𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞 | 𝑎 𝐽𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑃𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒
"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."
—C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
or,
when the past catches up.
James would never forget how the air got knocked out of him as he tried to control his breathing.
He could hear the faint exclamation of his friends, he could make out a blurry red figure in front of him, Lily. But he couldn't focus, he couldn't stop heaving as his mind tried to make sense of what he was feeling. His eyes frantically shift from one person to the other, not one of them shows any signs of grief, not any of them showed any signs of remorse, for what is worth grieving for a snake, right?
And with that thought in his head, not another second left that he jumped from his seat and stormed out of the room leaving behind the pity looks that his friends are exchanging.
James ran,
He didn't think that it would be good if he decided to apparate. He didn't know where to go.
He just knew that he had to leave that place.
The rain started to pour as he moved, he could feel that it was getting harder for him to move forward, it was getting harder for him to raise his feet. He tried to take another step but ended up tripping on his wet robes. He didn't stop his body as he fell, feeling the way his shoulder caught the brunt of his fall as he lay on his back in the middle of the road in the place he didn't recognize.
He didn't know when he started crying, but as he lay there under the rain, he could feel how ragged his breath is and how his hands shook. He felt like his lung has caved in on themselves, leaving him heaving, gasping for oxygen that he sorely needed.
He didn’t understand it. Why does the news of her death affect him so much? Why does it matter?
Why does she matter?
With all of those questions in his head, he didn’t register the startling crack that echoed in the cold of the night, nor did the hand that was closely followed by a voice, coaxing him out of his head.
“-es?…. Please don’t shut us out. Tell us what happened, please?”
He choked out a scoff. He could feel how Lily stilled for a moment, then he felt her hands helping him to sit up, and only then did he realize that she wasn’t alone, Sirius stood behind her with an odd look on his face, a pensive look, which he rarely used.
“It was her, wasn’t it, Prongs?” He inquired quietly, gray eyes shining through the pouring rain.
Lily tilted her head at them, silently wondering what had happened, and who the girl was to both of them. Though she was dying to ask, she shoved her questions down her throat in order to calm James down, which was more important at the time, rather than anything else. So she decided to keep rubbing his back as she felt his breaths grow even. She knew that she would get her answers but now is totally not the time. Not when they are all freezing on their arses in the middle of nowhere.
“I- Padfoot I…” He spluttered out an answer, quite incoherently, and that was enough for Lily to drew the line, so she stopped him and move her gaze to Sirius who was still staring absentmindedly “Sirius, I need you to get Jamie home, please. This is not the place to discuss… whatever this is, further. He needs to be warm first. This could wait” she spoke to him with an undertone of authority that he didn’t want to cross, not tonight. So he just nod and do as she asked him to, quickly grabbing James and apparating away, leaving her alone. She puffed out a breath and decided to apparate back to the Headquarter, wanting to inform Dumbledore and the rest of them that they had found James and now is currently at home with Sirius.
" The intel was proved to be true, Headmaster. We found one body on the scene, it was of Ms. L/N. It’s safe to say that whatever else in that missive would be true, especially if the parchment was soaked with veritaserum at the beginning. There’s no point in denying its truth "
He couldn't get those words out of his head. It sounded like a broken record that Sirius traded away to the pawnshop on one of their last summer days, it felt like a long time ago. All those water fights on his mother's garden, the barbeque night, the bonfire that his father made so high that it almost reached the second floor of their manor.
But he knew if he squinted hard enough, he focused hard enough on his memories he could also picture the smiles, her waves of laughter, and her happy shrieks as he chased her around the park that they found on their date on Muggle London. He could feel the vibration of her laughter resonating through her chest to his back as he piggybacked her home. He could still feel how her magic rolled out in waves when she felt strong emotions, and how they joked about being an occlumens was never her forte.
Countless days he spent with her that summer and how easy it was for him to break the spell.
"Oh! You two are together then? Good fo-"
"What? No, Lily-Flower!! You know that you're the only one for me!!!"
James' mind was going into a spiral. He desperately held onto the memories of her smile and laughter, refusing to accept that she had died. Refusing the fact that he was the one who broke her.
Refusing the fact that he had humiliated her all those years ago.
Refusing the fact that she sacrificed herself for his safety after what he did to her.
He slowly got pulled out of his head again by the sounds of arguing between Sirius and Remus.
“-need to do something, Sirius! He's basically unresponsive!"
"Yeah maybe that's what happened when you found out a person bloody sacrificed themself for you, yeah? Fucking hell Moo-"
"DON'T YOU 'FUCKING HELL MOONS' ME! I Don't even-"
"Look, you're not the only one who doesn't know shits, alright? I know only bits and pieces of her but I don't know the full story"
"Does Lily know?"
"Does Lily know about what, exactly boys?" asked a feminine voice.
James tried so hard to strain his hearing to listen to them but it all seemed to be buzzing, and he felt as if every sense of his being became numb. He could feel their eyes on his every move. He wanted to, he needed to know what happened to him. He could feel how his brain works so fast, how his brain tried to remember the bits of conversation that he heard in the meeting before he fled.
Why?
Why her…?
"...took his place!"
"You-Know-Who killed her?"
"Did she really sacrifice herself for him?"
"Were they even close?"
"That Y/N? isn't she a Slytherin?"
" For the greater good."
"I thought you loved me James…."
Then it all went black for James.
tag : @scandalous-chaos