Behind Your Hazel Eyes
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything related belongs, first, and foremost, to JKR, and then to her partnerships with Scholastics, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros., etc.
Summary: You were a young boy when you found a girl who would change your life… You had this power to make any girl sink to her knees...Lily never wanted to be just another girl. The summer before seventh year is when you had an epiphany… She watched you fall... she was desperate to see you succeed. She felt as though she could cry from the sadness…
Authors Note: I'm at my sisters for the week, so I hope to be posting little one-shots while she's in her college courses. I hope you enjoy! Oh, and by the way, some of my stories were deleted off this account; I got a notice about posting something I didn't own. I'm not sure what they meant by it, but The Reason, I Want to Know What Love Is, What About Love and My Immortal (I believe eight or nine were deleted from the website all together, but these four mean the most to me), and I don't know, but I've heard some people save the stories in word documents on their computer? Well, if you do have any of the four above on your computer, I'd appreciate someone to mail them to me, because my computer crashed and I've lost the original copies of them, and they are rather valuable to me. Again, I'm not sure why they were deleted, but I'd appreciate anyone's help (I'm not sure who does this, but I know some people do).Behind Your Hazel Eyes
You were a young boy when you found a girl who would change your life. You had just turned eleven when you met her. You still remember that day. Not because it's when you two fell in love. Not because it was your first day at school. Not because she looked so stunning. But because she smiled at you. Rarely ever did she smile at you.
You don't even admit to yourself that the smile she gave you was just a friendly hello; that she didn't know you, and wasn't seeing you as crush-material. You still think it was the beginning of all; the beginning of her feelings and the beginning of a magnificent life you two would surely have. Because you were young and full-of-yourself. And after all, you deserved what ever you wanted. Nobody was going to get in your way of marrying Lily Evans.
But there was one person putting up the fight. There was one person who was not amused by your actions toward Lily. That one person hated when you would get too close to her. That person would try to curse you out of existence. The very own Lily Evans that you wanted to be with was resisting your charm when all girls fell for it.
You had this power to make any girl sink to her knees or swoon as she saw you and your best mate, Sirius, walking around the castle. It was enough to distract any witch who you met. But it wasn't enough for Lily. She wasn't impressed by your hexes, when they were on helpless first years. She wasn't impressed by your trouble-making, because someone always seemed to get hurt. She wasn't impressed by your Quidditch Skills because you were always too pig-headed to see that you really weren't considerate of anyone else. As long as you and your mates were okay, everyone else couldn't bother you; nothing else could bother you.
While every other girl fell for this, you couldn't see why Lily thought you were lower than dirt. You couldn't understand why she was fighting with you, avoiding you, and ridiculing you. She didn't know anything about you, but she knew the show you gave on to everyone. You never unmasked yourself, even for the girl you claimed you lived for. She wouldn't even give you the time of day, and you gave her no reason to want it.
Lily never wanted to be just another girl. She didn't want to love the part of you other the other girls swooned over. She didn't want to be wooed like a damsel-in-distress; she was no damsel. It didn't hurt her as much as you thought when she was called a Mudblood. She knew that she belonged at Hogwarts. The only thing you knew is that Snape needed to keep quiet, because she belonged with you. And that, too, never sat well with Lily.
She didn't even think you respected her. Not because of the fighting, but because you would say something and defy what ever she wanted. If she wanted to date a guy, you'd scare him off. If she wanted to go somewhere, you would make sure nobody would come with her. During your sixth year, this became such a common thing that she refused to speak to you months on end. The fighting stopped, because she stopped listening. You didn't exist to her.
The summer before seventh year is when you had an epiphany. Maybe it was a mandatory epiphany, the day your little brother was killed by Death Eaters. You changed then. Nothing was the same for you after that. You were so excited that he would be a first year, that the thought of him leaving the Potters ripped you up inside. And you changed.
You weren't as bright as you were before. It was almost as though you resented coming back to school. You were never cocky, arrogant or conceited. You never made snide comments or cursed people in the corridors. You changed. And it was almost as though you shouldn't have what your little brother couldn't: an amazing life at Hogwarts. So you changed. Emotionally, you weren't ready to be there. You couldn't watch the Sorting Ceremony. In fact, you broke into tears in the middle of the Sorting. You balled in front of the entire Gryffindor table. The school watched you run out the oak doors; their eyes followed Sirius as he went after you. All eyes watched the scene. Even her eyes.
During the feast, she was confused beyond all reason. She asked anyone within ear-shot why the most powerful and popular guy in school was running away, crying like a little boy. She was never the same to you after she heard that it was because of your brother. And as she stared up at the Sorting Ceremony, where another Potter should have been sorted into Gryffindor, she felt a small ping of loss. She never even knew your brother, but something inside of her broke that night. It was as though she had lost a family member, too. As though she was just as cheated as you were.
Aside from all the emotional outbreaks you had, your appearance was altered as well. Your hair, once messy, seemed to lose its quality. It was then Lily realized her fondness of seeing you with hair that couldn't be tamed. Your Quidditch skills plundered to an all-time low. Because every time you had the Quaffle, you'd looked toward the Gryffindor stands, and really, truly, know that your brother should have been cheering you on. That he should have been sitting with Sirius, Remus and Peter. He should have watched you score, so you never did. After each goal you made, you felt as though you were betraying his memory. So you stopped scoring.
Lily watched you from the stands. She watched you fall, and she seemed to forget what ever she once felt. Because she was desperate to see you succeed. You thought she missed having competition in school, but it was more than that. She wanted James Potter to be lively and fun again; she'd have full-of-himself James over distressed-and-helpless James.
It was the end of November when everything changed. You two, both of you, still remember what happened that day. It was the day she fell in love with you.
Lily bounded down the stairs, a pair of mittens and a scarf clinging to her heat-deprived body. She expected a day like any other. A day of Charms success and a load of homework. The thing she didn't expect was the thing that happened. When she reached the bottom step, looking into the Head's common room, she saw James, with his hazel eyes staring into the fire. She was hesitant at first, but sat down. He stared for a very long time before he brought himself to look at her.
Lily tried very hard to keep her face straight. She wanted to do so much in that one instant. She felt as though she could cry from the sadness, gasp from the way his eyes looked, and hug him for all the pain he had gone through. The thing that struck her hardest of all was his hazel eyes. Contrary to what life they held before, they now held hollowness that only comes from being lonely.
"Hi Lily," he was able to mutter weakly.
"Hi," she said back, quite unsure of what to say. "I'm sorry about what happened."
He looked away from her, staring into the fire once more. "What have you got to be sorry for? Unless you were the one behind that mask."
She looked down at the floor and absently played with her scarf. "No, but I hate seeing you like this."
This seemed to catch him off-guard, because he turned his head to look at her. "Do you really mean that?"
"Of course I do," she said instantly. "I know we've never been on the best of terms… but, James, look at you. Look at yourself the way I see you. You're a former part of who you once were."
She knew she was out of line, but she had always been honest with James, and she wasn't going to stop for anything. Especially when he needed to be okay. She needed him to be okay.
"Of course I am, Lily!" he said loudly. "My brother died! He was killed, and he will never know this life. Hogwarts was his dream, Lily! His DREAM!"
"I know, James," she watched the tears well in his eyes, and felt some prodding in the back of hers. "But it was your dream, too. You loved this place, you wanted this place, you cared so much about this place that you wanted to see every part of it. You wanted to come here, just as much as he did."
He looked up at her, but didn't say anything. He turned away as a tear spilled down his cheek. Lily reached her hand up to wipe it away, and his eyes returned to her.
"May I ask you something?" Lily said quietly. "What was the last thing your brother said to you, James?"
A new trust formed in his saddened eyes. It seemed, if only for an instant, that they were returning to normal. James looked up at her, and knew that she had something to say; he had a strong feeling he would feel better afterward and therefore a strong urge to hear her.
"He was talking to me about Hogwarts. Telling me about the classes he looked forward to, how he wanted t—to be like me and, and get the high—highest grades… he… he wanted to fly like me. Be—be a Chaser like me. Have, have l—loads of friends a—and rule, rule the school."
Lily watched him struggle to speak to her, and she reached out to touch his shoulders, making him bring his hands to his face. When she spoke, it was softly.
"James," she said, thinking carefully how to word her thoughts. "It sounds like he wanted to be like you, very, very much. It sounds like he loved everything about you, how you flew, how you were smart, how you were popular… he loved you for that. He loved you for being that person, for doing those things. So why don't you be that person, James?"
"Because it's too painful to be everything he wanted to be! I didn't ask to live and him to die—"
"No, you didn't," she said soothingly. "But you can't choose things like that, James. You can't choose who will live or who will die. When you stop being who you are James, you're doing your brother wrong." He looked up at her, waiting to counter until she made her full point. "He wanted to be you, to be the guy you are, because he loved who you were. He can see you right now, James. In Heaven he's watching down on you. How do you think it feels for him to see you, his hero, stop being a person; how does he feel knowing you're only a fraction of what you used to be, James?"
"What can I do?" he replied quietly.
She gave him a hopeful smile, "Live for him, James. He would have wanted to be all you were, so live for him. Make him live through you. Score goals for him, win a Cup for him, get good grades for him, and be joyful and fun and energetic for him. If you want to do his memory justice, James, then be who he wanted you to be; be the brother he loved."
James looked up at her, watching her smile sweetly down to him. He wiped his face as she stood up. She held out her hand and he took it.
"Live," was all she said. And hand-and-hand they walked through the castle, receiving looks of shock, but no words were needed.
She had grown to love you, James. She had grown to see you weren't so bad before. And she helped you realize that you had so much more to do with your life. She looked into your saddened, sunken, hazel eyes, and she saw that, you, James Potter were still there. She gave you what you needed; she showed you what was behind your hazel eyes.