WHO: James & Lily Potter
WHAT: ;_____________; pretty much describes it
WHERE: Potter Residence, Liverpool
WHEN: After the ordeal with her parents
The Potter household seemed eerily quiet for an early Monday morning. There was no shower running, no food being cooked downstairs, no clothes flying out of the closet... there was an alarm clock, of course, but that had been ringing nonstop for the past half hour or so. It certainly wasn't doing anything to move Lily Potter out of bed. Truthfully, she'd tuned it out completely by now, simply pulling the covers up over herself and pushing her face into a feather pillow.
She wasn't sleeping, but that didn't matter much at all, because she didn't remember having a wink of sleep yet in days. Her staying in bed had nothing to do with being sleepy, or being lazy, or even finding it hard to go back to work after her honeymoon. No, simply--Lily hadn't left her bedroom since Friday evening, and she wasn't planning on doing it any time soon. This bedroom was the only place that her parents--no, those fucking--those murderers--hadn't been. When she was in here, she didn't have to think about how they had tainted her home because they hadn't tainted this room. As long as she didn't move from her spot, they couldn't touch her.
Over the incessant ringing of the alarm, Lily soon recognized a different sound. Covers moving, feet hitting the ground... she felt the weight shift in the mattress, but didn't look up. If he could get up, good for him. Bloody fucking good for him. She buried her face further in the pillow and folded her hands over the back of her neck, lacing her fingers together. He could get up if he wanted to, whatever.
It wasn’t as if James wanted to get up, he just knew he had to. They’d taken a few days extra off from work to recuperate, blaming it on food poisoning from Fiji which his healer counterparts had laughed at, but…he didn’t exactly care. Well. He cared enough to actually get up and get dressed after putting it off as long as possible, but he didn’t care if the other healers teased him, if he got stuck with the shitty shifts, or had to clean up vomit for the rest of his life. He didn’t care. The only thing he could focus on was the miserable woman lying beside him, who was ignoring him as if he was simply a gust in the wind.
He didn’t mind it, though. If James could have it his way, Lily would never have to do anything she didn’t want to again. They could survive in this house, they didn’t need to go out. He had plenty of money from his inheritance; there was no real reason to go to work besides being a helping member of society. But hadn’t they already done enough? Both of them have gone to hell and back, and for what? To be forced to get up early in the morning and join the drudgery of those lucky enough never to lay eyes upon Lord Voldemort and his followers?
He didn’t care.
James looked down at his feet, shoulders slumped and he wondered how long he’d been sitting there, when the alarm went off again. Nine minutes. The alarm went off, rang for a minute, went into snooze, then nine minutes later it started the same annoying pattern. James glared at the blinking red numbers as if they were the reason he was so irritable and that they were the ones that were forcing him to get up and do things he didn’t want to---fuck it, no one was allowed to---not any fucking more and---without a second thought he swiped the alarm clock off the table harshly and sent it crashing into the wall. The satisfying sound of the clock falling to pieces was enough to make James finally stand up and cross to the dresser, where he began rummaging through his clothes, grumbling.
Lily could have nine more minutes.
The sound of the smashed alarm clock didn't move Lily an inch, either. On any normal day, James' burst of anger would have shocked and probably frightened her a little bit, but the truth was that right now she just didn't care. It was a horrible feeling, she was absolutely disgusted with herself, but that was how it was--she didn't care, she didn't care, she didn't care, she didn't care. Not about work, not about friends, not about James--the last part was enormously guilting, but the guilt never lasted long. No single emotion lasted very long in Lily's mind lately because that was the way to get through this. If she could just... lay here in numbness, uncaring, until she died, it would be perfect. She'd never have to deal with any of this crap that they called the world.
So she was suicidal, so the fuck what? What the fuck was the point in living? Nothing, she decided--she couldn't even remember what happy felt like. Until the rest of the world could feel that too, she didn't care what they branded her because she didn't give a shit. They didn't have to understand, just leave her in peace to get on with it.
Nine minutes came and went, and while there were sounds of her husband getting dressed and ready still, the shrill bells of the alarm clock did not chime again. Lily thought idly about how on a normal day, she would be leaving for work in less than twenty minutes. It would have surprised her old self to realize that she didn't care about that, either. A lot of her now would surprise her old self, she imagined.
What she wouldn't give to be her old self again. As it were, that person was long gone. She was shooting for the next best thing.
“Lily.”
James felt like he hadn’t used his voice in years. It was a lie of course; he’d spoken to Dumbledore last night, even if it had only been in short, one or two word sentences. The headmaster had taken the liberty of putting his own set of wards on the house, and informed James that one member of the Order would be on guard for at least the next month or two. He was grateful, somewhat, at least, he attempted to fake gratefulness to the headmaster. It didn’t fucking matter what spells were protecting them, who was on guard; if Voldemort wanted to get his hands on them, he would, and he could.
It didn’t matter, they were never going to be safe.
He leaned against the doorframe, watching his Lily’s listless and heaved a sigh. She was going to get fired if she didn’t show up, and that would cause some suspicion. They needed to get back to normal, it was the only way that they’d somehow make it through this. It was hard to imagine that they’d only been married a little over two weeks; they were both completely different people, and as hard as it was to say, James wasn’t sure if he could handle it. It felt like too much to get over, especially since he’d never seen Lily behave this way in the seven years he’d known her.
When her parents had---first died, because to James they had died all over again when their faces had melted away---she was sobbing all night, but the next morning she’d forced herself up and gone home for the funeral. When she’d been kidnapped, he held her and she trudged back. They’d cried when he’d returned from his own capture and look how well the rest of their school year had turned out---it felt like he was remembering the story of a different pair of people, not of himself and the woman (he couldn’t even call her his wife, anymore) in the bed.
“Lily,” James said a bit rougher, because she had to get up. He wasn’t going to do this alone, he didn’t care if she hated him, but if he was going to trudge along, so was she, she’d signed up for this shit when they exchanged their vows. He grabbed the end of the blanket, tugging it bit further down her body every few seconds. “Lily.”
The sheets and comforter being pulled off her body threw Lily out of limbo and back into the here and now, but she still refused to move from her spot. Whatever, James, I can do without bloody covers, she thought spitefully. Like he really thought that was going to do a thing. Like he really thought that anything he could possibly say could motivate her to get up and act normal and like nothing had happened. Here was the news flash: she wasn't normal. She had thought at one point that you couldn't call normal what she was before, but she hadn't even known what she had. That was perfectly, completely, blissfully normal compared to this.
No normal person desired to starve, dehydrate, and wear themselves out until they just died. Lily was far past being able to act normal.
"Fuck off," she croaked, her voice caught and muffled by the pillow. Her throat was dry and her voice was hoarse, but it wasn't like it mattered anyway. The vehemence she had meant wasn't even there, she just wasn't in the mood to make enough effort. "I'm not leaving."
If this had been a month ago, a year ago, six years ago, James would’ve felt like a kicked puppy and wandered off. Lily Evans cursing at him always bruised his ego, and it was worse than actually telling him to go away. Of course he faked that the words didn’t hurt him, but he always ended up grumbling and hexing some random Slytherin he’d passed because of it. He wished it had been a week ago, because then the anger that had so quickly boiled would not have managed to make him spout off the nasty words.
“No, you fuck off, Lily,” James growled, coming to the side of the bed and taking her elbow. Part of him wanted to pull her out of the bed and onto the floor, just to get her off the fucking bed; she hadn’t moved since they’d returned to the house and while ten minutes ago he’d been fine in letting her lie, the sight of her just being a fucking lump irritated him greatly, “Get out of fucking bed and stop being a goddamn log.”
She wasn’t leaving, right, what was she going to do, lie there and rot? Like hell he was going to let her do that. If he had to deal with the slings and arrows of life, then so did she---because---god damn it, he needed her to, he needed Lily to do it too or else James was quite sure he wouldn’t be able to. “Get up.”
To tell the truth, she was kind of surprised by the sudden anger in James' voice and actions--it was the first emotion she'd felt that wasn't just lasting for a short burst. No, maybe she wasn't just kind of surprised, maybe she was really surprised. For a man that had let her be for so long, it was surprising, and really confusing that he was now forcing her up. But it was also, inexplicably, extremely pissing her off.
Feeling an incomprehensibly strong rage blind her, Lily threw her elbow out of James' hand, probably smacking some part of him along the way, she couldn't tell and she didn't care. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired and slightly hazed, but the glare she gave him when she finally looked up from the pillow was nothing but clear-cutting, dagger-throwing anger.
"You can't make me do shit, Potter," she spat, and now she really did make the effort, now she really did want to sound hacked off, because she wanted him to know that she meant every last word of what she was saying. "Go run off to your job and have a bloody life, but I swear to God if you dare touch me again, I'm going to blow your head off the Muggle way."
He had no fucking idea--what kind of gall did he have to tell her to get up? He didn't understand, no one would understand this and--fuck him, fuck everyone, she was done with this shit and not even James could stop her. Not if she had anything to say about it.
He wanted to hit her, he wanted to grab her by the arms and shake her and it was horribly upsetting that those thoughts had crossed his mind for even a second, but James was so angry that he didn't dwell. This was his---his wife and he shouldn't feel like this but he did and the only thing that was stopping him were Lily's eyes---they were bloodshot, but they were still Lily's, and it reminded him that she was still in there somewhere and that if he did something drastic now, he'd never get her back, even if it didn't feel like something he wanted. Furthest from it, really; she'd hit him and it hadn't been in that playful manner he was so used to. She had hit him and meant to hurt him, and was threatening to do it again.
James clenched his fists, matching Lily's glare. What could he do now that he'd decided to keep his anger in check? Go to work, disappear into the hospital and be glad for his long ass shift (that's what he got for taking so many holiday days) because that meant he didn't have to deal with this shit. A part of his chest ached, hating the fact that he didn't want to be around Lily, but the overwhelming feeling of---no better word for it, disgust consumed him and James turned away quickly and stormed out the door, making sure to slam it hard enough to make the walls shake.
He didn't care.
