Lost and Found

A/N: I could probably whip this into a two-shot, if you so desire.

If there's one thing that Lily has learned in the last nine days, it's that there's no good way to handle the death of your parents. In fact, the ability to handle something like that at all is pretty much obsolete.

She spent the first four days acting like nothing had happened. The next two consisted of laying in her bed, skipping classes and refusing to eat or move at all. And the last two days she'd walked around like a zombie, going through the motions and sending not a single word or glance towards another human being. The teachers, bless their souls, have said nothing. Her friends, she knows, fall everywhere on the spectrum between fearful and encouraging when it comes to bringing her back into the real world.

Today, she knew that Marlene was reaching the frustration point. The girl was so worried for Lily that she didn't know how to handle it, which, for the feisty blonde, often manifested itself in minor social aggression. So Lily took pre-emptive action and decided to go down to the common room to study for the Charms exam with the rest of the seventh years. She could see relief blossom onto her friends' faces, but that didn't mean she could magically focus on the material they were supposed to be learning.

Which is how Lily found herself tallying up the passing seconds in her mind, testing herself to see how long she could possibly last in public before she had the overwhelming urge to run. She'd discovered in the last week that when she disappears, her loyal and loving friends never seem to find her. It's the one solace she has, the only thing in the entire universe for which she's grateful.

She gets to seven hundred and seventy-eight before she jumps to her feet, calling attention to herself immediately.

"Left my Charms textbook in McGonagall's classroom," she excuses herself smoothly, speaking her first words in days. Her voice is scratchy and rough, her vocal chords sore from inactivity. But she doesn't care. She's already walking towards the portrait hole before the lie is half out of her throat.

Once outside in the corridor, she sucks down a harsh breath of cool air and feels the relief tingle through her muscles. And then she takes off in the exact opposite direction of the Transfiguration classroom.

By the time she makes it to the top of the Astronomy Tower, her breaths are coming too fast, bursting out of her lungs with a rushed urgency and Lily faintly registers that she's seeing spots.

Hyperventilating. Of course, she's hyperventilating. She stumbles towards the low stone wall, catching herself against it with one hand and wincing at the sharp pain that lances through her wrist. Her back slides against the cold barrier as she slumps to the ground, barely registering the bitter cold that swirls through the air around her.

Her hands cup her knees and pull them to her chest, ducking her head down between them as low as she can.

Lily's not sure how long she sits there, focusing on in-two-three out-two-three until her breathing slows to a semi-normal rate. And afterwards, she's suddenly exhausted, keeping her head bowed as she tries to ward off the rush of emotion that has been consistently trying to break down her barriers for the past nine days.

When she finally looks up, it's to see James Potter coming up through the trap door, bracing his arms on either side of the entrance and pulling his legs up over the edge.

He brushes some residue of dust off of his maroon jumper and lifts his head, exhaling an audible sigh of relief when he spots her, sitting there against the wall.

To her utter surprise, he doesn't immediately tell her to come inside, or ask her why she's here. It's positively glacial outside, an October chill progressing into a November freeze, and all he does is tug the cuffs of his sleeves down over his fingers, crosses his arms over his chest, and walks over towards her.

In normal circumstances, she would maybe gape a little, widen her eyes in surprise. Probably tell him to go away.

Now, though, she just stares straight ahead as he sinks down next to her, pulling his own legs to his chest and crossing his arms over them.

They sit there like that for a few minutes, their postures mirroring each other's, saying nothing. Lily at least registers the strangeness of the fact that this is somehow not strange, Potter being the one to find her. Potter sitting here with her.

"How long?" Lily asks after a while, keeping her eyes fixed on her fingers.

"Forty minutes," he replies, and she feels like she's only been gone for a fourth of that time. Or maybe like she's been gone for a lot longer.

"I'm surprised Marlene waited that long."

"Oh, she didn't," James tells her with the tiniest hint of a smile. "She was on her feet the moment you left, but the lads and I told her we'd go look for you."

"Give them a break from looking after me," Lily guesses.

"Something like that," James says, agreeing with her purely for the sake of agreement. That's something her friends have been doing a lot lately, too.

"And it took the four of you forty minutes?"

She sees him shake his head in her peripheral vision, messy black hair shifting into event greater chaos from the wind.

"No, we went to a classroom and played Exploding Snap," he tells her honestly, finally getting her to look over at him with skeptical green eyes. His hazel ones are already on her, and her gaze slams into his. His expression is full and open, hiding absolutely nothing, but Lily is too tired to analyze that.

"You're serious," she realizes, propping her cheek against her knees.

"Yes," he says. "I don't…we realized you might actually need some space. And…" he reaches into his pocket, extending his right leg for a second to inch his fingers into the space and grasp the edge of something—a piece of parchment, Lily sees as he pulls it out. "There's this."

He unfolds it, and, with his other hand, taps his wand against the center crease. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

"What—"

The page jumps to life, filling with inky lines and swirls and dots and with her clouded mind it takes her a moment to recognize— "Hogwarts," she breathes, incredulous.

"And everyone in it."

"How…?"

"We made it fifth year," James tells her, mumbling another phrase to the map and folding it back up before returning it to his pocket.

There's a lot to untangle there—the utter ridiculousness of it, the skill it must have taken, the fact that the Marauders must be getting away with a lot more than everyone thought—but something in particular nags at Lily's brain for a moment before she can decipher it.

"That's why no one's been coming after me when I leave," she says. "Because you always know where I am."

James shrugs. "Well, Remus or Peter or Sirius or I do. So we make excuses or offer to go find you."

"And then?"

"Stake out where your mates can't find us, normally. So that we don't trip over our own lies."

Lily's silent for a time, and then, "that's borderline stalking behavior."

James flashes an unexpected smile and if Lily was paying attention to her emotions she would analyze the little squeeze in her stomach. "That's what Padfoot said you'd say."

"Right," Lily deadpans, her mood dropping instantaneously. "Because he knows exactly what I'm thinking."

"No, I…" James backtracks, but doesn't bother to finish his sentence. Lily can't quite seem to take her eyes off of him, even as he looks away from her, frustrated to have said the wrong thing.

The two of them are silent for longer this time, sitting shoulder to shoulder against the biting wind. Lily wonders vaguely if it feels colder to him than it does to her numb, unfeeling body. She's estimating just how long it will take for him to give up on her and go inside when he speaks again.

"When my mum died, I wasn't even in Hogwarts yet," he tells her, his voice soft but strong. "My dad…he did the best he could, but he just wasn't the same person anymore. Threw himself into work and it didn't seem like he had much time to be a dad anymore. I don't have siblings, so I was on my own for the majority of the time. For those two years before school, I was practically raised by house elves and my own imagination."

She's looking at him intently now, studying his angled jaw, the glint in his hazel eyes and the curve of his mouth as he talks.

"James…"

"I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me," he tells her quickly, stuttering a bit at the sound of his first name. "I was nine, and it was a long time ago. But there were two things that I learned. The first—and worst—is that the pain never goes away. Sometimes, it will feel like it has. But you figure out that you're really just functioning at this constant level of pain, so you develop a new threshold. It never goes away, but you learn to tolerate it a bit better."

"And the second thing?" Lily asks, her voice quiet and her lungs feeling tight against her ribs, pushing painfully against her chest.

He looks at her now for the first time in a long time. As if it's the most natural thing in the entire world, he reaches over and takes her hand in his, resting them on top of her knee. His skin is somehow warm despite the wintry air around them.

"Even when you're surrounded by no one, you're never alone," he tells her earnestly. "All right?"

She holds his gaze for a long moment, not bothering to wipe away the familiar feel of salty tears that are pressed against the rims of her eyes.

"Yeah," she finally says, looking at him curiously. "Yeah, all right."

He smiles softly at her and releases her fingers, but the fiery warmth that radiates out from his body seems to be permanently stuck in the flow of her veins.

"So, we have three options," he says, pushing his specs up to the bridge of his nose and shuffling his feet as if in preparation. "We can go back and study for Charms, which you undoubtedly don't need to do—"

"I haven't been paying attention for more than a week," Lily tells him.

"I've noticed," he admits bluntly. "But you got a one-hundred and seven percent on the last exam. How the bloody hell that's possible, I have no idea. But I think you'll be fine."

She rolls her eyes, feeling—if just for a short moment—perfectly normal again. "Option two?"

"Option 2 is playing Exploding Snap with the lads. But I feel inclined to inform you that Pete will win. It's consistent and unavoidable, but the inevitable fury might be a good distraction."

"And option 3?" Lily says, the corners of her lips twitching just slightly at his penchant of being a sore loser.

"Option 3 is staying up on this tower in this unforgivable weather. Which I will endure for you, Evans, if you promise to pay for my medical bills when I'm admitted to Mungo's for severe hypothermia."

"You are the biggest drama queen," Lily bursts out, unable to help herself.

James holds his hands up as if in defense. "Hey, it's just fair warning."

Lily shakes her head. "So studying for a test I'm going to ace, perpetually losing a game to your mates, or sitting up here in the freezing cold with you and blowing away my meager savings."

James nods his confirmation resolutely and a stray thought sneaks into Lily's head that maybe the third option wouldn't be half bad.

"Well," she says instead, rubbing her palms against her leggings and hauling herself to her feet. "I've never seen Peter play before, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to Exploding Snap."

"Is that right?" James smirks at her from the ground. "Careful, Evans. Confidence will only make Pete's victories more bruising."

She reaches out a hand towards him, a reluctant smile playing across her lips.

"Ah, there it is," he says fondly, grabbing her hand and uses the leverage to pick himself up. He's closer than he should be, and his thumb reaches up to gently skim across her face from the corner of her mouth to the corner of her jaw. "Thought I'd never see that smile again."

Lily is still underneath his touch, her lips pressing into a serious line at the feel of his thumb on her cheek and his other fingers tucked beneath her chin. His fingers linger there for a moment, until he exhales and steps around her.

"Ladies first," he says, opening the trap door. He motions her through as she pivots to face him, but Lily can only stand there and stare at him blankly.

"Lily?"

She looks up at him, sudden uncertainty clouding her eyes.

"What if…I don't know how to be myself anymore?" She asks him. The words slip out desperately and suddenly, as if she didn't really mean to say them at all. She feels dizzy, and can't account for why—the loss of her parents, or the physical consequences of being near a considerate James Potter.

He tilts his head to the side, his eyes filling with unmistakable empathy. It's not an expression she's used to seeing. There's not a trace of pity.

"You can be whoever you want for however long you want," he tells her, sincerity laced into his tone and seeping liquid hot under her skin. "We'll all still be here when you're ready."

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth and gives a curt nod.

When they make it through the trap door and back into the cozy corridors, he reaches over a few inches to take her hand, pressing his palm snugly against hers. This time, he doesn't let go.