Beyond the Lake

Chapter Six

***

Lying on her bed at home, she wondered if he had read the letter yet. It was a bit mushy, but everything was important to her, and hopefully would be to him.

She heard someone coming up the stairs and saw Petunia. She instantly pretended to be asleep, trying to avoid another confrontation with her. But she still thought of James, his eyes, his kiss, his stag form, and fell asleep still thinking of him....

Before she knew it, the holidays were over and it was time to go back to Hogwarts, back to loads of homework, tests, but most importantly, James.

"How'd it go?" was the first thing Marissa said to her upon seeing her on the train.

"How'd what go?" asked Lily innocently.

"Oh, come on. You and James, day after Christmas..."

"Oh! That. Well, it was great."

"Great? Just great? Is that all you're going to tell me?"

"Pretty much, yeah," she answered quickly, then changed the subject to how Marissa's holiday went. She could probably talk the whole ride to Hogwarts.

They arrived at Hogwarts quickly enough and went to the Great Hall for dinner, where she saw James and, fighting the sudden urge to run up and kiss him, sat down next to him at the Gryffindor table.

"How was the rest of your holiday?" he asked her.

"As good as it could possibly be."

"Which isn't too great, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much. But how about you?"

"It was rather boring."

"You insult me," joined in Sirius from the other side of James.

"Excuse me," James said sarcastically to Sirius. Turning back to Lily, he said, "Except for when he was there."

This caused more comments from Sirius and she dropped out of the conversation, watching the two squabble. But she quickly tuned the whole thing out and left the Gryffindor table, heading for the armchair by the fire in the common room.

***

He didn't notice her get up at first, as he was still talking with Sirius, but when he turned to talk to her again, she was no longer there. He had no idea where she had gone, but he felt that he needed to find out, so he got up and headed for the common room, hoping she would be there. If she wasn't, she would probably be in her dorm, but he couldn't get into the girls' dormitory anyway.

He found her curled up in the huge armchair and, knowing something was wrong, asked, "What's the matter?"

She jumped and exclaimed, "James! What're you doing here? I mean, sorry, that was rude."

"Whatever," he said, pushing the comment aside mentally. "Why aren't you at dinner like everyone else?"

"I don't know. I just feel like something is off in the world, do you know what I mean?"

At that moment, Professor McGonagall, Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor house came into the room. "Miss Evans," she started, "I have some news for you. Why don't you come over here with me, by the clock?"

Lily obeyed and followed McGonagall, who said something to her quietly, and Lily looked like she was fighting back an outburst of tears. What was the "news" McGonagall told her? The Gryffindor Head left the room, giving Lily a look of sympathy on the way out.

James then walked over to Lily's sobbing figure and took her into his arms so she stood crying on him. "What happened?" he asked her gently, cradling her in his arms.

She looked up at him, eyes full of tears, and said, "They, they're dead," she paused, then began again. "He killed them, that bastard, Voldemort." She broke into tears again, and he could only imagine that Voldemort had killed her family.

He then took one arm away from her and pulled out a small mirror from his pocket and said into it, "Sirius Black."

Sirius's face replaced James' in the mirror and asked, "What?"

"Tell Marissa to get to the common room quickly, will you?"

"Sure, I'm on it," Sirius answered as his face disappeared from the mirror.

"Lily, I want you to go to your dorm when Marissa gets here and go to sleep or something. It'll help, I promise."

She nodded against his shoulder, and he sincerely hoped it would help, as he had no idea what else could be done.

***

She doubted very much that sleeping on it would help, or that she would even be able to get any sleep tonight, but she didn't really care either. What else was there to do? Her parents were dead. Lord Voldemort murdered them because they were Muggles. Killing them was his idea of fun.

She couldn't think about that. It was a phrase that constantly went through her head, although it was useless anyway. At least Petunia was away when it happened...

She suddenly heard Marissa and James talking and felt herself being torn from him. "No!" she exclaimed without knowing she did so. She just wanted to be with James, to feel his arms around her, to be in his embrace, where it was safe, where she was loved.

He seemed to know what she wanted, as she was soon in those wonderful arms again, sitting on the big armchair by the fire. She had stopped crying, had run out of tears - for now. But for the moment, he was kissing her head, her hair, as she just sat there paralyzed, although, for once, not because of him.

***

Lily was no longer at Hogwarts, at least for the week or a fortnight, and James found that Hogwarts wasn't the same without this year's Head Girl. He was also worried about her, wondering how she was and what she could possibly be doing.

Sirius, who always seemed to read James' mind, made plenty of attempts to cheer him up, although he didn't really have any idea why his friend was so out-of-life in general. James didn't really know the reason himself, maybe he was afraid of what this would do to Lily, or maybe he just felt some of her pain, although he knew he could never feel all of it. So he was stuck at Hogwarts in ignorance of her situation until she came back in the beginning of February.

He rushed into the common room upon hearing of her arrival and she almost ran into his arms, kissing him.

Merlin, he had missed her.

"Lily, how are you? How's everything? How-"

"I'm fine, darling, honestly. But I missed you so much."

"So did I, but is everything really 'fine'? How did everything go?"

"I'll tell you later, in privacy."

"How about we just go to the Room of Requirement now? Or the Shrieking Shack?"

"Either one."

They walked together under the Invisibility Cloak to the Shrieking Shack, going under the Whomping Willow, arm in arm when they could. When they got there, she began to give him an account of what she had been doing for almost a month.

"It was mostly legal business, the funeral, everything else really. But Dumbledore talked to me about Voldemort, how they died, why..." She trailed off, and James could've sworn her eyes were watering.

He had no idea what to say to her, although he wished fervently that he did. Instead of saying anything to her, he took her into his arms and they sat, silent, on the old blue couch until dinner.

***