A Lily By Any Other Name

Act IV: Lily

Lily was almost 100% certain she had lost it. Remus' farewell last night was odd enough, then she thought she heard Mary mumbling a sonnet under her breath while they reviewed for the Herbology quiz back at the dorm, and now?

"How oft when men are at the point of death

Have they been merry! which their keepers call

A lightning before death: O, how may I

Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!

Death, that has-hath? Erm, hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,what? That's such a weird thing to say-"

Here, before her very eyes, was James Potter. In the library. Reciting Shakespeare.

She had officially seen it all.

Lily would have found another place to work if she wasn't so tired. Plus, he was in her favourite spot in the library. It was a secluded corner that was tucked behind the Muggle literature section. Not many people visited those shelves, so it was often quiet and impossible to disturb someone if you were to read out loud to yourself when studying. Or when rehearsing lines, it appeared.

"Potter, what do you think you're doing?"

His head immediately snapped up at the sound of her voice, shutting the book closed as he did so.

"Evans! Er, I was just," Potter ran a hand through his already-tousled hair as if he would find a decent excuse in his messy locks. "Doing a bit of light reading."

Lily looked at him, deadpan. "Sure. Look, I'm not interested in why you're reading Romeo and Juliet or what the sudden hype of Shakespeare around here is all about, but if you could scooch over and be a bit more quiet, that would be fantastic."

Potter quickly moved his robes and bag to make room for Lily to sit. To her surprise, he actually did lower his voice to an appropriate whisper and didn't try to bother her at all. His hushed mumbles where he would correct himself on pronunciation or tone were somewhat soothing. Lily treated it as white noise in the background at first, but then she started to tune in to the familiar words.

"Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;

And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again: here, here will I remain,-"

She closed her eyes, imagining Potter clad as Romeo, who was completely in love with his Juliet. It was a picture that was easier for her to visualize than she expected. She couldn't put a face to the unfortunate Juliet of his, though.

The more she thought about it, she wasn't certain if he had ever taken a genuine liking to any girl. Sure, he had flirted with her a lot in the past few years, but that was purely to annoy her. He was a bully; he enjoyed torturing Severus for years just because he could. While he hadn't been up to his usual antics this year, that didn't mean he had really changed. And yet...

"The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!

Here's to my love!"

She shook the thought out of her head. Lily couldn't trust him.

------------

She had almost completely forgotten he was there by the time she was wrapping up her studying.

When he got up and stretched, that was when she turned around to acknowledge his existence for the first time in the past hour.

"I'm off to dinner now." He looked a bit hesitant, unsure of what else to say "Er... see you around, Evans."

Lily gave him a quick nod before she turned back to her notebook to finish up the last lesson in the unit she was making notes for. From the corner of her eye, she could see him walking off past the now mostly-empty tables of the library. He turned around for a few seconds and it almost looked like he was going to ask her something. But then he made up his mind and headed out the door.

Author's Note: A bit of a shorter update, but a really long chapter is coming up tomorrow (after a really short one) so hopefully it evens out somewhat. Hope you're enjoying ALBAON so far and have a great rest of your day! -Trip