Where Toads Could Be Vampires

Chapter 6: Crush

Saturday, 4 December 1976

With a flying leap over the back of the sofa, James bounced onto the empty space next to Lily, jostling her so that the parchments in her lap went tumbling onto the bearskin rug. As she rushed to collect them, she dropped her book, too, and then upset her inkbottle. James was on his knees in an instant, trying to help where he could. All he succeeded in doing, however, was in smearing a great quantity of black ink across pages ninety six and ninety seven of Lily's Transfiguration book.

"I am so sorry, Lily."

She glared down at him and snatched her things back into her small lap, rearranging them over her crossed legs. She didn't look the least bit happy and she wasn't saying a word. This conversation was not shaping up the way he'd hoped. It was time for drastic action.

Still on his knees, James crawled closer to her and wrung his hands pathetically. "Please speak to me, Lily," he begged. "I know I'm hopelessly awkward and royal pain in the tail, but if you don't forgive me I'll go completely mental."

Her eyebrows raised and a smile twitched at her mouth. Over-dramatic self-humiliation was working better than he'd expected.

"Well, okay," he continued, "so I'm already mental. But please punish me and get it over with. If you don't I'll do something horrible. I'll...I'll stab myself with my wand!"

Lily looked at him expectantly, and James did the only thing left to do. He pulled his wand out of his back pocket, pointed it in at his chest, and drove it under his arm, clamping it tightly against the side of his ribs. Faking one's own death always promised to be a fun show, and James let loose a great performance for Lily, groaning, shouting, convulsing and generally making an idiot of himself. With a great final twitch, he fell still on the rug, waiting for Lily's reaction. When none came, he cracked an eye open to look at her.

She was staring fixedly at her lap, shaking softly, and battling a stubborn smile. James grinned and crawled back up to the sofa, brimming with satisfaction. He laid his cheek on her knee and put on what he hoped was a sincere looking pout. "Please say you'll forgive me. I'll take whatever punishment you pick."

Lily gave him that familiar look of hers that said she didn't quite buy it, but was amused nonetheless, and then pointed at her bag on the floor. "Open the side pocket and get out my pink box," she told him.

The pink box. The ever-mysterious, ever-present pink box. James never thought he would see that day that he, James Potter, would find out the contents of the pink box - and he didn't even have to ask! Lily had carried it in her bag for years, but he'd never been able to see what she used it to hide. She certainly shared it with Karen and Jane often enough, but she always seemed to tuck it out of sight whenever anybody else came along.

He drew it out of the pocket and examined the yellow flowers painted on the lid. Pretty and delicate - just like Lily. Lifting the tiny latch, James gaped at the contents. It was a messy wad of hair ribbons, make-up, sweets, and who knew what else. Was that a Cockroach Cluster? He was just getting to the more questionable items when Lily snatched the box out of his hand.

"I didn't tell you to open it," she said. She buried her hand in the centre - which appeared to be deeper than it looked - and rooted inside until her fingers emerged with a tiny black eraser, which she handed to James. Next she dropped the inky Transfiguration book into his arms and grinned. "You can clean the pages you messed up." With that, she snapped the pink box shut and handed it back down for him to put in her bag. He stowed it away and pulled himself up onto the sofa beside her.

Of all of the endless punishments she could have come up with for him, she'd picked something that he could do right next to her. James smirked with satisfaction. Lily Evans was definitely falling for the Potter charm.

The eraser she'd given him was old and rather too small for his hand, and the progress he made on the book was slow. So much the better. He would be happy to stay right there all day. She looked so pretty, curled up beside him, scribbling away and squinting her eyes in concentration. When she paused to read her essay, Lily lifted her white quill to her mouth and brushed the end lightly against her lips. She drew the feathery strands back and forth, sometimes catching them with her tongue and sucking delicately. If she kept that up, James was sure he would come undone. How was a wizard supposed to keep any measure of self control when she did that? Was she driving him insane on purpose? He wouldn't put it past her. James would make a complete fool of himself if she didn't stop.

He tried to focus, and cast around in his mind for something witty to say to her - something to distract himself. What was it he had planned to talk about when he first came up? Something about the last Quidditch practice.

"What kind of damage is done to the circulatory system of mammals after extended periods of transfiguration into non-mammal objects?" Lily asked.

"Huh?"

She looked up at him. "You did the extended transfiguration essay for McGonagall, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"So what did you put about the circulatory system?"

"You're still working on that?"

"Almost done."

"Wasn't that due yesterday?"

"It was," Lily said. "Did you find the information for this part in the text book, or did you have to reference something else?"

"I used Martin's Catalogue of Common Spell Damage. It's a staple in our dormitory."

"What did he say?"

He racked his brain for an intelligent answer. "If the transfiguration is done badly enough that it could damage the circulatory system, then the spell isn't likely to be powerful enough to last very long. Since it doesn't last long," he explained, "there isn't really time to do any damage. Risks are minimal."

"But what if there's damage anyway?"

"A Blood Replenishing Draught can be used as a precaution. Otherwise a Master should handle any repair work."

"Thanks."

"Do you really think McGonagall will take that late?"

"She gave me an extension."

"How come you always get away with that kind of stuff?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Getting extensions and all that," James said. "I saw you turn your last Astronomy charts in late the other day too."

"I have a lot of extra work to do as a Prefect, you know. I can't always be on the exact same timetable as everyone else."

"Remus is a Prefect, but he's not that busy, and he never gets extensions."

"Don't even get me started on Remus," Lily muttered. "I might have to kill him."

"You aren't still mad at him about missing that Prefect meeting, are you? He couldn't help it if his Aunt died."

"She died? Oh no, I thought she was just sick. That's so sad."

"Er...yeah she was really sick when he left, but then she died right away."

"That's too bad. But no, I'm not mad at him about that - even though I don't think he's made a Prefect meeting this term. It's really just that he never does anything to help me. He's too busy skiving off or getting frisky with Margie. I've never seen him so completely useless."

James opted not to comment. Whether she was right or not, it wasn't worth getting her aggravated. He focused on the little eraser.

After a while, the inked up pages were back to normal, but Lily was still absorbed in her essay and hadn't noticed. James reread the little note scrawled in the lower corner of the page. It was Lily's handwriting with green ink, and seemed to have been a classroom comment to one of her friends. 'He looked too hot to handle,' she'd written. James would absolutely give everything he owned to find out who she'd been referring to.

Mindful to keep it quiet, James flipped to some previous pages, scanning for hand-written notes and erasing ink blotches along the way as a cover for his snooping. Mostly there were Transfiguration references that she'd scribbled in, but now and then he'd land on a private comment. 'Check your teeth.' '5pm - library.' 'Do animagi get fleas? She looks like she needs a scratch bad.' Reading that last one, James bit his lip to stifle a laugh; the comment could only be about McGonagall. He could of course, answer her question about fleas, being an animagus himself. Unfortunately, he'd promised Sirius and Peter - fellow illegal animagi that they were - that he would never tell Lily about their secret ability until she'd seriously offered to bear his children. Sometimes he doubted that he would ever get to tell her.

It was when James turned to page forty five that he hit the jackpot. A whole conversation between Lily and Karen, and he was sure that it was all about himself.

'He's staring again,' Lily had written.

How annoying.

It's cute.

Then go out with him.

Maybe I will.

You wouldn't dare.

Love is in the air!

You would die first.

I knew you --

The conversation stopped there - no doubt they'd drawn McGonagall's sharp eye. But the thrilling, glorious point was that Lily fancied him. Who else would be staring at her in Transfiguration but himself?

James flipped back to page ninety seven and strove to calm his jittering nerves. He was suddenly so excited he couldn't think straight. Maybe he was the one Lily thought 'looked too hot to handle.' That had to be it. Lily Evans was in love with him, right under his nose, and he'd been too distracted by her pretty lips to notice.

With a short whoop of joy, Lily capped her ink bottle and started rolling up her parchment. "All finished!"

"I'm finished with this too."

"Thanks." Lily held out her hand for the book, but James wasn't ready to hand it over.

"Hey." James swallowed his jittering excitement. "I was wondering if you want to come down to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow. I need to stock up at Honeydukes."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "The next Hogsmeade weekend isn't until February."

"Who needs a Hogsmeade weekend? There are other ways of getting there."

"How? The only way is the road that everyone can see. You aren't talking about going through the forest are you? Because that's really dangerous."

"The forest is alright, but I know a better way. I'll show it to you. We can go right after breakfast."

"I'm not going to Hogsmeade with you, James."

"But it'll be fun."

She started jamming her things back into her bag. "I know what you're trying to do, and I'm not going to fall for it."

"I'm just trying to have a fun weekend."

"You're trying to get me to have a date with you."

"It doesn't have to be a date. Can't it just be for fun?"

"Not with you it can't."

She was right of course, but he wasn't giving up so easily. "C'mon," James pleaded. "I thought you were starting to like me."

"You made it up, then, because I don't."

"But you wrote right here that you think I look hot." He held the book out for her to see, and she blushed deeply.

"James." Lily paused to rub her palms over her face. "That wasn't about you."

"It wasn't?"

"I can not believe you're really that conceited."

"Who's that supposed to be about then?"

"That's none of your business," she snapped.

"C'mon, Lily. You can tell me. I won't say anything to anybody. I promise." It would kill him to hear it, so he'd never get the chance to tell anyone.

"Look," Lily explained. "We were just making fun of somebody. It's not anything."

"Who were you joking about?" That would be easier to swallow.

"It was Remus, okay? After him and Margie got caught kissing before class. They were so flustered and we thought it was funny. We kept cracking on them."

James sat back and sighed. "We did too," he admitted. "He never has enough sense to find someplace private, and then he gets all upset when we see them. It was so funny when McGonagall was the one to say something."

"See?" She waved her hands at him. "You can't go reading my private notes and jumping to conclusions."

He was getting desperate. "What about this part back here where you put that you wanted to go out with me?"

"I didn't put that."

"It's right here." He flipped back to the page and pointed it out. "Karen said you should go out with me, and then you put that you would."

Lily groaned. "I was teasing Karen about little Billy - the first year. He fancies her, and he kept staring at her in the library."

She started to get up, reaching for her bag and avoiding looking at James. He caught her by the arm. "Wait. Can you just stay a minute?"

"I should go. It's almost lunch."

"I want to ask you...I need your help."

Lily lowered herself back into the seat, clutching her bag to her stomach, and eyed James suspiciously.

He rubbed his eye under his glasses and swallowed hard. "What's wrong with me?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"We always used to joke around, and write to each other during the holidays. We even did our homework together some. We were friends. Weren't we?"

Lily nodded and sucked in her lip.

"So then I, er...okay, as embarrassing as this is, I know it isn't any secret that I fancy you. A lot. But when I started to realise it myself, it just made sense to me that, you know, we were friends already, so why couldn't we just give it a shot? But then you didn't want to, and I know I made a complete moron of myself about it, but now it's become this running gag around school that you won't even give me the time of day, and I don't understand. I don't get it."

He stopped to take a deep breath. Lily wasn't even looking at him - her eyes were fixed on the buckle of her bag. She kept clicking it opened and closed, opened and closed.

"I don't ignore you."

"Just having an actual conversation with you anymore is a huge event for me. You don't give me the silent treatment, but you brush me off every chance that you get."

"I'm sorry." Click open, click closed.

"I just wish I knew what it is that drives you away. You don't really hate me do you?"

"I don't hate you," she whispered. Click open, click closed. "But a lot of times you disappoint me so much. You can be so nice to people - especially to me. But then you can act so mean sometimes. I know you can be better than that."

"Are you talking about Snape? Because he's the one who starts it."

"Don't give me that, James." Her voice rose menacingly. "You provoke him all the time. I'm not blind you know."

"It's an ongoing war. If Snape would just admit he's wrong and go away, the whole thing would be settled."

"Wrong about what? What are you always fighting about? I bet you can't even remember what started it."

"That's just it," he said. "It's not just one thing. It's what he is. It's the way he looks down on everybody who isn't a Muggle-hating, pure-blooded creep. It's the way he knows all kinds of Dark Magic, and he's just itching to use it. People like him are a threat to everyone."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating just a tiny bit?"

"I hate it when he looks at you, Lily. Like you're not even good enough for him to spit on. Can't you just feel the hatred boiling out of him? He looks like he would feed you to a hundred snakes and laugh while you died."

"He wouldn't do that."

"He would. And it makes me sick."

"Can't you just be the better man and walk away for once?

"I am the better man!" said James. "And he isn't a man at all!"

"Don't you dare hold that against him James Potter, or I'll never respect you again."

"What?" She wasn't making any sense to him at all.

"Snape can't help it if he's part vampire," she said. "It's got to be hard enough for him to live with that for the rest of his life without you hounding him for it."

James was dumbfounded. "He's not a vampire. He's just a coward."

"Of course he's a vampire," Lily argued. "At least partly. You'd notice it if you paid any attention to him. It probably runs in his family, or he could have gotten bit when he was a little kid. Whatever happened to him, he can't help being a dark creature and you shouldn't bully him around for it. It isn't right."

"I don't bully Snape about being a vampire. I just hate him because he's evil. How can you hold that against me?" He was sure he had her there.

"It's not just Snape, James. It's other people too. If you don't think somebody has the same values as you, or if they don't measure up to your standards, you act like you have no compassion for them at all. I've seen you do things that were so hurtful. How could I want to get closer to you after that? It breaks my heart."

James looked up at Lily and caught his breath. She was doing the unthinkable. She'd started to cry. When James tried to move a little closer to her, Lily tightened her grip on her bag and stood up.

"I need to go." And she did.

James stood to watch her hurry through the door to the girls' dormitory. The door slammed behind her and the sound echoed in his stomach, sickening him.

James dropped back onto the sofa, planted his feet on the rug and his elbows on his knees, and then buried his hands into his hair, squeezing his eyes shut. Lily always had a curveball to throw him, and this time he'd fouled up worse than ever. He'd made her cry.

He'd barely had time to process how deep a hole he'd dug when a thump beside him drew his attention. Remus had settled in his usual seat, an uncomfortable look on his face, and Peter and Sirius dropped onto the bearskin rug.

"Prongs!" Sirius said. "You totally missed it. I've never seen Snivellus so hopping mad!"

"It was so cool," Peter added. "Literally."

Sirius sat on his ankles and leaned forward towards James. "He and that Snyder girl were sitting on one of those big boulders by the lake, which is just stupid since it's so cold outside, but that's a pair of Slytherins for you. So anyway, me and Wormtail made these huge mud-balls and charmed them to rocket around at the git. They kept smashing into him and then bouncing away and going after him again. He started jumping around and screeching and then he finally fell into the lake! By the time he crawled out he was practically blue. It was hilarious!"

Remus didn't look very amused. James didn't feel like being amused either. "That's great, Padfoot."

"That's great? That's all you've got to say? What's wrong with you? You aren't getting all self-righteous like Moony is, are you?"

James groaned and slouched backwards, rubbing his face with his hands.

"Uh, oh." Sirius leaned back.

"You can say that again." Remus turned his attention to James. "He's got that 'rejected by Lily' look again."

"What did you do, Prongs?"

He dropped his hands to his lap and groaned. "I made her cry."

"Cry? You didn't hit her did you?"

"Of course I didn't hit her. I just told her that Snape wasn't a vampire. That he's just an evil git. And she got all mad."

"Lily thinks Snivellus is a vampire?"

"I've heard her say that," Remus told them. "She makes a convincing argument."

"She kept going on about how 'vampires have feelings too,' and how 'he can't help it if he's a dark creature. He probably got bit when he was little. That's no reason to bully him around.' As if! Girls can be so thick."

"Are you saying," Remus asked, "that Snape being a dark creature is a good reason to pick on him?"

"That's not what I mean. You, of all people, should know that."

"At least Lily has a good attitude about his condition."

"What?" James turned to Remus in disbelief. "Now you think he's a vampire?"

"I didn't say that. But Lily does, and I'm glad she doesn't hold it against him. We need more people like her."

James sighed. Of course Remus was right. Lily was amazing like that.

"If it'll cheer you up," Sirius offered, "we can break into the Hospital Wing and see if they've managed to thaw out Snivellus yet. We could sneak some ice mice into his dinner to get him really worked up."

Peter snickered, but James squeezed his eyes shut. That was exactly what Lily had been railing against. Picking on Snape. James felt all twisted up and smashed inside. He needed to be alone to think. To figure out what it was that made Lily stick up for Snape so much. He just didn't get it. James heaved himself to his feet and tromped off without a word.

The other boys exchanged worried glances.

"She must have really gotten to him this time," Remus said.

"We'll have to think of something to cheer him up." Sirius stretched out on the rug. "Get his mind off of Evans for a while. I'll think of something good. Just you wait."