bigd0eeyes

bigdoeeyes, ao3

A bit from chapter two on its way to being published this week, in which the girls run into the boys in Muggle London, and the start of many curious things in Lily Evans' brain!

“Lots of people buy me lots of things," Lily slurred through the gin. "My friend Mary bought me this dress, y’know?”

“Thank god for that.” Oscar cleared his throat. “It’s a very nice dress, Evans.” He shifted a bit in his seat before moving his hand a few inches higher, circling his ring finger just above her knee. 

“It looks bloody great on me, doesn’t it?”

Oscar swallowed, before releasing a hoarse, “Yeah.”

If Sev could see her now. About to kiss or fuck or do whatever with a Muggle. He would shit his half-blood, bloody blood-purist pants. Fuck him. Muggles were great. This Muggle got stiff from just looking at her ninety minutes ago. Muggles were fucking great, and Lily betted this one fucked great too. Really, truly, fuck Severus Snape.

She felt limitless, immortal, with this boy twirled around her finger, no magic, no spells, until—

“Evans?”

As she parted her mouth near the Muggle boy's lips, her heart skipped for several moments, at first because it couldn’t have been him all the way here in London, and then because of the absurdity of what if it was. Her name in his mouth sounded so shocked, so simply confused, that Lily knew he was as equally and purely astonished as she. A voice once full of snide jeers and taunts, of relentless pursuit, was suddenly stripped bare of all pretence. It was him, just him, just—

She turned around. 

It was James fucking Potter.

His eyes bore into hers for several chilling seconds, drying up every ounce of gin in her body. Then, as a pit burrowed in her stomach, his eyes dragged down the rest of her body, the disheveled sleeves, the neckline that Oscar had twisted around his fingers, the awkwardly-hiked hem. 

Potter's right hand was placed in his pocket in that careless way he lounged about existence. But his left hand, free of all fabric, was as white-knuckled as she had ever seen it. Lily swallowed, lost for all words in her new sobriety.

“Potter! What are…?”

“Who the fuck is this?” Oscar's eyes narrowed as he glanced, affronted, between the two of them.

“I’m James Potter,” he said, seemingly very unimpressed with the sight before him. He performed a similar glance over Oscar as he had to Lily; the former’s shirt was untucked, the tie completely loosened, his pants all wrinkled. James fucking Potter was not impressed. James fucking Potter looked one half step away from furious. “And you have five seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t knock your teeth in.”

Oscar looked completely perplexed. “Lily never said nothin’ ‘bout havin’ a boyfriend,” Oscar said, placing a palm against his glistening forehead. “Christ, mate, I didn’t know.”

Lily whipped around to Potter, who managed to look quite impassive. So he was still campaigning for this shit? That was so… so… O.W.L.s. 

bigdoeeyes, ao3

In the end, he thought he might have feared it more.

He could see everything unfold before it even happened—the man's thin lips forming the last word he would ever hear, that sudden flash of green that would mean pain or peace or something in between. And then . . . nothing. He saw nothing.

In the end—though he initially hoped he would have had more time—he thought he might have feared it more: The unknown.

Granted, he had discovered a great number of heartbreaking truths as the last seconds of his life teetered toward finite. He had been betrayed. He was going to die. He had loved tremendously.

It was the unknowns, however, that numbed him. Would they be okay? Would anyone be okay? Did they know how deeply, how carnally he loved them all back?

Then, feebly, Was it going to hurt?

Then there was a song—a song about fearing changes and a girl; the girl in white with whom he had danced to those words, and who had hummed it all the months after. Time hadn't seemed to make him any bolder once it came down to it (he'd have to tell her so later), but the love he had for her burned fiercely in his heart as ever, and perhaps that was sufficient enough.

Then, as the green light blinded him, the last thing he felt was a serene and numb sort of curiosity as his final thought faded into the greatest unknown there could have ever been: Will there be anyone left to remember her?

bigdoeeyes, ao3

"My god, Evans," he said through a laugh, gently grabbing her robed arm with his hand before thinking better of it. She turned to him, her eyes flickering everywhere but his face. "Where the hell could you be going that demands punctuality to the point of nearly killing your housemates?"

His grin was crooked. So was his left canine.

Fuck.

"Care of Magical Creatures," she snipped. "Not that you would know a thing about it."

"Quite right," he sighed, following her back down the stairs, this time at a much more reasonable pace. "Couldn't be bothered."

"Too common for you Potter?"

"Too elementary, I'm afraid. Waste of time. I'm already fairly proficient in caring for magical creatures."

"Masturbation doesn't count," she muttered, falling all too easily back into their habit of mindless, charged bantering. Only a moment later did she realize what she had actually said, and her face was promptly engulfed by more splotches of red. She ducked her head behind a sheet of her hair, hoping it could somehow distract from the rouge of her cheeks, and quickened her pace.