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Jamesishness


There was a persistent rapping on the door.

It opened marginally and Peter squashed his wide, twitchy face to the two-inch gap he’d created to peer out into the darkness of the corridor beyond, squinting into the night at the form of Lily Evans. He stared at her a moment, then backed up, letting the dormitory door open with him, allowing her space to come through. Lily slipped inside and Peter hurried to shut the door behind her.

Her eyes did a quick appraisal of the room.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

Peter sighed, “James is in the hospital wing still, of course, and Sirius won’t leave ‘til James does, and Remus was feeling ill with the moonlight on him so he went to hide out in the Trophy Room Passageway.”

Lily had sat down on the edge of James’s bed and bent to lift up his Quidditch jumper, still hanging over the footboard. There was a tear in the elbow and the jumper was dirty. She shook her head at the messiness of boys, at the messiness of James, and she was renewed with appreciation that he would be back in this dormitory again very soon, able to make newer, fresher messes…

“How are you, Peter?” she asked as Peter scrambled back onto his own bed, crossing his legs and scooping up the stones that he had spread across the spread. He was slipping them quietly back into a velvet bag.

“Alright, I s’pose,” Peter replied.

Lily put the jumper down and pulled her hair over her shoulder, absentmindedly braiding it as she sat there, biting her lower lip. “Peter, what were you doing in Durmstrang? You were there already when we got there… all by yourself…?”

He motioned to the bag of stones laying by his knee. “I saw James was in trouble.” Lily stared at him, waiting for more, so Peter drew a deep breath, “I tried to tell Professor McGonagall, but she was busy, and I - I couldn’t just leave him there. Not James. James would never just leave any one of us anywhere… not even me…” he paused, and took up one of the gold strings that drew the bag closed, running it through his fingers. “I only did what James would’ve done for me.”

Lily said, “You were very brave.”

“I was very stupid,” Peter corrected. He lifted the bag up and put it in his nightstand drawer. “I should’ve got you and Sirius and Remus. I’m not any good at… at defensive magic. All I did was get myself into trouble.” He closed the drawer rather hard and it made the nightstand shiver and knocked over a photo of the Pettigrew family - taken long ago, when Maggie was still young and sweet and smiling and full of hope, when Peter was eleven and his mum and dad were still happy. He left the photo face-down. It was easier not to look at it anyway.

“You helped us to escape,” Lily said.

Peter shrugged. “I didn’t really do anything.”

Lily couldn’t honestly remember much of the escape, other than running alongside Severus Snape, other than looking at James Potter’s pale face and wanting so much for him to know that it was okay - that everything would be okay…

Peter sank back into his pillows. “Do you reckon James will be alright?” he asked suddenly, “Do you reckon he’ll be the same as he was before now that the Dark Lord’s… done things to him?”

Lily instinctively picked up the Quiddtch jumper again, hugging it to her chest. “Of course he will,” she said, desperate to believe it to be true. “Of course. He’s - he’s James Potter, he has to be… We got him out of there, Peter, he has to be okay.”

“My sister, Maggie -- she wasn’t,” Peter intoned darkly.

Lily felt tears fill her eyes. “But - but Maggie was a child, Maggie didn’t know how to defend --” she was choking on the words. “He has to be alright, Pete, why would you even say --” and she stood up hurriedly, rushing for the door.

“Where are you going?” Peter asked, sitting up.

But Lily didn’t reply.

Peter sank back into the pillows after the door closed behind her and he stared up at the ceiling, his hands up behind his head, propping up his pillow, and he wondered if Lily was right - if James Potter would be okay, or if James would have descended into madness, like Maggie… and he wondered how he would feel either way… because why did James Potter make it through the same torturing as Maggie went through and get to keep his sanity when Maggie had lost hers? It wasn’t fair. But he didn’t want James to be hurt, either. Obviously, Peter had gone through so much to see that James was okay…

He ran his hand uneasily over his arm, which ached still where those gold ropes had wrapped about him, back in fourth year.




Lily ran through the corridors, her eyes blind with tears and the dark of the castle at such a late hour. She didn’t care if Mrs. Norris or Mr. Filch found her. Let them try and stop her, she thought, and she hurried along, her stockinged feet whispering over the carpet as she made her way through the empty halls.

Hogwarts was silent in a way that only could be heard during holidays, when most of the students were gone away to their homes to celebrate. It was Christmas now, she realized, the last couple hours of it, and her mum must be worried sick. She wondered if Dumbledore had gone to speak to her about what happened at Durmstrang, if her mum knew why Lily had gone. Oh how angry her mum would be to learn the Morris Mini had been left behind in the woods outside of Havmork!

But right now, Lily was more worried about something else.

Someone else.

Her palms splayed against the wood doors of the hospital wing and she pushed them open slowly, peering in to see if Pomfrey was there, but it was nearly midnight, so of course she’d gone to bed herself. Lily stepped through the door and tiptoed to the doors to the ward, letting herself in there as well. She pushed the doors closed behind her.

“I was wondering when you’d come ‘round,” came a voice.

Lily slid in her socks across the cool floor of the hospital wing to where Sirius Black sat on the edge of the bed adjacent to James’s. James lay asleep in his own bed, his glasses folded neatly on the table between them, his face peaceful, despite the dark shadows of his eyes and sunken cheeks, despite the bruise on his jaw and the bandages holding his shoulder in place while the Skelegro potion repaired it overnight. Sirius patted the mattress beside him and Lily pulled herself up to sit next to him.

“Have you been here the entire time, then?” Lily asked.

“Yeah,” Sirius said, nodding. “I told Pomfrey if she didn’t let me stay, I’d hex myself right in the nose and she’s seen me do it for Remus, so she didn’t even question whether I would, she simply said sit down there and stay out of the way or I’ll set a petrificus totalus on you.” He smirked and the corner of his lip twitched up as he glanced at Lily.

Lily stared at James. “Has he woken up at all?”

“For a couple moments, but they put him back out,” Sirius replied.

Lily looked hopeful, “How is he?”

“I didn’t talk to him,” Sirius replied. “I was asleep myself when he was awake.”

“But he isn’t gone mad, right?” Lily asked.

Sirius looked at her with concern, “Why on earth would he have gone mad?” he questioned.

“Because of… of what the Dark Lord did to him,” Lily pressed. “Like what happened to Peter’s sister.”

Sirius looked back at James, “I bloody hell hope not.” He stared at the form of him under the blankets that Pomfrey had tucked ‘round his body to warm James up, at the curve of James’s nose and the messy spray of hair that covered the pillow. Sirius imagined James’s personality - his essential Jamesishness being a flickering light inside.

Oh gods, don’t have gone out, he thought, suddenly quite terrified that what Lily was posing could be true.

Lily’s voice trembled, “I bloody hell hope not as well.”

Sirius glanced at her. Tears were streaming down her face, unstoppable. “Oi,” he said, “It’s James, I reckon he could take a good deal more than he’s done and be alright, you know?” Sirius’s voice was optimistic, even though he didn’t really feel it. He just knew it was what Lily Evans needed to hear and her crying broke his heart in a way he didn’t quite know how to deal with. He nudged her with his elbow. “Stop that crying nonsense, Evans.”

“I can’t help it, Sirius,” she choked over the words as she swept her fist over her cheeks to rid herself of the tears that were escaping her. She shook her head, “I feel so guilty for this, I feel so --”

“Guilty? Lilith Gertrude Evans --”

“That’s not my name, Sirius.”

“ -- don’t you dare feel guilty for this, you didn’t do this. Voldemort did this. Vol-de-mort.” Sirius reached up himself and batted her hand away, then used his thumbs to wipe the tears off more gently than she’d been doing herself. “Y’hear me then, Evans?” he asked, “You’re a right mess.”

“I can’t help it,” she gulped. “I’m a jinx and look what it’s done to him. Look what I’ve done to him.”

“You didn’t!” Sirius insisted, “You didn’t. Voldemort did it. And Snape.”

“Snape saved his life, Sirius.”

Sirius made a face.

“If it wasn’t for Sev --”

“He wouldn’t have been in the mess he was in to begin with,” Sirius replied, “He wouldn’t have needed saving.”

Lily looked down at her hands, and Sirius grabbed for them, holding them in his own. “Lily, you didn’t do this and you aren’t a jinx. You’re mad if you think you are. I don’t blame you, alright? And neither does Remus or Peter and neither will James when he comes to.” Sirius stared into her eyes. “He’s going to be alright. Soon enough, you’ll be telling him to bugger off and the lot as usual.”

Lily stared back into Sirius’s eyes.

A couple moments more passed before a slow smirk crawled its way across Sirius’s mouth and he said, “Or, perhaps… Perhaps you’ll be telling him to bugger you instead?”

“Sirius!” Lily snapped and she pushed his hands away, “You filthy --”

Sirius laughed. “Oh Evans it’s about bleedin’ time you realized --”

“Realized what?” she asked, and she felt a funny quirk in her stomach… and she glanced over at James.

Sirius’s smirk trembled, “Oh you know perfectly well what, Lilith Kimberly Evans.”

“That’s not my name, Sirius. And you hush!” she added, turning back to Sirius, “You hush your mouth right now, or… or I’ll hex you in your nose for you.”

Sirius said, “I reckon it would be worth the bat bogeys, darling.”