[On Hiatus] It Was Meant to Be (A James and Lily Story)

Chapter 13

James could still feel the blood roaring in his ears as he watched Lily slam the door behind her. He looked at the letter in his hand, his insides boiling at what Marlene had said about him. He actually thought he was making progress with Lily, but he realized that he would always be the same arrogant, bullying toe-rag to her.

He huffed and crumpled up the offending letter in his hand. He was going to push Lily Evans out of his head. He ran his hands through his hair and left the Head Dormitory. He needed to talk to Sirius, Remus, and Peter about what he had just found out.

As he entered the Gryffindor Common Room, his eyes traveled to his friends who were sitting in a corner near the fireplace. James walked over to them and sat down with an angry huff.

"Jamesie! What happened to your face?" Sirius asked, looking at James' bandages. "Not that it looks any different."

"Yeah, Lily and I had a run in with a couple of prospective Death Eaters last night," James responded, sighing.

"What's on your mind, James?" Remus asked, with concern.

"I'm sure it has something to do with a certain redhead we know so well," Sirius interjected.

James scowled at Sirius, trying to get his thoughts straight. "She's so frustrating, argh! One minute she's smiling at me and everything's fine. The next we're biting each other's heads off over some stupid letter."

"What letter?" asked Peter.

James threw Marlene's letter in the center of their circle. Sirius went to pick it up, but Remus shoved his hands out of the way and picked it up. He eyes skimmed over the letter and he looked back up at James.

"James, this is-"

"Lily's letter, yeah I know. She got it this morning. She looked so bloody worried while reading it, I thought something had happened."

Remus handed over the letter to Sirius. "So you read her letter? Then what?"

"I mean, you read it! Apparently Lily thinks I'm untrustworthy and I have ulterior motives!"

"Well, you do have ulterior motives," Sirius quirked.

"That's irrelevant! She told your secret, Moony. That much is obvious."

Remus frowned. "How do you know that? I don't think Lily's the type of person to-"

James snatched the letter out of Sirius' hands. "Right here. It says 'If he can't tell you where he got a simple cut...' I never told her where I got that cut from the other night during the full moon. I guess she went off and told people your secret because she was angry at me. I knew we couldn't trust her."

"James, don't you think that if she had told my secret, this Marlene would have more questions about that than whether or not Lily should trust you?" Remus questioned.

James waved his hand dismissively. "I don't know and honestly, I don't care. All she cares about is proving that she's better than me, anyway."

"James, you and I both know that's not true," Remus responded, calmly.

"Whatever, I don't want to talk about her anymore. Sirius, do you have another copy of that Quidditch tryout list? I seem to have lost mine."

"Maybe you should postpone tryouts. At least until you got this thing with Evans sorted out," Sirius said.

James frowned, eyes darkening. "Can you just do what I asked for once?" he asked, exasperated.

"Ok, sheesh, don't get your knickers in a twist."