Open Your Eyes: Closed RP (Sirius, Lily, and Harry)

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

((Backdated to the morning after Sirius and Lily discovered Voldemort was back and got into a massive fight over it. There's still a Harry-Sirius socking RP I need to do in which Harry and Sirius discuss the aftermath of the fight and generally have some good godfather-godson time, but for now that will have to wait. This RP comes after that.

Oh, and beware teh emoness. It burns!))

The only reason Sirius had slept well was his good friend Firewhisky. Lily had apparently lost her mind, and the upshot was that he was now kicked out of their suite and possibly broken up with. More importantly, it scared the hell out of him that Lily was out and about the castle by herself, being angry and rash and probably not particularly careful even though Voldemort could be anywhere. It was exactly the reason she had wanted to confine Harry to Slythendor, and yet she couldn't take the same advice for herself. And there was nothing he could do about it, because everything he had tried had only made things worse.

But the Firewhisky had been able to go only so far. Not wanting to drink in front of Harry, Sirius had started in on a bottle after the both of them had finally gone to bed, and even then, there was only so much he had allowed himself to drink, because he needed to be alert in case something happened to Harry or Lily.

Eventually, he managed to fall asleep, and when he woke up, the first thing he did was send an owl to Lily, because that would be quicker, easier (especially considering she had said she would lock him out of their suite), and hopefully less damaging to their relationship. The owl bore the following note:

----

Lily,

Are you all right? Harry and I are fine. We are both still in Slythendor. No sign of Voldemort.

Are we still

Please let me know that you're okay. I love you.

-Sirius

----

Unfortunately, the owl returned, bearing his note. Which was not a good sign. Now feeling quite frantic, Sirius made sure Harry would stick around Slythendor for a while (an idea that was not so thrilling to Harry, but that he acquiesced to, simply because he felt bad for Sirius after the mess of the night before, and anyway he didn't have a whole lot to do), and then he left Slytherin and went up the stairs and around the corner to the suite he shared (and hopefully still did share) with Lily to see if she was there.

His initial discovery sent flashes of red-hot panic across his flesh.

She hadn't locked him out as promised. Instead, the entire place was open; only the normal wards were up. He easily let himself in, only to find the place empty. Which, when put together, meant that she had never gone back to lock him out in the first place.

And Sirius bet he knew where she had gone. Because she had never really promised not to go looking for Voldemort. His fear turned ice cold and he began running through the corridors.

After he had searched out the entirety of two floors, he finally found her. She was sitting on the floor just across from the Popcorn Room, knees brought up to her chest and chin resting on them, and on her face a very strange, almost frightening sort of determined stare.

And there was a large piece of parchment in front of her. A piece of parchment he recognised very well, because he had made it years ago. It was the Marauder's Map, and the last person who had had it, as far as he knew, was James.

The other James.

Which meant that, unless he was missing something, she had gone up to Gryffindor to fetch it from him. Sirius didn't know whether that James was even around any more - he hadn't seen him for months, although he hadn't gone looking for him, either - but it didn't matter. The fact that she had gone up there and put herself in that sort of position, had taken that sort of risk, ignited Sirius's temper.

His initial flood of relief at seeing her alive evaporated within a second or two, and he asked sharply, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Comments

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

She'd stayed down in the kitchens until the pizzas were done. Not because she had to, but because she didn't have anything else to say to Harry about the subject they'd left it on. Her relationship with Sirius was... Well, she was still figuring it out. Especially how it related to Harry. Because she knew what she wanted in theory, but the actual practical aspect was a bit trickier. And she simply couldn't handle discussing that with her son.

Finally, though, she couldn't delay any longer. Shooing off the house-elves who tried to help, she picked up the two platters holding the pizzas and headed up to the table.

Her heart gave a slight lurch when she saw Sirius, but the memory of the things he'd shouted at her, of what had taken place the night before, was too fresh. Instead of going to him as she normally would have, she simply set the plates down and sat next to Harry.

"I, er, didn't know what you liked on your pizza. So I just put everything on them. Well, different everythings on the two pizzas, so hopefully the combinations are all right. I mean, statistically, there should be one pizza you like more than the other, although it's also possible you hate both equally and... I can always go down and get another, though, if that's..." Finally cutting off her rambling, Lily flashed Harry a tiny smile and reached out for a glass of pumpkin juice.

Yeah, she should have just stayed in the kitchen.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry returned Lily's smile and then reached for a slice of pizza. "That's all right, I like mushrooms. And dandelion leaves." Then he sat back and started eating his pizza. Whatever weirdness was going on between Sirius and Lily was for them to handle, especially since Sirius was the one who had wanted to come over there in the first place.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius looked up briefly when Lily sat down, but almost immediately his eyes turned back downward. He was a little bit hungry, but for now, he just sat there, continuing to scratch at the surface of the table with his thumb. He was still hurt and angry, and he just didn't know what to say to Lily, especially in front of Harry. He didn't really know what he was waiting for, either, but whatever it was, it hadn't happened yet, and so he just sat there silently, looking down at the table.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Oh. Yeah, no, this was fun. For a second a flash of annoyance shot through her and she seriously considered upending the pizza right over Sirius' head. He had wanted to come down here. For what? To look morosely at the table and wait for walkies? Those puppy dog eyes did not work on her. She sure as hell wasn't going to be the first one to say something - he'd asked to join her and her son. He could bloody well talk first.

But all of that faded in a moment into the cold numbness of the nothing. She didn't know how she felt about Sirius. About what had happened. So it was easier to wall it all away and feel nothing. Lily hadn't even so much as acknowledged his presence. Sipping at the pumpkin juice, she kept her eyes determinedly fixed anywhere but him.

Because anything - even anger - hurt too much. So...nothing.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

The silence was starting to irritate Harry. He didn't have a problem with silence per se, but this was just stupid and uncomfortable and tense. After a few more bites of his slice of pizza, he put it down on the plate and stood.

"I'll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom." He got up and left the Great Hall, heading in the direction of the loos. That way, he wouldn't be in the middle of whatever was going on between the two of them, and perhaps they would be talking (and not shouting) by the time he returned.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius looked up as Harry left and then back down again. He wasn't sure whether Harry's departure had made things better or worse. Now he didn't have to worry about what one or the other of them said (if either of them said anything at all), but he also had no buffer between himself and Lily.

There was silence, silence, and more silence, broken only by the dry, almost inaudible, sound of his thumbnail scraping against the table.

Finally, Sirius forced himself to reach out and pull a slice of pizza of pizza onto his plate. He took a small bite and chewed it thoroughly - far more than he normally would have.

And then there was more silence.

Fine. He would break it. "Could you pass the pumpkin juice, please?"

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

For a moment she just stared after Harry. Coward.

Heart pounding, now, she looked back at the table. She was bad at this. Oh, Merlin, she was bad at things like this. She attacked problems. She solved them. She shouted or she bullied or she researched; if it couldn't be fixed with her books or her brain or her wand, then it couldn't be fixed.

Except this. This was something she could not look up in a library, it wasn't something she had a spell for. And she felt so numb, so tired, so bruised, that Lily honestly wasn't sure how to even go about attacking this. Or what this was.

She wanted to run. She desperately wanted to get up and leave and bury herself elsewhere, away from him. She even got up to do so. But then, standing there with her back to him and her hands curled into fists, she found she could not walk away.

So she did something else. Going to him, she pulled herself into his lap, curling her head under his chin. She still hadn't spoken; still hadn't even looked at him. But she tucked herself into his arms and simply clung to him. Because no matter what else she didn't understand, she did know this - Sirius was her rock. He was her support. And even if he, himself, was the thing she didn't know how to deal with, he was still the person she could hold on to. So she did.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius thought she was going to leave, and then, for the briefest of moments, he thought she might hit him - not because she had ever done that, but just because she was moving so close to him, and he couldn't imagine what she else she would do.

But then she was suddenly in his lap, and a huge wave of relief crashed over him. He was still hurt and angry, but he was also very very glad the horrible tension had been broken and that she wasn't going to yell, argue, or - Merlin forbid - leave him.

He put his arms around her and held her tightly, tilting his head to rest his cheek against her hair. He could feel her breaths on his neck, pulsing bursts of warm air on his skin.

The tension in his chest, tension he hadn't even realised was there, dissipated, at least mostly, with the embrace, and he simply thought about how good it felt to have her in his arms, even if there were still a lot of problems to work out.

"That's all right, I wasn't thirsty anyway," he mumbled. She had never passed the pumpkin juice, after all.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

A laugh rippled through her at that - something more like a sob than her normal laugh, really, and something definitely like her helpless giggles of earlier - and she buried her face in his chest, her forehead pressed to the crook of his neck. "Get your own damn juice," she murmured. "I'm mad at you."

It was said without any real malice or anger or even emotion. She was simply too tired and drained to summon up anything resembling heightened emotions. Especially now that he was holding her. Lily just wanted to stay like that for as long as possible. Here she felt safe. She felt as close to whole as she ever got. As long as Sirius didn't let go, she didn't feel so much like she was falling apart.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

"I'm mad at you, too," he said as he tightened his arms around her, his tone somehow managing to be matter-of-fact and tender at the same time. He shifted so he could kiss the top of her head and then went back to resting his cheek against her hair.

They were in the middle of the Great Hall, but he didn't really care if anyone found them a spectacle. He was too tired and too relieved to bother with what anyone else thought.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry had taken his time in the loo in the hopes that Sirius and Lily would work something out by the time he got back. After he used the toilet and washed his hands, he got bored and even called out for Moaning Myrtle - he figured a bit of company wouldn't hurt, even if it was Moaning Myrtle's company - but she never appeared, so he spent a good few minutes futilely attempting to flatten his hair down. Nothing, not even sticking his head under the sink to wet it, worked, and so finally, after using his wand to blow some hot air on it to get it dry again, he headed back to the Great Hall. On the way, he tried to remember what spell would be good for re-warming cold food. He was quite sure he was going to need it.

His musings over whether he would need to wave his wand over the pizza or point it directly at the slice were wiped out of his mind, however, when he walked over to the table and found Lily in Sirius's lap, the both of them clinging to each other. Lily's face was buried in Sirius's chest, and Sirius had his eyes closed, so Harry wasn't even sure if they noticed him.

Well, this was better than before. Far better. Even if he had absolutely no desire to see them holding onto each other so intimately like that.

But yeah. He...had absolutely no desire to see them holding onto each other so intimately like that.

Quickly averting his eyes, he mumbled, "Right. I'm just going to...I need to feed Hedwig." He loaded several slices of pizza on his plate. "I'll...see you later."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Oh, bugger. Quickly sitting up, Lily flushed a deep red, moving from Sirius' lap to the seat one removed from him. "It's all right, Harry," she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Don't... I mean, sorry. It's all right. Stay and eat." An absent gesture with her wand reheated the pizza, making the cheese bubble. Oops. Maybe she'd gotten it a touch too hot.

"Um, yeah. Stay."

Merlin, it was the circus of awkward, no matter what she did.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius glanced up when Harry spoke. He was completely fine with Harry going back to Slythendor; he could have sat there with Lily until the end of time - or until one of them had to go to the bathroom, whichever came first.

But then Lily moved, and Sirius had to release her, reluctant though he was. One of his hands quickly reached under the table, looking for hers.

And it wasn't that he really wanted Harry to go away. He just hadn't wanted to let go of Lily. But now that that had happened, he looked at Harry and said, "Yeah, stay. Hedwig can wait."

He knew this wasn't really about Hedwig, but it was easier to play along with that pretense than to say, "Yeah, your mum and I won't curl around each other again while you're here."

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry paused, plate in hand. He hadn't meant to make them separate; he just hadn't wanted to watch. And he really thought they'd be better off without him right now, but now there wasn't really a choice, was there?

He put his plate back down on the table and sat down across from them.

Even though it appeared that Lily and Sirius had patched things up, he was worried that there'd be another awkward silence - things were already getting uncomfortable as it was - and so he took a bite of pizza and blurted out around it, "I couldn't get my hair to stop sticking up in the back. I put water on it, but it wouldn't go flat."

Which was probably the stupidest thing he ever said, but he truly couldn't think of what else to say.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Sirius' hand brushed hers under the table and, for a second, she didn't respond. Just passively let him grasp her hand, her fingers remaining loose; not pulling away, but not moving to reciprocate. But then, as if pushing through a fog, one finger, then another, slowly curled around his palm. It was a step. It was a start.

Lily, too, was worried about the awkward; what she had done was by no means the necessary steps towards getting her and Sirius back to normal. Not even close. So what could she say, then? What wouldn't start something she was unwilling to finish?

Harry's statement, though, hung in the air for a second. And then Lily started to laugh. Not the helpless almost-sobs of earlier, but a genuine laugh. That was quite possibly the worst conversation starter she'd ever heard. But she'd take it.

"Your father had the same problem," she grinned. "When he was in school, he thought it made him more attractive. He'd constantly be mussing it, so it looked windblown and oh-so sexy. But once we'd gotten out, he tried everything to make it lie flat. He even," she started to giggle again at the memory, "he even tried this charm he'd gotten out of Witch Which Weekly. It was supposed to be a straightener - you know, for curls?"

Grinning, now, her eyes were lit up in the most life they'd had since she'd seen the Dark Mark over the castle. "Anyway, James was a brilliant Wizard, don't get me wrong. But charms... Well, he sometimes had problems with them. But of course, he didn't want me to know what he was doing. So he waited until I'd gone out to try it. And this one, he got the motion wrong and..." Laughing, she gestured towards the back of her head, "He took off all his hair. It just...fell right out. In a neat little circle where his hair used to stand up. He chased me around the flat when I wouldn't stop calling him Baldy. I threatened to leave it like that - got him to do the dishes for a month in exchange for growing his hair back. Came back twice as bad, too."

After a second, though, her eyes cut to Sirius and some of the mirth bled out. "I um," she mumbled, shifting slightly and letting her gaze fall to the table. "I always liked his hair. Even if it did stick up. I liked it."

Her hand started to slip from Sirius' under the table and she half whispered a, "Sorry." What she was apologizing for, even Lily wasn't completely sure. Fiddling with a fork, she flashed Harry a tiny, awkward smile.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

She didn't need to apologise. Sirius had nothing but the utmost respect for her and James's relationship, and he would have been offended had she not had fond memories of their life together. He felt her hand move out of his, and he quickly grabbed it back and held it tightly, turning his head to flash her a stern, but tender, smile. It was the best way he could tell her that under the circumstances.

While she might have been worrying about all the things left unsaid between the two of them, Sirius was actually mostly fine right now. Sure, there were issues remaining - the fact that she took the map from the other James's room being a major one - but she wasn't sitting outside Voldemort's door waiting for him any more. She still loved Sirius, and a breakup didn't seem imminent. All of the immediate problems were...well, they weren't resolved, necessarily, or at least Sirius didn't know the details of their resolution, but they also weren't tearing the two of them apart any more. So all in all, he was all right, at least for now.

Glancing back at Lily, he said, "I wish you'd told me that story before. I would've never let him forget it." And although there was still an awkwardness between them, he managed to grin at her.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry's smile started as something shy, but quickly grew to a full-on grin. He had known about his dad's tendency to muss up his hair, but it was brilliant to hear his mother telling him about it, and then everything else she told him was completely new.

And it meant more than he could acknowledge to anyone, even to himself, to hear Lily say in that tender and slightly achy tone of voice that she liked James's hair. In his daydreams about his parents, he had always imagined them happy and in love, just like everyone had told him they had been. Just as they had appeared in the mirror of Erised, in their wedding photos, and in the pictures Lily had given him (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1069004.html#cutid1).

But at Hogwarts, he hadn't seen one bit of that. All he had seen was the animosity between Lily and the other James, and so every bit of adoration Lily showed towards James was absolutely precious to Harry.

"My - Aunt Petunia once shaved my head. Well, all of it except the fringe. But then the next morning, my hair had grown back to exactly what it had been like before she had shaved it." Harry grinned at Lily. "I didn't know I was a wizard then. I just thought I had really bad hair."

Okay, so maybe the hair remark hadn't been a bad one after all. And the story about his hair was funny now. Moreover, it made him feel that much closer to his father. Both of them had had horrible moments of partial baldness!

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

"He made me promise not to tell," she said, smile edging up on one side of her mouth, lop-sided. It wouldn't be apparent to Harry how uncertain she was, talking about James like this. She hid it well. But Sirius knew her. He'd be able to tell. He always could tell. His firm grasp on her hand made a sharp lump form in her throat. She felt...guilty.

She hadn't slept in well over a day, hadn't really eaten, and had been on an emotional runaway broomstick ride. And now she was very calmly sitting at a table, chatting about her dead husband with her grown son and the man who wouldn't sleep with her for months because of said dead husband. It just felt...wrong and awkward and Lily was simply not in a place to handle it. Pulling her hand away, she stood.

"Sorry, excuse me. Need to run to the loo. Be back." She didn't look at Sirius - he'd be able to see the tears starting to form that she was holding back - instead smiling at Harry and turning to leave the room.

There was an alcove around the corner, out in the hallway. She didn't cry. Not really. Lily just stood there and tried to sort things out in a brain that was flying along way too fast.

Belatedly what Harry had said caught up with her. Fucking bint of a sister. Now she was angry, on top of everything. Tipping her head back, Lily closed her eyes, lashes wet with the tears that had escaped, and tried to focus. On anything.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius could think of only two explanations for Lily's sudden departure. The first was that there was something wrong with the pizza and she had developed a raging case of diarrhea. (The corollary to that theory was that the Weasley twins had slipped the antidote to U-NO-POO in the pumpkin juice.) The second, and far more likely, although he didn't know the reason for it, was that she was upset.

He sat there for a short while after she left, suddenly very interested in the toppings on his pizza. Then, abruptly, he looked up. "Will you excuse me, Harry?" He got up and walked in the direction Lily had gone a moment before.

He didn't know if Lily wanted him to go after her or if he'd be making it worse, but...well, he'd find that out, and if it was the latter, he'd just go back to Harry and let her be alone for a while.

Unless it was the diarrhea. In which case, he'd...also let her be.

He walked down the corridor, and before long he saw her in an alcove, standing there with her eyes closed, looking very pained and possibly like she had been crying, or was about to cry. He stopped in front of her.

"Hey. Are you - ... I mean, do you want me to...." He stood there awkwardly for a few seconds. Oh, hell. She had been the one to make the first move earlier, so now he would. He took a couple of steps forward and tentatively put his arms around her.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

And, suddenly, Sirius was there. Arms slipping around her, sounding concerned, and there. Taking a small breath, she leaned her head forward a little. Not relaxing. Not speaking. But just the smallest inclination of her head to rest on his shoulder.

There were so many things she wanted to say. To tell him she was sorry. To rage against him. To let him know how hurt she was. To tell him she thought she was broken, somehow, and she wasn't quite sure how to fix it. To say she was tired of carrying around everything alone; that she wanted to let him in.

But she didn't know how to say any of that. Nothing came out. She was frustrated and tired and... Wanted to hit something in the face. Or hex something. Or...throw something off the astronomy tower. Something. She wanted to do something and she couldn't and it was making her crazy.

Straightening up, she pulled away. "I'm fine." Too many different emotions meant she could feel none. At a loss for a moment, she turned and started down the hallway. "I'm not feeling well. Tell Harry I'll owl him later."

Library. Hospital Wing. Office. It didn't matter. She was going somewhere where she didn't have to feel. Maybe she could find some clarity. Right now she just felt like she was grasping at sand, trying to find a foothold, and falling anyway.

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

She did not have diarrhea. She probably did need to sleep, and so maybe in a sense she truly wasn't feeling well, but Sirius certainly knew her well enough to know when something was bothering her. When something was wrong. And this didn't seem to be directed at him, at least not specifically, so he felt it was probably safe to follow her and refuse her denials.

He caught her lightly by the arm after a few steps. "You're not fine. Maybe we should go home." Together. The both of them. So she wouldn't go running off alone again.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Damn it, what was with everyone refusing to believe her? First Harry, now Sirius... There was a status quo and Lily didn't like that it was being uprooted.

"I don't need to be sent to my room like some naughty sprog who can't behave at the market," she hissed, eyes narrowing. "I said I was fine. Just... Just leave it, Sirius."

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sweet Merlin, this woman was wearing him out. "I'm not sending you to your room," he replied, his voice betraying his mental exhaustion. "I'm saying, let's both go back to our suite, together, yeah?"

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

"Why are you doing this?" She had stopped, at least. "Seriously. Why? Can't you see I'm..." Turning, she looked up at him. Lily looked tired and old and worn out. There was some flicker of raw pain in her eyes and she studied him. "I have nothing for you right now, Sirius. I can barely keep myself from breaking down. There is nothing left, all right? Nothing. So please. Stop. I'm not going to...to take a nap and feel better. I don't know if I'll... I can't..."

Again she asked it, voice cracking slightly. "Why are you doing this?"

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius jammed his hands in his pockets. "Doing what, exactly?"

He wanted to tell her that if she needed to break down, maybe she should just fucking break down and stop running around the school like a maniac, screaming at the people who cared most about her, but for now he figured it was best to take things one step at a time.