THE DOLL COLLECTOR
by Oh Prudence

I do not own Harry Potter, however, the entirety of this plot and
unfamiliar characters are mine. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.
JP/LE. Takes place in sixth year.

Opposites.

They were night and day,
a wretched midnight and a sacred sunrise,
a rugged wildflower nested in a bed of daisies.

But the stars had them destined to collide.

When James Potter sees two pretty eyes crayoned with those pretty blues or pretty browns, he won't stop until they're his.

The women, they'll slither to him, hungry appetite and all – he'll never have to lift a finger.

One by one he'll choose his woman based on buttery smiles, and two by two, they'll fight until she's the one.

He knows his women – how her robotics work, what prompts her to bend and keel, what melts her heart into liquid stupidity, thicker than the average wet dream fantasy. He'll pollute her and damage her and cut her up into soppy strings of confetti until that heart inked on parchment is completely torn by his own writhing fingers.

He'll touch, she'll bruise – it's a skin to skin ratio filled with the gaps of lust and sex and empty-hearted, broken people terribly devastated by the world, and devastating the world in return.

Daft women, stupid women; Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor women – they were beautiful once, but after he's done with them, they're the poisoned serpent's fang, and no one will even want to bat an eye to whatever's left of them.

But in the meantime… he liked to dance with his woman, spin her around, lift her for everyone to see and adore. He liked to spoil her and take moonlit walks across a field of unthorned roses until that morning dew presses against her dress. He liked to place that pointy figurine of hers on his golden shelf for the world to gasp in shock. But when she's at that tip of the rollercoaster, when she's inches from falling, she thinks he'll be waiting with eagle's wings, but then…but then, he pulls the rug.

He ends it.

Everyone even knows why.

It's the same story over and over again – it's no bedtime story, no model story, no moral story waiting to be whispered on to future heroes and superman.

He's no superman, despite what others may think, and he'll claim with a dignified voice, he's only a realist – a fucked-up and needs-to-be sober realist. And according to his realist persona: "Girls don't last. They're made to be adorned until her veil wears off and vanishes and melts. And all that's left to show is what she really is: fake."

His portrait's an amateur, only a preserver, a figment of the great Gatsby waiting wildly for his perfect daisy. This daisy, James knows who she is, but he'll never have her, never completely have ALL of her, because he's 'a fucked up whoring son of a bitch', as once proclaimed by this Daisy herself. And never once on his precious golden shelf has a doll with a pretty green nor a pretty red danced or twirled or smiled her glorious face for him.

And goddamn, that made him INCREDIBLY hard.

So he's in the Astronomy Tower, right now, alone, smoking; it's a gin and tonic kind of night, which means he's drunk as hell, which means he's emotionally raw, which means he's pitying himself. Another wilting weed is what's left of his relationship with Brenda or Meredith or—god, does the name really matter? Does it even matter? Because all this is, is a cycle – fancy, chase, fuck. Fancy, chase, fuck.

There's a part of him, a teensy part of him, that wishes it was something more than that. Maybe… throw in a few cuddles or two. Maybe… take the girl on a proper date. But he can't. Because when it comes to the end, the finger points to Daisy. It's always her: her and her initials are branded into the empty hallows of his body, using the edges of his cynical bones as stencil.

And they mock him, every time he falls because she's deceived everyone, everyone including him—

"She's no doll," he realizes, a shot of gin as his only audience – a thrill ignites his nostrils, choking his brains and swallowing his lungs. He wants her. He wants her. HE WANTS HER. But when it comes to the end, wanting is not good enough. "She's an angel…" he says to the sky. "A gorgeous, but terrifying angel."

And he watches the painted blacks and the yellows, wondering which one of these fallen colors she's come from.

Jackie Lloyd has the milky porcelain skin, those worldly 1940s lips, the silent film eyes – regardless of her case or her flaws or her vulgar mouth, there's that bubble in the air of why isn't she the one being praised or admired on James Potter's infamous pedestal. Others not even close to her beauty and tongue have rolled all over that Chaser's pedestal, so why not she?

She walks into the Great Hall, painted nails at sides, polished hairband tucked behind hoops, platform boots clacking against concrete – it's a mirror of the girls who've once stood beside him.

Her robe is green. Her hair is red. Isn't that enough? Besides the house of her sorting and the mediocre grades she's giving, isn't that enough?

No. It will never be.

Jackie is pretty, yes, but she's naïve, and she strides up to breakfast that morning with her heels and butterfly, flared sleeves. She storms up to him, twirling her hair, deluding herself they'd make the cutest babies with her red locks and his dark locks and her doubly genetic gifts and his usable large coc—

"James."

She's blunt too. He never liked blunt.

"James, I need you to take me to Hogsmeade tonight."

Sirius glares at her, she's crossed the line, and his next five words confirm: "Lloyd, you need to leave."

"Fuck off, Black!"

Teenage 'oohs' creates a symphony out of the surrounding Gryffindors.

"Look, Jackie, you really need to go, okay? James isn't—"

"—what happened to Malfoy?" James cuts in, tired of the daily routine, and he wears the mischief of a boy who knows he can outsmart this girl. "Not fulfilling your needs anymore, Jackie-bear?"

"Oh, of course not Jamesiepoo," and she says this sarcastically. She sounds like an old woman who's husband left her for another prima-donna.

(Which, technically, fit her case very well. But we'll expand on that later.)

"And why do you need me to take you to Hogsmeade? Why don't one of your other bastard Slytherins take you?"

She rolls her eyes. "Jay, please. I want to go with you. Besides, we're friends."

"MERLIN, Jackie. Me and you both know that shit isn't real!" He mocks her, though, he mocks himself too. Jackie Lloyd's face is painted with crimson, but the only crimson James Potter stares at belongs to the girl who's just walked in – diamond stunner Lily Evans.

(Though, to most men, Lily Evan's isn't actually a stunner. Pretty and cute and feisty, yes. But stunner? No.)

"James, I—"

"Look, Jackie," James voices a solemn tone. "I'm done with that shit. I have a girlfriend now. I'm serious about her."

"EXCUSE ME?"

"You heard me. I'm done with that shit. Your shit mostly though no offense. I'm done with these… games.

He catches not just her attention – ears of the nosey listen to the conversation playing before them. 'James Potter has a girlfriend? The hell's wrong with this world?'

Their eyes are careful to wander everywhere except on the heated exchange between Hogwart's former golden couple, but their shit-eating grins give them away and James swears a bet is taking place between Peter and Remus.

Shrugging, his eyes casually wander to his fellow red-haired Gryffindor who's just walked in. Jackie fails to notice his diverted attention, but she has one of those fake gasps in awes because why the hell does James Potter have a girlfriend when he could have Jackie Lloyd.

Sirius butts in with a mock of a laughter. "Why don't you walk away now, Jackie-bear? James is done with you. Done. Finished. It's over."

Lloyd walks away completely beat, completely reduced, and completely humiliated by a Gryffindor. Because let's just face it, who else is she going to get who's the equivalent of James Potter?

-:-

They're only kids. They fuck up. They fuck each other up too.

And they share a beautiful language with immoral city children and belligerent sea sailors who've sworn they've seen the world's travesty and riches all in the same scene.

Life, it's a comedic drama, really:

That being said, McKinnon graces the breakfast table with the splatter of pumpkin juice from her mouth while her young protégé snorts by her side. The entire Gryffindor table booms with laughter as the Slytherin redhead exits breakfast, reddened and embarrassed.

"Good ball sacks!" McKinnon shouts. "I never thought I'd see the day!"

A fifth year called Emmeline hoots beside her, dimpled cheeks emphasizes her innocent youth while an array of beautiful Americanisms flows a river on her tongue. "Is this the day pigs are flying?"

They laugh and ride on the likes of forty-one year old, cat-loving twins. Vance has idolized McKinnon ever since being childhood buddies, and they share the blood of sisters who weren't meant to be. They snort into their drinks, hiccup into their porridge, and fail to realize that Lily Evans stations behind them with hands on her hip, pouting, because she's missed all the fun.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, Lils! You've just missed it!" Emmeline submits to an unladylike laughter and helps the newcomer assemble into her seat. "Potter's just turned down Jackie! Says he's got himself a girlfriend now, can you believe that? A girlfriend!" She concludes, with a flutter of laughter that carries her and McKinnon off to a state called Ecstasy.

"He wants something 'real' now, supposedly," McKinnon's eyes roll.

Lily clicks her tongue. "Is that so?" Her eyes wander to where James sits, friends all gathered around. They make the briefest eye contact, a cryptic message they only know. But those silent words of no promises and secrets are cut short when She walks in.

When Potter's proclaimed new 'girlfriend' Meredith Judson – average figure and average locks and all – paces through Great Hall, she makes a good portion of the ladies at Hogwarts jealous. Judson isn't the prettiest (even though she's Gorgeous Lloyd's second cousin twice removed), she isn't the smartest (even though she's in Ravenclaw), but she is the epitome of kindness (because Lily Evans and her group di speak negative shenanigans from time to time).

Meredith, or 'Mer' as James affectionately murmurs, strides next to her a boyfriend. A chaste kiss is planted on his cheek, which shouldn't belong to her (according to Jackie), and she even hugs the other Three (contradictory to Peter's liking).

From six seats down, Lily can hear someone's voice growing louder by the second, but all she can do is feel her mind twisting and turning and twirling a million miles an hour into this loophole of reality. The train's crashed, she's realized: Potter's got himself a girlfriend. She can feel her cheeks, forehead, hair – all red and clammy with disgust.

"I don't get why he's with her," she's shaking her head. The reddening against her hairline doesn't go unnoticed by the two. "He's not even faithful!"

"I didn't know it was with Meredith!" Emmeline pipes up, watching the couple of the week touch and laugh.

"You know, now that I think about it, I… think it's sweet," swoons Marlene, "I mean, Meredith's a nice girl, and maybe what James needs in his life is someone nice. Someone who's sweet and giving," a beam grows on her face.

"Oh she's sweet. And she's fucking giving alright," Lily flicks her hair back. With a small tilt to the head, she helps herself to a spot of breakfast, mindless of Marlene and Emmeline's silent exchange behind her back. By now their laughter is gone, and a lone question remains: since when did shestart caring?

-:-

"You slept with a Slytherin?" Her scream vibrates between the solid walls of the castle, he's pretty sure those Edinburgh tourists hear them.

"Please… please, don't be upset." He's desperate. "That was before our time!"

"And what does that mean?" She's screaming.

He can't answer to that… she's about to slap him so he does answer to that.

"When I was stupid and reckless."

But that's not the answer she was hoping for, so her feet start prying away and her shoulder starts facing him. She stops midway when she feels his familiar touch rest firmly on her shoulder.

"Don't walk away. Please, Meredith, don't…" James begs.

"Why, James? Give me a reason to stay."

Her backs turned, his eyes lowered, and her heart's drumming a sad, little rock 'n roll song against her chest – wild, rigorous, and totally out of place.

She's waiting to hear three little words, but he can't say them, not just yet, and she can't admit it that he's saved it for someone else.

He can't say it. He doesn't belong there, standing side by side with her.

Everyone knows he's saved those Three Little Words for someone else, somebody who isn't Meredith Judson and definitely not Jackie Lloyd. So, today, he doesn't say it.

And in that minute, she begins to understand. And he starts giving her those sympathetic eyes, the ones she's heard girls dread. So she starts running – fast, and his arms can't, won't, don't even grab her. She races down through the corridor, and he doesn't know what to do, and she's waiting for him to run after her with some hope left, but he's still rooted to the floor.

And James is still thinking.

So Meredith stops running.

There's no use, is there? They both hear the silent sound of her shattered hope crunching beneath her feet, as she now walks to her dorm - pitiful.

He reacts, too late, and she doesn't even hear the whisper from his mouth: "I'm sorry."

-:-

He's sneaks to the Astronomy Tower with another girl that night – a hit and run habit he's formed over the years because it was always with her he runs off to after another damaged escapade. It's a gin and tonic kind of night, which means he'll be drunk as hell, which means he'll be sentimentally sober, which means she'll be sitting beside him, watching him obliterate himself into that whitewashed routine. And it's ironic, really, because all this time when he could've made up with Meredith, he sits with the same person who's messed him up from the beginning—

Daisy.

"So you slept with a Slytherin huh. I should've guessed," and the devil herself speaks, mouth playing a twitch.

"You angry?" he teases.

Lily pauses, thinks for a moment, waits for the emotional light bulb to tell her if she is or isn't. They're friends, so that equals… yes. Yes she is jealous.

"You know, when she walked in this morning, honest to Merlin, I wanted to slap her, just because she's so fucking controlling and demanding of the whole place. But honestly James, do give a second thought about it – why would I be mad? You have bigger problems – you drink TOO much, and god, have you forgotten about your girlfriend? Probably royally pissed right now – both literally and emotionally."

He tips the Firewhiskey they've shared all night to his lips. Goddamn, he thinks, it was just a 'yes' or 'no' question. He would've even taken a 'sod off, Potter' coming from her.

And for fuck's sakes, he does not have a drinking problem!

He presses his back against the stone wall and he observes her. His mind's on the other continent and not with Meredith whenever his daisy's around.

Her small frame, warm under his dark cloak, gives him a sense of pride as those magnificent lips lick and splash together quietly. She tilts her closed lashes to the sky and its a freckled mirror of stars that glow on her face. It takes the breath out of him – seeing something this beautiful, and he's about to say he's never seen anything more beautiful, but he catches himself. He needs to say something else first.

"Lily," he licks his lips. "What would you say if I told you that I don't think I have a girlfriend anymore?"

Shit, that came out wrong, so very very wrong. And those bright greens he loves so much flutters open and gives him an unbelieving stare. "What do you mean?"

"I'm saying," and he says this with the excitement of a boy about to received the newest broomstick. "I think me and Meredith are over."

And she shakes her head. "Another one? James, you have problems," she stifles a small laugh.

"No shit I do," he gives.

He wants to slap himself for admittance, but this relief passes through him, breaking his mindful state into a fit of ready questions up in the air. He feels at ease when he's around her, when she's just sitting by him with her presence lulling him so comfortably.

But what now?

She's thinking too: he's free, she's free, but there's just one problem – she'll be the next one. She'll be the next one, she knows that, and there's no way in hell Lily Evans will be anybody's 'next one'. Something catches in her throat and maybe it's a good thing she caught it.

She'll slip – crack by crack, until she's invisible, if she gives into him. He'll pull the rug from right under. He won't catch her when that rollercoaster is about to tip. He'll do the very same thing he did with Meredith and with Jackie and with Cecelie and with Ava and with—

"Lily," he speaks hoarsely.

And the minute she turns her head is the same second James decides its time for their first kiss… goddammit, HE'S KISSING HER!

He moves his lips all over and it's the beginning of an overdue surrender. She feels nothing, but she'll let him in because she wants to taste him – to feel that rough stubble under his jaw and all over her body: across her lips, across her neck, and feel his Firewhiskey-ed breath across her shoulders and exposed stomach. There's this moan in her throat wanting to respire, wanting to savor his taste in a glass jar. And the essence of his mouth can't compare to the miraculous heat of a fireplace, but her body's cool, and his kiss is so strong, and she wants more. She feels like she's in heaven: it's sloppy, it's messy, it's rough, but it's oh so terribly wrong.

Because it's Potter.

And Potter has a girlfriend.

So she pulls away, forcefully.

"Stop it," she grits her teethe.

"Why!" he fights back, licking his lips, a dash of blood curls along the bottom.

The answer escapes before she can stop: "Because I fucking hate you, Potter!"

"What do you want from me huh? What is it that you want?"

"Go back to her. Go back to Meredith."

"NO, EVANS, I. DON'T. WANT. HER."

They're quiet for a moment, staggered breathing, broken masks revealing sadness and devastation and all.

"You're going to make her smile," she whispers, "and you're going to tell her you love her, and tell her you don't deserve her and—, and APOLOGIZE for crying out loud! Apologize for letting her get away and kiss her and tell her you love her and the only person you want to be with is her! Tell her you love HER! God, Potter, is that so hard to do?"

"N-no.. wha—, Lily, fuck, do you hear yourself? Do you hear what you're saying?" He shakes his head, sunken eyes wearing the heartbreak of a boy who's had something pulled right from under him. "This is what you want, isn't it? Someone to fight for you! Someone who you can say fucking deserves you at the end of the day!"

And he's had enough silent nights pretending he's okay, pretending that shot of gin is his God-sent answer, so he spits it out: "Well goddammit, Evans, guess what. I love—"

"DON'T SAY IT!"

"BUT IT'S TRUE, ISN'T IT? ISN'T IT LILY, LOOK AT ME!" He rages. "YOU'RE LILY EVANS, HOGWARTS' PERFECT ANGEL, SNAPE'S NEVERENDING WANKING DREAM AND MY GODDAMN SOURCE FOR HEADACHES AND ALL THINGS FIREWHISKEY! But guess what, Lily, guess what? I don't care."

"And you know why I don't care?" His breath captures her face – warm and musky, fags and gin – it's enough to make her fall again. He cups her face, her warm and tender face with his calloused and dirty and undeserving hands.

"You know why I don't care, Lily? Why I don't care that I have these headaches, why I don't care that I'll probably be a fucking alcoholic one day, why someday you'll be the sole reason I'm dead, why I don't care — god! I know it's worth it because I love—"

She slaps him.

"Don't finish."

Her breaths are only fractioned quivers, but when her lips part again, she has the firmness of a woman who knows what she wants: "I'm not another one of your rag dolls, Potter."

And the thought of letting his kiss control her once again… sickens her. It sickens her.

Their gazes, they match line by line, pore by pore, devastation by devastation, but this isn't the way he imagined looking into Lily Evans' eyes. He gives up. His arms let go of her, and they're back to the way they were before – him on his side of the wall, and her on her side of the wall. They don't touch anymore, and he's certain if God ever grants him the day he accidentally brushes against her fleeting cloak, it won't be the same as before.

He hears her hitched gasps, and the damage he's done shines it's big ugly face: her cries fall into his cloak. He's really fucked up their friendship, hasn't he? Yet all he can do is lean against the wall and listen. He doesn't hold her, nor does he try to hold her, for if he held her, he's positively sure a matching burn on his left cheek will appear.

He thinks he can almost taste the salt-driven tears falling into his cloak. He imagined himself saying it tonight – the big three letter word he thought every girl wanted to hear, and he was so ready to tell her the news.

Me and Meredith are done Lily… we can be together. I love you, you know that, we can just—

He's an idiot for being a dreamer, what happened to the cynic, the fucking realist, the same man who thought superheroes were harnessed and staged. His eyes shut and his head tilts back: his brain hits the back of the wall, and maybe, maybe all he needed was a good kick in the head in the first place. Because, it finally clicks in him. She doesn't deserve this.

"Lily," he says, with a voice a man who's dismissed all offenses.

She looks to him.

"Is that all?" He breathes, nostrils flaring, voice unbalanced. "Will that make you happy, finally make you happy? If I go back to Meredith?"

And her voice, before she stands and leaves him alone in the dark, brings the last answer he ever expected:

"I just want you to be happy, James – truly happy. That's all I want."

-:-

"The boy never cried again,
and he never forgot what he'd learned:
that to love is to destroy,
and that to be loved is to be
the one destroyed."

- Cassandra Clare

He's on the Astronomy Tower three nights later, same position as before. He's alone, not smoking, not drinking, just thinking. It won't be long until he'll join the tranquility of the blacks and the golds above him and fall asleep against that wall with a dream. It's a vision, and secretly, it's his goal:

He'll walk out into the platform, the beginning of his seventh year and last. And he'll be able to say say he's stopped his gut-tossing habit – no more drinks. He'll still be in the process of changing, little by little.

He only wants to make his father proud, and his mother proud, but most of all, he wants to deserve.

He'll stop collecting porcelain dolls, and he'll better prefer angels. He'll spot the one angel he's been looking for who's struggling to lift her trunks onto the train or some other vanilla and sugar scenario that'll cause him to use the great muscles of Quidditch he's gained from. He'll be her superman and she'll be his kryptonite.

She'll see him, she'll wave to him, and with a ready smile and a heart ready to finally open, and to be loved in return, he'll stride over to her and politely say:

"Hullo, Lily, you need a hand with that?"