in many of the later ones involving fake Howlers and billywigs in neighbors' beds, and a very amusing tale involving caviar and a confounded kneazle.

Lily talked about her childhood, too. “My dad kept 2 gardens- one for flowers, one for vegetables. He used to make me help him, even though I in no way live up to my name. My eyes may be green, but my thumbs aren't. Still, he said it was important to spend as much time together before I was, as he said, ‘possessed by that hell-spawn named puberty.’” Lily laughed. "The gardens are all overgrown with weeds, now, because mum's too busy taking care of dad, and Petunia has school."

She told him about the magical accidents she used to have that left her family and friends mystified. About the fire that never went out the time she went camping and was petrified of the dark. “Seven buckets of water and it still burned.” About the shop her mother used to have in the city, covered floor to ceiling with books ("I showed Remus a picture once and he could not stop drooling."), but had to close when her father's illness took a turn for the worse. About oatmeal cookies and old ghost stories and the owl that changed her life forever.

The hours flew by, and before long the house-elves started to prepare breakfast and politely push Lily and James towards the door. Lily allowed herself to be propelled out of the portrait hole by the small army of elves, catching James when they shoved him a little too hard and holding on for a few extra seconds, despite her rule of ‘4 feet between Potter and I at all times.’ They walked to the common room in comfortable silence.

Lily and James faced each other in front of their respective staircases. "'Night, Lily," he said.

"G'night, Potter," Lily answered.

"Oh, come on...just this once? Pretty please?" He batted his eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.

"Fine, fine...g'night, James," Lily said, smiling. She turned towards her staircase, and then, suddenly, turned around and grabbed James in a hug. He stiffened a first but then relaxed, burying his head into her shoulder. "It'll be okay...they'll be okay...and if they're not, we'll still be okay."

They stood like that for a moment before breaking apart and staring at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, James ignoring Lily's oddly bright eyes, Lily ignoring her damp shoulder. They parted ways with a last shared smile.

Lily entered her dorm and began to quietly gather her toiletries for a shower. As she rummaged through her trunk, she noticed that she had only 2 quills left, and the next Hogsmeade visit was at least a month away.

I guess I could sneak out, Lily thought, but I'd be violating a million rules.

An image of James, struggling to bite his enormous sandwich, popped into her mind. She smiled at the picture. It was very different than the one she had had of him a few years ago, when he was just another bullying git. It was a much more pleasant and surprising picture.

Sometimes, rules have to be broken.