Always

“Lily, please, will you just listen to me? It’s not like that! I didn’t—” James started in on Lily later the next day as she was walking towards Potions, her books piled high in her arms and a scowl on her face as he followed her.

“I don’t want to hear it, James,” she cut him off, turning her head to glare at him once. “You had no right starting that fight with him! You told me you wouldn’t!”

“C’mon, Lil. It was just fun,” he tried again, causing Lily to stop in her tracks as she glared at him. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that, she thought to herself. It was one of the rudest and most cruel things she ever could have heard him say.

“Fun?” She asked him angrily, narrowing her eyes at him. “You think that hurting him is fun?”

His face paled when he realized that he had completely said the wrong thing, though at that point, it was too late for him to say anything else. Lily stormed off, not wanting to talk to James anymore or be around her. She wanted to stay away from him and not think about what he had done the night before.

It really bothered her that James had started that fight with Severus. She had known since he had kissed her that she probably shouldn’t be dating him. There had been no emotion in the kiss after all, she thought to herself. And when you kissed someone, you were supposed to feel something. And then there was the fact that she was so completely disappointed in Severus that she nearly felt her heart breaking inside of her chest.

How could he have nearly used that curse? She knew that Sirius really hadn’t had any business intervening in that fight. It was between James and Severus, even if she hadn’t wanted them to be fighting at all. She knew that Severus’ buttons had been pushed and that James and Sirius had both been goading him. He’d heard them. But that didn’t give Severus a right to use the Cruciatus Curse on him.

It made Lily wonder just what would have happened if she hadn’t shown up when she had. She had gotten there just when James had started goading and taunting Severus and now, she wished that she’d intervened before Severus had had a chance to feel like he had no other choice but to defend himself so illegally.

“Dammit all to hell,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head as she pushed her hand back through her hair. She didn’t feel up to being in class right now, she thought to herself. She was half tempted to ditch Slughorn’s class and go out to the tree that she always used to sit under with Severus, but she knew that if she did that, it would be letting people down. She needed to do good in her classes and she wanted to make sure that she did as well as she possibly could in her classes.

“Do you have an answer for us, Ms. Evans?”

She looked up quickly, wondering what Professor Slughorn had been talking about before she gave him an apologetic look, shaking her head. She didn’t even know what he’d been talking about today.

“No, sir,” she told him in a quiet voice. He gave her a surprised look which then turned into a worried look before he turned and started walking back towards the front of the classroom, talking about different potions and the effects they had.

Lily sighed and once again allowed her thoughts to stray back to Severus and James once again. She didn’t like thinking about the two of them fighting so much. She knew that it wasn’t fair to the two of them to be talking to both of them, even though James had never specifically told her she wasn’t allowed to talk to Severus. But either way, she knew that neither of them liked it.

On one hand, there was Severus. He had completely given her his heart, and even if he’d never admitted it to her, she knew that he loved her. He had always been so good to her and so kind, and even though no one else saw it, she knew there was a good part of Severus that was waiting to be seen. And perhaps if he wasn’t so interested in the dark arts and getting revenge on those who’d hurt him in the past, she’d be able to love him too. But he was, and she couldn’t.

And then on the other hand, there was James. She knew that she didn’t love him. It was far too soon for her to love him. And even more than that, she didn’t think it was possible for her to love him. There had been no emotion in the kiss that they’d shared, and she didn’t want to get too involved with someone that was so cold that he could treat someone as harshly as he treated Severus. Despite the fact that she was angry with Severus, she knew that he didn’t deserve to be treated harshly the way that James treated him.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice class coming to an end. She only looked up when she saw Professor Slughorn walk up to her desk, a worried smile on his face.

“Ms. Evans?” He asked her. “Is everything alright?”

She inwardly groaned, knowing that the potions teacher had caught on to the fact that something wasn’t quite right. She sighed and then nodded before standing, gathering her rolls of parchment and her book before giving him an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, professor. I couldn’t concentrate on anything today. I promise tomorrow I’ll pay more attention,” she told him with a small smile.

He gave her another small look before nodding, telling her goodbye before she started making her way to the Great Hall for lunch. She didn’t feel up to eating, but she knew she’d need to if she was going to make it to the Quidditch match this afternoon. She wanted to be able to watch the game, even if she wasn’t happy with James right now. Just because she was mad at him didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy Quidditch, she thought to herself with a small frown.

She took a seat at one of the Gryffindor tables before she began to dish the food onto one of the plates. She took a drink of the pumpkin juice that was sitting in front of her and then sighed as she slowly started to pick around the foods that had been put on her plate.

She didn’t want to spend time thinking about everything that was going on, but it seemed to be plaguing her. She wanted to just forget about everything for right now. She almost wished that things were the way they had been the year before. Severus hadn’t called her a mudblood, she still disliked James, and she was perfectly fine being one of Severus’ best friends.

She sighed and then realized that she was going to be late getting to her next class. She had already slacked off enough today in Potions class, she told herself. She might not be happy with the way things were right now between James and Severus, but she couldn’t do anything about them right now. She told herself that she’d forget about it all just for the afternoon and spend the time at the Quidditch match. It was always something that could make a sour mood turn good, and right now, that was exactly what Lily needed.