Silences Between Leaves by sarinileni

Silences Between Leaves

Prologue

……

December of 1976

Lily Evans woke on the Christmas morning of her sixth year of school with a start. Her fingers clenched at nothing, finding only soft sheets in their tight grasp. She inhaled deeply and sat up in her bed, looking around her dark room and at her dorm mates. She flipped her hair out of her eyes and swallowed hard, blinking as she tried to wake up properly.

It was right before seven in the morning—the light of the sun was weak and only just coming in from the bottom half of the window next to her bed. Lily kicked off her heavy blankets and sighed as the cool air in the room played over her legs. She yanked her shorts down so they covered her thighs and fastened her hair into a pony tail at the base of her neck, pulling her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them, and pouting her lips.

“Lily?”

Lily looked up as Sarah Mercer’s hoarse voice reached her ears. She smiled at the other girl, who yawned and sat up against her headboard.

“What’re you up so early for?” Sarah continued, rubbing some eyeliner from under her left eye. “You’re hardly ever up before eight.”

Lily shrugged. “No reason. Bad dream, maybe. Happy Christmas, by the way.” She picked up a small, neatly wrapped package from her end table and chucked it over to Sarah, who stared as it landed at least six feet away from her on the floor.

“I thought we went over how you aren’t ever supposed to even attempt to throw things, Lily,” Sarah muttered, leaning over the edge of the bed to reach for the little box. She groaned as she leaned over too far and fell off her bed with a large thump, pulling her blankets with her. She sprawled out on the floor and huffed. “Ugh. Bitch. Yours is by your bed.”

Lily nodded, still a little embarrassed at her atrocious hand-eye coordination. She looked over at Marlene, whose eyes were open. “Happy Christmas,” Marlene                                                     muttered, making a face at Sarah’s lazy form on the floor. “Do I get a present too?”

“No, you whore,” Lily responded, throwing another present, the same size as Sarah’s, at Marlene. Marlene managed to catch it, but just barely. She shook her head in disbelief at Lily.

“Meer? Beth?” Sarah crooned from the floor, kicking her legs up and letting them hit the plush carpet again. “Up yet?”

“Noooooo,” Beth groaned, curling up in her bed and pouting. “Too early.”

“Meer?” Sarah repeated.

“Shut the fuck up,” Miriam said gruffly, not moving from her position on her bed. Lily exchanged a sympathetic look with Marlene, who bit her lip and shook her head. Just three weeks ago Miriam’s aunt and guardian had died in an automobile accident, and she had no one at home. Out of solidarity and at Beth’s request, Lily, Marlene, and Sarah had all remained at school during the holidays to keep Miriam from getting lonely.

“Time to open presents,” Lily said joyfully, clapping her hands in order to lighten the mood.

“James stole mine for you,” Marlene said absently, already tearing into a large, bright blue package from back home.

Lily froze. “Um, pardon?”

“James stole my present for you,” Marlene repeated. She glanced at Lily, looking sheepish. “Sorry, babe. I forgot to get it back before he left.”

“I’m sure he left it in his dorm. He wouldn’t take it with him,” Sarah said. “They left, didn’t they? All four of them?”

Lily sighed. “Yeah. You suck, Marlene.”

“Kisses, babe,” Marlene returned, kissing her fingertips and pointing them in Lily’s direction. “Go get it.”

Lily stuck her tongue out at Marlene and swung her legs off the bed, grabbing her robe from the foot of her bed and swinging it on over her shoulders. She shuffled out of the room in her bare feet and down the chilly stairs to the common room. She yelped as she stubbed her toe on one of the stairs and hopped over to the boys’ staircase, whimpering from the pain in her toe. She limped up to the sixth year dormitory and jiggled the knob, then was relieved to find that the door was open. She paused for just a moment, contemplating how strange that was, but then entered the room and shut the door behind her, hoping the slightest bit that James...she shook her head to clear that thought.

The sun had risen and was streaming in through the window, illuminating the room so that Lily could plainly see a medium-sized box wrapped in garish pink paper sitting on one of the beds. She walked quickly over to the bed, then shrieked and stumbled back when she heard someone speak.

“What the fuck are you doing in here, Evans?”

Lily pushed her hair out of her eyes with a shaking hand, swallowing. James Potter was sitting on the edge of the bed next to the window, clad in a pair of boxers and looking like hell. Unable to speak for a moment, she glanced over at the package on the bed. Potter’s head drooped as he saw where her eyes went. “Yeah. Sorry. I…forgot.”

“Before you left. I mean, you did leave, yes?” Lily said it tentatively, pleased that he was there and trying to hide it. She rarely saw him alone, when he wasn’t trying his best to be obnoxious. Rarely did she see that side of James Potter that…the side of him that made her feel dizzy and wanting.

He nodded, turning his head and rubbing it against the bedpost. “Yeah. I…came back for the night.” He pointed to his broom. “No one noticed.”

Lily bit her lip, shifting her weight from one foot the other. “Uh…”

“Take it,” he said humorlessly. “There’s no booby traps or anything. I was planning on sending it by owl before I went back home.”

Lily nodded, sidling over the bed. She had to pass right by him and she snatched up her gift, cradling it over her chest. He looked at her for a moment and Lily winced. “Are you—are you sure you’re okay, Potter?”

“Don’t come near me,” he muttered, closing his bloodshot eyes. “I’m sick and I’m angry.”

Sometimes Lily thought she liked James so much she couldn’t even stand it. This was one of those moments. He had never been her friend and that drove her mad, because she had always wanted to say she was close to a boy, as if that would prove her worth. He was so much better than cursing Snape all the time and it disappointed her that the boy she fancied for no real reason was such a jerk.

Why couldn’t she like a nice bloke?

“What’s wrong?” she asked hesitantly, relaxing her death grip on the gift in her arms.

“I’m tired,” he said quietly.

Lily paused, casting about for something to say. “Are you flying back?” she settled on.

He nodded.

“You shouldn’t if you’re tired,” she told him matter-of-factly. “You could crash. Please don’t.”

He raised his eyes up and looked at her in disbelief. “Evans, you’re a darling, but you should go open your presents now and leave me to myself.”

She wanted to argue that she could stay, but she had no idea whether he was being polite and giving her an out or if he really wanted her to leave. She couldn’t tell, so she simply nodded and backed out of his room. She paused on the stairwell, thinking about just how strange that meeting had been, then shook off the feeling and returned to her bedroom.

When she got back to her room, present in hand, she picked up the gifts at the end of her bed and dropped them on her, sitting down with a sigh. She arranged the gifts neatly, first Sarah’s and Miriam’s and Beth’s, then her parents’, then Marlene’s. She loved saving the best for last. She pulled Sarah’s towards her first. The five girls had always exchanged presents every Christmas—they simply put more effort into gifts for their better friends: Lily and Marlene, and then Sarah and Miriam. Lily looked over at Beth and felt a pang—Beth had fewer friends that Lily—only a couple girls in Ravenclaw whom she had known before Hogwarts.

Sarah and Miriam had given her a two-year subscription to Facades, a popular, elitist architectural magazine. Lily smiled, setting the receipt for the subscription and the December issue aside. Beth had given her cosmetics; her parents had sent a gift-card to a London store. With a grin, Lily pulled Marlene’s package closer and ripped off the paper. She pulled out a wrapped blue box, then opened that and found a red box. “What the hell, Marls?”

The box was quite small. Marlene grinned at her. “I’m about to open yours, hon.”

“One, two three!”

At once they pulled the wrapping paper from the gifts and opened the boxes. Lily stared for a second, then burst out laughing.

Beth glanced at her. “What?”

“It’s the same bracelet I gave her!” Lily answered, lying back on her bed and beating her fists by her sides. “Wow.”

“Lily I love it,” Marlene called, grinning. She put it on her wrist, hooking the ends and waving her wrist around. “Excellent taste!”

Lily rolled her eyes and then picked up the December issue of Facades. She glanced at the cover and frowned as she caught sight of the featured article.

Chandler Potter’s Rise to the Top.

“Potter?” she whispered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Marls,” Lily said absently, flipping through the pages until she reached the allotted page number. What’s Potter’s father doing in Facades?

Lily’s eyes widened. Chandler Potter had founded and continued Potter Enterprises. He owned it. She swallowed hard. She had never before realized there was a relation or a connection between James Potter and Potter Enterprises. “Well I knew,” she corrected herself aloud. “But…” She had never thought about it the way she was thinking about it now. She had and in. Imagine if Potter told his father to hire her. Imagine if she could get James to…

She shook her head. She couldn’t. She had no way to approach him.

What if they became friends?

Lily swallowed again. Was she really going to use Potter? Really?

Lily resolved to be nice to him, at least. Who knew where a connection with James Potter could get her in the architectural world?

Who knew?

June of 1977

James Potter took the time to push his hair of his forehead, frowning a little and inspecting the exam paper in front of him. I should have studied more last night, he thought ruefully. He glanced up at the front of the room where Flitwick, the Charms professor, was sitting, correcting papers. He looked to his right, where he saw his friend Sirius Black scribbling away. James craned his neck to see and saw that he was writing pure nonsense. James sat back in his seat and sighed.

He then looked to the left at Lily Evans. She was halfway through the exam and it was only half an hour into the period. He noticed that her gaze flicked over to him every few seconds and that the expression on her face was one of reproach.

Damn, she saw me trying to cheat.

James knew, however, that she would say nothing. Lily Evans was not that much of a stick-in-the-mud, thank you very much; and he could fondly look back at the time he fancied her and feel justified. He had had his reasons, the least of which were her strange tendencies to be the most honorable person he knew while still having fun.

He dropped his eyes back to his own paper, feeling chastised even though she had said no words to him. He attacked the exam with a new vigor and by the time the class was over, he was sure he had at least managed to pass. He caught Lily Evans’s eyes as everyone was packing up to leave and she held them for an infinitesimal second, making James’s heart stop. Then he was no longer seeing green and was walking with his best friends down to the grounds for their customary after-exam relaxing time. It was a gorgeous day and James squinted in the bright sun, seeing Hagrid down by his hut watering his garden. He grinned and waved; Hagrid waved back. James sat down against the trunk of a shady tree. Remus sat next to him, the absence of a book noted by James and filed away happily to be brought up later. Remus often read when they were outside, preferring to talk to his friends when they were in the dorms or at meals.

Sirius was lying down in the grass, yawning and letting the sun play over his face. Peter sat down Indian-style and sighed, opening his mouth to worriedly ask questions about the exam.

“Not now, Wormtail,” Sirius said. “I’m really not in the mood.”

Peter shut his mouth and stared moodily over at the lake. Remus gave Sirius an annoyed looked but said nothing. James brushed some lint off the sleeve of his robe.

“It’s hot,” he complained.

“Take off your clothes, then,” Sirius suggested.

James thought for a moment before nodding. “All right.” He shrugged out of his robes and began to unbutton his shirt, but Sirius’s voice stopped him.

“A joke, my friend. A humorous suggestion that was not meant to be taken.”

“Really, now?” James asked, disappointed. “I was so looking forward to pleasing you with my manly body.”

“A better word is torturing, Potter,” said a dry, female voice from the side. James grinned slyly and slowly turned his head towards the speaker.

“Why, Evans!” he said, secretly pleased. “Whatever are you doing here? Couldn’t stay away, is that it?”

Lily Evans raised one eyebrow. “Not on your life, Potter.”

“My fun and promising life?” he queried, surreptitiously letting his gaze travel up and down her body, gleefully taking in the fact that she had taken off her robes and that her skirt was a few inches higher than regulations allowed. Her tie was gone as well, and the first two buttons of her shirt were undone. While James greatly enjoyed looking at cleavage, he found it more sexy if it could only be viewed when the girl bent over, intentionally or not. Unlike Sirius, James did not like the blatant five buttons most girls undid to catch attention. He much preferred Lily Evans’s two, and started plotting ways to make her lean forward.

“Oh, yes, Potter,” she said sarcastically. “I came because I just couldn’t avoid my passion and affection for you. Even when you were trying to cheat off of my test I secretly wanted you—oh, I wanted you so badly—”

“Okay, now, Evans,” interrupted James uneasily. “I get it.” He laughed nervously, never having heard her say something like that before and not sure if he liked it. “You can stop.”

She made a face and sat down, leaning backwards on her hands and staring at the lake. James hid a grin and tried not to look up her skirt. Sirius, having no such tact, was enjoying the view, since his feet were facing the tree and he could clearly see her legs.

“Get your eyes out from under my skirt, Black,” Lily deadpanned, not moving her head. Sirius grinned lazily.

“Fingers instead, then?” he asked, his hand creeping forward. He got within an inch of her long leg before Lily took out her wand and gave him a shock. Sirius yelped and snatched his hand back, cradling it to his chest and sitting up. “What was that for?”

Lily did turn her face toward him this time, and a frown marred her pretty features. “It’s not for you to touch me like that,” she said seriously, and her legs closed in, almost imperceptibly.

Sirius’s eyes brightened. “Hey, Prongs, I think we’ve got ourselves a virgin right here!”

James snorted. “And?” he asked, giving his friend a pointed look.

“So…what are you going to do about it, Prongs?”

“Nothing,” James replied, not looking at Lily.

“Is that right?” Sirius asked. Remus tensed and James met his eyes. Remus turned his gaze to Sirius and held it there levelly.

“Padfoot,” he began warningly.

“No, no.” Sirius looked at Lily. “Evans, I think you should seriously consider sleeping with James over there.”

James groaned. Lily smiled slightly and raised one of her stupidly perfect eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

“For one, he needs a good lay. There’s nothing like a good first lay to cheer a bloke up.”

“Potter needs to be cheered up?” Lily asked, her brow furrowed, although James could not tell whether she puzzling over the fact that he wasn’t feeling his perkiest, or whether she was surprised he was a virgin.

“All that pressure from his father,” Sirius said, mock sadly.

“Shut up!” James said loudly, surprised that he would even mention that. “Sirius—just shut it!”

James could count on his hands the number of times he had called Sirius—or any of his friends, for that matter—by his first name since their fifth year, when they had managed to turn into their respective Animagi forms. Sirius did shut up, and he flopped down on his back again, sulking.

“Your father?” Lily asked quizzically.

“It’s nothing,” James snapped. “Don’t you have anywhere else to go right now, Evans?”

She looked at him coolly for a moment before getting up and smoothing down her skirt, dusting bits of grass off the back. “Sure,” she replied, her words producing a distinct chill in the air. She sauntered away, moving gracefully and, James noted, with a natural and subtle sway of her hips, which told him she wasn’t trying very hard.

Sometimes, James just had to stop and look at her. He had met prettier girls—but Lily Evans struck something inside him. He sometimes couldn’t think around her, could only look at her and breathe and think of the sun and flowers and other non-manly things.

“What’d you do that for?” James asked Sirius angrily, kicking him in the leg. Sirius did not move and cracked one eye open, looking at James.

“She likes you, Prongs,” Sirius said, crossing his arms behind his head.

“Nah,” James said, suddenly not angry with his best friend. “I don’t think so.”

“I do.”

“It’s unlikely,” Remus remarked. “She’s talked to us on occasion before. This time she just came here to tell Prongs—subtly, of course—that she didn’t like him cheating off of her.”

“I didn’t!” protested James.

“You tried,” Remus pointed out. “I was sitting behind you. I saw it all.”

James flushed. “I didn’t study enough last night. I got a letter from my parents.”

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make her wonder about your dad.” Sirius sighed and closed his eyes again.

James shrugged as a cloud passed over the sun and threw the sunny day into shadow. “He’s just as annoying as ever, you know. Blah, blah, blah, you’re starting your last year in September, more tosh, you’ve got to do well—now it’s the end of your sixth year and it’s your last chance of becoming Head Boy—he can’t really believe I’m going to become Head Boy, can he? I know he doesn’t!”

“He just wants you to succeed,” said Peter.

“I know,” James responded, frustrated. “But he wants me too succeed at being him! He wants me to take over the company, he wants me to be his protégée, he wants me to be perfect and marry the beautiful socialite woman, just like he did!”

“Hey,” Sirius said, “your mum’s great.”

“Yeah,” James replied, “and she’s a rarity. I’ve never met anyone my dad expects me to like who’s the least bit like her!”

“I thought you wanted to take over the company,” Peter said, confused.

“I do! I just don’t want to do it right when I get out of school! I’d love to supervise the building and the designs and all…you know, it’s been my dream since I was a little boy, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of having any fun at all, at the expense of my life.”

“True,” Sirius admitted.

“Actually, Prongs,” Remus suddenly said, “you most likely will be Head Boy.”

“Why’s that? I reckon you’ll get it,” James said, glancing around to see if Lily was near. She was the most likely candidate for Head Girl.

“Who contributes most of the funds for Dumbledore’s endeavors?” Remus asked quietly. “Who’s the head of the company that’s Dumbledore’s cover?”

James looked down.

“Your dad’s a good person, James, but if you don’t make Head Boy…he may limit that funding a bit. He may tighten the leash on that flow of galleons. And Dumbledore has a lot of agents who also work for your dad’s company. They might not be too happy…so you’re going to be Head Boy.”

“That’s not fair,” James muttered.

“No,” Remus agreed, “but you would do well as Head Boy. I’m not cut out for it—not only would I be too sick sometimes, I would have no way to keep up with everything. You manage Quidditch and school with time to spare.”

James snorted and shook his head.

“Think, Prongs,” Remus said thoughtfully. “Think. Lily’s got Head Girl next year, you know she does. It’s between her and Narcissa Black—but James, Lily’s earned this. She’s got the grades and the record and she’s Muggleborn. You—you’ve got the charisma, of course, and the perhaps the grades, but all you’re known for is Quidditch and trouble. If you get Head Boy…”

“I won’t.”

“You will,” Remus snapped, and Sirius looked up, startled by his sharp tone. “I just told you to think, Prongs. You’ve got a shit record, yeah, and no one thinks for a second that you’ll get it, but you’re going to. You’re perfect. You’re a bloody political statement.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked, sounding offended on James’s behalf. James peered at Remus, intrigued.

“Don’t you realize that showing the world that putting a Muggleborn and a Pureblood whose blood isn’t as pure as gold screams peace and harmony? If you and Lily pull it off, James—you’ll prove that Purebloods and Muggleborns can work together just fine, and you’ll be Dumbledore’s lighthouse. Your father’s avidly spoken out against Voldemort and your mother has too—making you Head Boy shows that Dumbledore’s not afraid.”

“And,” Sirius said suggestively, “you would get to spend a lot of time with Evans.”

“Come off it,” said James. “I don’t like her all that much.”

“You used to,” Peter said.

“I used to,” James repeated. “And I still do, a little. It’s hard not to. But, you know…she’s a challenge. That’s why I like her. And she’s really hot. Sure—I guess you could say I just want to use her, but that’s because she really resists. I mean…I’ve been persistent with other girls and they’ve given in and gone out with me after a while just to get rid of me. And since…well, the beginning of fifth year I’ve been asking her out. She hates it. She hates me.” James rubbed his hand over his forehead. “Even though I stopped at least three months ago, she still hates me! I don’t understand her and I’m getting sick of it. Really sick of it. And she just gets up and comes over here and she expects me to talk to her and not ask her out. Why does she—WHY does she try to make me so jittery and shit? I don’t—it doesn’t matter. I don’t really want a serious relationship anytime in the near future. And not with her. My dad probably wouldn’t approve.”

Peter stared thoughtfully in the direction Lily had gone. “You know, James…” He stopped, glancing at James, as if his suggestion was going to provoke an angry response.

“Yeah?”

“She’d make an excellent recruit for the good side.”

James smiled. “As if I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You should try, though. Your dad might approve, then.”

James turned the thought over in his mind for a split second before forcing himself to forget about it. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he repeated as Peter laughed.

Sirius snorted disbelievingly and James threw a clump of grass at him. Sirius wiped dirt and grass off the front of his shirt and glared at James, who shrugged before lying down and closing his eyes, resting in the patches of glorious sun shining down through the canopy of bright green leaves overhead.

……

Author’s Note: This is Part I of a trilogy—this story will be 15 chapters long and as far as I know right now, will be set from July of 1977 to July of 1978. No more explanations necessary. Please enjoy!