crossroads ✿ jily

Chapter Eleven - A Rock and a Hard Place

Lily went to breakfast the next morning feeling better than she would have thought after such a horrible night. She supposed it had helped that she'd bothered to think things through before she went to sleep...it made her feel less like a fish out of water, waiting for the next thing to happen or the next confrontation. Her Mum had always told her to sleep on things, but Lily supposed that she was only just now beginning to understand exactly what that meant.

Understanding all this didn't make the prospect of facing James any easier, though. She didn't know what she was going to say, and she knew that he was probably somewhere in the castle killing himself over what had happened between them. She knew as sure as she was sitting there that her unfussy write-off of the whole incident the night before was not going to be enough to ease his conscience, especially after everything else that had been going on.

Pushing her uneaten breakfast away from her, she stood and started to gather her books, resolved to being late to her first lesson so that she could go and see how Remus was doing. She knew she'd find James there, and probably Sirius...at least, she hoped Sirius would be there. If he wasn't, then that meant he'd still be in bed...and that would worry her.

Before she could get up from the table, however, the owls began to flutter in with the morning post. While this would normally not have fazed her, she was halted by the surprise depositing of a white envelope right in front of her, on top of her cold oatmeal. Lily frowned at it, then set her books down again and picked it up...and something that felt like a boulder dropped in her stomach as she recognized the handwriting immediately.

It was a letter from Petunia.

Inexplicably afraid to read its contents, she stalled for a moment by carefully wiping the specks of oatmeal off of the front. Swallowing and glancing up at the ceiling, as though she was expecting something else to drop from the sky, she slid her trembling fingernail into the slot on the side of the envelope and tore it open. Slowly, she unfolded the letter and began to read.

As she walked out of the Great Hall and into the corridor in a kind of sick daze, she stopped short as she caught sight of James. He was leaning against the wall across the way with his arms folded over his chest, and it was obvious that he'd been waiting for her to come out. She could see that he hadn't slept much...his eyes were rimmed with red, his face was pale, and he hadn't shaved or combed his hair. He wasn't wearing his robes, so she could only assume he had no intention of going to class today. Walking over, she offered a strained smile and commented, "You look almost as bad as I probably do."

He shook his head as his eyes roamed her face, then replied, "You look fine."

"Why didn't you just come in and sit down?"

He lifted his shoulders noncommittally and replied, "I'm not hungry."

"Oh," was all she could manage, and then they stood there for an awkward moment before he said, "Look, I have to get back to the hospital, but I had to catch you before you went to class. I had to talk to you."

"How is he?" she asked before he could go on, unconsciously trying to put some kind of verbal distance between this conversation and what was on both their minds, especially now that she had an entirely separate problem plaguing her. He blinked, and then replied,

"Er...which one?"

"Remus...or, I don't know. Sirius, Peter...all of the above?"

"They're...well, Remus is pretty bad. Not so bad that anyone's overly worried...I mean, he's been bad before...but still, I suppose it just seems worse because of the circumstances."

She nodded, and then asked, "And Sirius?"

James managed a small smile. "Fine, of course. He had good help."