Chapter Text
The date was the 12th October 2024 when she delivered the divorce papers. A completely ordinary date, in fact, the day was almost so ordinary that not a thing in the world changed. However, for James, the realisation came all too late that his wife’s - now ex-wife’s - mind was made up, and he had assumed that the rest of the world would feel it too.
For some reason he had believed it to be some kind of horrible joke, even though deep down he knew Lily would never joke about something so serious. Lily was an incredible, beautiful beam of light in James’ eyes, and he could not envision his life without them being together. She was the smartest person in the year when they were in school together, and excelled in almost every subject, except foreign languages due to her thick Birmingham accent, and was the kindest soul.
Of course he understood the reasoning. Lily had spoken to him roughly a month before the finalisation of the divorce and told him that she was a lesbian. She ensured him that she still loved him, even though not romantic, and would always be there for him. When he asked why she was even with him in the first place, Lily calmly explained that she had been ignoring - even accidentally - any sort of romantic attraction towards women, and believed James was who she was supposed to fall in love with.
James signed the papers that day.
Lily had already moved out, and into a spare bedroom of her best friend's apartment with the money she had, luckily, saved.
Mary Macdonald was a harsh woman, even through school, but had a kind heart. As she liked to say, she was just brutally honest and direct. She told people what they needed to hear, and so when Lily came over one night to explain all of the doubts she was having, Mary was just as honest as she always had been.
There was a reason Lily had gone to Mary with her troubles, bar the fact that she was her best friend, and it was that whatever Mary had to say, Lily was sure that she needed to hear it. Regardless of whether it was that the doubts were common for being married so young, or that it needed to end, Lily was so grateful for it.
Mary told Lily that night that she could move in until she found somewhere more permanent, no matter how long it may take. Lily was welcome to stay forever if she wished.
Lily insisted on paying rent even though Mary constantly tried to refuse. But they finally reached an agreement of Lily paying for the food shopping, as well as takeaways obviously, while Mary would cover the rest.
James, however, stayed at their home alone.
He didn’t understand how Lily leaving could drain the whole house of any character, but that is what happened. He wallowed in self-pity, with alcohol guiding him for that month after she left.
His best friends, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, had all tried to help him out of this spiral, but to no avail.
It was only Lily who was able to do such a thing.
On the day she delivered the papers, she stayed for the rest of the day and helped James clean up the house, shave his face, and threw away all of the alcohol still there.
She sat down on the couch and spoke to him over a cup of tea.
“James, I'm really worried for you. I don’t want to watch you waste away like this.” She paused, taking a sip of her tea, and fiddling with the mug in her hands “Please help me out here, go get out of the house, meet some other people, let the boys take you out somewhere. I know they’ve been trying.”
James met her eyes over the top of his mug. They were filled with concern, her eyebrows tilted upwards like how she only does when she’s secretly panicking, and it broke James’ heart to know he’d put it there. “Ok Lils, I’ll call Sirius and we’ll go out somewhere. He knows all the good clubs.” He responded.
Lily let out a relieved sigh, “I’ll grab your phone from the kitchen, I know you’ll avoid calling if I don’t make you do it while I’m here.” She winked while standing up. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
James looked around his living room when she left. It was so full of Lily that he didn’t know how he could keep living there without her presence. She really did command a whole room, which made it even more noticeable when she left it. It was like a black hole was occupying the space she used to take up, and it was sucking everything in, as if the world couldn’t continue without her.
Yes. James was definitely going to have to move out.
He luckily had a fortune that he had inherited from his parents, hence why he could own a home at the age of 23. It was a nice home too, had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, the living room, as well as a large open plan kitchen-diner. James loved his home, but he just could not stand to stay when it held so many memories of his marriage to Lily.
Lily walked back in the room not even five minutes later to find James silently crying, still sitting exactly how she left him, almost as if he hadn’t noticed the tears himself.
“Hey, hey, it's ok James, I’m here.” She said softly wrapping an arm around him, rubbing her thumb in circles on his shoulder.
James blinked up at her, as if he’d just come out of a trance, “I’m ok Lils. Here, pass me the phone and I’ll call Pads now.” He said while taking the phone out of her hand.
“Hey James, are you sure-” She was cut off by the sound of the phone ringing and Sirius answering almost immediately.
“Hey Pads, how’re you doing?” James asked down the phone.
“Err.. I’m fine Prongs. Why? What's up? How are you? Last time I saw you, you were a right mess mate.” Sirius replied hesitantly, clearly not understanding James’ perky tone.
“I’m good Sirius, actually I’m great, fantastic even. Lily’s round and she thought it’d be a good idea to have a marauders night out, just like we used to, and I thought it’d be a great idea. So? What d’ya say lad? Fancy a night in town?” James was rambling, clearly to compensate for his bad mood, but Sirius was just happy that James was finally leaving the house.
“Yeah mate sounds like a plan, I’ll text Wormy to let him know. What time should we come around? Does nine sound good?” Sirius said, being wary, but also excited, they hadn’t had a night out with just the boys in a long time. Probably since James and Lily got married 3 years ago, as the girls always tagged along with them.
“Yeah nine’s good for me, let me know if Pete can make it. I’ll see you later.” James hung up the phone, and started rambling to Lily. “Oh my God , Lils, why did I just do that? I don’t want to go out clubbing, I don’t have anything to wear, I can’t leave the house, I look awful, I smell fucking disgusting, my hair’s greasy-”
“Woah woah, James.” Lily paused, just thankful that he’d stopped talking. “Calm down. Let’s get you a shower, yeah? That solves at least two of those problems.”
Lily walked James upstairs, and into the bathroom, turning on the shower and letting it heat up. She made him get in the shower, and rummaged through his wardrobe whilst he was in there.
She found a white linen button up shirt that fit James perfectly, and a pair of wide-legged black jeans. This was it, she thought to herself. The girls would be all over him and it would cheer him up to look good and get attention. Perfect.
James emerged from the bathroom about 20 minutes after going in, rubbing his hair with a towel whilst another was loosely draped around his hips.
He paused when he saw the clothes laid out on the bed, looking up at Lily. “What? No red? I thought you always said I looked the best in red Lils.”
“You do look smashing in red James, but tonight is about getting you back out there. I moved out a month ago and you’ve hardly left the house since. You need to get your individuality back, make tonight about you. Not about what I like about you.” She replied, after giving a little chuckle at James’ comment.
James sighed, taking another look at the clothes. “Ok Lils, give me a sec to get dressed, then you can take a look at your creation.” Lily started to leave the room before James stopped her “Oh, wait, you haven’t picked any shoes.”
Lily turned back to James, making eye contact and winking “The battered pair of red converse that you love. I promise. It’ll be perfect” She turned around and walked straight back out of the room, closing the door behind her.
James finished towel drying his hair so it was still slightly damp, and a complete, untameable mess - as per usual. He took off his glasses and cleaned off the splashes of water on the lenses then put them back on.
After getting dressed, including the converse, James just looked at himself in the mirror that stood in the corner of his room.
He was almost unrecognisable compared to the shell of this past month.
He shouted Lily back in, and asked whether to wear lots of jewellery or none at all, and whether it should be silver or gold, and whether this was too much or that wasn’t enough.
He settled on a handful of chunky gold rings that Lily had assured him would have everyone swooning over him, and a fair few necklaces stacked up over one another.
James thought it looked scruffy, all of the jewellery overlapping each other, but Lily reassured him that it was scruffy in a cool, laid back kind of way.
Eventually they made their way downstairs and ate a tub of leftovers from the fridge for tea.
Once they had finished eating, it was already approaching nine, and Sirius had just sent a text saying that he and Remus were on their way over.
James rushed to clean up the mess from their food, whilst Lily helped, before she said she had to get home and said goodbye.
Not even five minutes after Lily had left, there was a loud, consistent banging on the door, which could only be Sirius.
James opened the door and let his friends in, and Sirius just barged past, heading straight into the kitchen. Remus apologised on his behalf, and explained that some extended family member had tried to get in contact again, asking for Sirius’ inheritance from his uncle that they believed he was ‘unworthy’ of receiving.
James assured him it was ok and told Remus to follow into the kitchen.
“James, I’m not being funny but where the fuck is all the alcohol? I need a bloody drink right now.” Sirius half-shouted in between rummaging through all the cupboards.
“Erm.. yeah about that.” James paused, trying to think of a way to explain. “Lily threw it all out when she saw the state I was in.” He blurted out.
Sirius paused and looked up at him, raising an eyebrow in question “And you didn’t think to tell us this so we could buy some on the way around??”
James lifted his hands up in surrender “ Hey , I’ll just text Pete right now and ask him to buy a couple bottles on the way over.” he said, almost questioning, with the way his voice went higher at the end.
He pulled out his phone and texted Peter that exact thing, whilst also apologising and saying he’ll pay him back.
Peter arrived fifteen minutes later, with multiple different types of alcohol, after panicking in the shop when he realised he never asked what they wanted. James gave Peter a tenner out of his wallet, as did Sirius and Remus, before saying he should’ve mentioned what they wanted first.
They all chilled around James’ kitchen for the next hour or so, always with a drink in hand, just chatting about their lives.
Remus had a group of old men tip him close to £100 the other night at the pub he works at, and it finally meant he could afford to buy a limited edition book series that he’d been saving for.
Peter had been promoted at his office job, so he was now entitled to more holidays in a year, and was actually managing a team of people for the media publicity in the company.
Sirius, however, whilst having a good time at work, was just complaining repeatedly about his distant cousin and her entitled husband, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, who had been harassing him for at least the past week concerning his inheritance.
He was convinced that his Uncle Alphard’s death was suspicious and that the Malfoys had expected to be the sole inheritors. Instead, Sirius inherited every penny from Alphard, including an apartment in Camden Town, that Sirius had since moved into with Remus.
James told Sirius that they would soon realise that they were not going to get anything from him and they would leave him alone.
Soon enough, it was nearing 11pm and the marauders were going out.