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“Honey? Why are you calling me so late?” It’s not how he usually answers the phone, (not that he usually uses a phone) but it’s also not someone who usually calls him. At least not anymore- especially at 2 in the morning.
“James?” Her voice comes through the phone hollow and scratchy, followed up with something that sounds like stifled sobs.
“Honey, why are you crying, is everything okay?” he whispers into the phone, sitting up abruptly.
“I’m sorry for calling. I just needed to hear your voice. I probably shouldn’t have called. I-
I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t think I can do this. I can’t- I can’t-” She’s cut off again by another, louder sob. The sound alone cuts him to the quick. He hurriedly, but quietly,
rolls himself out of bed.
“Shh, honey, it’s really good to hear your voice. But, hold on Angel.” he whispers. He pulls on a hoodie and does his best to silence his footsteps in the dark. Walking down the hall he all but holds his breath until he pulls open the french door to the balcony just enough to slip through.
“Sorry, I had to take this outside, it’s a little hard to talk right now.” he knows she’ll understand what he means. The hitch in her breath confirms she does.
“Godric, James,” she’s not even trying to hide the fact that she’s crying anymore. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry. I’ll just go. I don’t know- I’m- I shouldn’t’ve-“
“Lily.” he said it firmly, but not unkindly. “It’s okay. Take a breath, honey. What’s going on?”
He grips the railing on the balcony, the cold iron grounding him from the millions of thoughts running through his head. Is she still safe? Is she in trouble? Did she need him? His help? He hadn’t heard from her in months- over a year by now? He can’t place the last time they had any sort of communication.
He takes steadying breaths himself, knowing in a very real way that whatever she says next is going to slice through him. Just the fact that she’s calling him is throwing him off kilter.
She’s silent for longer than he’d like. Before she inhales like she’s trying to pull her voice out
through the sobs.
“I dreamt of you. Of us, of what we should have been.” She hiccups in her barely under controlled sobs, but pushes through.
“We were back at the Hollow, in our cottage. We had painted the living room yellow like we had planned. There was no war, no prophecy. We were just living. Our friends were there, Godric, it's been so long since I’ve been able to talk to anyone. And we were happy. Just all of us together. The way it should have been.” She pauses, and he can perfectly imagine the crinkle in her brow, the way she presses her lips together to keep from completely losing it all to wrecking sobs. He lets her take her time, while trying not to picture what she’s saying. As if he hadn’t imagined it thousands of times himself.
“We had a little baby. A baby boy.” She whispers it so quietly he almost wishes he hadn’t heard it.
Because, that. That had been everything he wanted. The love of his life by his side, starting a family. Their friends had called them crazy. Wanting such normal things so young and in the middle of a war. But they were going to do it. Voldemort was not going to take that from them. He could tear the rest of the world apart, but they were not going to sacrifice their dreams for him too.
It’s ironic, then, that it was actually someone in the order that had ultimately been the end of them. Trewlaney couldn’t predict the weather to save her life, couldn’t read the stars, and often made up gruesome fates for people around her to compensate. But when she did have a vision- or as Sirius called them fits- that led to real prophesies. They were more sure to come true than the next full moon.
“I dream of it too, honey. A little baby with my hair and your eyes.” The emotion in his voice, evident now. So he doesn’t say more. He lets the moment be what it is.
Grief.
Mourning for the life stolen from them.
He does his very best to keep his breathing steady though. This isn’t the first time they’ve talked like this. But it is the first time that she’s called him. Usually it’s him that is regretting the way life has turned out. He had always worn his heart on his sleeve. Never believing that he wouldn’t have his way in life, because he had never had something he loved so much torn from him.
Not like Lily.
Lily is the strong one. She had lived through losing her parents, and then her grandparents who had taken her in after. She lost her muggle identity, along with her sister, to the wizarding world, only to have the wizarding world reject her. She lost her best friend to a blood purest cult that wanted her dead. She lost everything she had once held dear to her.
James, their relationship, was supposed to be the one thing that held true. Instead, he was just one more thing taken from her.
She had called him entitled growing up, and he had been. He had grown up since then. But it ate him up alive- how so much of basic human rights she was actually entitled to that she was constantly denied. He was given too much, while she had too much taken from her.
So he feels a deep need to show her that he’s here for her the way she always shows up for him. To show her that even in the smallest way, he will still be here for her in this. Because maybe he had it coming, to be denied what he wanted in life. (I’m sure Snape could write volumes on how he deserved this.) But she should have been given the world. She never deserved a prophecy pointing to her to be the sacrificial lamb to save the wizarding world. That she would lay down her life to save their child- and in turn save the wizarding world. She deserved to be loved and to be surrounded by truly loyal friends. Instead she was denied all the good that should have been there for her.
“I think about what could have been way too much.” The words escape from him, but it feels good to admit it to someone.
But this isn’t about him. So he stays on the line, steady. And listens to her sobs slow, waits for her to find herself again before he asks.
“Does he know you’re talking to me? I don’t want to cause a fight.”
She sucks in a breath.
“Benoit? No. He’s not here tonight. Out of town for work. I don’t usually dream of England when he’s here. It’s when he’s gone that I can’t pretend anymore that I’ve fully moved on.”
It hurts.
It hurts so much to hear her talking about how they’ve had to move on from each other when they never wanted to. He doesn’t want to know about her new life in France. Her long term boyfriend Benoit Delacour, who replaced him. He hates that she found someone that could give her the safety he wanted to be. He hates it, but he’s grateful for it too. She really did deserve a life of love and happiness.
“I’m sorry, angel.” He’s so sorry for the state of the world she was forced to live in.
“It’s not your fault, James. It’s just the way things have to be.”
She waits a beat before asking, “What about Emmaline? You said you had to take this outside, I didn’t interrupt anything? She’s not going to be mad?”
“No, I don’t think she has a clue. She barely understands how a muggle phone works anyway.” As expected, Lily responds with a judgmental grunt that he can vividly see the eye roll that goes with it.
“She’s just sleeping in the other room.”
And there’s the crux of it out in the open. No matter how good it is to hear her voice. To hear her say his name. This was the plan. They had to publicly and almost violently break up. To sever ties with each other so that if the prophecy ever did make it back to the death eaters, that Voldemort wouldn’t even connect them together. This kept them safe. It kept Lily safe. They had to break up and very clearly be with other people. But Merlin, talking to her made it so hard to be faithful to the plan. He never wanted to say goodbye. Not then, and not now.
The line had been quiet for longer than either of them realized. Both wanting to live in this
moment as long as they could.
“James?” Her voice was small. Not like before. Not when he knew she was crying. This was different. This was the voice she used when she finally accepted that he wouldn’t let her die for a world that didn’t accept her. His anxiety skyrocketed again hearing it.
“What honey?” he says, forcing his words to be even.
“I think he’s going to propose.”
Vertigo.
Instant vertigo.
His girl. His angel, engaged to someone else. And he couldn’t do a thing about it.
“I don’t know for sure. And I don’t know what I’m going to say. But I needed you to hear
from me. I-” she’s cut off by her own hyperventilating.
And he knows.
He knows through the dizziness what he has to say. If he could just get ahold on his own thoughts.
Gripping the iron railing with quite literally all his strength he does what he needs to.
“Lily, honey. Listen to me. It’s going to be okay. Honey, I know this is never how we pictured where we’d be. And I know this phone call is not our real lives. No matter how much we wish it was. But I stand by the plan. You deserve a beautiful life. And France is your future, angel. I’m still here, fighting for you to have a home to come home to, someday. But we both still need to live our lives. If he does- ask you- you answer in the best way for you. And I will be the first to congratulate you. Or what was it that Petunia said? You offer the bride ‘best wishes’?”
That pulled a laugh out of her, weak as it was.
“You deserve happiness Lily. And I will always be sorry it wasn’t me that could provide that for you.”
“I wanted it to be you, James.” she whispers, “I will never forgive the world for taking you from me too.”
“I know honey. Otherwise, you wouldn't be calling me so late.”
***
He stayed on the balcony thinking about Lily longer than he should have. Definitely longer than anyone in a committed relationship to someone else should have. When he finally found himself crawling back into bed, Emmaline stirred in her sleep.
“ ‘S everything ok James?” her sleepy voice slurring as she pulled him close to warm him up. He tries to stay in the moment with her. The present is where he belongs.
“Shh, yes Emmy. Sirius just needed to talk- had a nightmare.” He whispered back as he nestled into her. She tangled herself up into him. She gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“You’re such a good man, Jim” she said while laying back down.
James tried to stifle the guilt of lying to her. He is a good man.
But not a perfect one.
He slides the muggle phone back under his mattress, where it won't be found, but close by in case he hears from the lips of an angel, again.