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A Risk Worth Taking

Lily Evans lives in two different worlds, but she has always made an effort to share her experiences with her parents. They know about Hogwarts. They know about magic. They know about her friends. They do not know about James Potter. When a day in London turns into an accidental run-in, a slightly awkward lunch, and a conversation she can't avoid forever, Lily is forced to confront a frightening truth: building a future with someone means letting them into every part of your life. It does not necessarily mean they will remain there forever. Sometimes, that's a risk worth taking. AO3

By the fourth day of Christmas holidays, Lily had received exactly twelve letters. Her parents had noticed – perhaps not all as some arrived straight to her bedroom window when she was seeking privacy, but most ended up finding her in the living room or kitchen when she was catching up with her parents. They never commented, but Lily’s mother had taken to setting out a bowl of water on the counter.

“In case your owl is thirsty when he arrives,” she would tell Lily with a cursory glance.

Lily hadn’t the heart – or the nerve – to tell her mother his name was Monty and that he definitely wasn’t her owl. Her mother knew this, of course, and was teasing her for his repeated daily deliveries in a way that was more a gentle prodding for information that Lily stubbornly refused to offer up.

Which was what made the situation so awkward as she stood in the hall hovering in the doorway to the living room staring at her parents.

When her mother glanced up and saw her standing there, Lily tried her best to look like she had just walked up and hadn’t been frozen in place trying to figure out what to say for two whole minutes.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?” her mother asked.

“Yeah! Of course. Just wanted to let you know I’m going to spend the day in London tomorrow, if that’s alright with you,” she finally said, trying for nonchalant and likely failing miserably. “I’ve made plans to meet a friend.”

“Oh?” her mum said. Lily watched her glance over at her father, but couldn’t see his face from her spot near the door. “Which friend? Have we met them?”

“No. His name is James Potter.” Lily fiddled with the end of her plait and shrugged when she caught her parents exchanging another glance. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned him.” She was sure she had not. “He’s Head Boy.”

“Well, of course that’s fine,” her mother said. “We needed to do some shopping in London anyway.”

“Did we?” Lily’s father said.

“Yes, you need a suit for your daughter’s wedding, David,” Lily’s mother said in a tone that suggested they had had this conversation many times before.

Lily nearly groaned. She was so unbelievably tired of hearing about Petunia’s wedding.

“Well, Marian,” David said pointedly. “I’ve already got a suit.”

“Yours is fifteen years old,” Marian said in a strict tone. “You are getting fitted for a new one.”

“I can just Apparate,” Lily said. “You don’t need to drive me there.”

“Nonsense,” her mother said briskly. “We’re going anyway, aren’t we, darling?”

Her father heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Apparently.”

“Well, okay then,” Lily said, not entirely pleased with the direction her plans had taken.

Just then a large tawny owl appeared at the window. Lily’s eyes widened and she smiled and hurried over to throw the window open. She shut it to block out the biting cold as soon as he perched on her shoulder, and ran her hand down the length of her plait. Monty nipped affectionately at her ear as she untied the scroll from his leg and eagerly read the letter, completely unaware that her parents were even in the room anymore until she looked up, beaming, and saw them watching her.

She blinked, and her smile faltered before she took a few hurried steps back toward the safety of the hall, the owl still perched comfortably on her shoulder. “I should go reply to this. Thanks!”

“Well, that is definitely a date,” Marian said quietly to her husband once they heard Lily’s bedroom door click shut.

“She said he’s a friend,” said David mulishly.

“Oh, honestly.” Marian sighed and stood from the couch. “I’m going to start on dinner. Will you peel the potatoes?”

“She said he’s a friend!” David repeated as he followed his wife obediently from the room.

“That same owl has been here no less than ten times in four days,” Marian observed as she set a pot of water to boil.

“Friends correspond,” David rebutted, peeler in one hand, potato in the other.

“She smiled at the owl,” Marian said, fishing an onion out of the cupboard.

“She’s a happy girl. Happy girls smile at cute animals,” David said nearly pleadingly.

“She fixed her hair before she read the letter,” Marian reminded him as she deftly diced the onion.

“Marian…” David sighed and she allowed the topic to drop as she focused on preparing dinner.

-

That night, Lily fell asleep smiling, the latest letter tucked safely beneath her pillow.

-

The next morning, her mother woke her an hour earlier than strictly necessary.

“Is that a letter from James?” she asked, tone too casual to actually be casual.

Lily blinked at her blearily before she realized she had somehow woken up clutching the letter in her fist. “I was reading it before I fell asleep.”

“In the dark?” Marian asked as she threw the curtains open.

“I had my wand for light,” Lily argued weakly.

Marian didn’t say anything, but her gaze shifted to the wand on Lily’s desk near the door. Lily watched her mother warily, but she just flitted back to the door and called over her shoulder, “Breakfast is nearly ready.”

Lily’s father was strangely quiet over breakfast. Occasionally, she would catch him studying her over the paper he was pretending to read. Each time he realized he’d been caught, he would lower his gaze to the print again. Meanwhile, her mother was humming to herself as she sipped her tea and didn’t even pretend she wasn’t watching Lily’s every move.

“What?” she finally demanded. “You’re both acting so odd!”

“Hmm?” David said, setting the paper down and looking at his wife. “I’m not acting odd, are you acting odd?”

“Perhaps a touch,” Marian replied easily. Lily scowled at her mother as she set down her tea and glanced at the clock. “Well, we’d best start getting ready if we’re going to get you to London in time to see your friend.”

“Stop,” Lily groused.

“What?” her mother asked innocently.

“Don’t say friend like that,” Lily said. Her mother simply smiled at her. Her father watched on unhappily. Finally, when she could take it no longer, Lily stood with a sigh. “I’m going to shower.”

“Still think he’s just a friend?” Marian asked her husband as she stood and gathered the dishes. They could hear Lily – who had never been a morning showerer in the past – running the water in the bathroom.

David declined to respond as he began to wash the dishes.

“She’s seventeen. Eighteen in just a matter of weeks,” Marian said. David grunted. “She’s growing up. In her world, she’s already an adult.”

“This is her world,” David said immediately.

“It’s one of her worlds, yes,” Marian said. “I’m only saying…”

“I know what you’re saying,” David interrupted.

Marian fell silent as she dried dishes for him.

“He’s Head Boy,” David said after a moment as he scrubbed furiously at a plate.

“Sorry?” Marian asked.

“She said he’s Head Boy,” he said, refusing to meet her eyes. “If she has to have a boyfriend, there are worse options, I’m sure.”

Marian tried very hard not to smile as she took the clean dish from him and began to dry it. “I thought he was just a friend.”

“She’s a teenager. They lie,” David said begrudgingly.

Marian wisely said nothing.

-

By the time they arrived in London, Lily was seriously regretting involving her parents at all. It wasn’t that they had been bombarding her with questions the entire time as she’d feared they might. Rather, the ninety-minute drive was nearly silent. Her father seemed preoccupied with his thoughts while her mother kept randomly smiling for absolutely no reason. Lily was beginning to worry for their sanity.

It wasn’t until they were nearing the city that her father asked where exactly she was meant to meet James. She told him they were meeting at Leicester Square.

“Perfect,” her mother said. “There’s several menswear shops on Jermyn Street we’ve got to visit.”

“My suit is perfectly serviceable,” David grumbled.

“You are getting a new suit,” Marian said with a note of finality.

Lily rolled her eyes. This was the third time she had heard her father argue against buying a new suit in the past twelve hours since he’d been told he was buying a new suit. The closer they got to London, the more he seemed to accept his fate, and his frustration shifted elsewhere: traffic, cost of parking, people stepping out in front of his car without looking.

Her father had passed several mutli-storeyed car parks by the time she realized they were nearly to Leicester Square.

“You’re not dropping me off there!” she protested loudly.

Her father glanced at her briefly in the rearview mirror. “Of course we are. It’s freezing out, and you’re not walking there alone.”

“I’m seventeen! I’m a witch! A talented one, mind you!” Lily argued. “I can walk five minutes alone!”

“You can,” her father said. “And you’re still not going to.”

Lily set her jaw in a scowl, crossed her arms, and sat back in her seat as she scanned out the window. Her only hope was that James was running behind, or had gotten lost, or that it would be very crowded and he would be obscured by passersby. Unfortunately, she spotted him immediately when the car rounded the corner. He was leaning against the brick, his hands in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. His hair was being senselessly battered by the wind.

“Damn,” she said under her breath even as the sight of him made her smile.

“What?” her mother asked, craning her neck and trying to guess which person milling about was here to meet her daughter.

“Nothing,” Lily said quickly, hand already on the door handle as she unbuckled her seatbelt. Her father had hardly pulled the car to a stop by the time she had the door open. “I’ll meet you back here at 5.”

“Wait!” Her mother reached for her husband’s wallet in the console as he scowled over at her. “You have money?’

“Yes, yes, it’s fine,” Lily said. Technically, it was true. She had money, if you counted a few quid. She also knew James would have a heart attack if she tried to pay for anything in his presence. Then, reconsidering, she accepted the notes her mother passed her. She knew James was aware that Muggle currency was different; she just couldn’t be sure he had thought to exchange his money at Gringotts before meeting her and if they were going to be in London all day, they were going to have to eat.

“Thanks,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. To her horror, James had spotted her. That wasn’t bad; what was bad was that he had pushed off the wall and was walking towards her.

“Be safe,” her father said.

“Always,” Lily replied.

“Have fun!” Her mother called.

“I will!” Lily called back as she began to back away.

“Tell James we said hello!”

Lily froze and looked back. Her mother was staring directly at James, who was still approaching. He was obviously aware of her parents, but didn’t seem to have gotten a look at them yet as he was busy grinning at Lily.

“Bye!” Lily called back pointedly and turned and hurried off, catching James by the arm before he could finish raising it in a wave to her parents in the car.

“Him?” David demanded as soon as the door was shut, watching as Lily scurried over to the tall, messy-haired boy grinning at her.

“He’s handsome,” Marian said appreciatively.

“Him?” David repeated.

“Yes, him. Apparently, him. What’s wrong with him?” Marian said, exasperation dripping in her tone even as she watched her daughter pull the now bemused-looking boy through a throng of people.

“Exactly what you said. He’s handsome!” David complained. “Did you see that grin? No seventeen year-old boy should be that confident!”

“Oh, for the love of…” Marian finally looked at him when she could no longer see Lily and her boyfriend. “Lily is beautiful, of course she’s seeing a good-looking boy. What did you expect? And would you drive the car before you cause an accident?”

“I don’t like it,” David grumbled even as he steered the car away. “He’s Head Boy. I expected him to look more…swotty.”

“You are not being serious right now, are you?” Marian said. A single glance at her husband told her that he was, indeed, being very serious. She sighed and shook her head.

Back out in the cold, Lily had pulled James several feet away and through more than one crowd of people before she stopped and looked back to see that her father was pulling away from the curb.

“I was going to introduce myself to your parents,” James told her, pouting a bit as he watched the car disappear.

“I know what you were going to do!” Lily said, glaring at him as if this was some horrible offense as she dropped his arm.

“That would have been a bad thing?” he asked, grabbing her hand and lacing their fingers instead.

“Awful,” she said. They began to walk, wandering aimlessly. “They’ve been driving me mad all morning.”

James perked up at this. “How mad?”

“Excruciatingly,” Lily said dramatically, knowing full well it could have been much worse.

“About me?” he teased, smirking at her. Her silence was answer enough. “What did they say?”

“Ever since dinner last night, Mum’s been calling you my friend like it’s a reprehensible word,” Lily told him. “And my dad’s been staring at me off and on like he doesn’t even know me anymore.”

“Did you tell them I’m your friend?” James asked. Of course that was what he gathered from what she’d said. The worse part was that he was right. She had told them he was her friend.

“Technically, you are my friend,” she said evasively.

“I’m your boyfriend.” He pointedly stressed the first half of the word.

“Boyfriend,” Lily said, stressing the second half.

“You can shift the stressed syllable all you want,” James said as he side-eyed her with a teasing glint in his eyes. “But the fact remains you misled your parents. What else did you tell them?”

She took a moment, because he was right. She had misled her parents, and she had done it poorly considering they were clearly painfully aware of what this really was. “I told them we were spending the day in London.”

“Obviously,” he said, gesturing at the shops they were strolling past. “What else?”

Lily sighed. “I told them your name, and that you’re Head Boy.”

James waited for a moment. Then, “That’s it?”

“Well, what else did you want me to say?” Lily exclaimed, throwing her free hand up in exasperation.

“That we’re dating would be a good start,” James said. Lily groaned. “That you’re in love with me would be better.”

“James,” Lily said. She would be lying if she tried to blame her pink cheeks on the wind.

“You could have told them I’m funny,” James continued.

“Well, I didn’t want to outright lie,” Lily teased.

“You could have mentioned how handsome I am,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her.

“That’s a matter of taste,” Lily commented.

James paused and grinned devilishly at her. “I know your taste.”

“James!” she hissed, and now she wasn’t just pink, but scarlet.

He laughed and pulled her close. The kiss was brief, and sweet, and did not match the tone of his most recent teasing. It was not the sort of kiss that led to being acquainted with one another’s tastes, but the sort that said, “by the way, hi. I missed you.”

“I’m glad we got to do this,” he told her softly when they parted.

“Me too,” she said as he tucked a loose hair back behind her ear.

They shared a private smile and then continued walking hand-in-hand. A few moments later, James broke the silence with a theatrical sigh. “Even if you didn’t tell your parents about me.”

“Well, come on now, what have you told your parents about me?” Lily demanded.

He looked at her. “Everything,” he said plainly.

Lily stopped in her tracks. An older man behind them muttered about the inconvenience as he stepped around them. They both ignored him. “Everything?” she repeated.

“Well, I didn’t mention the taste of you,” James said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“James,” she said imploringly, denying his implied request to return to joking. “Define everything.”

“I told them you’re brilliant,” he began.

“That’s fairly safe,” she allowed.

“And that you’re a better potionmaker than my father,” he continued.

“James.” That was just ridiculous. The man had invented several potions.

“I told them you steal food off my plate and pretend to believe I don’t know you’re doing it,” he joked.

“Oh my God.” She tried very hard not to smile.

“And that you pretend not to like my jokes, even though you obviously love them,” he observed.

“You’re insufferable,” she informed him.

He suddenly grew a bit hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he ought to admit the next thing. “I may have mentioned that you talk in your sleep after a really hard day.”

“James!”

“I could have learned that in the Common Room!” he said defensively.

“But you didn’t! And you told your mother!” she lamented. God, Mrs. Potter must think her such a slag.

“And my father,” James corrected and seemed to immediately realize he wasn’t helping himself as he hurried on. “I also mentioned that you can’t have a cup of tea if there’s no Rich Tea biscuit to go with it, which has really complicated my life seeing as I have to find it in Muggle shops.”

“You don’t have to find it at all,” she protested, but she actually thought it was very sweet of him to keep them on hand for her.

“Oh, yes, I do,” he argued. “I also told them…”

“You can stop now!” she interrupted. “You told them everything. I get it.”

He laughed and allowed her to pull him along as she took up walking again with no real destination in mind.

“I just like talking about you,” he admitted with a small shrug as they passed a brightly coloured shop. He glanced inside curiously, but gave no other indication that he wanted to head in.

“I like talking about you, too,” Lily informed him. “I just tend to do it with people who already know you. My friends.”

“Boring,” James declared.

She scoffed. “I’ll have you know, Sirius has told me on many occasions that you annoy him constantly by talking about me.”

He smiled, and shrugged, and they walked on in silence for a moment.

“I am in love with you, you know,” she said quietly after a while.

“I know.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t tell them,” she continued, almost miserable with guilt.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not!” she protested, and then sighed. “I guess…I’m used to keeping my worlds separate.”

Then, she realized that wasn’t true. Her parents knew details about Hogwarts, about her lessons, about potions and charms and transfiguration. They knew McGongall was terrifying, but secretly soft. They knew Dumbledore was silly, and awfully intimidating when the occasion called for it. They knew Slughorn adored her. They knew about her girlfriends.

But not James.

“I think maybe it’s because you’re more important.”

He was watching her from the corner of his eye when she risked a glance at him. She bit her lip as she continued thinking. “If my parents don’t like one of my friends, who cares, right? I don’t need to bring that friend around them anymore. If my parents don’t understand why I love potions so much, well, that’s to be expected, isn’t it? But you?”

“You don’t think your parents will like me?” James asked softly. He didn’t look upset. He didn’t even look uneasy. He looked curious.

“I think they’ll love you,” she said, and realized the truth of it as soon as the words left her mouth.

“Then, you don’t think they’ll understand?” he said, looking truly baffled.

“I’m sure they’ll understand the relatable parts, the important parts,” she told him.

“Then I don’t think I understand,” he confessed.

“Me neither.” She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I just don’t want to share you with them.”

He blinked at her. She stared back. Then he cocked his head like he was trying to parse out her meaning. “Share me?”

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“Do I?” he said. “I mean back at school there’s still Quidditch. There are still friends we have to hang out with, sometimes all together, sometimes separately.”

“Yeah, but those are all things I knew I would have to compete with before we started dating!” Lily said.

“Compete?” James repeated.

“Oh, come on!” Lily cried. “You’re being so literal! Of course I’m not sharing you like some child’s toy. Of course I’m not competing with Quidditch or with Sirius or Remus or Peter for your love.”

“I’m not trying to be pedantic, Lily,” James said placatingly. “I’m reacting to the words that you’re saying. I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.”

“Yeah, well so am I,” she all but whined, and pulled her hand from his as she walked away a few steps. Not to get away from him, but to try to gather her thoughts. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

James watched her for a moment and then closed the small distance she had put between them. He took her by the hand again and pulled her over to a nearby bench. They sat, angled towards each other.

“I think…maybe…possibly,” he began. “I think you do know what you’re trying to say. I think maybe you’re just overthinking it and it’s coming out all wrong because you don’t want to offend me. Lily, I promise not to take offense.”

“You’re too good for me,” she mumbled.

James stared at her for a moment before he laughed loudly. Several people nearby glanced their way, but they didn’t notice. “That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me, and you once told me you’d rather date the Giant Squid than me.”

She smiled, but it was still a bit wobbly on the edges. “Well, in that moment there was some truth to it.”

James smiled back at her and gave her hand a squeeze. “Why don’t you tell me another truth.”

Lily sighed deeply and looked away from him. There was a small child running along the edge of a crowd, his harried father chasing after him.

“What if we go to all the trouble of integrating each other into our families, becoming fixtures in each other’s families, forming real emotional attachments with each other's parents…and then one day…” James’s hand squeezed hers again. “What if one day, I have to do the other impossible task of telling them you won’t be coming around anymore?”

In the distance, Lily watched as the father finally caught up to his son and gathered him into his arms where he tossed the laughing – cackling, really – little boy over his shoulder.

James didn’t say anything right away. When she looked back over at him, he was staring off into the distance looking rather contemplative. She realized gratefully that he was taking her concerns very seriously. It would be easy for him to brush it off, say they would never have to deal with that, and return to their leisurely stroll. It was better – for her needs – that he seemed to be really thinking about it.

“I don’t know, Lily. This seems like a pretty standard risk when a relationship becomes serious,” he finally said. Quickly, before she could even begin to feel insulted, he continued. “Not that it’s not a real risk! I just mean…it’s a necessary one, isn’t it? In order to build a future with someone, you have to face the risk of that future not panning out. You have to integrate each other into all the most important parts of your life knowing that if it doesn’t work out you’ll have to figure out how to untangle all those things again.”

“I don’t want to figure out how to untangle,” Lily admitted.

James smiled sadly. “Me neither. But I do want to face that risk. With you.”

She looked away again. The father, laughing too now that he had his son in arms, was marching back to a pretty blond woman who was watching them, hands on hips, shaking her head with a small smile.

“I tried to picture it,” James said softly.

She turned to find that he had followed her gaze and was also watching the small family reunion.

“Untangling,” he clarified needlessly. “I couldn’t. I mean, truly. I can’t picture a future without you there. It’s just…empty. It just hurt.” He closed a fist over his heart, trailed it down to his stomach. “I know it’s a risk. But Lily, where I am, it’s not the likely outcome.”

Lily blinked, and sniffled, and was horrified to find that she was on the verge of tears. “You can meet my parents when they pick me up.”

James stared at her for so long Lily wondered if he didn’t actually want to meet her parents today. But then he beamed at her and nodded. “Great. I will charm them immensely.”

“Oh God,” she groaned, because he was probably right.

-

They wandered Leicester Square so thoroughly that they meandered straight out of it without even realizing, so engrossed had they been in conversation. They had been walking for so long by the time Lily realized that she had to complain about her aching feet.

“We appear to have wandered quite a distance,” James observed as Lily leaned up against the nearest building.

“Yeah, I’m starving,” she admitted.

“Let’s find somewhere to eat,” James suggested.

Lily nodded and gestured down the street. “Looks like there’s plenty of options just up ahead.”

Neither of them had any preference for a specific type of cuisine as they strolled along, and they ended up settling on a brasserie, a family-style restaurant that seemed to cater to all different crowds. There weren’t many tables, but most were occupied, and the two waitresses seemed never to stop moving as James and Lily peered through the large window out front.

“I even exchanged money before I arrived,” James told her proudly, pulling a wad of notes from his pocket. Lily stared at the bafflingly large sum of money he was casually holding out in public before she grabbed his arm and lowered it for him. He shoved the notes back into his pocket.

“That is a lot of money,” she said quietly so no one passing by might overhear and decide to pickpocket him.

“I didn’t know how much I might need,” he told her simply.

“That’s got to be a hundred galleons worth, James,” she said.

“I don’t know how much things cost here,” he defended himself.

She stared at him in disbelief. “Not that much!”

“It really doesn’t seem like a crazy amount for a nice date,” James said.

“It’s enough to feed us for two weeks!” Lily told him.

James grinned at her. “Brilliant. So you’re saying we’re prepared.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but I have to be back in my father’s car in approximately five hours,” Lily reminded him.

James frowned deeply. “Five hours?”

“Approximately,” Lily repeated.

“But that’s so soon,” he complained.

“We’ve got all day,” Lily reminded him gently. She didn’t want him to think she wanted the day to end, after all.

“We’ve got half a day,” James corrected poutily.

“James, we’ve already been here for two hours.”

“And it feels like only a moment has passed,” he said in a jokingly romantic tone.

Lily felt a smile threatening to break free, and rolled her eyes. “That was dreadful.”

“It was romantic,” James corrected.

“It was dreadful,” she insisted. James grinned. She shoved him just as her smile finally broke free. He caught her wrist and pulled her to him.

Lily’s hands slid up over his shoulders, playing idly with the hairs at the nape of his neck. James’s grip on her waist tightened and he leaned closer, half bending over into her as she melted into the kiss.

Across the street, her parents froze, her father’s expression utterly horrified, her mother’s vaguely triumphant – she had, after all, suspected the nature of this meeting.

“Maybe we should try a different restaurant,” Marian said, gripping her husband’s arm. He looked as though he had half a mind to march across the cobbled street and wrench this boy – this messy-haired vagrant – away from his sweet, innocent daughter and throw him against the wall he looked about ready to topple over into. Then, the young couple parted and he saw the identical smiles they had for one another: somewhat self-satisfied, and a whole lot in love.

“Yes,” he said after a pause. “Perhaps we should.”

They turned to find a different restaurant and pretend they hadn’t seen anything, but it was too late. Lily looked away from her date, rolling her eyes and laughing playfully at something he had said to her, and her emerald eyes locked onto her father’s instantly..

David froze. Marian froze. Her grip on his arm tightened to the point of pain as Lily’s gaze darted from her father to her mother to the row of menswear shops behind them.

Oh no. Lily realized suddenly, quite horrorstruck, that they had somehow wandered onto Jermyn Street, the exact street her mother had said they would be shopping today.

James noticed the change in her immediately - the way she stiffened and went a bit paler put him on high alert.

“What is it?” He said, and his fingers brushed the handle of his wand tucked safely in his waistband. “What’s wrong?”

“My parents,” she said, but it came out garbled so that it took him a moment to understand, and even then only because he looked over, followed her gaze, and saw a horrified couple, a man with vibrant emerald green eyes, and a woman with long auburn hair and the same soft nose as her daughter.

He felt himself relax considerably, his hand drifting from his wand and fingers twining with hers. Parents didn’t scare him - they weren’t dangerous. The worst they could do would be to think he wasn’t good enough for their daughter, and he would never fault anyone for thinking that. No one could ever be good enough for Lily Evans in James’s opinion, but he was sure as hell trying. He smirked at her when she tore her gaze away from her parents, looked down at their hands, and then up at him incredulously.

“Please, they’ve just seen us kissing. Hand-holding isn’t going to ruin anything.” He said, giving her hand a squeeze. Her fingers twitched against the back of his hand, but she didn’t pull away. His smirk bloomed into a soft, sweet smile. “What do you want to do about that?”

She sighed. “I said you could meet them when my parents pick me up.”

“You did,” James agreed.

“It’s sooner than we discussed,” Lily said, setting her shoulders. “But do you - er - want to meet them now?”

“Course,” he said, and happily pulled her across the street.

He wasn’t particularly nervous to meet her parents -- parents generally seemed to like him -- at least his parents liked him. Sure, Sirius’s parents loathed him, but they loathed their own son, so James considered them the exception rather than the rule. Granted, he’d never met a girl’s parents before - neither of the girls he’d briefly dated before Lily had lasted long enough, meant enough to him. He was a likable bloke, he knew, was good at making conversation, had a knack for making people laugh. Admittedly, not parents who had just watched him passionately kissing their youngest daughter against a building, but there was nothing he could do about that. No point in looking back when all you can do is move forward, he’d always thought.

“Hello,” Marian said when the two teens came to a halt before her.

David eyed their interlocked fingers and Lily felt the urge to pull away even as James gave her hand another quick squeeze. Instead of dropping his hand, she squeezed back and stepped closer so that her shoulder brushed his.

“Mum, Dad, this is James,” Lily said.

She wondered briefly, while her parents stared at him, if they recalled ever seeing him at King’s Cross Station while dropping her off or picking her up.

“My boyfriend,” she added after a too-lengthy, awkward pause. She could tell by the way her mother raised an eyebrow and fought back an amused smile that perhaps the clarification had been unnecessary. They had, after all, just been snogging in full view of her parents.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Evans,” James said, and his smile was friendly and kind and his hand was warm in hers, but she could hear the suppressed smirk in his voice and knew that he wanted desperately to tease her mercilessly for the awkward introduction.

“Lovely to meet you, too,” Marian said. “Please, you can call me Marian. And this is David.”

“You’re Head Boy?” David asked abruptly.

“Er- yes,” James said.

“You don’t look like someone who would be Head Boy,” David blurted.

“Dad!” Lily scolded as Marian pinched his arm. Hard.

James, on the other hand, laughed. “Believe me, sir. No one was more surprised than I was when I got the letter.”

Lily rolled her eyes, but she knew he was being completely serious. He had written her to express his disbelief the moment he’d gotten his Hogwarts letter last summer.

“How long have you two been… seeing each other?” David asked.

“Officially? Beginning of the year,” James said easily. “Unofficially?”

This time, Lily pinched his arm. He stopped talking.

“Unofficially?” Marian prompted.

Lily scowled at James before she sighed. “We went to a wedding together over summer break.”

“Whose wedding?” David asked. “Why didn’t we know you went to a wedding?”

“Friends of ours. They graduated last year,” Lily said. “It was when you were visiting Nan in hospital and I was staying with Mary. It didn’t seem worth the trouble of telling you.”

Because her father had been so distraught over his mother being on her death bed, and the fact it took so much time away from Lily. By the end of her life, Lily’s nan hadn’t even known she had more than one granddaughter because she’d rarely even been in England since she was eleven.

“Right,” David said softly. The memory seemed to take the wind out of whatever followup question he’d had planned.

“It was just a wedding.” Lily shrugged.

James looked at her. He could mention that they’d danced together all night long, that she’d cried all over him after she’d drunk far too much, at first over how lovely Alice looked, then how lovingly Frank looked at Alice, and finally how distant she felt from her family. He could mention that he’d known from the moment he’d found himself unable to look away from her that night that he was far beyond merely fancying her anymore. He could mention that the daily owls had started the next day.

He didn’t.

Instead, he made a joke. “It was inevitable, anyway. She was the second classmate I met. Right after my best mate.”

"You mean right after your soulmate." Lily gave him a playful little nudge. "Might actually have been third, though. I think you and Severus had words before you and I did."

"Objection. Irrelevant. He doesn't count," James said immediately.

Lily wondered briefly how her wizard boyfriend, who had spent little to no time in the muggle world up to this point, could possibly know muggle court terminology, but ultimately decided not to broach the topic here. She wouldn't be surprised to learn he'd developed a habit of sneaking into muggle courtrooms over the summer holiday he'd spent mostly alone with Sirius. It seemed like just the sort of strange, random, borderline swotty pastime the two of them would enjoy.

Besides, her mother looked surprised to learn that James knew Lily's once-best friend, and had evidently met him early on in their school days.

“You know Severus?” her mother asked before Lily could intervene.

“That is certainly one way to put it,” James said.

“James and Severus…don’t really get along,”

Lily’s parents, of course, knew Severus had been Lily’s closest friend for many years. They also knew that Lily was no longer on speaking terms with Severus. They did not know the details – the Dark Arts obsession, the prejudice, the mudblood of it all – nor did they seem particularly interested in them. Lily hadn’t realized until after she’d ended her friendship with him that her parents had apparently never been very fond of Severus.

“We know Severus, too,” Marian said, exchanging a look with her husband.

James blinked. “You do?”

He couldn’t picture Snape behaving cordially toward Muggles, even if they were Lily’s parents.

David sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“Ah.” James nodded. That was the kind of opinion he expected Muggles to walk away with after dealing with Snape.

“Got your suit, then?” Lily said suddenly, pointing to the hanging bag draped over her father’s arm in a very obvious attempt to change the subject.

“Ah, yes, the suit your mother bullied me into buying,” he said, patting the bag unnecessarily. “Got it right here.”

“It’s a nice suit,” Marian said.

“It’s just a suit.”

“It’s charcoal,” Marian added.

“It’s grey,” David corrected.

“Charcoal is a shade of grey,” Marian said through gritted teeth.

“I think she’s probably right, sir,” James said.

David blinked at him. “You haven’t seen it.”

“That’s irrelevant,” James said. “I’ve lost enough semantical arguments with my mother and Lily to know. It doesn’t matter. She’s right.”

Marian smiled. “A sensible young man.”

“Not a single person has ever said that about James,” Lily teased.

“Oi! Not true!” James protested. “I’m sure a professor has said it once or twice.”

“Name one,” Lily challenged.

“McGonagall,” James said promptly. She was usually the first professor that came to mind since she taught his favourite subject and was the head of their house.

Lily practically cackled. “In your dreams, maybe!”

James conceded immediately. “You know what? Actually, I think that was a dream.”

David found himself laughing in spite of himself and Marian smiled when Lily rolled her eyes fondly. A relatively comfortable silence fell over the group.

“Were you…” James trailed off, pointing questioningly back at the restaurant they had been caught kissing in front of. “Heading in there?”

“Oh.” Marian said with a quick glance at her daughter. “Yes, we were planning to grab a bite to eat here.”

“We were going to find another place,” David added quickly.

“Well, that’s not necessary,” James said, pretending he didn’t catch Lily’s warning glance out of the corner of his eye. “We can just all eat together.”

He smiled pleasantly, ignoring the way David’s face paled like he was going to be rather ill, ignoring the way Lily’s fingernails threatened to break the skin on the back of his hand.

James found himself delighted by the similarities between father and daughter. Both had grown comfortable in the conversation a moment ago, and now were acting as though lunch together was on the same level as torture.

“We would love to,” Marian said with a pleased smile.

“Traitor,” Lily mumbled under her breath.

“To whom?” Marian asked mildly.

Lily wisely kept her mouth shut.

“That’s what I thought.” Marian snaked her arm through her husband's and gave him a pointed yank. “Wouldn’t we love to join them for lunch, dear?”

David studied James with a surly expression on his face, glanced at Lily who looked just as unhappy – it all seemed very performative to James – and finally at his beaming wife. He sighed. “Of course.”

“Great!” James said as if that hadn’t been a spectacularly bad lie.

“Wonderful,” Lily mumbled sarcastically, but her nails were no longer biting into his skin.

The trek across the cobbled street was delightfully, ridiculously awkward, as was the ten minute wait outside for a table to clear. James and Marian chatted amiably as their significant others both pretended to pout about the injustice of having to share a meal together. James found himself barely able to contain his laughter over the absurdity of it all when they were finally showed to their table.

“So, Mr. Evans,” James started once they were seated, one couple on each side of the table.

“Call him David,” Marian interrupted.

“Okay. David,” James obeyed while David merely watched him across the table with a blank look on his face. Lily sighed and rearranged the silverware in front of her.

Whatever conversation James was intending to start was interrupted again when a harried-looking young waitress appeared at his shoulder. “Do we know what we’d like?”

“Not yet,” said Marian.

“Yes,” said Lily in the same moment. James looked between the two women, smiling.

The waitress blinked at them.

“Perhaps we need a few minutes,” David said. “We can start with the drink order, if that’s alright. I’ll have a water.”

“Still or sparkling?”

“Still.”

The waitress jotted it down efficiently, and turned to Marian. “For you, ma’am?”

“A lemonade, I think.”

The waitress nodded, pen moving across her notepad as she turned to James. James turned to Lily. Pumpkin juice seemed an unlikely option.

“We’ll both have a Coke, thanks,” Lily said quickly.

The waitress nodded, promised to return soon with the drinks, and hurried off.

Marian elbowed her husband in the side, poorly disguising the jab as accidental as she opened her menu. “Behave,” she hissed from the corner of her mouth.

“I am,” he replied.

“You look like you’re preparing for a police interview,” Marian whispered to him.

“I’m making conversation,” David insisted.

“You’ve not said a word in over ten minutes!” she hissed.

Across the table, James pretended not to hear them as he opened the menu. Lily, on the other hand, was glaring daggers at her parents and had turned alarmingly scarlet.

As promised, the waitress returned quickly with their drinks, and hurried off again without even bothering to ask if they were ready to place their orders.

“So, James,” David said a bit too loudly. He realized this immediately when Lily kicked him under the table, and lowered his voice. “If you were so shocked to get Head Boy, why didn’t you decline?”

James looked at him for a moment, struggling to understand. “Decline?”

“Surely you can decline the position. It’s not as if they compensate you for it,” David said.

“I guess.” James thought about it. “It honestly never crossed my mind to decline.”

“Even if you felt unprepared?” David asked. “Even if it seemed challenging?”

James shrugged. “I never minded a challenge.”

Marian was pretending to study the menu while David studied him. “And if you failed?”

“Then I’d have failed,” James said simply.

“You’d have been fine with that?” David asked. Lily kicked her father again. He ignored her.

“Of course not. No one likes to fail,” James said seriously. “But the risk of failure seems like a stupid reason not to try.”

David barely registered when Lily suddenly stopped kicking him. He did notice, however, that she had turned her face to James with a very odd expression.

“Besides,” James continued. “Lily’s Head Girl. I couldn’t let her down.”

David held his gaze for a moment, then glanced at his daughter. She was staring at James with a suspiciously soft look on her face. He immediately looked away and grabbed for his water.

“Right,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Have we decided yet?”

The waitress had returned, and this time she had a pen poised over her notepad again. James wondered if she had misplaced it before, and that was why she had scurried off after bringing their drinks.

“Steak and chips,” David said without hesitation. He had not once glanced at the menu.

Marian was still reading the menu. “Oh, come back to me.”

The waitress seemed moderately annoyed by this as she turned to Lily. “I’ll have the roast chicken and chips, please.”

“You know what? Steak and chips sounds incredible,” James said, nodding as the waitress glanced over at him. “Actually, can I do roast potatoes instead of chips? Thank you.”

The waitress sighed as she crossed out and rewrote his order. Failing to hide his amusement, James turned his face away toward Lily as the waitress turned back to Marian.

“I’ll do the salmon,” she said decisively, closing her menu and handing it to the young woman as everyone else at the table did the same.

“She seems very stressed,” James observed when she was gone.

“Roast potatoes?” Lily said.

He cocked his head to one side. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Lily told him, taking a sip of her Coke. “Just seems a very old man substitution.”

“There’s nothing wrong with roast potatoes,” David said. James looked over at him appreciatively just as David seemed to remember he wasn’t trying to like the boy and frowned.

“You’re not helping his case, Dad,” Lily grumbled.

This, yet again, distracted David from his mistrust of James. He cast an annoyed look at his daughter. “I am not an old man, I’ll have you know. I’m not even forty yet.”

“You’re thirty-nine; big difference,” Lily said.

James looked surprised at this. “Really? You’re thirty-nine? You must have been very young when you started your family.”

“Eighteen, actually,” David said.

“Nineteen,” Marian corrected.

“I was eighteen,” David said again.

“I distinctly remember you were nineteen,” Marian said firmly.

“You were nineteen. I was a week shy of my nineteenth birthday,” David said, smiling teasingly at his wife. “You went for a young one, remember?”

“They got married days after my father’s eighteenth birthday,” Lily told James, since her parents seemed preoccupied with teasing one another to properly answer.

“That’s young,” James said, not sounding at all judgmental, but purely curious.

“Yes, well, different times,” David said, rejoining the table conversation.

“Still, Petunia was a bit of a surprise,” Marian told James. “We planned to wait a few years before having children. Pet had a different idea.”

“She usually does,” Lily said under her breath. Her mother glanced at her sharply.

“What about your parents, then?” David asked, clearly trying to head off an age-old argument before it started.

“Oh, they were not teens when I was born.” James chuckled. “They were approaching their fifties.”

David and Marian looked shocked at this revelation.

“Is that… common?” David asked.

In the magical world, was the implied second half of the sentence. James understood.

“No. Actually, they were very old by our standards. And yours, I guess,” James said. “But they waited a while to get married. I think they’d been together nearly ten years by the time they did.”

“Ten years?” Marian repeated.

James shrugged. “Something like that. They were focused on their careers. Weren’t even sold on the idea of children in the first place. By the time they changed their minds, they were approaching forty and had a really difficult time getting pregnant. I was a bit of a surprise, myself.”

“So, if eighteen is uncommonly young in your…” David paused, searching for a neutral word that didn’t imply magic, “...society, and thirty-something is uncommonly old, when do people tend to get married?”

James hummed thoughtfully and looked at Lily, but she was looking to him for the answer, as well. “I guess…it’s always changing, isn’t it? I would say when I was a child, people tended to get married in their mid-twenties, I guess. Maybe a bit younger. They’d wait a few years typically before starting a family. Now, though…maybe your choice is closer to the current trend. We know a few people who’ve already got married straight out of school.”

Like Frank and Alice.

“Why are people getting married younger?” Marian asked.

James looked at Lily again. She was staring at him, expression carefully blank. A warning. He frowned, and realized her parents didn’t know there was a war on in their world. “Uncertain times.”

The food came just then and saved him from having to elaborate any further. Lily smirked at his roast potatoes as the waitress laid his plate in front of him. James side-eyed her and swiped a chip from hers. Lily made a small sound of protest, then rolled her eyes when he silently dropped a roast potato on her plate. It escaped no one’s notice that the roast potato was the first thing she ate off her plate, nor that several moments later, when James was asking David about Muggle sports, she casually plucked another potato off his plate with her fork.

Marian smiled when she caught Lily’s eye. Lily flushed and tried to look aggravated, but she couldn’t quite hide the smile on her own face.

“So, what is it that your parents do?” David asked after he had thoroughly explained football to him.

“Oh. Well, they’re retired now,” James answered. “But Mum worked for the Ministry in the Department of Mysteries. Mostly research. She did a lot of work on spell development, magical theory. Things like that.” He seemed to realize David and Marian were confused, and there wasn’t much explaining he could do in a Muggle restaurant. “Er – Dad had a business. He invented potions for mass production.”

“Tell them what his most successful product was!” Lily interjected excitedly, eyes bright as she gripped James’s arm. “Or, is, since it’s still in production.”

James rolled his eyes, but he smiled fondly at her before he turned back to her parents. “A hair potion. Sleakeazy’s. It’s meant to tame even the most stubborn hair.”

“It doesn’t work on James, though!” Lily laughed. “Isn’t that wild?”

“It works perfectly. This is a deliberate styling choice,” James said, raking a hand through his hair.

“It’s not! Sirius told me!” Lily retorted, still giggling.

“Sirius is a liar, and a traitor, and he's not to be trusted,” James insisted.

“Please,” Lily scoffed. “Sirius is the most loyal person I've ever seen, when it comes to you.”

“Sirius is your friend, then?” Marian asked, as much out of curiosity as to remind them that they were not alone.

James and Lily both jerked their attention across the table to her parents.

“That is what we can safely call an understatement,” Lily said.

“He's my best friend,” James translated.

“They're practically inseparable. When we first started dating, it was a real battle to get James on his own without Sirius popping up five minutes later,” Lily informed them.

“I may or may not have had to talk to him about personal space,” James admitted.

“That didn’t go over well,” Lily added.

“It went fine,” James argued.

“James, he didn’t speak to you for a week, and once he did start speaking to you again, he pretended I didn’t exist for another two,” Lily pointed out.

“He got over it!” James exclaimed.

“After you threatened his life,” Lily reminded him.

“So, this Sirius doesn’t like Lily very much?” David asked, and James and Lily yet again remembered they were talking to her parents and not just on a date by themselves.

“What?” James asked, looking genuinely confused. “Of course he does.”

“Sirius is one of my closest friends,” Lily said. “Has been for years.”

“Sirius became friends with her before I did, somehow,” James said, a bit begrudgingly.

“We were friends,” Lily said.

“We were friendly,” James said. “You and Sirius were friends.”

“Then why was he so upset when you started dating?” Marian asked, looking utterly lost.

James shrugged. “Felt left out?”

“Sirius is one of those seemingly apathetic people who’s secretly got very strong feelings that present themselves very dramatically when the apathy slips,” Lily said. “You’d have to meet him to understand.”

James nodded. “I’d call that accurate.”

“Seems like a complicated bloke,” David surmised.

“Also very accurate,” James said while Lily nodded.

The conversation drifted away from Sirius rather naturally after that.

“James plays Quidditch,” Lily offered proudly at one point. “He’s the Gryffindor captain.”

“That’s the sport you mentioned earlier?” David asked, interest peaked.

“Yeah.” James nodded.

“What position do you play?” Marian asked.

“Chaser,” he said.

“Which means…?” Marian prompted.

“Oh! I score goals,” James explained. “I have to get the Quaffle past the other team’s Keeper.”

Keeper, he knew from David’s earlier talk about football, was a familiar concept to them. Everything else, however?

“Sounds relatively straightforward,” David mused.

James laughed. “You think that, but you’ve never seen a Bludger.”

“What’s a Bludger?” Marian asked.

“So there are these iron balls…” James halted when the waitress walked past with a cursory glance at their table to see that their plates were not yet empty. He looked at Lily, who shook her head pointedly. “You know, forget I said anything.”

“Why?” David looked truly baffled, and a little let down at having the explanation cut short.

“I’ve just realized there is no way for me to explain Bludgers and Snitches and the Wronski Feint without sounding completely insane to everyone else here.” He stared pointedly as a Muggle woman squeezed past their table. Beside him, Lily laughed.

“Ah,” David said, sitting back in his chair. “Perhaps this is a topic for another time.”

“Definitely,” James agreed easily.

The conversation drifted to school then, which was a moderately safer topic since Lily’s parents knew enough about her lessons to not need detailed explanations.

“What’s your favourite subject?” David asked.

“Transfiguration,” James said immediately.

“That’s the one with McGonagall,” Marian said knowledgeably. James and Lily both nodded. “What’s your best subject?”

“Transfiguration,” James said again, no hesitation.

“Swot,” Lily muttered.

“That is a damaging claim, Evans,” James complained, pointing a finger at her as if truly cross.

She grabbed his hand and moved it out of her face. Her parents pretended not to notice when she didn’t let go, or when she shifted so that they were holding hands beneath the table.

“James.”

“Fine. I’m swot-adjacent for one singular subject,” he relented.

“If you say so,” Lily said, and turned to her parents to roll her eyes. “He’s actually annoyingly good at them all.”

“Even Potions?” Marian asked.

“His father invented several potions, Mum,” Lily reminded her.

“Better than you?” David asked.

“Definintely not,” James said. “No one is better than Lily at Potions.”

He caught her eye regretfully. There was, perhaps, one person who might be better. n Lily at Potions. Or Charms.”

“And you're okay with that?” David asked.

James frowned at him, taken-aback. He was beginning to think all these random questions were little tests in disguise. “Why wouldn't I be okay with that?”

David shrugged. “Some blokes wouldn't be.”

“Who wouldn't be proud of having a brilliant girlfriend?” James asked.

“Quite right,” said Marian.

The waitress came around again and offered to clear the table. They realized quite suddenly that they had spent nearly two hours chatting and the restaurant had not slowed for a moment. Likely the waitress had been waiting some time to turn the table over.

There was a brief moment of awkwardness as James offered to pay, and David looked at him with such great offense that James immediately backed down. Lily squeezed his hand and covered her mouth with her other hand to hide her smile.

“Well, it’s only just shy of two,” Marian observed as they left the restaurant together. “I suppose we can just catch a film, David.” She glanced at Lily and James. Lily was staring at her mutinously as if half expecting her to suggest calling it a day. It was all Marian could do not to roll her eyes at her foolishly besotted daughter. “I can only assume you two aren’t ready to part ways.”

“No, not quite,” James admitted with a cheerful smile.

“Five o’clock, Lily,” David reminded her. “Same spot we dropped you off.”

“I can just Apparate home,” Lily pointed out.

“I can bring her. If that’s what you’re concerned about,” James offered. “I mean, if you don’t want to hang around until five.”

Marian and David exchanged a quick glance. Then David sighed. “Fine,” he said brusquely.

Lily brightened immediately. “Really?” She eyed her parents hopefully. “Do I still need to be home by half six?”

“Half six? What happened to five?” her father demanded.

“Well, if we were leaving in the car at five, we wouldn’t get home until half six,” Lily explained. “And since Apparition is instantaneous…”

“The logic is sound,” Marian said.

“Do not encourage this behaviour,” David said.

“I’m encouraging nothing. The girl has done her maths,” Marian pointed out.

“Sounds like encouragement,” David mumbled.

“Didn’t the young man warn you not to argue semantics with me?” Marian reminded him.

James was so busy pursing his lips in an attempt to rein in his laughter that he almost missed that he’d been dragged into the debate.

David glared at James without any heat. He pointed at him sternly. “Have her home not a second after nine.”

“Nine?” Lily asked.

“Are you complaining?” her father demanded.

She held up her hands. “No, no! I’m surprised. I’m pleased.”

She grabbed James’s hand and began to back away before her father could take it back.

“Nine o’clock, James,” David repeated.

“Yes, sir,” James called back, laughing as he allowed himself to be dragged away.

He had her home by 8:59.

Her father grumbled when she walked inside fifteen minutes later. Not that he had a leg to stand on, really, since the boy had delivered her to the front door a minute before the agreed-upon time. How they had spent the following fifteen minutes, apparently, was none of his damn business, as his wife lovingly informed him each time she stopped him from ripping the front door open.

When Lily finally made it inside, his carefully constructed criticisms immediately crumbled as she all but floated down the hall to her bedroom as if in a dream, smiling dazedly to herself and hardly seeming to notice her parents at all.

“That is more than a boyfriend,” Marian said in his ear.

“God damn it, Marian!”

Her laughter echoed down the hall as she headed to bed and left him standing alone in the entryway.

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