Chrysanthemums and Bluebells
Mrs. Evans moved in a sort of trance about the house. The vegetable platter needed more olives, and they were running out of punch so that needed mixing. The cocktail napkins could do with a restocking. Polish the photograph on the table, where Mr. Evans's unmoving eyes stared out at all the people dressed in black, standing about his living room, holding tiny paper plates with bits of cheese and handfuls of crackers, talking about their memories of him and wondering what would happen to Mrs. Evans now that he was gone. Mrs. Evans dusted the surface of the coffee table on her way by once, with the hem of the sleeve of her black dress.
"Mummy," Lily pleaded, putting her hand on her mother's back, "Please, you should sit down and relax, you haven't sat down once all day. I haven't seen you eat or drink, either. Please. I'll fix you a plate."
"No," Mrs. Evans' voice was firm. "I'm not hungry."
Lily looked about helplessly for Petunia, hoping to get some support with her pleas, but Petunia was off in a corner with two of her friends - a very large boy from her school whose round features were filled with judgement at the small house and whose thick, short fingers clutched Petunia's narrow shoulder like she was a prize he'd won - and her friend Julie, the one that had gone to the cinema with them the prior year. Petunia's eyes met Lily's and she quickly turned away, leaning into the round boy beside her.
"Mummy, please," Lily tried again.
But Mrs. Evans only shook her head, "I can't right now, Lily, I have things to do." And Mrs. Evans quickly scurried away, continuing her errands of running back and forth from one end of the house to the other, ducking between mourners with a sort of disconnected feeling about her.
When she'd run out of little chores to do she simply flitted back and forth from the living room to the kitchen in a nervous loop, asking people what she could do.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked a man with greying white hair - someone her husband worked with, she thought perhaps.
"No, thank you," he said. Then he touched her shoulder gently. "I am very sorry for your loss."
Mrs. Evans steeled herself. "Thank you." Her voice was crisp and she hurried away. She would lose it if she heard that one more time... if someone said sorry for your loss to her even just once more... she didn't think that she could bear it. Her loss, that's what he was now. Mr. Evans had been her friend, her suitor, her lover, her betrothed, her husband, and her soulmate and now, after all of these years, he was her loss. She shivered, hating the words, and drifted back toward the kitchen.
Suddenly, there came a knock at the door and, thankful to have a purpose again, Mrs. Evans hurried to answer it, straightening her hair and smoothing her clothes. She reached the door and opened it up carefully, peeking 'round it to the stoop.
Before her there stood a boy with messy black hair and glasses that framed deep brown eyes. His clothes were a bit frumpled - his school uniform, which she recognized from the things she bought for Lily each year. He held a small white box and he had a book bag 'round his shoulders, as though he'd just stepped out of a class. In his hands, too, was a small bouquet of white chrysanthemums, mixed with tiny blue bells and sprigs of ivy, wrapped in blue paper 'round the stems.
The boy stared at her in awe for a moment, looking quite nervous and then he juggled the flowers into the crook of his arm that was holding the white box and he wiped his palm on his sweater vest and held out his hand. "Hullo, my name is James Potter," he said, "I'm - I'm a friend of Ev-- I mean... Lily's - from school." She put her hand in his, intending to shake it, and instead she was surprised as he lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed her knuckles in a very cordial, respectful manner, ducking his head as he did so. He lowered her hand and lifted the flowers from his arm. "These are for you."
Mrs. Evans took the flowers, stunned, and lifted them to her nose, breathing the sweet smell. "I didn't know that Lily had any friends coming over," she said thickly. "Are you --" she glanced over her shoulder to be sure none of her visitors were there, "Are you magic, too?"
James smiled at the reverence in her eyes and he looked down the street, checking for neighbors, but everything was quite clear, so he held up his palm to show her it was empty, then moved his fingers across his palm and whispered, "Fumi gloria," under his breath and when he opened his palm again a smokey silver butterfly flew out of his hand and over to the flowers, landing on a chrysanthemum, its wings flapping gently, iridescent, like a smoke-filled soap bubble. And like a bubble, after a moment of sitting there, looking beautiful, it popped.
Mrs. Evans looked utterly enchanted by this and her eyes met James's eyes and she said, "James, you said?"
"Yes," he nodded, "James Potter."
"Lily's talked about you before. I pictured you quite differently." She stepped back, pulling the door with her as she gave him room to come in, and he wondered, as he stepped through the door and into the hallway, what it was that Evans had said about him - and what it was that her mum had pictured of him from the description.
Mrs. Evans clutched the bouquet to her heart with one hand as she closed the door, "I just saw Lily a moment ago, she was in the living room -- let me see if -- oh there she is now."
James turned around and there was Lily at the end of the hall. She held a pitcher of water with lemons floating in it in her hands and she wore one of her black Hogwarts skirts with a black sweater, black tights and her Mary Jane shoes. Her hair was in a tight knot on the back of her head and her bright green eyes were wide in surprise of seeing him. Her hand trembled on the handle of the pitcher.
"Lily, honey, look who it is," said Mrs. Evans, sliding a chain lock across the door, "It's your friend from school, James."
"Potter," she said, her voice quavery.
"Evans."
Mrs. Evans held the flowers in her fist and looked from one to the other, and then she hurried over and took the pitcher from Lily's hands, "Let me take that. I need to put these flowers in a vase. James brought them. Aren't they lovely?"
Lily nodded. She recognized the arrangement from one he'd conjured once in Flitwick's class and knew they were made of James's magic. "Yes," she said numbly.
Mrs. Evans nudged Lily toward James, then disappeared into the kitchen.
They stood, staring at one another for a moment, and James thought he wasn't sure if she was happy to see him or not, her face was unreadable, sort of blank with disbelief that he was there at all. He wasn't sure if it was physically possible to be more nervous than he was, his underarms were soaked with anxiety and his palms felt clammy. James looked down at the white box in his hand and then back at her and he took two steps forward, putting it into her grasp. "Here you are," he said, "I, uh, I meant it for Christmas, but you can open it now if you like. Or save it if you rather. It isn't a lot but... I thought of you when I saw it." He flushed and shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly.
Lily looked at the box and bit her lip, then up at James again for a moment, their eyes meeting. Gently, she opened the top of the box and sifted through some gold paper within until she found a small water globe. It was a wizarding water globe, though, and instead of the glitter that most muggle water globes used to make pretend snow - it was really snowing inside - shiny silver snowflakes fell from the top of the bulb to the bottom over tiny glass trees... and before the trees stood a stag and a doe, nibbling on grass that stuck up between the new fallen snow. As she watched, the doe looked up, blinking through long-lashes, and flicked her tail, staring right up at Lily's face through the glass.
"It's beautiful," she breathed.
James smiled.
"Thank you."
"You're very welcome," he said thickly.
She held the waterglobe carefully, and watched the deer continue eating for a moment as the doe turned away from her, then she looked up at him. "I can't believe you're here, at my house."
"I hope you aren't angry with me for coming," James said apologetically, "It's just that your letter -- you sounded so lonely and ... and sad..."
"I'm sorry I burdened you with it," Lily said, equally apologetically.
"I'm just sorry I wasn't here sooner," he replied.
Lily stared at him.
James shifted his weight nervously, sort of rockin himself side to side, his eyes moving over the hall they stood in. He spotted a row of frames on a narrow table on a lace runner and he walked over, leaning down to see them. Family photos of treasured memories... Lily and Petunia as little girls with sticky fingers and faces, hugging in a zoo before a large penguin exhibit... Petunia grinning at age five with a great gap in her teeth where her first tooth had fallen out... Lily with her mum, who was holding up a buttercup flower beneath her chin so that her skin glowed yellow... a photo of the two girls, around nine years old, perhaps, being hugged by a man with the same hair and eyes as Lily had, all three dressed up in costumes - Lily in a blue gingham dress with red shoes, Petunia, ironically, as a witch with a green face, and the man in a green button-up shirt and cone-shaped hat with straw sticking out of it. James pointed to the man. "Is that --?"
"Yes," Lily said. She lifted a frame from the wall a little way down the hall and held it out to him, "This is a better one of him."
James drew his hand out of his pocket and took the photo. The man's auburn hair was sort of shaggy and he had bright green eyes that smiled up at James, and even though the picture didn't move, there was a lot of life in it. "He seems very nice," James offered. "I wish I'd gotten to meet him."
"I wish you had, too," Lily said, voice wobbly.
James handed her back the photo and she hugged it to her chest, rather than hanging it back up. He stood there before her awkwardly for a moment as she stared at him, biting her lips, her eyes still sort of wide with disbelief that he was there. He put his hand back in his pocket again and shuffled his foot a bit, then said, "Evans, if you want me to go - I can go... I just didn't want you to feel like you didn't have anyone. You have me, if you want me. You can talk to me. About anything. I - I'm still your stag. Same as before."
She didn't answer, her eyes glistening with tears.
He licked his lips, and, when she was still silent a full minute later, he turned toward the door, "I can -- I'm sorry - I didn't mean to upset you, I just -- I'm sorry." He reached for the chain to unlock the door.
"Wait. James, don't go."
He paused and let his hands fall away from the chain.
"Please," Lily added.
He turned back around to face her.
Lily put the photo and the waterglobe down on the narrow table, then walked over to him and she slid her arms around his torso, her cheek pressing to his chest and the tears started to fall the moment her face touched the softness of his sweater vest. "You have no idea how glad I am that you are here, Potter," she said thickly as she started to cry, "No idea."
James brought his arms around her, enveloping her. Oh how many times he'd wanted to do this in the woods when she'd cried, clutching him like she was now - only in stag form, of course. His hands shook with relief from it as he closed the ring of his arms about her, drawing her into him, trying to exude safety and comfort, trying to tell her with the curve of his shoulders that she was safe, that he would form a shell around her to protect her from anything that came against her so she could be as vulnerable as she needed to be. She could fall apart if she needed to, he tried to tell her with his heart, because he'd hold her pieces together so that none of them got lost.
"I'm here, Evans," James said quietly, "As long as you want me, I'm here."