Lonely, But Never Alone

Warning: Rated for mentions of sex and strong language.

Christmas shouldn't be a time of loneliness, Lily thinks to herself. She should be happy. She should be surrounded by people she loves and people who love her.

Things don't always go the way they're supposed to, though.

She was supposed to be at home, with her family, pulling Christmas crackers and telling her parents all about Hogwarts and the wizarding world. For every year since she'd come to Hogwarts, that had been how she'd spent her Christmas, and it was a comforting tradition that she sorely missed.

This year she'd elected to stay at Hogwarts, rather than to go home and face Petunia. Her sister had become increasingly unbearable as the years progressed, and however awful Christmas was at Hogwarts, Lily had no doubt that what awaited her at home would have been much worse.

She'd thought that she'd still enjoy Christmas, though; Mary and Alice had been staying as well, and in and her innocence and naivety, she'd pictured a Christmas with just the three of them, enjoying each other's company and spending the whole holidays together.

She hadn't factored in the pair's boyfriends, nor the unnecessarily large amount of time they spent with them – and without her.

Initially, she'd been fine with it – well, as fine as she could have been. But after an entire week, she was feeling more alone than she'd ever felt in her life.

"Evans." Lily started as Black slid down in the seat next to her on the common room couch. "Fancy seeing you here."

"What do you want?" Her question was sharp, but it lacked the usual bite to it. She didn't have the strength to hate the other boy's existence at the moment.

"Is a bit of Christmas company too much to ask?" Black replies innocently.

Lily snorts. "Yes."

He pulls on a mock-wounded expression. "So harsh, Evans. I don't know what Potter sees in you."

Nor do I, she wants to reply, but that isn't a thought she is going to reveal to anyone, let alone Black. "And I don't see what half the girls in Hogwarts see in you," she retorts. "But there must be something, for you to have a new girl's tongue down your throat every week."

Black wiggles his eyebrows at Lily. "Oh, we do far more than that with our tongues," he tells her suggestively, and grins mischievously. "And if you really wanted to see, I could show you."

Lily laughs at him – a laugh that isn't quite genuine, but a laugh all the same. "I think I know exactly what your "show" would involve, Black, so I'm afraid I'll have to decline." The conversation has entered dangerous waters, and she rises from her seat, but not before the other boy gets in the last word.

"If you ever change your mind," he tells her, "you know where to find me."

She must be very lonely indeed, she thinks to herself. Either that, or she is far more foolish than she first suspected. But his words worm their way into her mind, and she can't seem to forget them.

You know where to find me.

And find him she does, in the common room on Boxing Day. She doesn't even intend to go back up to his dorms with him; it just sort of… happens.

His lips are soft, and his hands gentle. It's not the first time she'd fucked a boy, although it's the first time she's fucked someone who she wasn't going out with.

It's also the first time a boy's made her come.

The sex is amazing and brilliant and mind-blowing; afterwards, however, it is just plain awkward. She doesn't stay long before she is creeping back into her dormitory, walking slowly and carefully, not just because he fucked her harder than she'd ever been fucked before, but also in an attempt to not wake her dormmates.

She needn't have bothered; they hadn't even noticed she'd been gone. Suddenly, she feels a hundred times lonelier with the absence of Black's hands on her body.

She would have liked to forget about it (although she doubted she ever would). Even if Black hadn't approached her the next day, their night wouldn't have been any easier to forget. Perhaps, then, it was irrational to be annoyed with his insistence that they should discuss it. Then again, perhaps not.

"Look, Evans," he says awkwardly, and Lily isn't sure whether she's hurt or relieved that he's still calling her by her last name.

"What?" she prompts, when a longer-than-expected amount of time passes. Black shuffles on the spot, and Lily realises it's probably the first time she's actually seen him looking uncomfortable.

"Well, um, I know this won't matter at all to you or anything," he says, "but do you think you could- erm, not tell James?"

Several emotions sweep through Lily – triumph at the leverage she currently has over Black, shame at the reminder of what they'd done, fear at the idea of anyone else finding out – but she suppresses them and continues to copy notes from the book she is studying. "Why would I tell Potter?" she asks, as though indifferent to the idea. "What I do with myself is none of his business, regardless of how much he wishes it was."

"I know," Black said. "But it's just… if he were to find out… this would break him."

"No," Lily corrected him. "It would break your friendship. Don't pretend you're doing this to spare his feelings." If she couldn't take the moral high ground about what she'd done, there was no way she was letting him get away with it.

"Maybe," Sirius admitted. "But can you not tell him anyway?"

Lily closed her book. "I'll keep this from Potter," she says, "on the condition that what happened last night stays completely between the two of us."

"Of course." Black looks relieved, and Lily spitefully wishes, just for a moment, that she'd drawn it out a little longer. Then she scolds herself for being horrible.

"Promise me," she says quickly before he turns away, not quite trusting his word. "On your mother's life."

Black gives a cold laugh. "If I could kill my mother by breaking promises, I would be the most untrustworthy man on this earth," he informs Lily. "Maybe you should have me swear it on something I care about."

"Swear it on James' life, then," she tells him.

"I swear," he says.

"I swear it on his life too, then," she says to Sirius, grinning. He looks at her for a moment, and then throws back his head and laughs. It's a strange moment, although not an unenjoyable one.

Their camaraderie only lasts a few seconds before he leaves her alone with her shame, but it isn't something she'll forget for a long time. And she never forgets her promise, either. The admission that she slept with Sirius never passes her lips, even when James is her husband.