bittersweet » lily evans

1.1

Sirius nodded eagerly, "'Course I won't, thanks by the wa-"

He was interrupted by a boisterous voice.

"Oi oi! What's going on over here?" James smirked, successful gaining the attention of everyone in the room and as strutted over to Sirius and Julia. Julia realised suddenly that her and Sirius' faces were only inches apart and they had been staring very intently at each other for a good amount of time. And to any onlookers, it would seem like something entirely different was going on.

The pair sprung away from each other - Sirius obviously coming to the same realisation as Julia.

"Nothing to concern you Potter," Julia replied coolly, remaining much more poised than the boy opposite her, who had flushed red and was glancing worriedly at Remus.

"I'm just making sure you aren't making any moves on my beloved bro," James replied.

"Trust me, he your beloved bro wouldn't want me to make a move on him," Julia smirked, dodging a cushion that Sirius threw her way.

James frowned, seeing that there was more to the conversation than what they were saying, but not knowing what. Julia's smirk grew; she loved messing with Potter almost as much as she loved Lily.

Wait, loved!?

Startled by her own thoughts, Julia's eyes widened.

Sirius, noticing the change in her demeanour, frowned in concern. "You okay?"

Julia nodded, pushing herself off the armchair, "I'm going to go find Lily," she said simply, to which Sirius shot her a smirk.

Ignoring his glance, Julia headed up to the girls' dormitory, where she was fairly sure Lily was. Poking her head around the door, Julia was relieved to see Lily alone doing homework.

L I L Y

Sighing and scratching her ear with the end of the quill, Lily flipped the page in her Ancient Runes text book. Putting together a presentation was hard, especially when her two team mates seemed to have forgotten completely about it and left her to do the work. Though she supposed Julia had provided a lot of ideas at the start of the project, it was just difficult trying to get the girl to help follow through with those ideas.

"What are you doing?" Someone asked, their voice gently breaking the silence of the dormitory.

Lily looked up to see the very girl she had been thinking about; Julia was stood in the doorway, a strange expression on her face as her eyes darted around the room, not settling on Lily for longer than a few seconds.

"Our project, that neither you or Remus are helping me with," Lily replied, accidentally sounding way more bitter than she meant to.

Julia cringed, her eyes connecting with Lily's apologetically before flitting away again. What was up with her? She was behaving beyond weird and Lily didn't like it, strangely, she even missed the unbearably sarcastic attitude that Julia usually had.

"Sorry, do you need help with anything?" Julia offered, sounding almost meek, which was a scary concept.

"No I think I'm done with this part anyway, we can do some tomorrow though," Lily replied, rolling up the piece of parchment she had been scrawling on. "Are you okay?" She asked, once she'd stuffed the paper away safely.

Julia looked surprised that Lily had even asked, "Nothing's wrong, why?" She asked, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. It was quite a cute facial expression, Lily thought absentmindedly.

"You're hovering in the doorway when usually you would have flopped onto the nearest bed by now and you refuse to look at me for some reason," Lily stated bluntly, raising her own eyebrow to make a point. 

Julia shook her head slightly and her eyes focused on Lily as she moved further into the room. She looked much more collected now, except for the way she perched hesitantly beside Lily on her bed.

"I'm fine, see" She said, maintaining eye contact as if to prove what she said was true.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lily asked, ignoring the girl's statement.

"Maybe..." Julia looked deep in thought, "I mean, no thanks," She quickly altered her first response, much to Lily's bewilderment. Everything about how Julia was acting was strange and puzzling right now and she didn't like it, wishing for the blunt, straightforward girl to come back.

It was Lily's turn to be lost in thought, however she was broken out of it by a pair of lips being pushed against her own. The lips moved against hers for a second, then teeth lightly nipped her bottom lip before pulling away.

That was a lot more straightforward than Lily expected. 

"Wh- what was that?" She spluttered out, staring with wide eyes at Julia, who was gently touching her own lips, looking just as shocked as Lily.

"I don't know- I mean I do know, that was a kiss, but I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done that, I don't know what I was thinking. you just looked so pretty and I've wanted to do that for a while now and I wasn't thinking straight, I- I'm sorry," Julia rambled before trailing off at the end, looking at Lily with wide, vulnerable eyes and trembling lips. Lips that had been on hers just a few seconds ago, which was wrong - girls didn't kiss girls, that's not how it worked.

Julia hastily stood up, distancing herself from Lily and the bed, stumbling on a show that had been discarded by Marlene earlier that morning. But Lily didn't notice that because the world was spinning, flashes of her and Julia's recent interactions flitting through her mind, and it all suddenly made sense; the way Julia acted, the things she said, the way she looked at Lily. 

How had Lily not noticed the other girl's feelings? They were painstakingly obvious looking back. Maybe she had noticed, but dismissed the thought as ridiculous because Julia was straight, wasn't she? Maybe she had noticed, but refused to accept it as true, because girls didn't like other girls like that. Maybe she had noticed, but never confronted Julia about it because then she would have to admit she liked the way Julia acted around her and the things she said and the way she looked at Lily. And accepting something like that - something so controversial and rarely heard of in Hogwarts - was just too much for Lily to handle.

By the time she had snapped herself out of her spiralling thoughts, Julia was gone, having left in a panic when Lily was unresponsive to any of her flustered apologies.

word count; 1712

oh hey, guess who rose from the dead just to upload one chapter and then undoubtedly disappear again?? it's me, if you couldn't tell. but i hope you enjoy this chapter and i'm terribly sorry for the lack of updates!