The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Weak and Pathetic

Weak and Pathetic

James was a couple corridors away before Lily caught him up, breathless for having to take two steps to every one of his strides. She took hold on his elbow to slow him, but James shook her off and steered himself down a hall that led to a secret passageway he and Sirius had discovered back in fourth year, running off from Filch after a particularly good prank on some Ravenclaws. Lily hurried to keep up. "Potter," she said, "Come on, you might at least slow down a bit so that I could talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to you," he replied.

Lily didn't slow. "You always want to talk to me," she teased, her voice sounding more confident than she really felt on the topic. She scurried as he paused at the frame of Alton Marinus, the wizard who invented the Aquamenti charm, his painted palm upholding a spinning orb of water. "C'mon Love," Lily pressed, forcing a smirk to play across her lips, thinking these words would give him pause.

James looked at her, his spectacles riding down his nose, and pushed the frames up with his fingers. "Evans," he said pointedly, shaking his head, "I haven't got any wicked scars to show for it, alright, I haven't got anything wrong with me for you to take care of. There's nothing, alright, you're wasting your bleedin' time."

Lily said, "I didn't ask to see any wicked scars, alright? And I don't think I have to take care of you or anything," she added. "I just think it's rather nice not to be lonely and --" The way James stared at her... something about his eyes made her stop speaking.

"I'm not blind, you know," James said, "Whatever these glasses make you think." He sighed and reached up, sliding the glasses from his nose. He hesitated and looked down at his feet. "I can see it in everyone's face that you're all worried about me, like I could crack at any moment. You and Remus and Sirius... you're all just waiting for the second when I break apart and you've got to rush in to put me back together again."

"That's not --" Lily started, but James plowed onward.

"You'd think the way the lot of you are acting that Voldemort won or something. But he didn't," James's voice was defiant, "He didn't win, Evans. And I'm not about to break any second."

"I know you aren't, Potter," she said.

James stared at his glasses in his hands. "All I want to do is forget what happened, you know? I want to move on and put it in the past and take all the power of it away so that - not only did Voldemort not win, but he didn't even affect me whatsoever. And it's really hard to do that if I'm being forced to constantly think on it and worry about it and what have you. It's impossible if every time I look at you or Sirius I'm going to think about it - about what happened." James took a deep breath. "Not that Sirius Black even gives a damn... hasn't got a use for me now that he thinks I'm weak and pathetic, does he?"

"Sirius doesn't think you're weak and pathetic," Lily cut in. "He just --"

But James held up his palm to stop her talking and, looking up at the portrait of Alton Marinus, he said, "Changing the tide," and the frame swung open revealing a flight of stairs and James hurried up them.

"Potter!" Lily said, scrambling in after him, even as the frame nearly shut her out and she only just got in by the skin of her ankles. "Lumos," she muttered, lighting her wandtip to be able to see. James had gone on without his lit - he'd been in the tunnel enough times to know every step without seeing it. She thundered up the short flight behind him and through a dark passageway with rough, hewn-stone walls. "Listen, it's really not that Sirius thinks you're weak and pathetic, if anything, he thinks he is."