CHAPTER FIVE: HENCEFORTH I NEVER WILL BE ROMEO

Act 5, Scene 1

November 2015 — Two Years Earlier

James Potter's bedroom

"Feeling better now?"

"Mmm."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Then scooch over," said Euphemia. "I'm hanging off the edge of the bed."

James opened his eyes and scooched accordingly, making room for his mother to wriggle onto the bed and stretch her legs across the mattress. The delicate white flowers stitched into the lilac satin of her robe were too blurry for him to make out in the dark without his glasses, but James could picture them clearly in his mind.

She had caught him in a right state, and he was embarrassed.

He wasn't a crying, clinging eight year old any longer, and fifteen should have been old enough to handle his own affairs without running to his parents for help. He hadn't called her into his room because he hadn't wanted her to know what was going on, but she'd shown up all the same, appearing by his side as if she'd sensed his fear from the next room over, set a glass of water on his nightstand and clasped his clammy hand between her palms.

"In through the nose, and out through the mouth," she had repeated under her breath, squeezing with every exhale, a calm and steady coxswain steering him gently through the rapids. "In through the nose, and out through the mouth. In through the nose, and out through the mouth."

Her hands had been cool and slightly damp from the condensation.

It was well past two in the morning.

It had helped.

"Keep taking deep breaths," she said, quietly commanding, so James flopped back against his headboard and took them, though his heartbeat no longer felt painful and the dizzying pressure in his head had slackened its grip on his brain. The familiar tick tick tick of the clock on the landing outside sounded normal again, not achingly loud. "And keep reminding yourself of the positives. Always the positives."

"Always the positives," he repeated, and sucked in a breath through his nostrils.

"The surgery was a success."

"I know."

"His doctors are happy."

"I know."

"He'll be home by this time tomorrow, and Hope would telephone us if anything was wrong."

"I know."

"We can make him something special for his next visit, hmm?" His mother gave his arm a gentle nudge. "Put our heads together, you and me? See if we can't steal Sirius away for the day while we're at it?"

James nodded shortly. "Peter too."

"I can't bear to think of Sirius stuck in that house with those people every night," said Euphemia, with a bitter tinge that always made itself known in her voice when she spoke of Sirius's parents. "What will Remus want for dinner, do you think?"

"Beef Wellington," James decided at once, "with gravy, and lots of vegetables."

Remus had been talking about Beef Wellington on the ward when James went to see him. Beef Wellington, of all possible topics. He'd been craving it badly, he said, now that they'd taken the tube out of his throat. Hospital food was fine, but nothing special. The arrival of meals meant a chance to break the monotony of a day spent lying in bed, hooked up to all kinds of machines, mysterious tubes sticking out of his loosely tied gown, pissing into a bag because he didn't have the strength to make his own way to the toilet, because Remus had almost died—died, might have been gone, lost, an entire life snuffed out as if it was nothing—if he hadn't had that surgery, but a bloody Beef Wellington was his primary concern.

In hindsight, it was clear that Remus had been dropping hints. He'd have fallen over himself on any regular day for a taste of Euphemia's cooking. She'd held two Michelin stars at the height of her career.

Who was James to deny him what he wanted? He would have cut out his own aortic valve and offered it up on a silver platter, if it could have made a difference. Cooking a dinner with all the trimmings felt like a meagre price to pay for his friend's life.

"A Wellington's not much of a challenge," Euphemia mused, "but if that's what he wants..."

"And some kind of crumble for dessert," James interjected. "Cherry and plum, maybe. Or apple. But we have to have custard. He loves custard. And no chocolate. He doesn't like chocolate."

"And Sirius loves it so," his mum sighed.

"Sirius can deal with it."

"Sirius would eat a shoe if we covered it in Velouté sauce and told him it was a rare delicacy. He'll be fine with what he's given."

James laughed feebly. "Give it a French name, he'll love that."

"Imbécile pompeux," said Euphemia, a trifle absently. She squeezed his hand. "Do you think you'll be able to fall back asleep now?"

He nodded.

"Would you like me to stay with you until you do, just in case?"

James immediately pulled a face of disgust, which would have been more effective, perhaps, if he hadn't been holding her hand.

Or if he'd meant it.

He was fifteen years old, but he still needed his mummy to keep vigil by his bedside whenever he got scared.

Pathetic.

"No, I'm grown up now," he pointed out, with such forced contempt that he instantly knew he'd oversold it. "I'll be fine by myself."

Euphemia scoffed. "Fifteen is hardly grown up, child."

"Well, when is?"

"In general, or just where you're concerned?"

"For me. Specifically me."

"I'll reassess when you turn forty," she said, settling back against the headboard, and tugged his duvet across her lap.

Act 5, Scene 2

September 2017 - The Present

the music room on the ground floor

(hereafter known as the depths of hell)

Friar Lawrence.

That was what they had given him.

Stuck him with, more accurately.

Only Edwin Edwards had auditioned specifically for Friar Lawrence, and Edwin Edwards was a pretentious git who pretended he didn't have a phone because "modern technology sounds the death knell for the interpersonal," when everyone knew that Edwin's mum wouldn't buy him one because she believed he'd get radiation poisoning in his cochlea. His ex-girlfriend, Megan, had told everyone about it after their breakup, a piece of gossip that had since been embellished and exaggerated to such an extent that Edwin could hardly enter a room without being treated to a rousing chant of "Edwards's mum doesn't vaccinate her kids!" from Megan's new boyfriend and his mates, who seemed unusually aware of social issues.

The point was, Friar Lawrence was a dud role for pretentious gits, but James was the one who had been saddled with it.

Aside from Edwards, nearly everybody else had gotten the parts they wanted. Everybody else! Sirius was Mercutio, Beatrice Booth was Nurse, Jennifer Costner cried tears of joy when she was announced as Lady Capulet and even Terry Heaney had been given the role of Paris, but James had been landed with Friar. Fucking. Lawrence.

Friar Lawrence!

To add insult to injury, McGonagall had called his name directly after naming Remus as Romeo, and she did it with a perfectly straight face, as if she were making a serious announcement. As if anyone could believe that he, James Potter, would be remotely suited to a part like staid, boring Friar Lawrence. And people actually applauded! For Friar Lawrence! Like it was a good thing!

McGonagall obviously assumed that James didn't know the play well enough to grasp that his own English Lit teacher was biting her thumb at him, but the joke was on her because he'd read the whole thing on Monday night. He knew the way things were. He knew exactly the insult she'd hurled in his face. What better way to stick it to James than to stick him with the role of the man who orchestrated Romeo and Juliet's marriage, likely whilst wearing an unflattering burlap robe and envying the groom his dashing doublet and sword?

And yes, technically the marriage happened off stage so James wouldn't actually need to pronounce them husband and wife and score a front row seat to their steamy snogging session, but still!

Principle!

Also, he'd definitely still have to watch them snogging.

He knew McGonagall's game.

James had lived with his mother long enough—all of his life, in fact—to know retribution when it kicked him in the groin. He'd shown up at the audition unprepared, farted about like a posturing prat and wasted the valuable time of several important people, so McGonagall was punishing him to teach him the error of his ways.

"My appendix is bursting," he whispered to Sirius.

He cast an agonised glance at Lily, who had been called up to speak to McGonagall privately and was deep in conversation with her at that moment. One of her school-standard knee-high socks had fallen down and she was making surreptitious-yet-frequent attempts to nudge it higher up her calf with the heel of her shoe, fighting to keep her annoyance out of her face.

Remus hovered quietly nearby, having a similarly private chat with Vector. He'd practically raced over there after the stiff thirty minutes it had taken Vector and McGonagall to dole out parts and discuss their plans for rehearsals, during which time neither he nor James so much as glanced at one another. With the proceedings wrapped up for the afternoon, most of the crowd had begun to trickle out. James and Sirius were waiting for Remus, but James would have preferred it if he could get up and run home.

Remus, Romeo. Lily, Juliet.

They were going to have to kiss one another.

On stage.

In rehearsals.

Right in front of James.

In all the months he'd wasted losing his mind over Lily Evans, of all the cockamamie disasters he had imagined at the height of his own paranoia, of all the horrifying possibilities his brain had concocted—that she'd leave Hogwarts, marry Snape, join a nunnery and swear off romance—he'd never once expected that the day would come when he would be forced to watch the woman he loved suck face with one of his mates.

He felt blindsided. He felt debilitated. He felt...

He didn't know how he felt.

Nauseous, mostly.

His appendix was definitely bursting.

"Your appendix isn't bursting," said Sirius. He was scanning the schedule he'd been given and showed no outward signs of concern because he was an unfeeling bastard.

"It is," James murmured. "Call an ambulance."

"No."

"Posthaste."

Sirius snorted. "Your appendix is fine."

"How would you know? Are you a bloody stomach doctor?"

"It's called a gastroenterologist, and no, I'm not."

"Then how are you supposed to—ow!" Sirius poked him hard in his right side, and James's resulting yowl of pain attracted the attention of three or four of their surrounding peers. Not wanting Lily to notice, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Why?"

Sirius leaned back in his seat and pulled a lock of his shiny black hair across his top lip like a moustache. "Proving a point."

"That you're a prick?"

"Or that you're a liar."

"I'm not a liar," James retorted, massaging the spot where he'd been poked with the back of his knuckles. "My emotional appendix is on the left."

Sirius laughed appreciatively at that, which kind of made James want to laugh too, but he couldn't, because love was a curse, existence was a prison, and he was Friar fucking Lawrence.

"Remus isn't going to steal her away, calm down," said Sirius.

"But I'll still have to watch them kiss, and—"

"So?"

"So I love her—"

"You don't."

James expelled an exasperated breath. His mates always insisted upon that point, as if they knew his own feelings better than he did, or could understand a love as pure and true as his on any level. "Yes I do."

"You don't. You don't know her. Sandy Bullock would slap you to shit for talking like this," said Sirius flatly, and nodded towards the other side of the room. "Anyway, heads up, it's your girlfriend's entourage."

Sure enough, Booth and Macdonald were heading in their direction, arms linked, both girls wearing the same smug smile.

"Hey!" said Booth brightly, and marked her arrival by stamping her feet into the ground with evident self-importance.

"Hey," Sirius replied.

"Hey," said Macdonald.

"Hey," James gloomily responded.

"Well," said Sirius, "this was a varied conversation."

"Shut up, you dick," said Macdonald, and laughed. "We just came over to congratulate you both."

"And to congratulate me," Booth seconded. "Obviously. But you two did alright as well."

"Your Nurse audition was decent," said Sirius, who had laughed, audibly and appreciatively, at a couple of moments during Booth and Lily's comedic duet. "I, of course, will be carrying the play—"

"In that big fat head of yours, maybe."

"Don't hate me because you ain't me, Macca—"

It took James all of five seconds to zone out of their conversation, because all he could see was Lily, there in the background, and the incomparable gorgeousness of her every look and smile and gesture, and her continuing battle to keep her confounded sock in place, and the inevitable crushing horror of the entire situation. Her, Juliet. Remus, Romeo. James was staring at her and he shouldn't have been because he knew that everything he felt would seem so obvious in that moment, knew that he had little to no self-respect, knew that this should have been the kick he needed to move on from his love for her already. Yet here he was, staring anyway, like a bloody heartbroken fool, and if she happened to spare a single glance in his direction, she'd instantly know that...

She was looking directly at him.

Suddenly.

In fact, McGonagall had let her go, and she was walking over to them with her hands clasped tight around her bag straps.

Breathing felt optional at that moment, rather than a subconscious bodily response.

"Hiya," she greeted them all, drawing close to their little group.

"Hey," said Sirius, with all the effortless apathy that James would have kicked his dad up the arse for. He, on the other hand, found himself jumping to his feet with great haste, much like a 19th century gentleman greeting the lady who had deigned to join him for tea.

Except James wasn't sauve and smoldering like Colin Firth. James was a total flaming imbecile.

"Alright, Evans?" he said, and stuck his hands in his pockets. There may have been a terrible upwards nod to go with it, some failed attempt at cavalier disinterest.

He wasn't in control of himself.

"I'm alright," Lily replied, her eyes narrowed suspiciously on his face, though she was smiling, small mercies. "You?"

"Never better," he flagrantly lied.

"We were just talking about what our costumes might be like," said Booth, which was good, because James had not been paying attention and could not have furnished her with that information if he'd been paid to.

"Already?" said Lily.

"Well, yeah, hello, I'm in charge and I get shit done," said Macdonald. She pressed a finger to her own chest. "Got a budget and everything. Granted, it's basically nothing, but Vector said that we could fundraise as a kind of side-project."

"We were thinking of having a bake sale in the canteen," Booth explained. "Sirius suggested we auction him off to the highest bidder—"

"As if McGonagall would allow it," said Lily.

"And as if anyone would pay for that," Macdonald added.

"People would," said Sirius, "and you know it."

"They'd pay for tomatoes to throw at you, maybe."

"You've always been jealous, Macdonald, ever since we were kids—"

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, but somehow I think a few millionaire squares would bring in more money than your pasty ass."

"Thought a lot about that pasty ass, haven't you?"

"I mean, if you want to be deluded—"

Sirius sniped back a retort, Mary threw another barb in his direction, and Lily sent James a smile that seemed to indicate a kinship of some sorts, an understanding, as if she was saying, hey, look at these two, can you believe that we put up with these clowns?

James rolled his eyes dryly in response, so Lily threw her smile down to her feet.

That made for the first moment of relief he'd been awarded since McGonagall announced the casting.

Naturally, Remus ruined it all by coming over.

"Hi guys," he said, appearing between Booth and Lily, his gaze trained quite firmly away from James.

"Remus!" Booth and Macdonald trilled in cheerful unison.

"Oh, hey!" Lily sang, and landed a feather-light punch to Remus's upper arm. "If it isn't my husband."

Remus laughed breathlessly, met James's eye for a fraction of a second and seemed to deflate on the spot. "If it isn't my wife."

It was funny, because James was not remotely in the vicinity of a body of water, but he was definitely, definitely drowning.

"Congratulations, Lupes," said Mary.

"I knew you'd get it," Booth seconded, smiling at a rather flushed Remus. "I told Lily you would, didn't I babe?"

"She did," said Lily warmly.

"Well, that's—" Words appeared to fail Remus. His face was starting to turn pink. "Thank you."

"Your audition was totes the best," Booth continued. "You're so bloody talented."

"Oh, not really—"

"No, seriously, I know what I'm talking about, theatre is like, half my life, so when I say that you were the best—"

"I think everyone did really well—"

"Nobody did as well as you," Booth insisted. She obviously wasn't familiar with Remus's habit of growing extremely uncomfortable when forced to accept any kind of compliment. "Nobody."

"Well, thank you very much, but—"

"You were like, pro level good, yeah? I've seen a lot of plays in the last few years, but honestly—"

"Oh, before I forget!" Lily interjected, with such forced sunniness as to make clear that she was rescuing Remus from Booth. She briefly touched her fingers to his elbow. "When you were talking to Vector, did she say that we should—"

Remus nodded eagerly. "She did."

"So I should probably—"

"Only if you want to."

"No, yeah, we should. McGonagall says it's important," said Lily, fishing in the pocket of her blazer for something. She withdrew her phone and unlocked the screen with a quick sweep of her fingers. "I don't know my number by heart, though, because I had to get a new one over the summer, but if you put yours in my phone I can text you later?"

"Oh, yeah." Remus wore the expression of a man sitting firmly on a cactus. "Yeah, sure."

"Why'd you get a new number?" said Sirius, as Lily handed over her phone.

Bizarrely, Lily spared a brief glance for James before she answered. "Doesn't matter."

"Aww, spoilsport, tell the class."

"It's none of your business."

"Someone stalking you, Evans?"

"Again, it's none of your business," said Lily sparingly. She looked at James again, this time more directly. "How do you live with this clown and not lose your mind on the daily?"

"Industrial strength earplugs," James replied, feeling as if he was watching this scene unfold from a great distance, because Lily and Remus were exchanging numbers all of a sudden and that was—what? What? What? "Congratulations, by the way."

"Congrats to you too!" She took her phone back from Remus without looking at him, smiling instead at James. "You got such a great part!"

Sirius snorted. "He doesn't think—"

"I think you all got such great parts," said Macdonald, and though she was smiling, there was an undertone of warning in her voice. "Except for Sirius, obviously."

"Yeah," Lily agreed, giggling, "Mercutio's kind of superfluous."

"And Juliet's kind of a twat."

"Ouch."

"You realise that historically, audience responses to the play have been known to fizzle out after Mercutio dies, right?"

"Then I'm sure you'll break that tradition."

"Steady on, there's no reason to not be nice," said Mary—who was arguably the most unkind of all of them when the mood struck her—as Sirius opened his mouth to respond. "We should be celebrating, yeah?"

"Yeah, the girls and I were going to go to OK Diner for milkshakes," said Booth. "Do you guys wanna come?"

"Suppose I could go for a milkshake," said Sirius, glaring at Lily.

Remus shrugged. "Why not?"

"Oh, I can't, though," James hurriedly put in. "Got a project to finish at home."

The words bounced around in his brain even as they slipped from his tongue, and James could hardly believe they were coming from his mouth. Here he was, turning down the opportunity to spend time outside of school with Lily Evans, a phenomenon he never would have anticipated.

But he couldn't. He couldn't. He wasn't capable of sitting in a booth with the rest of them, laughing and joking and necking a strawberry shake while the world fell apart around his ears and the people to his left and right were genuinely happy. James wasn't good at putting up fronts. His mother often said that his emotions were as subtle as an articulated lorry smashing headlong into a wall.

"Aww, that's a shame," said Macdonald, smirking.

"An art project?" said Lily.

"Yeah."

"What are you working on?" she asked him, and looked as if she were genuinely interested in his answer because, unlike her friends, she was charitable and kind, and obviously a phenomenal actress. "Something for class?"

"Oh, nothing, just this thing for something we're doing—not for school or anything, it's like an online—but I was supposed to do it a while ago and I had to take the cat for a walk and there's a deadline and I'm really behind on sketches," he babbled, unsettled by the eye contact Lily was maintaining with him, and by the general turn his day had taken, "so I should go home and get that finished now, but you should all go."

"I'm not going if James isn't," said Sirius.

"Why, is he your wife?"

"Piss off, Macdonald."

"Well, Remus will come with us," said Booth, and let go of Macdonald completely to snake her arm through the crook of Remus's elbow instead. "Won't you?"

"Um." Remus looked down at their interlocked arms. His cheeks were still bright pink. "Yeah?"

"And you're sure you both can't come?" said Mary.

"I really can't," said James, his gaze flitting between Lily, who was still looking at him, and Macdonald's smirking face. He jerked his head towards Sirius. "He's just being a brat."

"When isn't he?"

"Piss off, Macdonald."

"It's fine, we'll all hang out another time," Lily put in, while the others began to move towards the door. She didn't follow them at once, but leaned sideways, yanked her wayward stocking up her leg and fixed James with an uneasy sort of smile. "Good luck with your project, yeah?"

"Yeah," he replied, his mind working frantically to come up with something charming. "Good luck with your sock."

Jesus H Christ, he wanted to die.

Act 5, Scene 3

James Potter's bedroom

The walk home from school was utterly miserable, with James's last, excruciating words to Lily ringing in his ears and Sirius loudly speculating on what they might have meant. His pet theory was that James had stolen Lily's sock and used it for a marathon wanking session, and with this hideous image he teased James until they reached home, and a sympathetic Euphemia met them at the door, eager to learn what parts they'd won that afternoon.

Naturally, upon learning that her only son was to play Friar Lawrence, not Romeo, she laughed herself silly for close to a full minute.

"Nice to know that my own mother doesn't support me," James croaked, once she'd finished cackling.

"Oh, that did me a world of good," Euphemia sighed, brushing a tear from the corner of her eye with her thumb. She lowered her hand to her chest and took in a sniff. "What are you whining about now?"

"He thinks you don't support him," said Sirius, who was sitting on the kitchen counter with a glass of water clenched between his knees.

"How ridiculous," said his mum. "Of course I support you."

James did not possess the energy required to mimic Sirius and haul himself onto the counter, so he'd slumped against the oven door instead. He had enough in him to bristle, however, at the audacity of his mother's lie.

"Are you supposed to support your kids by laughing at them?" he countered.

"I think it's good to find the funny side of our misfortunes."

"So why are you laughing at mine and not your own?"

"Well, I don't have any misfortunes, darling," Euphemia explained, "and I find yours so much funnier."

Sirius snorted, but James straightened his posture, glaring at her with venom. "So this is all a joke to you?"

"Oh for goodness' sake, James," said Euphemia, "you didn't get the part you wanted in the school play, nobody died."

"So you do think it's a joke."

"It's not going to ruin you forever if—"

"You think it's a joke?" he cut over her. "You think it's funny that I'm going to have to watch Remus kissing the girl I love, and that they're probably going to end up—"

"Darling," Euphemia sighed, and pushed her shining black curls away from her face, "you don't love her, you're—"

"Yes I do!"

"You hardly know the girl—"

"I know how I feel about her!" he cried out. Sirius was laughing properly now, the water in his glass churning precariously between his shuddering knees.

His mother, however, was not doing much better. Her laughter had faded, but her voice held a vaguely pitying lilt as she said, "It's just a crush, sweetheart."

"No, it bloody well isn't."

"You hardly know the poor girl."

"I know her well enough!"

"James, everyone feels like this at your age, but it isn't the end of the wor—"

"I should have known you didn't really care about how I feel," he accused, even further enraged by the obvious amusement that lingered on his mother's—normally lovely—face, even as she tried her best to suppress it and, he suspected, pretend to take him seriously. "Just leave me the hell alone, all of you!"

"For goodness sake, James!"

But James ignored her and raced up the stairs, stomping his feet as hard as feet could stomp so that his mother—no, so that she and Sirius and the neighbours and the very house itself—would feel the mighty weight of his anger. He made straight for his room when he reached the landing, with a kick for the banister and a glare for Diablo, who was charging in the corner beside his parents' bedroom door and who Euphemia Potter obviously respected more than she'd ever respected her son.

"Oh, piss off!" he snapped at the Roomba, and slammed the door behind him.

Algernon was curled up in the middle of his bed, staring up at him in that unblinking, all-knowing way he always did when he believed that James was in the wrong, despite having none of the information, and being a cat.

"Not you as well," said James accusingly.

Algernon swished his ginger tail and did not seem impressed.

"It's not funny," James told the cat.

Algernon looked at him as if to say, did I indicate that it was, you sorry sack of manure?

"I hate everything," James declared, and threw himself boldly on the bed, intending to sleep his way through the next decade and wake up in 2027, when this whole, horrendous fiasco might have potentially been less painful.

But half an hour later, he sat up ramrod straight, this time with a newfound resolution.

A firm decision had been made inside his head.

He was going to quit the play.

It was the perfect response to all of this madness. So perfect, in fact, that James was honestly quite shocked to have failed to think of it sooner. If he quit the play, he wouldn't have to go to rehearsals, wouldn't have to know anything about what was going on, wouldn't need to see any devastating snogging sessions. Quitting was the only viable solution, the only way that he could salvage his own sanity and allow Remus to fully accept the role of Romeo unencumbered by any feelings of guilt or regret—and Remus would feel those things, that was the kind of person he was. James owed it to him to make this sacrifice. It was even heroic, in a way. After-school rehearsals meant more time with Lily. James was giving that up for Remus. That was worthy of some admiration, surely.

He could make up an excuse to avoid seeing the play when they staged it in December, too, like an illness of some kind. Finding an explanation to offer Lily would be...more difficult, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

She probably wouldn't care, either way.

With all of that settled, James then determined that the first thing he needed to do was tell Remus, to ensure that he found out about it before anybody else did and, more importantly, that Remus was given a clear explanation, one which allowed him no reason to place blame upon himself in the aftermath. This was James's decision alone. If he didn't want to endure the trauma of watching Lily and Remus snogging on stage, he could remove himself from the situation and relieve Remus's conscience in the process. James was the one who hadn't truly meant to audition. James was the one who muscled in on Remus's territory.

Their friendship was too important for James to let it fall to pieces over a girl, so he had to do what was best now, and make things easier for everyone.

However, when he pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it to write a text, he found that Remus had already beaten him to the punch.

Are we alright?
I just wanted to check, I'm sorry.
I'd come over but we're still in the diner and I don't want to come by unannounced if you're not ready to see me.

Great. Now Remus thought James didn't want to see him.

Already it had begun.

weird, he typed back, shooting for a casual approach, i was just about to text you and ask the same

If we're alright?

yeah
i don't want things to be weird now

I feel really shit about all of this.

you shouldn't

I'd have to be the worst person in the world to not feel shit about it.
But I have to be honest with you.

i'd have to be the worst person in the world to want you to feel shit about it
?

I'm not even sure if I should say this because I don't want to come off like a dick but I feel like I should.
You're too important for me to keep it from you (please don't show this to Sirius, he'll be a prick about it)

i won't
promise
tell me

I'm really glad I got the part.
Not because of Lily. Honestly.
But I did want it. I put in a lot of prep for the audition and I was convinced that you were going to get it and that didn't feel great, so I'm glad that they gave it to me.
I just don't want you to get the wrong idea about why I'm glad.
I also don't want you to feel like I'm lording it over you or anything, or that I want to compete with you, or, again, that this has anything to do with Lily Evans because if I could avoid that part, I would.
I honestly feel a bit sick.

Well.

That was...something.

Everything Remus said made perfect sense—and were James in a less emotional state, he would have agreed that it was perfectly reasonable and just—but reading it hurt him in a weird, stomach-clenching way all the same. Furthermore, he had no idea how to respond and sound like the reasonable, just, supportive friend he wanted to be, and the thought of further discussion on the matter was compelling him to throw his phone at the wall and bury himself under his duvet, hidden from the world and its many cruelties, so he focused in on what seemed like the most immediate, pressing conundrum.

? not sick for real though?

No, not sick sick. Sick thinking about it.

GOOD
jfc remus i can only handle so much

Done, James thought, and dropped the phone on the bed beside him, but another text pinged through mere seconds later.

Can you let me know what you're thinking about all of this?

Remus, it seemed, did not consider the matter resolved.

And James, for his part, was not strong or cruel enough to disappoint him.

honestly it's fine, i am fine

Are you?

i mean no but we have long established that i am an idiot
and yeah i feel sick about this too, can't lie, but that isn't going to change how you and i are
this is so stupid, we are not falling out over a girl
i'm being a prat just ignore me

You're not being a prat.

i am
and i never should have auditioned anyway
i only did it because she was doing it and i got my punishment
it's what i deserve

You don't deserve to be punished because you auditioned on a whim, don't be so bloody hard on yourself.
And look, you were brilliant, even unprepared, McGonagall gave you the most important part in the play besides the two leads.
Your not being prepared was probably the deciding factor, to be honest. I still think your audition was better than mine.

honestly i think i'll just quit

What? Why?

easier for everyone

I don't think I agree.
You enjoyed auditioning, right?
You wanted the part, in the end?

yeah but
you two are going to have to do stuff that i don't want to see
i don't want that stuff to affect our friendship
if i quit i don't have to see it
problem solved

That doesn't seem fair to you.

it wasn't fair to you that i auditioned in the first place.

James, you auditioned for a play, you didn't take my spot on a transplant list.
There hasn't been a single second where I felt remotely betrayed.
I don't think you should quit.

can we not talk about it now?
please

If you don't want to.

is she still there?

Who?

lily

Yeah, she's here.

is she happy?
about the part, i mean

She is.

why'd mcgonagall and vector want you to exchange numbers?

They think we should spend time together and work on our chemistry.
Not romantic chemistry.

what like, friend chemistry?

they suggested that we get comfortable with each other so that we don't feel awkward later.

when you're kissing

Seriously, James, I feel so shit about all of this.

it's fine, not your fault
what kind of milkshake did she get?

She got a Coke float, actually.

aaaaah, that's my girl

You should have come with us.

i really shouldn't have
i'm not my usual dashing self right now
i'd just bring everybody down
also, mum and sirius are being pricks and algernon has no sympathy and i think i've got appendicitis and it'd be a real downer if my appendix burst while she was trying to enjoy her coke float and celebrate this momentous win in her life
am i a cad who bursts their appendix in front of their lady love? no i am not

I mean, you definitely don't have appendicitis, for one thing.

you're gonna feel so bad next week at my funeral

I'll risk it.
Macdonald's telling me off for texting.

tell her to bugger off and snog some haggis

I'm not telling her that.

coward

I'll tell her if I can come over after.

ps4 and mum's homemade tiramisu?

A+++++

Act 5, Scene 4

Minerva McGonagall's office

"No," said McGonagall.

James blinked. "Pardon?"

"It's a two letter word, Potter."

"But—"

"I trust you understood it."

"But—"

"Was that everything you needed?" McGonagall opened one of her drawers and drew out a manila folder, which she set down on her desk with a brisk snap. "I have a busy afternoon ahead."

Then she opened the folder and started shuffling through the documents inside it, as if he'd already gotten up and left.

James smelled a rat.

He could also smell ginger, because his teacher kept a stash of ginger biscuits in her office, but that was neither here nor there.

The point was, manila folders were superfluous in this modern age and McGonagall was good friends with his mother, so James knew certain facts about her that the everyday student would not find himself privy to. One such fact was that she watched The Gadget Show and was extremely technologically savvy. Her computer was right there, switched on and everything. She probably kept those papers in her desk to ward people off.

This was an obvious ploy to get him him leave her office, and it was outrageous.

"You can't just say no," he reminded her, unwilling to budge from his hard-backed chair. That was tantamount to admitting defeat.

"I can and I will."

"No, you can't, it's a restriction of my freedoms."

"Roughly ten million children all over the globe remain entrenched in modern slavery to this day," McGonagall coolly replied, settling her narrowed, all-knowing gaze upon his face, "but please, tell me more about how your freedoms are being restricted."

James opened his mouth and promptly closed it again.

"Just as I thought," said his teacher. Her mouth was set in a firm line, but James could see in her eyes the satisfaction of having beaten him. "Now, if you're quite finished with this little charade, I'd quite like to—"

"Climbing on a soapbox and playing the first world problems card so you can win an argument is beneath you," he heard himself say, an act of bold defiance that sent a rush of adrenaline and fear coursing through his body. "Just so you know."

Perhaps the people would sing songs of his bravery, after he was gone.

McGonagall, however, studied him with curiosity, rather than rage. "Is that so?"

"All pain is relative."

"Yours appears to be entirely imagined."

"Think what you like, I retain the right to my own choice."

"Just as I retain the right to hold you to your commitments."

"I didn't make any commitments," James countered, "I did one audition."

"You also accepted the role when it was offered to you."

"What was I supposed to do, turn it down and storm out in front of all my mates?"

"That would have been childish, yes," she agreed, "but rather less underhanded than what you're doing now."

Now would have been the ideal moment for an ominous clap of thunder in the background, because James had not considered his decision as a devious act, but McGonagall made it sound as if he was sneaking away in the night with the crown jewels in a swag bag over his shoulder.

Not that he stood to gain anything from quitting, aside from the quiet relief of not having to watch Remus and Lily snogging each other in rehearsals.

And then again when the play was actually staged.

But that was fine. James planned on developing a sudden gastric bug on the night in question. Even the thought of Lily kissing Remus made his stomach churn like a tombola drum, so it wouldn't have been difficult to manage.

"Have you taken a moment to consider why I gave you the role you were given?" said McGonagall, apparently seizing an opportunity to take advantage of his silence and impart some unwanted wisdom.

"Dunno," he mumbled, sliding down in the chair, "to punish me?"

"Do you really think I'd stake the entire play on one student's punishment?"

"I think you were angry that I auditioned with nothing prepared."

"Oh, I was," she agreed, "but then I was impressed, and you are not the centre of this world or the next, much as you might believe that you are."

"So why did you give me the part?"

"Because." McGonagall stood up, closed the folder over and laid both hands on top of it like she was the Undertaker, pinning an opponent for the three-count after executing a perfect tombstone piledriver. "Old ways won't open new doors."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, Potter, that you've had things far too easy for far too long, and it's high time you were exposed to the reality of the world."

James had slid down so far that the top of his head was level with the top of the chair back. He looked up at her, his deep scowl softening into a frown. "And you think I'll find that in a play?"

"There's reward to be found in challenge." McGonagall lifted her arm and gestured to her office door. "In any case, I won't allow you to make this decision now."

"But—"

"Not when you can't think rationally."

"So when will I be allowed to decide?"

"Take the weekend to mull it over," she suggested. "Have a read through the play, think about what I've said and what you might stand to gain from sticking with it. If, after that, you still want to walk on Monday, I'll allow it."

"Just like that?"

"No questions asked, and I can't say fairer than that."

It all seemed very suspicious—especially the part where McGonagall hadn't handed down a detention for his marching in and announcing his intention to quit in the first place—but James had never known his teacher to lie and he was really starting to need to use the toilet, so staying for much longer wasn't a viable option anyway.

Besides, wasn't guilting him into continuing on with the play even worse than a detention, in its own way?

"Fine," he sighed, and pushed back the chair so he could drag himself to his feet with pointed lethargy, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I'll come back and quit on Monday, then."

McGonagall merely hummed, uninterested, and waved him out the door without another word. She thought she'd worn him down, that much was clear, but she couldn't hold him there against his will.

James was quitting the play, that much was final, and there wasn't a soul alive who could talk him out of it now.

First thing Monday morning.

Act 5, Scene 5

Binns's classroom

To make matters worse, Lily didn't turn up for Psychology on Friday afternoon.

Sitting alone in the back of the classroom, miserable, while Binns cleared his throat with a ragged little cough and began his usual, monotonously mind-numbing recitation of his notes, James wondered if her absence wasn't the perfect way to bring his nosedive of a week to its proper end. He'd asked Mary on the way in if she knew where Lily had gotten to, but Mary hadn't seen her friend at all since lunch.

"She sent me a text, like, twenty minutes ago and said she couldn't meet me before class because she had stuff to sort out," she'd explained, shrugging. "No idea what she's doing."

James had mimicked her shrug and tried to look as if he wasn't gutted by this news.

He hadn't been hoping for much, just an opportunity to bask in her presence for the duration of one class before he had to skulk home and not see her for two whole days. He wouldn't have bothered her by trying to start a conversation. He wouldn't have stared at her like a salivating creep. He wouldn't even have suggested that they jazz up the play by having Juliet run away with Friar Lawrence in the end, although that sounded like a brilliant plot twist to him. Being close to her would have been enough.

Perhaps she'd called her new "husband" and asked him to meet her for lunch. Evans and Remus could do that now because they had each other's numbers.

A woman needed her husband's contact details.

Perhaps Lily and Remus were sitting in one of the dessert lounges in town, eating an extra large salted caramel sundae with two spoons, laughing and joking and "working on their chemistry." Mousse Hysteria was James's favourite, both for their white chocolate berry crepes and their excellent use of puns, so they'd probably decided to go there. Yet another twist of the knife. His back might as well have had a gaping, oozing wound.

They'd fall in love over a heaped spoonful of ice cream and drizzled caramel sauce, and that would be the end of James.

Probably.

He was aware that he had gone fully down the batshit crazy rabbit hole, but it felt like speeding down a hill on a skateboard, impossible to stop now he'd started.

A romance seemed inevitable, and made far too much sense to go ignored. Remus was precisely the type of person that a clever, sensible girl like Lily Evans could easily fall in love with. He was tactful, level-headed, had a knack for making good decisions and gave serious consideration to a lot of things that James would have dismissed offhand. Almost all of his best qualities were mirrored in Lily herself, and besides, they had so much in common that pairing them together made sense from even the most irrational of perspectives.

McGonagall could see it, that was why she'd paired them together. Sirius could probably see it too, which was why he kept insisting that James needed to give up on his idealistic dreams. Perhaps everyone could see it, but James had been so wrapped up in his own infatuation that he'd been blinded to the truth before his eyes.

If James and Lily had ever actually dated, it would have been different, but it wasn't her fault that James was crazy about her; she didn't owe him any loyalty. If she fell for Remus, she was so forthright that she'd likely have no qualms about making her intentions known. And Remus was loyal enough to resist in deference to James, it was true, but he was also flesh and blood and she a goddess. Could he be blamed if he found himself succumbing to her charms? Could anyone truly be blamed? Would James be a wretched friend if he tried to stand in the way of true love?

Even if it meant that he would never, ever, ever, ever, ever forgive Remus the betrayal?

He'd try to forgive, sure, to put on a brave face, support them as a couple, toast them at their wedding...

Oh, who was he kidding? If Remus and Lily wound up together it would rip his life apart like a vacuum bag that Algernon had gotten hold of, the tattered remnants of his broken heart tossed carelessly to the four winds, forever searching for a home it could not find, doomed to—

The classroom door opened and Lily Evans stepped inside.

Sans Remus.

Well…

...right then.

"Sorry, sir," she said to Binns, who had stopped reading at the sound of the door and was peering at her over the top of his smudged spectacles.

"You're late," their teacher told her. The watery waver in his voice suggested that he didn't know how to handle such an abnormal turn of events and was hoping that Lily would provide him with a path. "Quite late."

"I know, I'm sorry." She was slightly pink in the face, and making no effort to hide the large Costa cup she was holding. "Got stuck in a really long queue."

So that was the "stuff" she'd told Mary that she had to "sort out" before class? Getting tea? Lily 'award for perfect attendance in the academic year 2016-2017' Evans, who by James's recollection had never turned up to a class with less than three minutes to spare, was late for the sake of tea?

Tea?!

This was bullshit. Lily Evans didn't do tardiness. It wasn't in her nature. She was clearly hiding something, like a war baby she'd found abandoned on a church step, or buried treasure, or a secret affair with Remus. James was on to her lies. She couldn't fool him.

"Apology accepted, Lydia. Please sit down," Binns replied, and waved her towards Erica Rice's desk.

If her name was such an impossible obstacle to circumvent, it was no wonder that the old fossil couldn't remember the seating plan that he'd devised himself. James wanted to snap at Binns for daring to forget it, tell him her name is Lily and it's perfect, you decrepit old ghost, and his stewing cauldron of outrage bubbled ever closer to boiling point.

He looked down at his hands as Lily made her way towards him, realising to his chagrin that he hadn't so much as taken out a pen because he'd been too busy drowning in his sorrows. Red-faced, he dived into his bag and resurfaced with a notepad, which he dropped directly in front of him just at the moment she reached their desk.

"Hi," she mouthed at him, smiling.

In an instant, his bubbling cauldron of outrage melted all over the floor, a muddled puddle of pewter and rank desperation.

Why did she have to be so her all the time?

When would the torture stop?

And furthermore, if James had turned up to class late because he'd been getting a drink in town and didn't bother hiding it with a lie, he'd have been in a world of trouble. Binns would have slapped him with a detention and sent him to the headmaster's office in disgrace, but Lily Evans got to waltz in late with a cup of Costa's finest English breakfast in hand and get off scot-free, whenever she liked.

No, it simply would not do. Lily was going to fall in love with Remus and James was determined to wallow in his own self-pity until he eventually died alone and was eaten by his many feral cats, so he responded with an unenthusiastic wave and dropped his gaze to the desk. That would show her. She wasn't the only one who could turn up late and remember whole scenes from the play and be effortlessly cool about it.

That. Would show. Her.

Except, instead of becoming intrigued by his new, detached persona, Lily brazenly set her cup down directly on top of his notepad and shrugged her school bag off her shoulders.

What did she think he was, he wondered, aghast—even as the delicious aroma of coffee hit his nostrils—a servant? A pushover? A human coaster designed for her personal use? Had she not noticed his bad mood? Could she not comprehend that her and Remus's predestined romance had torn his heart asunder, and that even though she owed him no kind of fidelity, it wouldn't have killed her to be a little more tactful?

He waited patiently until she was in her seat and had finished unpacking her things, then he picked up the cup and placed it on top of her notebook.

Immediately, she picked it back up and placed it next to his arm, which made a little burst of panic sputter through a crack in his fractured heart, so he pushed it back towards her.

She nudged it back to him.

Mystified, he shoved it towards her again.

Lily sighed, picked up the cup, set it back atop his notepad, glared at him and turned her gaze towards Binns in a firm, pointed sort of way which told him, quite clearly, that this dance was over, and he ought not dare to move that bloody cup again.

What?

What?

Was she serious?

Binns had already resumed his droning and James knew better than to whisper at Lily while she was trying to listen to the lecture, so he moved the cup to one side, ripped a sheet of paper out of his notepad and—after scrambling in his backpack for a pen—hastily scrawled his question at the top of the page.

is this for me?

He pushed it across the desk towards Lily, who caught it between her thumb and forefinger and placed it atop her notebook in one fluid motion that seemed well-practiced, never looking at him once.

She took her time composing a response, and it took all of James's self control to keep from peeking at it. If she was writing something nice, he was determined to fully enjoy the entire epistle at once, rather than spoil himself early. When she finished her last word with a flourish and pushed the paper back to him, he had to remind himself to take it with some doughty imitation of poise, rather than snatch it up greedily and press it to his chest.

Unsurprisingly, her handwriting was impeccably neat and pretty, a dainty swirl which kissed the page beneath his slapdash scribbles.

It's a large caramel latte with three shots of espresso and I can't stand coffee, so one would assume.

She'd bought him coffee.

She, Lily Evans—Lily 'award for perfect attendance in the academic year 2016-2017' Evans—was late to class because she'd been buying him coffee.

The specific coffee order that he'd told her about on Tuesday when he'd given her that notebook and they'd flirted—sort of, almost, perhaps not but also perhaps maybe—as he was walking her to class. She'd remembered it exactly as he'd told her. Right to the letter. And bought it for him, just as if…

As if...

why? he couldn't help but scribble in a hurry, an ugly mark beneath her beautiful penmanship, his heart exploding in a shower of colourful confetti, and shoved the note towards her. She rolled her eyes when she saw it but put her pen to paper anyway, then huffed out an irritated breath when she handed it back.

Isn't it obvious?

would I be asking why if it was obvious?

I'll tell you after class, you big dumb dork.

This was the most single romantic thing that had ever happened to James in his life.

Officially.

Telling Lily as much was not an option, however. He'd seen what she could do to the hot drinks of those who pissed her off. With his facial muscles working furiously to suppress a wide, sappy grin, he jotted down a quick needed this, thanks! and nudged the note to her side of the desk. She didn't respond again, but folded the paper into a neat rectangle and tucked it away in the back of her Psychology textbook, which was a shame, because James would have loved to keep it for himself.

On the other hand, it was a sunny Friday afternoon, Lily Evans had bought him coffee—delicious coffee, as a hearty mouthful confirmed—she was going to talk to him after class and she didn't seem to care that several of their classmates had noticed their exchange of notes and beverages. Mary was grinning over her shoulder like the Gruffalo while Reshma Patel and one of the Stebbins twins openly gaped and whispered, their heads bent towards one another as if the passing of gossip was a sacred act, but Lily ignored their looks and murmurs with the same serene indifference she'd displayed on the day she'd kicked his pen across the floor.

Hadn't he been upset about something earlier?

Eh.

Who even kept track of these things?

He returned Mary's grin with a smug smile of his own, and washed down his satisfaction with a well-timed victory sip.

Predictably, some malevolent force slowed time to a crawl for the rest of the class, and Lily did not so much as glance in his direction for the entire duration. When the bell finally rang, heralding the end of the longest Psychology class he'd ever experienced, James twisted around in his chair and fixed her with his most serious, most suspicious searching stare, a look of his mother's design that was guaranteed to wrangle answers out of even the most reticent suspect.

"Are you constipated?" said Lily, frowning.

Clearly, he couldn't pull it off with Euphemia's panache.

"No!" he yelped, embarrassed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Mary was shoving her things into her bag at breakneck speed. He would have dropped fifty quid on betting that she'd race out of the room in an attempt to leave them alone together. "Why would you think that?"

"Because of your face."

"What's wrong with my face?"

"Well it's not your face, it's the expression on it."

"That was my best detective stare, I'll have you know."

Lily laughed and stood up, the metallic silver headband in her hair catching the light overhead. She gripped the strap of her school bag with both hands and heaved it onto the desk. It looked heavy. "Then for the sake of your future financial security, stick with the art instead. I already said I'd explain the coffee."

"It wasn't about the coffee," he retorted, springing to his own feet, "it was about the stolen diamonds."

"Well, I fenced the stolen diamonds to buy you that coffee, so you're shit out of luck."

"And the rest of the money you got for those jewels just, what, floated away?"

"Ah, but you're forgetting the private jet I chartered to Colombia so I could pick the beans myself." Lily countered. She shoved her notebook into the front of her bag and fixed him with a triumphant smile. "Those diamonds are gone, Potter, so I suggest you make your peace with it."

That she would nimbly play along with this ridiculous bit of make-believe was better, somehow, than the latte he'd just devoured in a rapturous haze.

James had never wanted to kiss a girl more than he wanted to kiss her, right in that moment.

"I'll make my peace," he happily conceded. "Thank you for the latte."

"You're welcome," she said. "It was the least I could do to thank you for my present."

For her present.

Oh.

Right.

That...didn't exactly sound like the romantic gesture he'd allowed himself to envision not minutes earlier. "That's why you got it?"

She picked up her pencil case and shrugged. "Of course."

"But you didn't have to do that."

"I know."

"I got you that notebook to thank you for helping me out."

"And I wanted to thank you for thanking me."

"Right, but the thing is," he pressed on, feeling jittery. "The thing is—" That besides the fact that he desperately wanted her to like him, getting a thank you gift in return had never been the aim. He didn't want to be that person. She wasn't supposed to feel obligated to reciprocate anything he did. "I didn't do that because I was looking for some kind of reward, or because I wanted—"

"I know!" she interrupted, her voice hitting a slightly higher pitch, but she didn't sound exasperated. On the contrary, she looked as if she was trying not to laugh. "I know you didn't. Kindness of your heart. Gratitude. All of that stuff. Which is exactly why I wanted to say thank you."

James's stomach did a funny little flip of excitement and joy and also terror; a sensation that fell somewhere between thoroughly unpleasant and giddily delightful, as if he might shortly need to run to the bathroom and expel from his mouth a glowing stream of rainbows and glitter where there should have been something foul.

"Oh—aaaah," he said, like an imbecile.

"You're very nice," Lily continued, her tone flat, as if she should not have needed to explain herself but had caught a glimpse of a question behind his stupid, dumbstruck face. "I think you're very nice. Try not to die of shock."

She zipped up her schoolbag, bent down slightly to heave her it onto her shoulders, straightened up and fixed him with an expectant stare.

"Well?" she said, hands on her hips.

"Well what?"

"Are you walking home with me or not?"

A skyrocket of joy whizzed wildly through the dust-ridden corridors of James's romantic hopes, which had as recently as half-an-hour ago fallen into major disrepair.

He was feeling so much today. At this rate he'd need to take a nap before football.

"Yes," he immediately replied, an automatic response triggered by many months spent answering that question in his very wildest daydreams. He crammed his pen and his notepad into his bag, zipped it up and shouldered it, lest she change her mind and scarper. "Of course I am. Have to walk home that way anyway."

"I know, that's why I'm asking."

"Only it's my turn to do something nice for you because you just got me this." He picked up his empty Costa cup and shook it in mid-air. "So you have to let me...I dunno, let me carry your bag or something."

Lily's eyebrows lifted. "Carry my bag?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we in an American high school movie all of a sudden?"

"Why not? We're both hot enough," James retorted with a shrug, which made her laugh and look away from him briefly, twisting her body in the direction of the window. "Come on, Evans. I know you stuff that thing with way more books than you need."

"That doesn't mean I can't carry it myself," said Lily, then hid a smile in the tucked corners of her lips.

A smile, within that context, with that face and those eyes. This was heaven.

"Never said you couldn't," he pointed out, "but I can buy my own coffee and it's not like that stopped you."

"I bought you that coffee to thank you."

"For thanking you in the first place."

"Yeah, but you shared your hash browns with me before the audition, which means you're the person to whom the original thank you was owed, so we'll be right back where we started if I let you carry my bag."

"And?"

"And, I'll have to thank you again."

"Fine. Then I'll do the same."

"And on and on it goes until we're eighty?" She had given up on trying to hide her smile; it was a tangible, beautiful thing now. "You know that one of us will have to give this up eventually, right?"

She said it like it was a bad thing, but nothing would have made James happier than ensuring Lily Evans's presence in his life until they reached old age. His mum always cooed when they were in the car and she spotted an elderly couple shuffling hand-in-hand down the road, and James reckoned he'd been made for eventual geriatric hand-holding.

"When we've only just started?" he countered, because blurting out but I love you, haaaaaaaaa and diving headfirst into the nearest available bush wasn't really an option. They were still indoors. "Weak."

Lily sighed and looked extremely put upon, but didn't put forward another argument.

Everyone but their teacher had left the room—as expected, Mary hadn't lingered to throw sly grins in their direction, but dashed out the door ahead of the rest—and Binns was poring over his notes with such rapt attentiveness that his nose was practically touching the page. He probably hadn't realised that Lily and James were still there.

"Fine," she resignedly agreed, and shucked her bag off her shoulders, "but only because it's heavy and I'm too lazy to carry it home."

She dropped it onto the desk in front of James with a thud and what seemed like deliberate force, so he set down his empty cup to pick it up.

"It's fine," he said, swinging it onto his back. "I can manage two at—Christ, this is heavy," he realised aloud, blinking as the full weight of her bag sank into his right shoulder. His own bag weighed but little in comparison. "Are you carrying bowling balls around at school or something?"

"Oh, no, that'll be all the tampons," said Lily airily.

"Tampons weigh like, nothing. You keeping ten thousand of them in your bag?" He braved a smirk in the face of her blinking surprise. "You thought you'd gotten me with that one, didn't you? But you didn't."

"No?" said Lily, though her face plainly said otherwise. "I'm just—how d'you know what a tampon weighs?"

"From football practice."

"How could you even—"

"Nosebleeds," he said. "Our coach has us use them when we get busted in the face." With both bags adjusted on his shoulders and the empty cup in his hand, he moved off and Lily moved with him, looking up at him curiously. "Plus, my mum taught me all about that stuff a few years ago."

"About tampons?"

"No, about periods, because they only teach that stuff to girls at school and the system is broken, she says." He stopped to let her leave the room ahead of him, dropped his cup in the wastepaper basket and followed her out through the door. "Mum doesn't want me to disgrace myself when I start courting, whatever that means, so now I can label a diagram of the reproductive system."

Lily twirled around ahead of him and started walking backwards down the corridor, which at this time on a Friday was always as barren as an old Western ghost town. "Well, who wouldn't fall in love with an expert labeller?"

"As if I'll ever score a date by telling a girl that I know where her myometrium is."

"I don't even know what that is."

"It's the middle layer of the uterine wall," he supplied, and they both laughed, and James realised in that happy moment that all of this—talking to her, knowing precisely what to say—had started to become so much easier. "Real romantic, isn't it?"

"Better than a dick pic," Lily mused aloud. "You'll never believe who sent me one of those, by the way."

"Terry Heaney?"

"No, but—oh god, he would, wouldn't he?"

"Probably, yeah."

"He definitely seems like the type."

"Did anyone tell you about the stuff he got in trouble for before you started?"

"There was something with Camelia Pinkstone, right?"

"He offered to give her his Discman in exchange for a good sniff at her shoes."

Lily snorted, and tossed a quick glance over her shoulder. "Did he happen to make this offer in 1998?"

"I know, who still has a Discman?"

"I didn't think they still made those."

"They make them for people like Sirius, probably. The hipster market eats that crap up for breakfast." Binns's classroom was relatively near to the main entrance of the school, so they reached it quickly. Lily pushed through the double doors with a wave for the headmaster's secretary, still walking backwards, and James followed her through. "So come on, tell me, who sent you a dick pic?"

"Oh, that was Evan McNamee."

"Evan McNamee?"

"Yeah, and it was like, totally out of the blue, too. Just dropped it in my Facebook messages over the summer."

"What a prick," said James, screwing up his face to properly process this unpleasant news. "I mean, not that I'm surprised..."

"Oh, believe me, I'm not the only one who's seen his junk against their will."

"But still—"

"What a prick is right," Lily darkly agreed, then let out a woeful little sigh. "I swear, when McGonagall said I'd been cast the other day, I remembered he'd auditioned for Romeo and had a genuine moment of terror, even though I knew he wouldn't get it because he was so incredibly shit."

"What part did he get? I can't remember."

"Crabtree's understudy, I think? I don't know." She spun around abruptly and fell into step beside James. "I can barely even remember who Crabtree is playing. The less attention paid to McNamee and his lot, the better."

There was an unmistakable bounce in the way Lily moved on her feet, now that she had been unbound from the damning constraints of the bag that hung heavy from James's shoulder. It was a springy, feathery lightness she exuded, childlike and slightly careless, as if she might catch a gust of wind and be lifted clean away, while the late afternoon sun wrote sonnets in her hair and she spoke to him with all the unconcerned ease of a friend.

He was a soppy prat for thinking it.

The truth was, James would have been so, so happy just to be her friend. A real friend, not some sad fool she'd taken pity on or wanted an even score with. She was funny and easy to talk to, once he managed to overcome his lovestruck histrionics and get a handle on his human, less-dysfunctional self, and she seemed to find it easy to make conversation with him.

They had something that worked, whatever it was; here, in the common room on Tuesday, at their audition...

Not that the audition had mattered, in the end.

"You must be really glad that Remus got the part," he remarked, and did a convincing job of sounding as if a stone wasn't sinking to the pit of his stomach at the thought of it.

Lily hummed noncommittally.

"He'll be a proper gentleman," he continued.

"He will."

"You won't have to worry about him pawing at you or being a creep." What was he doing, trying to push Remus into her waiting arms? He didn't deserve oxygen. "Only decent choice for the part, really."

"Are you saying you would have pawed at me and acted like a creep?"

"Obviously not, but—"

"Because I thought you should have gotten it."

His heart thwacked in his chest like he was twelve, and Sirius was jumping out at him dressed as Ghostface again.

Then again, and again, and again.

But he reminded himself to be reasonable. Thinking that he should have gotten the part wasn't the same as wanting him to get it. Lily had helped him to audition because he'd been struggling, so it made sense that she had a vested interest in how that would have turned out for James.

She was likely just trying to make him feel better, because she was nice like that. This was something that he'd learned about her recently, that she was nice and helpful and kind.

And not remotely interested in kissing him.

"Did you?" he said, his pulse racing like a traitor anyway.

"I was really surprised when you didn't, to be honest."

"You know you really don't have to say that, yeah?"

"I never say anything I don't want to say," she replied, then she laughed abruptly. "God, that just made me sound so severe. Sergeant Major Evans. But it's true, I really thought you'd get it, your audition was great. And I mean, Remus's audition was great too, don't get me wrong, but not as good as yours."

"Oh," said James.

Oh, oh, oh, said his heart, dying.

"Please don't tell him I said that, yeah?" Lily looked up at him and winced in apology, as if James would ever consider not doing a thing she told him to do. As if there might be any need for forgiveness when she was being so unbelievably kind. "Because I really do think he was great."

"Of course I won't."

"Only I know McGonagall asked him to audition to boost his confidence, and I don't want to do anything to mess with that."

"He told you about that?"

"Yeah, we talked about it on Tuesday before class."

"Oh, right."

"He was convinced you'd get the part too."

"Yeah, he'd mentioned that."

"I suppose there's a lesson in there somewhere about never making assumptions."

"Yeah," said James, feeling rather morosely as if he was sullying the moment because she had expected him to get the part, and he hadn't, which obviously meant that he had failed her. "Suppose there is."

Lily didn't immediately speak again and a silence stole over them both. While the north exit of the school led directly into town, the south exit brought them onto the residential streets, which were quieter at this time of day—directly after the younger kids got home from school, but before commuting adults began to arrive home from work—so they were left in relative peace. With neither of them talking, the only sounds to be heard were those of the wind, their footfalls, and the distant hum of cars.

He didn't know what to say to her about the play, having made the decision to drop out, not without sounding childish. Not without throwing Remus under the bus. Not without making it clear that his sole motivation to audition had been his mad infatuation, which would immediately crush their burgeoning bud of a friendship before it ever had a chance to put down roots.

Life was truly a rollercoaster today, rising high one minute and plummeting down the next.

"Do you think—" he began, meaning to steer the discussion back to Evan McNamee's misdemeanours and perhaps offer to have him assassinated, but Lily beat him to the punch by blurting out, "You're not really going to quit the play, are you?"

She posed the question suddenly, and with a concern which he may have mistaken for distress, if he were a touch more deluded.

Up the rollercoaster went again.

"Quit the play?" he repeated, at a loss for anything else to say.

"Sorry for asking," said Lily, "it's just that Bea said you were quitting—"

"Booth?"

"Yeah, so—"

His face was starting to feel warm. "How did she know?"

"I dunno, she's a bottomless pit of gossip. I think it comes to her in dreams," said Lily lightly. Their pace had slowed with the change of topic. "So she was right? You're quitting?"

"I don't—"

"Is it because you didn't get the lead?"

Did everyone in his life believe him so arrogant that he'd quit the play just because he couldn't be the star of the show? "It's not that—"

"Because I totally understand, if it is," Lily ploughed on. "I mean, not that I would have quit because I'd hate for anyone to think I was petty even if I knew, deep down, that I was being petty, but I would have wanted to quit if I hadn't gotten Juliet, so I get it."

He stared down at her, unsure if she was being truthful or giving him an out. "What, really?"

"I have this, like…" She let out an exasperated sound and flicked her hair out of her face. "I have this whole thing where I constantly need to be better than everybody else, or—well, I didn't exactly word that right, but I feel like I need to be the best at everything all the time or else I've, I dunno, failed somehow, and it really pisses me off when I'm not."

"Oh," said James.

"It probably makes me a terrible person."

"No it doesn't."

"A lot of people wouldn't agree with you."

"A lot of people are stupid," he pointed out. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best at things and it's not your fault if other people aren't as good as you."

"So says Mr. I'm Unfairly Good At Everything."

"I'm not unfairly good at ev—"

"Oh, aren't you?" Lily sprang ahead of him like a deer, swung around and planted her feet right in front of him, effectively blocking his path. "Remind me again who the captain of our football team is?"

Between the heavily implied compliment and the fact that he'd almost barged right into her, James didn't feel especially capable of responding. "Um?"

"Do you or do you not always have the right answer when a teacher asks you a question, even if you've been so thoroughly disengaged in class that you might as well have been napping?"

"But—"

"You aced the audition despite having never read a word of the play," she continued, rising on her toes like a self-satisfied ballerina, as if the additional height she was gaining gave credence to her argument. "You've got half the school eating out of the palm of your hand, your artwork was picked for the school showcase last parents' evening, you—"

"It wasn't just mine!" he piped up, a feeble fart from his useless brain. "There were others, and it—"

"It was definitely mostly yours."

"Says who?"

"Says the student council president who picked it," she said flatly, clapping a hand to her own chest. "Face it, Potter, you've been unfairly blessed."

"You haven't even mentioned how good-looking I am," he said accusingly, because he would have done something stupider otherwise, like propose to her, or faint from the sheer overexertion of his nerves.

Her shoulders shuddered with the repression of a laugh. "Is that so?"

"And actually, while we're on the subject, are we ever gonna talk about how you've been unfairly blessed?!"

"Oh, I know that. I just wear it better than you," she quipped, then dropped back down to her heels. "And look, honestly? If I were casting this play just for the sake of the play itself, I'd have made you Romeo and Remus Friar Lawrence because those are the parts that suit your personalities, but I don't think McGonagall's like that. I think this is good, honestly. I think she's trying to challenge you."

"Challenge me to what?"

"I dunno, to try at something that doesn't come naturally?" Lily suggested. "To pull Remus out of himself? To give you both something valuable out of the experience?"

"I guess that sounds like her," James mused, recalling his disastrous talk with McGonagall, "and she did tell me something like that when I talked to her on Thursday."

"So you think I'm right, then?"

"It makes more sense than what I'd been thinking."

"So...does that mean you won't quit, after all?" she added. "I know it's really not what you wanted, but I also really don't think that you should give up before you've even started."

She said it with such obvious sincerity—she was so hopeful and sweet and invested in this, for god only knew what reason—that James had to huff out a short, self-deprecating breath of laughter rather than allow his feelings to manifest as a full-blown declaration of love, there in the middle of the street. Of the little he knew about romance, he did know that confessions like that should not have been made in the middle of the street. "That's what I tend to do when I'm shite at something."

"Oh, please, name one thing you're shite at."

"Making a good first impression."

"Ah, well that's true." She hugged her arms to her chest, smiling slightly. "Yet here I am, buying you coffee."

"It's my charm. Gets 'em all eventually."

"Well, it got me," Lily admitted, "so don't quit the play, okay? Rehearsals will be boring as arse if you do."

"I won't quit," James promised. "Cross my heart."