People Don't Change

A tap on her shoulder was all it took to ruin her day.

Lily turned around, and her face fell immediately. "What do you want?"

"I wrote you a letter," James said without preamble.

"I'm not going to read it."

"I know."

Lily sighed and leaned up against the stone wall of the corridor. "Then why did you waste the parchment?"

He didn't laugh, and she didn't blame him - all her attempts at humor nowadays fell flat. Everything nowadays fell flat. "I want to read it to you."

"Oh?" She shifted her books in her arms. "What makes you think I want to listen?"

"Please listen."

There was pain in those eyes, behind the glasses, and part of Lily was glad.

"James." The instinct to touch his arm flared up inside of her for half a second, but she'd gotten good at repressing that - she hadn't touched him in nearly six months. She wasn't allowed to anymore. "You can't possibly have anything left to say."

"I do." He had the parchment in his hand, all crunched up from the grip he had on it. "Please, Lily."

(She still couldn't deny him anything.)

"Fine." She slid down the wall and arranged herself on the floor. He sat beside her; she almost told him to move farther away, but she'd been so close to forgetting how he smelled, and this proximity made it all come rushing back.

"D'you have class any time soon?" he asked, and she shook her head. "Good. It's - it's a long letter."

"I have a free period."

"Yeah. So've I. Fun, aren't they?"

"Potter."

He inhaled very slightly, as if the sound of his surname on her lips had shocked him.

(It had been a very long time since she had called him anything but James.)

"Right," he said. "Getting on with it, then." He unfolded his letter. "'Dear Lily. I know you aren't going to read this, but I'm writing it down anyway, because -'"

"Just talk to me," Lily said. "Don't read it. Just tell me what you want to say."

He looked rattled at being interrupted, or maybe he was still hurt from the word Potter. "I - I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it's very hard to sum up what I want to tell you. And if I improvise, I'm going to forget parts of it." He was still staring at the parchment. "It took six months just to gather all my thoughts. But it's a very well-written letter, if that's what you're worried about. Moony helped me with the wording."

Lily fixed him with a glare. "I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from discussing me with your friends."

James almost smirked. "If you'd heard the improvised version, you'd be thanking me for getting his help."

"Fine. Read the letter. Don't read the letter. It really doesn't make any difference to me."

James sighed. "Could you just - could you go into this with an open mind, please?"

Lily laughed once. "The last time I went into something with an open mind, I ended up dating you for the better part of a year," she said. "And look how that ended up."

"Exactly!" James jabbed the letter with his index finger. "It ended up with me mucking everything up, so I'm trying to do something right for a change by getting Moony to help me!"

"Improvised version," she said shortly. "Improvise it, or go away."

"Fine." He stowed the parchment in his pocket. "Erm. Dear Lily. I know you aren't going to read - "

"Reciting the bloody letter from memory is just as bad as reading it, James."

"Fine." He took a deep breath. "I - six months ago, I made a mistake."

She snorted. "Too right you made a mistake."

"Lily." He looked pained. "Please."

She closed her mouth.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said. "I didn't realize - look, when I told you I didn't w-want you anymore, I just meant that I didn't want anyone anymore. I was - I felt - depressed, I s'pose, although I wasn't sad, if that makes sense. I just felt - I dunno - bored? No, not bored with you," he added hastily when she raised her eyebrows. "Just bored with us? Bored with the way things were going? We were sort of . . . stagnant. Not going anywhere. It was the same thing day in, day out, and I wanted to get out of it, because I felt . . . trapped . . . not that you trapped me, I just . . . Lily, can I please just read you the letter?"

"Does it make more sense than whatever the hell you just said to me?"

"Yeah." He fumbled through his pockets, looking for the parchment. "A lot more - shit - "

A small, square box fell out of his pocket and tumbled down the corridor. Lily leaned over to grab it for him.

James' hand came down hard on her arm. "Lily, don't touch - "

But he was too late - her fingers wrapped around the box, and the top came off in her hand, and a small but brilliant diamond ring fell onto the carpet.

James swore.

"What - " Lily scooped the ring into her hand. "Why're you walking around with an engagement ring in your pocket?"

He swore again and dropped his head in his hands. "You weren't supposed to see that," he said, voice muffled by his palms, "until after I read you the letter."

She swallowed. "Give me the letter."

He peered at her from between his fingers. "Are you going to crumple it up and throw it away?"

"Maybe." Her heart was pounding. "I haven't decided yet."

He handed her the parchment without meeting her eyes. With trembling hands, she unfolded it.

Dear Lily,

I know you aren't going to read this, but I'm writing it down anyway, because if I don't get my thoughts out on paper I'm going to go absolutely mad. The past six months have been hell without you - a self-inflicted hell, actually, because it's my fault, I'm the one who told you to go, I'm the one who said I didn't want you anymore.

It wasn't true, Lily. I thought it was true at the time, but I was wrong. I have never been more wrong about anything in my entire life.

I have been struggling with an emptiness - an emptiness that has nothing to do with our break-up, an emptiness that started months ago, for no reason whatsoever, just when you and I were at our happiest. Every day had begun to feel exactly the same, as if I were stuck in some nightmare. There was a restlessness in me - an anticipation, as if I were waiting for something to happen, and it just never did. It's the same sensation you get from being at the top of one of those muggle roller coasters we rode last summer. You know you're going to fall eventually, and you're almost looking forward to getting it over with, but that terrible moment at the peak of the hill feels infinite.

I needed the fall. I needed something to change. I was suffocating, Lily, I was choking on the way the days passed, and I had everything I wanted but there was still something distinctly not right with me.

I let go of you because I thought it would fix everything. I thought it would be enough of a jolt to prompt the fall of the roller coaster. It was selfish of me, but it was the only change I knew how to make, and I was desperate.

It was the wrong choice to make. Living without you is impossible. I thought I had it bad back in the beginning, when you kept rejecting me, but compared to this - compared to knowing I had your love, I earned your love, and then I threw it away - Lily, I would rather be dead.

I thought about asking you to forgive me, but the problem with dating you again is that I know we'll just end up back here. I don't want to fall back into our old patterns. I still need something to change. I would just rather have that change include you by my side.

So I'm going to offer you something: a choice. A ring, actually. I don't want you to say yes or no yet. I just want you to hold on to it for a bit. You don't have to wear it. Just know it exists, and it's yours, if you want it. It's all yours, along with the promise that I will never again be foolish enough to let the love of my life slip through my fingers.

I want you to join me on that roller coaster. I want to be happy with you. I want to be miserable with you. I want to sit with you at the peak of that ride for ages, anticipating the fall, and I want to make every change in the world except the ones that involve being apart from you.

I love you. I still want you. I will always want you.

When she looked up, James was watching her.

"That's the part where I'd give you the ring," he explained, nodding at the diamond in her palm.

She didn't say anything, just held his gaze.

"I - I hope it made sense. The letter, I mean. I tried to explain it as well as I could."

Still silence from Lily's end.

James licked his lips. "Please say something."

She was twisting the ring between her fingers. "You were a git to me," she said quietly.

"I know."

"You broke up with me. You wouldn't speak to me."

"I'm speaking to you now."

"James." She'd dropped her gaze to the ring. "You know I can't marry you."

She heard him swallow, but when she looked up his eyes were still dry. "You could."

"I - this isn't how it works." She pressed the ring into his hand. There was a heavy weight in her chest - it was like breaking up all over again.

"It could." He was crying now. "Please, Lily."

She shook her head.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "Keep the ring," he said, setting it on the floor between them. "For a little while, at least. Please."

She stood and gathered her books. "No, thank you."

And she walked away before he could see that she was crying, too.

"You're insane," Remus told her the next day when Lily confronted him about the letter. "You're insane if you think he's lying."

"I don't think he's lying." She laid the parchment flat on the library table between them.

"Then why wouldn't you take the ring?"

She shrugged. "If he ran once, he'll run again."

"That's not fair, Lily."

"People don't change." She threaded the corner of the parchment between two fingers and began to tear at it.

"That's his point. He hasn't changed. He still loves you."

The corner of the letter came off in Lily's hands. "I know he does."

Remus watched her in silence for a moment. "Do you still love him?"

Her mouth quirked up into a sad smile. "Of course I do."

Remus leaned back in his chair. "And so, I repeat: you're insane."

Lily ripped the corner of parchment into smaller pieces. "I don't want to marry him."

"You don't have to decide right now." Remus picked up the letter and pointed to a specific line. "It says you can hold onto the ring for a bit before you choose."

"But I didn't take the ring."

"Right." Remus put the letter down. "Because you're insane."

Lily slid her torn up bits of parchment toward the center of the table and tapped them with her wand; they fused back together as if they had never been separated. "I wanted to. Ireally wanted to, Remus. I wanted to fall back into his arms and pretend it never happened."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because." She was staring at the James' signature.

"He isn't going to hurt you, Lily. Not ever again. He's serious about this."

"Hah," Lily said, eyes still on the table.

"He is. I know James better than nearly anyone, and I have only seen him take one other thing this seriously before."

"What, Quidditch tryouts?"

"No." Remus waited until she looked up. "Wanting to be with you, back in first year."

She inhaled. Exhaled. "So you think I should say yes."

"I do."

"You think I should - I'm seventeen years old, Remus, I can't get married!"

"Engaged," he corrected with a wry smile. "He just wants to get engaged, for now. The marriage part comes later."

"Still - engaged at seventeen."

"If you're freaked about this, think of him. James Potter, settling down? He'd have to be really serious to agree to that." Remus tapped his chin and raised his eyebrows.

Lily drew another deep breath. "You really think he's changed?"

With a smile, Remus shook his head. "I think he's exactly the same as he's always been."

The sound of the portrait hole opening made James look up, and then look down again quickly when he saw who it was.

He was working on his Charms essay - he'd been researching the negative aftereffects of Cheering Charms, which involved severe mood swings and bouts of spontaneous muscle spasms in the cheeks. It wasn't his favorite subject, but the moment the portrait hole swung open he suddenly found the topic fascinating.

"James?"

His head snapped up. "Hi."

"Hi." She looked terrified.

"What can I do for you?"

She was trembling. "I think you have something of mine."

"Oh?" He sat back in his armchair and folded his arms over his chest in case she could see his heart thudding beneath his shirt.

"I think - I think I left it in the corridor, after our chat, and you may have picked it up."

"Okay." He waited for her to continue, but she looked too nervous to speak. "What did you leave behind?" he prompted.

Her face broke into a tiny smile as she offered him a piece of parchment. "Here. I wrote you a letter about it."

(The only word he got through was yes before he was on his feet and kissing her.)

[Disney Character Competition: Megara - write about someone who is struggling to love again after being hurt.]

[Defense Against the Dark Arts Class: Write about a change. Prompts: Fall; Insane]