Delicate | James Potter

2.26

Lily was crying when Alice opened the door to her dormitory. She had Merlin, her owl, under one arm, and her satchel in the other. Lily, it seemed, had skipped the sixth year speech from McGonagall about the seriousness of exams, even if they were only mocks, to arrive first which was very unlike herself.

"Lily!"

"Oh, Alice, sorry." She sniffled. "I thought you'd all be much later."

Lily wiped her face with her sleeve and stood up, flattening the dress she was wearing to brush away the wrinkles.

Alice moved towards her bed and dropped the belongings she had with her upon it. Their trunks had already been delivered to the centre of the room. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing." Lily rushed, but her red eyes began watering again and she huffed loudly, wiping her nose. "It's Alex. He's left."

"He's... left?" Alice repeated, confused.

"He's left Hogwarts." Lily whimpered. "His parents pulled him out. They wouldn't let him come back. They said it's too dangerous."

"Oh Lily," Alice mumbled sadly, walking slowly towards her and pulling her into a hug. This kind of thing Alice was still pretty awkward at, but it was different with Lily. "At least he's safe, right? And you'll both be able to write and see each other in the holidays."

She didn't know the full extent of Lily's relationship with seventh year Alex, other than they had been close, more than just friends close. Alice didn't know much about him or his family or any of that, but if he'd been pulled from school just months before finishing his seventh year then he must have been in trouble.

Lily was shaking her head into Alice's shoulder. "No, I won't. I can't. They're moving away, to a whole other country. He said he couldn't tell me where. He said we couldn't be together anymore."

"He said that?"

She nodded. "His parents think it's dangerous. They're cutting all ties to the Wizarding world. I might never see him again."

Alice didn't know what she could say to make Lily feel better, this was the sort of thing that people were hung up over for weeks. She hugged her closer and let her cry.

After a few minutes, when Lily finally took a step back, she explained in more depth. Her and Alex really were dating, they had been for a while, but when they met on the platform at Kings Cross to get the train back just this morning he'd instead told her he was leaving. He was leaving and that was that. He would not be joining her on the train.

Alice had assumed the reason she had not seen her friend on the train was because of her prefect duties, and Marlene had thought the same. The two had sat in their own carriage in comfortable quiet for the most part, or at least until Marlene fell asleep and started snoring. It gave Alice time to catch up on homework, though now she wondered whether she should have searched harder for Lily.