james potter is gonna be a DAD (redhart) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2009-11-18 14:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | james potter, lily potter |
RP Log: James & Lily Potter
Who: James & Lily Potter
When: Friday evening, 13 November 1979
Where: Potter household in Godric's Hollow
What: Lily decides to come clean about talking to Severus. James... does not take it well. IT WAS REALLY CUTE UNTIL LILY CONFESSED THO.
Rating: PG13 for some language and insinuations
'What a month' had been Lily's theme for her journal entry scribbled over lunch that afternoon. It seemed it was turning into 'What a day.' She really hoped that trend didn't continue. Clocking out, Lily threw her bag around a shoulder and made her way out of the Department of Transportation. She'd been particularly unenthusiastic about work that day after her conversation with Severus the night previous. She wished she could tell him that she did actually have a reason for putting off looking for an actual career. The Order came first. It made the job doable, and it wasn't a bad one but it was certainly boring as all get-out some days, and of course today was one of these days, especially when she had an apothecary apprenticeship to be jealous of on her mind. Which all led back to speaking with Severus again. How had it happened? How had she gone from being perfectly content to never acknowledge his existence and her first instinct being to hex him if he tried to speak with her, to subdued, if tense, attempts at conversation. Bloody moments of life & death completely skewed her ability to hold a grudge and it frustrated her, but how he'd been talking made it hard to just shut down and start ignoring him all over again. Stupid masquerade. Popping into the front hall of the Potter home in Godric's Hollow, Lily sighed, reaching up to undo the bun she'd put up for work that day. "James?" she called out, setting her bag down next to the coat rack and slipping off her long jacket. "I'm home!" Folding her jacket into the crook of her elbow, she grabbed her bag again and like she did everyday, moved into the living room and started going through the files she'd need to go over this weekend so she could set them on the kitchen counter and stare at them while doing other completely unproductive things. She was not looking forward to this conversation. James was not going to react well. But she couldn't go on having chats with Severus in secret. It was ridiculous. James thought it should be content with full-time Order work, and truthfully, when they had work, he was -- happy wasn't quite the right word for it really. Grateful didn't cover it either. Neither did any of those adjectives that made it sound pleasant, because at the heart of it, the why behind the Order work always got in the way. That being said, Caoimhe's list of places that Horcruxes could be hidden had caught James's attention, and so he'd spent the afternoon in the living room, going over books on legends and rumours about the locations. Personally, he was keen on hitting Atlantis, Carmarthen, and, well, Thule. Monsters? He was all over it. At some point during the afternoon, he realised he hadn't eaten since the previous night, as his stomach so rudely pointed out by shouting at him. He'd gone into the kitchen, head buried in the ice box when he heard his wife come in. His wife. Whenever that thought struck him, James found himself shaking a stupid grin from his face, and usually in front of Sirius. It was really getting annoying, the goofy grin. He'd have to learn to curb it. At least in front of the others. "Kitchen, Lily. Stomach's about to bloody eat itself." Lily's negative thoughts were momentarily pushed aside in favour of smiling at the sound of her husband's voice. Grabbing her files, she made her way through the living room and into the kitchen where she spotted James hunched over and rifling through the icebox. "You know, you make having a job really hard when I know you could be at home starving without me," she teased, walking up behind him and giving his bum a playful pat with her files before tossing them onto the counter. It was funny how she could feel as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders until she came home to James just being James and it melted away. "Find anything?" she asked, trying to peek around him to see if the groceries she'd just bought on Wednesday were still in fact there. One could never be sure when their home was regularly invaded by three other very hungry young men besides James himself. "Gonna clean out the entire refrigerator," James informed her, craning his neck to look at her without moving from his perch halfway inside the tiny fridge. Roast beef, brown sauce, bread, all of it was taken out and stacked on the counter. He kicked the fridge door closed with his foot. Upon turning, he clutching his stomach and moaned, "Starving. Need... sustenance." Each word, he managed to somehow inch lower and lower until he finally crashed to the ground as if he really couldn't go on. "Energy. Going. Life. Draining." Lily just watched his dramatics, having a terrible time not grinning at him. Merlin, she loved him. It struck her fairly often, especially as they had only been married that previous June and some of it still felt a bit surreal. She was used to living with him now, but it was hard to go a day without feeling ridiculously infatuated with her husband. More often than not when he was acting like a complete dork. "Is that your clever way of getting me to make you a sandwich?" she asked, pulling her wand from her pocket and with a flick, getting the bread from it's wrapping and a plate levitated down and out of the cupboard. Her eyebrow was raised sceptically though, not convinced to do a whole lot more for him than that. After all, he was perfectly capable of overcoming the difficulties of a sandwich. "Going... Going..." he continued in his overly dramatic fashion, collapsing onto the ground on all fours now, sputtering and curling into himself. Finally, he landed with a splat face down on the cool tile floor, and not a particularly convincing turn at playing dead given that he had to throw his arm up to shield his glasses. There was nothing quite like hurling face forward against any sort of hard surface with metal between it and his face. Then he waited for a few moments to see what Lily would do. There was a pause while Lily considered, one arm crossed and it's hand in the crook of her other elbow as she subtly moved her wand so the sandwich would continue to make itself. She looked down at him with a smirk and finally sighed, rolling her eyes. She might as well make him the sandwich, if only to give him less of a reason to be upset when she told him who she'd been speaking to. An angry and hungry James was not something she wanted to face. "You are so obnoxious," she said with a laugh, the phrase she used to tell him all the time in school having a completely different tone with it now that they were in love. She stepped over him with a click of her heel and cut the roast beef sandwich at the angle he liked, then picked up the plate and took a bite herself. "Hm... not bad," she said before going to sit down on the floor next to him. Holding it out for him, she chewed her bite with satisfaction and continued when she swallowed. "You're going to actually break your glasses one of these days." "I'll just make you fix them for me," he answered, muffled by his arm until he twisted around and pulled himself up from his prone position. It didn't take but a few seconds for him to sidle up next to her, cross-legged and held out his hand for the sandwich. "As for being obnoxious, what does it say about you, Lily my darling, that you married someone so abhorrent?" With a playful smile, he ripped into the sandwich, awaiting her reply. "It means," Lily replied matter-of-factly, "that I have the patience of an angel... or queen... or something of the sort." Her lips slid into a teasing grin. "Something you should obviously worship, at any rate," she finished, watching him eat and reaching over to rub his knee affectionately. Why were they having this conversation on the floor? Because her husband was brilliant like that, she supposed. "Not a queen. They're not really known for their patience, love. Off with their heads and all that shite," James answered, nudging her with his shoulder. Still chomping on his sandwich as if he hadn't eaten in weeks, he finished, "I'd worship an angel. My ginger angel." He snorted then and shook his head. If Sirius heard him, he'd never let him hear the end of it. "You do realise," he said around a mouthful, "that I'll disavow all knowledge of this conversation if you sell me out to Sirius, right?" Snickering a bit, Lily nodded, her cheeks getting a bit pink even now at the corny term of endearment. It was so different when he wasn't out to impress anyone anymore. "Well, yeah, god forbid you look the least bit uncool on my account," she joked, running a hand back through her hair and letting out a bit of a sigh. What a week. What a month. It was nice to just sit on the floor and joke around with James. It happened often enough, even when things were at their worst, but she never took it for granted these days considering as soon as they stopped, she could almost feel the tension fill her shoulders. She really didn't want to ruin the nice relaxed moment with her stupid Severus issues. Hadn't he done enough? She'd really appreciated his words when James had been in the hospital, but now that James was back she was beginning to realise how ugly breaking her pact to ignore Sev's existence could turn. But at the same time, it had been years and having the morality of her husband tested along with having seen and spoken to Severus face-to-face made everything that had happened feel so petty. He'd said no one would ever hear him use the word again. With his current friends though... but Lily still couldn't believe she was the one being lied to. "I don't think I've ever looked cool with you around, Lils. Haven't you noticed just how much I turn into a blubbering fool when you're around?" James finished the sandwich, but made absolutely no move to get up. He slipped his arm across Lily's shoulders, and with the movement came that stupid feeling in his gut. The one that most girls called butterflies. Idly, he wondered if that feeling would ever go away, and more actively, he hoped it wouldn't. Smiling softly, Lily leaned into him a bit and looked to the floor, now empty plate resting in her lap as she crossed her ankles. "That's how I like it," she told him before giving him a quick peck on the cheek and brushing at a bread crumb at the corner of his mouth. "So... starvation successfully averted?" she wondered, green eyes studying him and knowing that now was probably the time to change subjects if there were any. "Aye, aye, captain," he answered, giving her a standard Muggle military salute. James took the plate, lifting it high overhead until it was successfully moved out of the way. There were things he could think of to do on the floor, after all. Now that she was home, he intended to show her just how much he'd missed her. He ducked his head, pressing his lips against her neck softly, kissing the vein there gently. "Don't suppose I could tempt you with working up my appetite for dinner, could I?" Lily's chin lifted almost automatically in response a hand moving to the back of his neck and into his mess of hair as he kissed her. It was tempting, and it might certainly be a stress-relief, but she'd never tell him what was going on if this kept up. "James... not to kill the mood, but..." she started, tapping the back of his head lightly. "I was hoping we could talk about something?" Her question was a bit hesitant, part of her wondering why she had to even tell him at this point. There were very few things that could kill the mood when Lily was involved, but the halting tone Lily used now was one of them. He pulled back just enough to look at her, brow furrowed. Something was wrong, the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. "What is it? What's wrong?" "Oh, James," she started shaking her head and trying to assure him that it was nothing so urgent. "It's nothing... nothing huge or wrong or anything," she told him quickly. When there was a war going on around them and two members of the DMLE had been killed, there was a sort of weight that came with saying something was wrong. It made things that were just uncomfortable much more difficult to talk about without a panic. "I just... I wanted to get your thoughts." She ran a hand down the side of his face lightly before resting it on his chest. "Someone asked me to dance at the masquerade. Which is fine, I agreed, especially as I was trying to do the undercover thing..." she began, but started hesitating as she got closer to admitting what had been happening. "It ended up being Severus," she finally said, brows lifting with her apologetic expression. "I had no idea until he nearly said my name, he'd seemed familiar, but everyone was costumed..." She paused there, trying to gauge his reaction. There was no need to gauge his reaction; James Potter was not particularly gifted with hiding things from Lily. His jaw clenched, and while he didn't exactly pull away, he was no longer in any sort of mood that didn't have him seeing red. He told himself that there was no need for alarm yet, but if Lily had been disguised, and if Snape had seen Lily fighting... "Did he see you fighting? Lily, did he?" Lily dropped her hand to her lap, green eyes widening slightly. "I don't know," she replied, a bit surprised at the question even though in retrospect, she shouldn't have been. "I told him off for asking me to dance, but I didn't want to cause a scene so we finished the dance and then parted ways," she told him before her lips formed a thin line as she thought it over. Even if he had, Severus could have hardly been surprised. Even if she wasn't disguised, she wouldn't have let those hexes hit those people. She could easily skew the line between being a vigilante and just acting in defence of human life, couldn't she? "Fuck, Lily," James growled, pushing himself up from the floor with a graceful shove. She waited two weeks to tell him this? Every day she went to work was a day he could have lost her, for crying out loud. "Why didn't you tell me before? You know that he's on our suspected Death Eater list - he and all of his friends - and with Gid, Fabian, and Dorcas possibly being outed." He threw up his hands in exasperation, storming from the kitchen to the living room. He wasn't good in confined spaces when he felt cornered, and Merlin did this feel like being cornered. "James," Lily called after him, shoving herself up off the floor to follow him. "What was I supposed to do? He knew it was me as soon as we'd started dancing even if the blonde had fooled him initially," she said, frustrated, although not necessarily at her husband. "And I don't think we need to be worried about him going and telling his friends, he warded me afterward," she blurted, gesturing a bit. "Asking me if I was okay, since he knew I was there." Of course James would leap to Sev automatically being a Death Eater and the danger. "We had a falling out, James, he doesn't want me dead." "You have no idea what he wants anymore! He called you a - I can't believe you waited two weeks to tell me this!" James flailed about the living room, feeling a very heavy weight pressing down on him. In these past two weeks, anything could have happened to her. "For all you know, he could be using your past relationship to his advantage. Slytherin! Have you told Dumbledore? Or Bones? For fuck's sake, this is serious!" "You were in the hospital and recovering for half of it!" she objected, voice straining now. "You needed to rest, not to worry about me and- and I knew you'd fly off the handle." Her desperate expression turned more angry. "Sirius gets a bloody month to tell us his brother is in fact a Death Eater and you're yelling at me for hesitating a week and a half to tell you that an estranged friend, god forbid, was hoping I was still alive and well after the Minister had been assassinated and a party attacked? That's not fair, James." She put a hand on her hip. "I know he's on our list, and if he'd done something to make me more inclined to believe he was working for them, you're damn right I'd have told someone, but considering there's nothing illegal or immoral about his expression of concern, I didn't think to bother quite yet." She got cutting and sarcastic when angry and tonight was no different. It didn't help that she'd hardly had any sleep, had felt like tugging out her hair for most of the week, and for some reason couldn't seem to keep a calm head right now. "Oh yeah, let's make this about me getting injured." It was clearly a sore spot for the otherwise dexterous boy. He'd already taken it hard enough that Lily had broken her arm, and he hadn't been there. "And all about Sirius. We all told Sirius it was stupid that he didn't tell anyone, so don't give me that rubbish. We'd been harping on him since the damn moment he told us." Besides, James thought, that was more than different. Regulus was Sirius's brother. Snape was just some twat who spent more time with his head buried in Dark Arts books than Dumbledore was kooky. James stopped in the living room, staring at Lily in anger and concern. It was very rare that James ever got jealous these days - after all, Lily married him - but if there was one person who made him feel as though he'd lose Lily, it was Severus Snape. He flexed his hands in front of him. "I don't think that's the reason you waited this long to tell me at all." James was pretty sure they were still talking, likely under wards. This was guilt, he was pretty sure, and that made him wonder why she felt guilty at all. Oh, hell no. He was not going down that path. "I just worry about you. It's not safe, and if he saw you fighting - they're going to figure out who we all are." Lily hardly heard the last thing he said though, still focused on his accusatory tone in the words before that. What did he expect? He was showing right now how hard it was to tell him something like this, she'd just ruined their whole evening, if not more. "You don't even know if he's actually one of them," she shot back. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I've been trying to figure out how without-" And then the tears finally came. If it had been anyone but James, she probably would have been able to hold it together, but arguing with him so intensely always caused that prickle at the corner of her eyes to overflow. James Potter had always been able to get under her skin, whether it was to infuriate her to the point of stammered insults back in school, or now to the point where she choked up knowing she'd caused him to look at her like that. It was something she loved about him, but it meant what wall she managed to keep up during a normal heated exchange crumbled with practically just a word. "-without it turning into this!" she finally managed, throwing a hand up in the air and then angrily wiping at her eyes. "I almost lost you, James, one minute longer and that blood-boiling curse would have done it and then where would I be?!" Lily swallowed. "So, I'm sorry, but I couldn't keep up that bloody grudge for the night because one stupid word said to me three years ago doesn't make me want him dead so I let Severus ask me if I was okay and I let him tell me it'd be all right because Remus and Sirius and Peter were all dealing with the transformation and I was in this house alone and I was an idiot, maybe, but- now you know, don't you!" Shit. Whatever anger he was feeling was tossed out the window the moment he saw Lily's wet eyelashes. He practically kicked aside furniture in his haste to cross the room to her, and though he was hesitant - lest she get into one of her fiery moods and decide to hex him instead - he pulled her into his arms. "Shh, Lily. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just - you mean the world to me. You think I could stand it if - Hey, I'm fine. I'm here. Not going anywhere. He just got lucky with that spell. I won't make the same mistake twice." James hugged her harder, trying to will her to stop crying. He knew he overreacted when it came to Snape; she knew he overreacted when it came to Snape. "You know it's just that if he is a Death Eater, and even if he didn't want to say anything - " Big, big if in James's mind. "- they've got ways of pulling that information out of him." Hell, they killed their own; James had no doubts that they wouldn't think twice about Lily Potter. That's maybe what she needed, a good cry in James's arms. At any rate, she let herself have it, her own moving to embrace his torso and she buried her face in his shoulder. She'd been so on edge since the battle and the sight of him in the hospital bed, that she'd been vulnerable enough to let her guard down with Severus some and she was upset with herself at her potentially stupid mistake along with everything else. Sniffing, she tried to calm down enough to reply and turned her face enough so that she wouldn't be completely muffled by his jumper. "I didn't- I didn't tell him anything that would make him think I was fighting, James, and I just... with everything th-that's happened," she swallowed again, but the tears hadn't stopped. "-I was so worried about you and it's just-just been nice to have my friend back for just a little bit - I know you hate him, and I thought I did too, but I don't want- I don't know." She sobbed a bit harder admitting it all, but it was spilling out anyway. Lily shook her head, long red fringe pressing into her forehead as she gripped him a bit tighter. "I'm- I'm so confused." James was grateful that she couldn't see his face, so she couldn't see the way he grit his teeth and clenched his jaw once more. He was never going to like Snape, and while he knew that Lily cared about him, James would never forgive him for that day at Hogwarts, that word. He couldn't understand how she could either. That was neither here nor there. God knew she'd known the git since before Hogwarts, and her sister wasn't speaking to her either. He knew, deep down, that it was wrong for him to ask her not to talk to her friend, but it was just too dangerous in his mind right now. Snape was one of those unreadable people; for all he knew, he was reporting every piece of conversation with Lily right back to Voldemort. "Shh, come on, Lily. It's all right. I mean, it's gonna be all right. I just wish you'd told me sooner. If something had happened to you..." "I know," Lily mumbled against him and nodded slightly in response, kissing the spot on his chest her lips were already near. It took a few long moments, but eventually Lily's sobs ebbed and with a long, slow breath, in and out, she was able to pull back enough to look up at James. "So what do I do now?" she asked a bit shakily, although she had been able to calm herself enough that she wasn't likely to break down once more. "Just stop talking to him all over again?" It was obvious that she wasn't thrilled with that solution in the least bit, even if it may be for the best. She still didn't want to believe he could be a Death Eater. She knew he was on the list, but they'd been best friends, and his concern over the journals and at the masquerade just reinforced the fact that he may say whatever he did to impress his friends, but he'd never- She couldn't believe he'd get her killed over it. Or hurt. She didn't want to believe Severus would do that to anyone just because of their blood. It'd crush her... "If he is involved, I'd be able to know just as much about him as he does me," she told James. "And he wouldn't have the excuse of just being a concerned citizen..." Part of her didn't want to investigate it, though. Her brows furrowed and her green eyes fell to gaze at a spot on James' chest. James's stiffened minutely. While he could appreciate it, even feel imbued with pride at the suggestion, the fact remained that it was neither of their calls. When all was said and done, he might have to gently push her in Dumbledore's direction. Which was what he decided to do now. He withdrew enough to look at her face, thumbs brushing whatever tears were still staining her cheeks. The sight, however, threatened to undo him all over again. Steeling himself just a little, he tried to arrange his features into something a little more stern, though no less as concerned. "Probably best to talk to Dumbledore about all this, see what he thinks. Might be he thinks that's a good idea, might be that he knows something the rest of us don't; he does have that tendency - to know things the rest of us don't." Lily turned the thought over in her mind and accepted it after a long moment. She hadn't wanted to go to Auror Bones or Mr. Podmore because she knew they'd probably look at her like she was a clueless teenager who was just acting impulsive. Which, perhaps she was, but she didn't want to be treated like it. She knew Severus Snape better than anyone - or she had, anyway, and she wanted that respected. And Sirius... she knew he'd probably just use this as all the more reason to play some horrible prank on Severus. Dumbledore, on the other hand, had always treated Lily like an adult, and was sympathetic enough to understand where she was coming from. Perhaps he'd be even more understanding than James. She could see her husband trying, for her sake, but she knew that his hatred of her ex-best friend had to be influencing his opinion on the matter, just like her past with Severus was doing herself. She took another deep breath and sighed with a nod. "I'll ask Dumbledore, yeah... that sounds like a good idea." Her lips pressed together and she almost asked him to keep this between them for now, but she didn't really feel it was necessary as she considered it. He knew how sensitive a subject this was for her and she trusted his judgement not to say anything to the people she'd have been uncomfortable with knowing. If anything, argument or no, Lily knew above all else, James would be on her side if she needed it, and probably when she didn't. That's what had separated him from Severus to begin with back in school. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," she finished, reaching up to finish wiping her eyes and blinking a couple times. After that, she moved her arm from around his waist to up around his shoulder before hooking her hands behind his neck and gazing up at him. "Thanks, James." "That's what I'm here for," James answered with a crooked, little smile. He brushed a lock of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear (though given that he was a boy, it likely wasn't a very good job of it). "Just promise me something, Lily, please. Be careful, and if anything sounds suspicious... I want you to tell me. Don't wait two weeks, because if something happened to you, I don't know what the hell I would do." Probably go after Snape (and Voldemort) himself. That was neither here nor there. For now. "Would you do that for me?" he asked, and if there was any sort of doubt to his sincerity, perhaps the earnest expression on his face might alleviate some of that. Nodding, Lily was able to smile a bit with that. "I promise. If you promise to try and consider other options besides Snape Is Evil in response?" she said, although it was more light-hearted than before. Not waiting for an answer she leaned in to kiss him softly, pulling herself closer, and figuring it wouldn't hurt her persuasiveness. |