SEARCHING FOR ZEN

Author: Queen Nightingale

Rating: M

Pairing: JPLE

sometimes my bluebird won't fly,
and i don't know why.
let's take a ride inside my soulskin.
- boski

I am captivated by the way your red hair twists against the back of your neck, tendrils falling from your high-perched bun. I am in love with the way that your canines are polished by escaping beams of laughter, I am fascinated by the way that you swallow a pearl known as your Adam's apple. I am filled with disbelief at the way you lower your eyelids and blush in my direction, that ruby stain trickling up your cheeks.

I wish to press my lips against your ankle.

There's a pounding on the front door, and I race towards it.

"Lily! Run!"

You twirl around the Yule Ball in the arms of Snape, and I am horrified by the bile rising up my trachea.

"Mate, stop staring."

Sirius swings his arm around my shoulders, and I'm silent, glaring at the two of you waltzing, crystalline, amid the hundreds of other students. I raise a flask to my mouth and gulp down a heady swallow of firewhiskey, warmth spreading down my lungs in a shape of an inverse tree.

"C'mon now. You're here with Emmeline MacNair – who I'll admit, is bloody gorgeous for a ravenclaw, even if her family is a bit too close to mine for comfort – and we're getting drunk! Fucking fantastic!"

"Merlin Padfoot, you just don't get it," I hiss back.

"Don't get what? That you're hung up over some broad just because she has red hair?"

I roll my eyes. Beside us, Emmeline is flipping her black hair over her porcelain tits, and I avoid making eye contact.

"Go over there and make out with Emmeline for bloody sake, before she starts dry-humping the fucking table."

"I rather that she would. I don't fucking care."

"Can you stop sulking?"

Snape is whispering something into your ear on the dancefloor, and your cheeks are a shade of pinched peach, the dark red cascading down your shoulders. I stare at the gold crazy-glued to your wrists.

"I'm going to go dance with her."

"That might be a – mate, mate, James!"

Suddenly my feet have landed beside you, and Snape is looking at me with disgust quivering out of his ears. You turn around and slam into my chest with your wrists, nearly falling onto the ground.

"Ugh," you moan, growling into my chest, "Potter, what is it."

I don't say anything, locked in eye contact with Snape, who wraps his arms around your shoulders, pulling you back a step.

"Lily," he whispers in your ear, still loud enough for me to hear, "Come on. It's not worth it right now."

"Dance with me."

My voice cracks on the last word, but I clear my throat loudly and hope that you don't notice. You take a step back and look up at me with those swamp green eyes.

Then you chuckle.

"You can't be serious?" Your mouth is slightly ajar, and out of the corner of my eye I see Snape's face turning a deeper shade of nervous red.

"I'm completely serious, Evans."

"Lily," Snape whines near your ear, but you push him away gently, not even bothering to glance in his direction.

"Severus, can you get me a drink please?" You loudly say, stepping closer to me. I look over you and glare at Snape, who looks horrified, then sweeps away dramatically with his cape.

You look up at me and that fucking feeling sweeps through my lower abdomen again, pillaging my stomach over and over and over. I watch, almost out-of-body, as you gently place your arms around my neck, and I unconsciously press my hands on your hips, feeling your curves through the silk.

You are close enough to me that your breasts gently graze my chest and then retreat, and then you are resting your ear against my ear and we are humming, moving, breathing in a circle, and I'm terrified that you'll feel the shakes wracking through my arms and decide to stop pressing your body against mine.

You don't say anything, and I am aware that the other dancers are performing grand turns, valiant lifts and moves, but I've never given a shit. I close my eyes and feel the heat of your mouth on my neck. You tighten your arms around me, and I gently grip your lower waist in return.

We are a glow-in-the-dark, moving, phosphorescent puzzle piece, and I don't want to let you go.

You are the Helen of Troy at Hogwarts, without the blue blood.

Each day I walk beside you to Transfiguration (which you're absolute shit at, by the way – I can see you cheating off of me during the midterms), and today on our stroll you loudly rant about how you're upset at Marlene, or Dorcas, or whoever. I don't care. I just like seeing you happy, but I make some dumb offhand snort or laugh, and you turn to me with your murky eyes and I realize I've made a mistake.

"I don't know why you're always such an asshole to me, Potter, I'm just trying to keep up conversation. Not that you ever contribute anything."

I bite my tongue. I can feel the students behind us perking up in anticipation of a fight.

"Do you ever have anything to say? Or do you want me to keep talking to myself each afternoon."

I snort. "I don't really care."

"I don't even know why I try," you retort, scowling, pushing your dark red locks back with a frustrated sweep of your hand, "You're like a rock."

We're silent for a couple seconds, walking side by side in the corridor packed with busy students.

I decide then to take a shot of courage, no chase.

"I like hearing you talk, Evans. You're happy when you're talking. I like it when you're happy."

I feel you turn to me, but we're at the entranceway to the classroom, and I spin towards my boys in the back.

"Have you ever been in love?"

It's the Hogsmeade trip, and we're sitting on the grass outside the groundskeeper's hut. My back is leaning against a tree, and for some reason that I don't understand, because I don't understand you, you've decided to place your head against my leg and curl up beside me, creating a red wool blanket of hair over my pants.

"Me?"

"No, Potter," you say dryly, pulling up some grass in your thin hands, "I'm asking the tree."

I look up at the clouds in the sky and try not to shift my legs, even though your head is surprisingly heavy. I like the feeling of your head on my thigh.

"Have I ever been in love. I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I just ... I'm not sure. Have you, Evans?"

You curl up a bit more, and I pull some clovers out of the ground beside me, knotting my large knuckles around the dirt. I watch your fingers braid together the grass, and I want, desperately, to hold your hand.

"Yes. Yes, I've been in love."

Something pounds in my chest.

"With who?"

"Once I loved a pale boy who said he could defy the world."

I pause, pressing my palms against the Earth. We both know who you're talking about. You continue on, unbidden.

"I still love him, you know. When you love somebody, you never stop. Not when they crafted your soul. Not when they create something out of nothing."

"Lily, you could never be nothing," I scoff.

You and I both freeze, the recognition of your first name dawning on us at the same time. My body tenses as you lift your head so that you sit up, leaning on your arms towards me. I am frozen, nothing.

You press your persimmon lips against my slightly opened ones, and I forget to breathe, momentarily. Your eyes are stunning, and wide, and I want to kiss every atom in your body, all 6.7 x 10^27.

"I like it when you say my name."

I never call you Evans again, after that.

"Lily! Get Harry!"

I hear your footsteps pound up the staircase, I hear you scream my name, but I steady my heart.

It's after the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match, and we're breaking curfew, lying against the cold stone rocks of the Observatory tower. You're opposite me, a mirror image quiet against the marble floor, and I lie beside you, searching for Zen.

"I'm glad that you won," you say quietly. I can hear on lower levels the loud voices of boys running down a hall, but the sound soon fades.

"Me too."

You laugh, reaching your arm out to push me in the shoulder. I smile.

"You were really awesome, you know. The turn in the last bit? Incredible. Those Hufflepuffs didn't have a chance."

"Do Hufflepuffs ever have a chance?"

You snort in response to my cockiness and I laugh, a deep staccato vibrating in the empty space around us.

The air feels alive, tonight.

I turn my head and look at your profile, the dark red spilling around your pale skin. I can't help myself, and drag a finger up from your chin to your forehead, pausing on your lips, pausing on the tip of your nose. I watch you close your eyes and breathe.

"You're beautiful." I say it as a fact, and I watch your still body.

"It doesn't matter, you know."

I'm silent, watching the movement behind your closed eyes, the vibrations in the muscles of your lips.

"Boys tell me that I'm beautiful, and I don't care. I once did, when I was insecure – everybody needs to be told they're beautiful. But after the first time, it just – it doesn't matter anymore. I wish I could get rid of my looks, now, pull them off so that the soul underneath would shine through."

"That's a strange way of thinking about it."

"I'm a strange girl."

I turn my head back to the ceiling, and try to imagine the stars.

"James, I'm not so rich to think that looks don't matter, but I know that I'm good-looking. Or at least decent. I know that I'm okay enough to pass, get it? So it doesn't matter anymore. I didn't design my eyes, they're my mother's. I didn't design my hair, my great grandfather was a flaming redhead. It's all genes, genetics. I didn't work hard for my looks, so I'm not attached to them. I feel like I'm underneath, this body, something in me between my ribcage. This was just the shell that I was put in, and I happen to be a redhead with white skin."

I listen to you breathe. I can feel that you're worried I don't understand.

"I just – I just – well, whatever. Thank you. Thank you, that was kind, I'm sorry. It just doesn't matter to me. But thank you. I appreciate it."

"What matters to you?"

"I think I'd marry the person who tells me I have an exquisite, wild soul."

"You have an exquisite, wild soul."

Your laughter rings out. I lean over and kiss away the sound.

"James! James! What's going on?!"

I can hear your frantic yells and suddenly the door is going down and I'm looking into red eyes but I love you I love you I love LILY I LOVE LILY.

I am James Potter and I love you, I love you beyond this world.

We're standing in a circle in Defense Against The Dark Arts, and the Slytherins are on the other side, Snape not making eye contact. Your body is beside mine, and our arms are pressed together, yours slightly forward, mine behind. I can feel you breathing.

"Now, the main use of the Patronus charm is to call for help in case of danger."

"Only mudbloods use that charm," a voice loudly murmurs from the Slytherins, and I feel you breath in, sharply. The professor pretends not to hear, and I trace my fingers against the tips of yours.

"Sometimes wizards and witches will possess more magic than you can control,"

I trace my fingers up your palm, pausing at your wrist,

"Sometimes individuals will know more spells than you, will know more powerful incantations,"

I move up your arm, slowly, feeling your shakes, feeling your bones,

"And sometimes battles cannot be won."

I gently pull my fingers back down to yours, and

"But I've never met a sunbeam, no matter what size, that's scared of the shade."

I hold your hand.