The Seven Year Itch

Chapter 9

James had woken up with his head reeling. He had felt very sick, and so Sirius had gone to get a hangover potion. He had slept horribly, having nightmares. But his parents hadn't been the only ones to visit his dreams. He vaguely remembered flashes of red hair and a pretty face. But whenever he had reached out for her in his dreams, she had disappeared. But her face hadn't faded like the ones of his parents, no, there had been a flash of green light, and then she was gone. James gripped his bed sheets hard.

He had to stop thinking about her. He didn't like her... or did he? He sighed. When Dumbledore had told him about his parents having died, he had felt terribly alone and isolated... But then Lily had come and shown him that he wasn't the only one who had a problem like this. It had felt kind of nice, knowing that you weren't alone with your mourning. She had understood how he felt... He had felt as though he didn't really belong anymore, but she had shown him that he wasn't alone with his feelings, and she had given him a feeling of belonging.

But what he had liked the most was that for a moment, she had given him the feeling that he belonged with her.

He heard someone rushing out of the chimney. So Sirius was back.

"Remus had a hangover-potion," he said as he entered James's bedroom with a small bottle in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

"Thanks for fetching it, Sirius," James said, emptying the small bottle. He pulled a face and quickly drank some water. Should he tell Sirius about his strange feelings for Lily? If James had a problem with a girl, he normally asked Remus about it. Remus, being the most sensitive of the Marauders, was always able to give good advice. But in this case, James would rather not ask him. Remus was always a bit strange when it came to Lily Evans.

After all, James had used to bash her verbally. James felt himself flush with shame as he remembered how he had often attacked her without the slightest provocation and had made cynical and offensive comments about her weaknesses. James picking on Lily had always bothered Remus. James remembered how Remus had sometimes not spoken to him for several days when James had been particularly mean to Lily (which had happened quite often, actually).

No, Remus was definitely not the right person to address this time.

"Prongs? You OK?" Sirius asked, his brows raised.

"What? Oh, yes, I'm feeling much better now," James mumbled.

"Guess who I met at Diagon Alley?" Sirius said, throwing himself on James's bed.

"Who?" James asked, unconcerned.

"Your favourite student," Sirius answered, smirking. Seeing James's questioning look, he added, "Lily Evans..."

"Oh, really?" James said, trying to sound not too interested. "What was she doing there? It's Christmas." He remembered Lily telling him how her family had fallen apart after her mum's death. But surely they would spend Christmas together... wouldn't they?

Sirius shrugged. "Told me her family didn't celebrate Christmas."

"Sirius..." James hesitated, then continued, "Sirius, can I... tell you something?"

"Sure, why not?"

"You mustn't laugh!" James said warningly.

"All right, I won't," Sirius said impatiently. "Just tell me already."

James sighed heavily. "Sirius, I think... that I might-"

He stopped, sighing again. Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"IthinkImightlikeLilyEvans," James said very quickly.

"A bit more slowly, please?" Sirius said.

"I think I might like Lily Evans," James said through gritted teeth.

Sirius jumped up. "Say that again!" he commanded.

"I think I might be in love with Lily Evans," James told him again.

"Oh, god. Oh my god!" Sirius exclaimed. "Oh God-it's the apocalypse! Hell has frozen over!" He opened the window and shouted, "Oh, God, if you really exist, THANK YOU!"

"What are you on about?" James asked angrily.

"It's-it's a miracle!" Sirius exclaimed, the corners of his mouth twitching. "James Potter has admitted that he likes Lily Evans! I've been waiting for this day for three years!"

"I haven't even liked her that long!" James protested.

"Of course not," Sirius said. "James, you have liked her since fifth year!"

"That's not the point anyway!" James said. "The point is that she hates me!"

"Hates you?"

"Yes, and it's my fault! Why did I always have to be so horrible to her? She's going to hate me forever!"

"No, I don't think so."

"Remember all the terrible things I've done to her! What about the prank I played on her during her sixth year? The one in Hogsmeade?"

Sirius scrunched up his face in thought. "You mean when you used Levicorpus on her, stunned her friends so they wouldn't help her and snooped around in her bag while she was hanging upside-down in the air?"

"Yes," James said, abashed. "And then I found her diary and read it aloud."

"Well," Sirius said scratching his head, "but let's look on the bright side. She didn't wear a skirt that day, so it wasn't as embarrassing as it could have been-"

"Well, that makes it better," James mumbled sarcastically.

"-And you read out the passages where she wrote about her crush on that Julian Fenwick. And later, it turned out that he liked her, too! So it was really an advantage for her!"

"That doesn't matter! I did it with a bad intention!"

"But she got her revenge," Sirius said. "That friend of hers, Dorcas, punched you in the face for doing it."

"But the pranks aren't the worst," James whispered, appalled. "The worst are the things I've said to her... all the insults..."

"There's only one solution," Sirius told him.

James eyed him warily. "And that would be?"

"You'll try to prove her that you're not the prick she thinks you are," Sirius said. "And if that doesn't work-grovel."

"Grovel?" James asked. "Must I?"

"If you want the girl," Sirius shrugged.

"But there's something else," James continued. "Relationships between teachers and students are forbidden."

"Firstly," Sirius replied, "it's going to take some time to convince Lily that you're not that bad. By the time you have convinced her-if you are able to, it's possible that she won't forgive you-the school year might be already over. And then she's not a student anymore. Secondly, you're only one year older than her-"

"One and a half," James corrected him.

"Big deal," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "And thirdly, Dumbledore won't care."

James sighed and let himself fall back on his pillow.

***

Lily Evans was getting ready to go out for dinner, unaware that James Potter was making plans to make her like him at the very moment. She put on some reggae music while she was looking into the mirror, unsure about what to wear. She looked through her trunk, finding jeans that were ripped at the knees. She was playing with the thought to wear them to spite Petunia, but then dropped that thought. Finally she pulled out a simple black shirt, a brown skirt made of corduroy and a pair of brown tights.

"Lily! Are you ready to go?" she heard her father call.

"Just a moment!" she called back, searching for her new sneakers. After seeing the poor state her old sneakers and her dirty black converse chucks were in, her father had driven her to the next town two days ago. He had given her money and had insisted that she should get herself a 'nice pair of high heels like all the young girls wear'. Lily had simply snorted at this and had gotten herself a pair of brown Dunlop sneakers.

Her father would probably take them to some exquisite restaurant, like every year. Lily smirked slightly at the thought what Petunia would say when she turned up with sneakers. Grabbing her black coat and her bag, she descended the stairs. When she was halfway down, she was greeted with the sight of Vernon, Petunia's fiancé. Vernon avoided looking at his future sister-in-law at all costs. In the summer holidays, he had barged into Lily's room without knocking. At this very moment, Lily had been doing magic. Since then, Vernon knew that Lily was a witch. And since he hated anything that wasn't what he called 'normal', he hated Lily as well.

"Vernon will be joining us at dinner," her father told her good-naturedly.

"Oh, nice," she mumbled. Petunia glared at her.

That was going to be a long evening.

***

And she was right. Vernon told them everything about his job (he would inherit a firm from his father, which made drills). Lily was bored out of her mind. But when Vernon started telling stupid jokes, she had enough. She raised her eyebrows when her father smiled politely and her sister gave a shrill, fake laugh.

"Very funny. I'm splitting my sides laughing," she said coldly.

Petunia scowled at her. "You're just jealous because nobody's interested in your boring stories from your-your school." She whispered the last word.

"Yeah, right," Lily said sarcastically. "And that's why you always sneaked into my room in the summer holidays to read my newspaper."

"You-I don't know what you're talking about," Petunia hissed.

"Nobody is interested in you and your abnormal abilities," Vernon said. It was the first time this evening that he even spoke to her. Slightly amused, Lily noticed that he turned his head several times while he spoke to make sure nobody was listening to him.

"Abnormal?" she said, her eyebrows raised.

"Yes. It's abnormal what you're doing, and I'm glad that it wasn't me who got that damned letter."

Lily gave a mirthless laugh. "Oh, Petunia, come off it. You're only calling me abnormal so you can feel better about yourself."

"I don't need that. It's the other way round, really. You're the one who wants all the attention to improve her self-esteem. But I understand, Lily. If I was you, it'd be hard for me to feel good about myself, too."

Lily gripped her napkin very hard. Their father was watching the argument with a stony expression on his face.

"Shut your face, Petunia!" Lily hissed, her temper getting the better of her again. "You, the nosy person you are, always snoop around in other people's business. And why do you do that? Because you need to hear about their mistakes, about their failures, their weaknesses so you can tell yourself you're better than that. I don't need that. Nobody in his or her right mind needs that. I pity you, Petunia, I really do. Your self-esteem is so low that you need other people to feel miserable in order to make you feel good. You've become the lowest, most horrible and superficial creature I've ever had the misfortune to meet!"

"Lily!" her father said. "How can you say something like that to your sister-"

"I don't have a sister," Lily said coldly, standing up and throwing her napkin on the table. "I lost her long ago, when she started turning into what she is now."

With that, she stormed out of the restaurant.

It was bitter cold outside and she hadn't brought her coat. Angry tears were making their way down her cheeks. She wiped them away impatiently.

"LILY!" She turned around. It was her father. And he was seething with rage.

"Go in there at once and apologize to your sister!" he roared.

"No," Lily said simply.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I'm not going to apologize to her," Lily said. She was surprised how calm her voice sounded. She was fuming on the inside. "What I said was the truth, and nothing but the truth. It had to be said."

"No," he bellowed at her. "You spoiled our Christmas, and the least you can do is to apologize!"

She simply snorted.

"Are you going to do what I told you, or what?" her father shouted.

"No," Lily said again. "I only told her what I think of her."

"You will tell her that you're sorry or-"

"Or what?" Lily asked quietly.

He glowered at her. Lily had never seen him that angry. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, breathing slowly in and out to calm herself.

"You spoiled our Christmas," he repeated, glaring at his daughter.

"Yeah, right!" she yelled. "We had a wonderful, lovely day, hadn't we?"

"What are you on about?"

"Christmas is always the same since Mum died! You're working all day long, and in the evening, you take us out for dinner! It's actually the same every time I return home! You're working all the time, you never really listen to me, you never care when I tell you about my grades, you didn't even care that Dumbledore and McGonagall made me the bloody Head Girl!"

He only stared at her.

"And now you're acting as though you actually care if Petunia and I get along. You never ask one of us how we feel, and now you pretend to care about our relationship when you don't give a fucking damn-"

Lily's head whipped to the right as her father's hand slapped her across the cheek, hard. She touched her stinging cheek lightly with her fingertips; her father was staring at his hand as though he couldn't quite believe what he had just done.

"Great," she spat. "Now that's a nice way to solve one's problems."

"How dare you," he yelled, snapping out of his daze, "how dare you say that I don't care about Petunia and you?"

"It's the truth," Lily said quietly.

"It's not!" he bellowed. "I gave you everything, didn't I? Clothes, books, money... You just had to say a word and I gave it to you!"

"Yes," Lily said in a choked voice, her salty tears making her cheek sting even more, "but I wanted a bit more than just being spoilt rotten."

"Like what?" her father asked, fuming. "Every other teenager would kill to have a life like you! What is it that you want so badly?"

She only sobbed.

"What?" he asked. "Don't annoy me any more, Lily, I've had enough."

"Isn't it obvious?" Lily said, her voice shaking.

"No," her dad said impatiently. "Please enlighten me."

"All I've ever wanted since Mum's death was-" she sighed heavily, wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt and continued, "all I've wanted you to do was to show that-that you care about me and that you love me-" She couldn't speak anymore. She leaned against a lamppost and cried her heart out.

"And what," her father asked through gritted teeth, "makes you think that I don't love you?"

There was a silence. Lily was still sobbing uncontrollably.

"Answer me!" he yelled.

"Your behaviour," she choked out.

For a few minutes, neither of them said a word.

"I want to go home," Lily said finally.

"Fine. We'll drive home," her father agreed. Lily didn't tell him that she had meant Hogwarts when she had said 'home'.

"But I still want you to apologize to your sister."

"I told you I won't."

"You'll do what I tell you!"

She became even angrier. "I don't have to do anything you tell me!"

"Oh yes, you do! You're seventeen, and as long as you're still under-age, you'll do exactly what I tell you to do."

"In my world," Lily extremely stressed the 'my', "I am considered an adult. We come of age at seventeen."

She could see something like hurt flickering in his eyes, but it was immediately replaced with anger.

"All right," he said, "so you won't apologize?"

"Definitely not."

"Fine. You might be an adult in the Wizarding World, but you're still a child in this one. You're under house arrest now. You won't go out, and you won't leave your room unless it's to go to the bathroom or to get yourself something to eat. And it's going to continue until you apologize for the things you've said. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes," Lily said coldly, and just to spite him, she added, "Why would I want to go out anyway? What would I want wandering around in this boring village full of Muggles?"

He glowered at her. "I'm going to get Petunia and Vernon now." He turned on his heel and walked back to the restaurant.

"Dad?" she called after him. He stopped, but didn't turn around to look at her. "When are you going to apologize to me?"

"I have nothing to say sorry for," he replied coolly.

"Hitting me and treating me like a stranger for four and a half years is nothing?" she said. He just continued walking.

"That's right, dad, just walk away," she yelled. "No problem, another thing to add to my list 'Mistakes I'm definitely not going to make if I ever have children of my own'."

A few minutes later, her father and Petunia left the restaurant. Vernon had already gone.

"Look what you did to your sister!" Mr Evans shouted angry, handing Lily her coat. Petunia was wiping away fake tears with a hanky.

"She's only faking it," Lily hissed, getting into the back of their car. "It takes a really dense person not to notice it."

"Don't make things worse for you, young lady," her father snapped, glaring at her in the rearview mirror.

Lily clenched her fists. Who did that man think he was? For the past four and a half years, he had never cared if Petunia and she got along, and now he was playing the concerned father. She shivered, and it wasn't because of the cold. Although they were sitting in the same car, Lily had never felt so far away from her family.

When the car stopped in front of their house, she quickly got out and hurried towards the house. She just wanted to get to her room.

"...Lily?"

Halfway up the stairs, she turned around to see her father standing at the bottom of the staircase.

"Yes?"

He was fidgeting. Lily suddenly noticed the grey hairs and the wrinkles on his face.

"I guess it was wrong to hit you," he said. "Sorry."

Lily simply stared at him. At this very moment, she realized that this wasn't her father anymore, that this wasn't the man who had brought her up. This wasn't the man who always had had a spare minute to play with his daughters and listen to their problems anymore. He wasn't the man who used to bring her to bed every night and he wasn't the man who'd never lay a hand on his children anymore.

He had changed. If it had been the shock of his wife's death or being lonely, Lily didn't know. She only knew that the person standing down there was a complete stranger to her, and she was probably a stranger to him, too. Her eyes prickled and she quickly turned around, hurrying up the stairs.

"Lily?"

Mr Evans heard how Lily slammed her door shut and turned the key in the lock.

"Teenagers," he mumbled, shaking his head and walking into the kitchen.

***

Lily lay on her bed, sobbing. Had he regarded her as a stranger all the time? Was this the reason he been so distanced all the time when she had told him about her friends and her school-life? Or had it been because she had told him about a world totally different from his, a world that he didn't know and could never understand? Probably both, Lily supposed. She sighed and found herself fervently wishing (and not for the first time) that she could be a child again, that her mother would be still alive, that she and Petunia would be best friends like they always used to be, and that their father would love them.

But it was far too late now. The wall that had slowly grown between Lily and her family ever since she went to Hogwarts was finally complete. Her life in the Muggle World was becoming less and less important and her life in the Wizarding World was becoming more important with every step that Lily did away from her family. It was where she really belonged.

That night, she realized that nothing held her in the Muggle World anymore. Her father and her sister were strangers to her, and her mother was dead. Lily smiled sadly, remembering how she had always clung to her mum when she was little, convinced that she could never survive without her. But that was over now. It had been over since four and a half years, really. But it was that night that Lily understood that she didn't need someone to tell her what to do anymore. Even though her father probably didn't realize it, she wasn't little Lily-flower anymore. She was Head Girl Lily Evans, an extraordinarily gifted witch, a young woman who had to decide for herself now. Even if her father considered her a child or a hormonal teenager, she was grown-up now. In sixth months, she would graduate from Hogwarts and she would live on her own. In the Wizarding World, her new home.

***

Lily slept in the next morning. When she finally woke up, she saw an owl sitting outside her window with her copy of the Daily Prophet. Lily got up tiredly, giving the bird an owl treat and put five knuts in the small leather pouch tied to its leg. Without looking at it, she threw the paper on her desk and went to have a shower.

After having dressed, she took the newspaper. When she looked at the front page, her heart missed a beat. No, not again. There was a photo of a ruin that must have been a mansion before, with the Dark Mark hovering over it.

Death Eater attacks had increased recently, and pictures like this were often to be seen on the front pages of Wizarding newspapers. Lily read the article hastily. Apparently, Voldemort and his Death Eaters hadn't had any particular victims, they just killed random people. Lily clenched her jaw. How sick could you get?

"About 200 Muggles and about 80 magical people were killed..." " Ministry's busy to modify the surviving Muggle's memories..."

Next to the article, there was a list of the witches and wizards who had been killed. Lily skimmed over it-and screamed out in horror.

Charlotte and Edward Meadowes.