m a r i e;

The three boys had of course rejoined the fourth member of their group, which left her at her secluded table with Mary and April. Without the unwarranted supervision Sirius often entailed, Lily’s thoughts were free to stray. She wasn’t the most traditional pick for Head Girl given her own reckless and willingness to creep around the rules. Yet none of the other things she’d done in her time at Hogwarts could beat “inability to take her eyes off James Potter” as the top task a Head Girl shouldn’t do. It was too dangerous. 

But once again he was laughing and that too was dangerous. He was always laughing, and it drove her insane for reasons she’d hex her own tongue off before explaining. The liquor was perhaps making her dramatic. Regardless, her point stood. 

James Potter had no right to be that hot, not when the abnormal heart palpations in her chest felt worthy of the Hospital Wing. The sight of his laugh stirred her heart and distracted her from whatever April had said to make Mary stick her tongue out at her. It was a nice laugh, though it wasn’t her favorite laugh of his, not the laugh Lily had memorized in recent months. The one that trickled through every part of him. His torso would shift in her direction, followed by knobby knees knocking into hers. An arm thrown around her shoulders that brought her the slightest inch closer to him so her head rested in the crook of his neck. And a slight angle change caused those hazel eyes—those bottomless hazel eyes—to meet her own where they revealed the mischievous spark that cleared away any thought beyond him. The laugh had taken her by surprise more than once. Almost spilled more secrets than she could bear. It promised more to come, even if she sometimes had to pry the laughter out of him on days he was conceited enough to make her work for it. Nonetheless, it was the kind of laugh that made her feel seen, special even, and deluded her into thinking she’d give him anything he wanted if she could just listen to that laugh a moment longer. Still, this laugh had the annoying characteristic of almost ruining her resolve to stand up, walk the short—infinite—distance, and let herself be the one to make him laugh, to elicit that laugh she may already be half in love with.

Sirius had offered for the girls to join the group by the fireplace. Before the glint in his eyes had fully formed, she had already guessed what the invite meant. She declined the offer and feigned innocence in response to the skeptical eyebrow he rose at her. Don’t be a coward, Evans, she practically heard him think. The rational part of her mind assured her she wasn’t being a coward. It was caution. She and James were friends. Close friends. They were all but inseparable at this point, and it was too much of a risk to lose that. 

She really, really did want to congratulate him. A two hundred and thirty point advantage was no small win, especially with the number of goals he had scored himself. But she couldn’t. It was too intimate.

So admittedly, she was a coward when it came to James, preferring to live in the comfort of the known. A comfort zone that went beyond Sirius’s understanding. He liked to push her, convince her to be more brave. It didn’t matter to him that she had jumped off of a broomstick—from five feet off the ground—or swam in the Great Lake on a cold November night, both times because he said she didn’t have the nerve. Both times she proved him wrong.

The broomstick incident resulted from a boredom-induced episode back in November. With Remus in the Infirmary and Peter and James in detention, Sirius had been left to his own devices. While he no longer hated her then, he only barely tolerated her. Sirius, it seemed, would do anything to avoid being bored, so he had decided to talk to her. He recounted part of his summer with James, grinning at the dangerous Quidditch tricks he and James had tried over the summer. Lily shared her own story of jumping off swing sets as a child and had been adamant she could jump off a broom like the boys had.

“You jumped a few inches and used accidental magic to catch you. That’s not remotely the same,” he insisted, unimpressed. 

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Wanna bet?”

She ended up falling a few inches away from the magic safety net Sirius set. Thanks to magic, her sprained arm had been no worse than a head cold. Still, she had expected a little sympathy from him. She should have known better. Instead of an apology for his role, he said, “That was stupid, Evans, not brave.” His grey eyes roamed over her. Whether from intrigue or perplexity she still wasn’t sure. “We’re in Gryffindor for a reason, so if you want to be friends,” he told her, “get over yourself.” Seeing Lily’s offense at the implication, Sirius explained his three rules under this philosophy: 1) don’t overthink, 2) don’t assume you’re important enough for people to tell you the truth, and 3) don’t do something just to prove a point. 

She fell under rule three. “Being a reckless idiot doesn’t make you a Gryffindor,” he elaborated, taking a seat next to her on the infirmary bed.  

Sirius wouldn’t force her to admit her crush on James before she was ready. He wanted her to act because she was brave, not to prove him wrong. To get over herself, Lily had to make a choice for herself, not for James or Sirius or anyone else. He promised to leave it to her, and solemn promises were dear to the boys; she knew he wouldn’t break it even if she didn’t quite understand the grin when he shook her hand and uttered, “I solemnly swear.” 

The promise didn’t stop his attempts to orchestrate events for his preferred outcome, but she wasn’t ready to be brave yet. Instead, Mary and April stayed by her side so Lily wouldn’t have to sit alone ogling the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Perhaps, she was just a little pathetic right now.

But just a little. 

James became a puppeteer whenever he told a story, his hands animated with movements in all directions to get the stage cues just right. It was one of the things she loved most about him. Under his touch, the excitement infected everyone. Whatever story he had decided to tell right now was no different. He leaned back against the wall, moved his hands at the speed of a Snitch as he spoke, the way that commanded everyone’s attention. Sirius interrupted him, no doubt inserting his own twist on the tale. She grinned at the gesture, her heart soaring at the jubilant expressions mirrored on each boy’s face. Two boys who had added a liveliness to her own story, to a year she had prophesied as the worst one of her life. The grin lingered and only stopped when James eyes flitted over to her, the corner of his lips formed his signature lopsided smile. 

The pounding in her ears was just from the music, she reassured herself, and not her heart’s failed escape. 

She took another sip of her drink, convinced he knew. He had to know. Discreetness had long abandoned ship where her feelings were concerned, and she suspected even Severus had had his suspicions about her attraction to James. The accusatory and pointed expressions he had aimed at her were as subtle as her current crush.

Her fingers tapped on the glass of her cup, trying and failing to ground the influx of emotions. Sometimes, she didn’t know what was wrong with her. No other crush had made her act this demented. A crush that had always been spotty in the past, phases that were to be waited out like a bad storm. The minuscule—practically microscopic—crushes she developed on him in the past had lasted no more than a few weeks at most, distilled by something he said or did and waved away like the momentary loss of judgment it was. Assuming the same cycle, she hadn’t worried when her crush reappeared back in November. By mid-December, James started dating Annalisse again and Lily expected that to be the catalyst. So she waited and waited and waited, but still the crush continued. It was only in January when she realized how much trouble she was in: the smile she offered upon him entering her train compartment frightened her. A smile beyond her control, one so wide and instant she had practically fled the room anytime they were alone together after that. He has a girlfriend, she had reminder herself. 

Physically, there was nothing special about James Potter—nothing that should make her remember a specific lopsided smile he cast her way at a shared joke once or to relive the bit of toned skin she had seen outside the Prefects’ Bathroom another time, which no one could prove had been a frequent visitor of her dreams for weeks after the incident. By all accounts, he should’ve been easily overlooked. Pale skin that lost its soft tan in the weeks after returning from summer break. His raven hair, while uncommonly disheveled, did not carry the weight of Sirius’s elegance unless you counted the extra effort James took to ensure his hair couldn’t be mistaken for having a hint of order. Even his tall stature didn’t distinguish him in a crowd. It did thrill her to have to look up at him, especially when he had that challenging spark in his eyes that made her want to push him against a wall or into a broom closet (she wasn’t picky). 

Unfortunately for her, these conventional features did not stop him from being heart-shatteringly gorgeous. More unfortunate, it wasn’t his looks that would have had first-year Lily check her into St. Mungo’s. No, she could have suppressed the longing had it just been his looks. After all, Quidditch had been working in his favor long before sixth year. What truly converted her crush on James into a permanent fixture in her life was that he cared. Caring, she had long since realized, was another thing that just came naturally to him, like he didn’t understand why everyone else didn’t go to extremes. 

A month ago when everyone had gone up to bed, James had stayed up teaching Lily chess with a set that had belonged to his grandfather, Harry. Spiral gold pieces stuck out elegantly along the sides of the three-dimensional board with minuscule pearl and lapis lazuli gems sporadically placed. Gold mini-figures guarded each corner, waving around their swagger sticks and, like the rest of the pieces, offered unsolicited advice.

“Most people think I’ll play Quidditch after Hogwarts,” he told her before he commanded his silver Knight toward its new position, following an impatient cough from the chessman. The swish of his gold cape sounded after the Knight’s swift move. “But that hasn’t been my dream since I was twelve.” He hesitated for a second, the bashful smile on his face had sent a warm sensation down her spine. “I told McGonagall during the career meeting last year that I wanted to work for the Department of Mysteries. Invent new technology or research the unknown.” With one hand in his hair, he shrugged like what he said held no significance. “Maybe I will…eventually. But not now.” 

The somber tone held a seriousness that washed away his classic carefree nature. She ignored her pawns’ whines, fixated on detecting even the slightest change of expression. 

“What changed,” she remembered asking.

“The war.” His jaw clenched. “Once we graduate, I’m going to go out there and fight Death Eaters, help bring Voldemort and his followers down. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll find a way to even if it means going down with them.” 

And by god if she hadn’t wanted him already, that would have been the moment that did it for her. By god if a little part of her hadn’t fallen in love right there. 

It hadn’t just been the words he said but how he said them. How he meant them. Lily knew she might not make it out of this war. She would willing die if it came to it, but no other options existed for her—either the war ended or she did. Unlike her, James had endless options. Being a Pureblood meant he didn’t need to pick a side so long as he stood out of the way. Aside from her, he had no close Muggle-born friends, nor Muggle-born relations. And yet, he wanted to fight for people like her; he would willingly seek to fight and even die for people like her without ever being asked. She considered him selfish once, self-centered and self-serving. She had never been so wrong.

Last term, Lily had gone out with Gareth Ainsworth, a Muggle-born in their year. He was polite and a gentleman and had piercing blue eyes that made her melt on the spot whenever his gaze lingered. He was creative with a refreshing sense of humor that she had previously sacrificed in past boyfriends in favor of kindness and intelligence. Normally, he’d be the type she’d date to see where things led. But…he confessed he was scared and thought Muggle-borns should avoid added attention to themselves lest they land a target on their backs. She hadn’t blamed him for thinking so. After all, it was preservation for them, but nonetheless, she turned down a second date with the Ravenclaw. People were killing those like her…fighting to say she didn’t deserve the magic that flowed through her. Laying low meant diluting herself, her accomplishments, for a fascist’s pride. Preservation, she supposed, meant little to her if it meant living in fear or hidden her entire life. 

Sadly, the lack of self-preservation meant hours spent daydreaming about James at a party, not willing to break down the blurry line of their friendship. The line she crossed back and forth between because she had no idea what that would mean, for her or him. Whether they won or lost, she might soon become a war casualty. Could she start a relationship with James knowing the statement it could become? Knowing his back might soon become the goalpost because of her? 

She knew a relationship between them would last. Unquestionably, it would last. The firewhisky—her second of the night—burned on the way down her throat, and she hoped it was enough to drown the harrowing thought. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair in a moment of frustration—frustration at herself, at the sick and cruel universe, at James for not being the arrogant toerag she had once believed him to be.

“You could congratulate him with a big snog right here in front of everyone,” April suggested, cheeks rosy from her drink. “I think he deserves it after all his scoring today.” Mary giggled at the remark and almost spit up her own drink. 

“Not funny,” Lily replied. Rolling her eyes did little to deter her friends’ loud giggles, which were just as quickly masked by the music. 

Mary’s slurred words followed. “Oh, come on, Lily,” she practically shouted. The wobbly table creaked as Mary brought her hands on top of Lily’s. “He fancies you, you fancy him—what’s so complicated?” 

The conversation resurfaced at least once a week since James’s break up. Ignoring the first part of the statement, Lily repeated the variation she answered every time. “He just broke up with Annalisse a month ago.” 

“A little more than a month ago now,” Mary argued, “which is basically years at Hogwarts.” Lily shrugged like she had the other times Mary had voiced the point. “Plus, it wasn’t serious. It’s not like he loved—” Mary began only to be stopped by the pressure of April’s foot on hers. “April—what was that for?” Mary whined and lifted her foot up to her leg, rubbing at it as if it had been flattened rather than stubbed.

April nudged her head in the direction of the fireplace. “They’re coming over here.”

To Lily’s amusement or horror, Sirius pushed James in the girls’ direction. Remus and Peter followed along at a distance in case things escalated (they often did) between their dorm mates. 

“Oh, he’s so in love with you,” Mary sighed dramatically before once more being stepped on. This time by Lily. “That’s my good foot!” Nonetheless, she dropped the other foot back on the ground, a faux pout now graced her face.

Lily placed her head down on the table, groaning into her elbow. “I’m going to do something stupid, aren’t I?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” Mary said at the same time April added, “We could always steal you a time-turner.” Lily lifted up her head, noticing the suppressed laugh fighting at the corner of April’s mouth. Although the shine in her eyes was enough for Lily to know she would not like what was coming next. Not giving Lily time to respond, April got up from her seat and held out a hand for Mary. “Let’s dance, Mare.” 

April shot Lily a knowing look, the laugh no longer hidden, and mouthed what Lily could only interpret as “snog him.”Mary, mimicked the former and replaced the “no” in the first word with an “ha” and caused Lily to blush. In her moment of distress, she almost didn’t notice the boys take their seats.

With James plumped down in Mary’s vacated chair and his lopsided smile already on his face, it didn’t take long for the dizzy feeling of being near him to go to her head. The firewhisky in her hands—her third of the night—probably didn’t help. “You haven’t congratulated me yet, Evans.” 

She leaned into him, the smell of rain and grass clung to him and mixed with the smell of his own firewhisky. Lily could only hope the dangerous combination allowed her to escape the night without consequences for tomorrow’s Lily. “I think an entire party’s worth of people have congratulated you, Potter. Any more and your head won’t be able to stay balanced on that broomstick of yours.” In her drunken haze, her eyes gazed down to the lips between his teeth (the lips she wanted between her own teeth), then back up to his eyes (those stupid beautiful eyes). “And I suppose we still need you to get the Cup.”

He smirked. “Is that all I’m really good for?” 

“Oh, I can think of a few more things.” Now it was his turn to lean in closer to her. Abort mission, her lovely, rational brain screamed. Behind his square frames, the glint in his eyes challenged her, and the chance of any rational thought was no longer feasible.

“Like what?” 

She bit her tongue for a moment and swallowed all the different things that crossed her mind. Some sweet and some Veritaserum would have to be forcefully poured down her throat to reveal. Even then, she might have bitten off her tongue to avoid the embarrassment. “Dance with me,” she said instead.

“I don’t know,” he said in the teasing tone of his, the one he used whenever he clearly had a death sentence. The conceited tone that was far too attractive. Far too dangerous for her. “I’ve been standing all night.” 

“Then you can stand for a few more minutes—don’t be a prick and come dance with me.” 

His eyes roamed over her face. A wide smile formed and the hint of softness appeared. Abandoning his seat, he offered her his elbow. “Just so you know, Evans. I’m a phenomenal dancer,” he warned. “I’m afraid I’ll ruin you for all other dance partners.” 

Now on her feet, she looped her arm through his. “I danced with Sirius earlier, so you have a bit of competition. But if that does happen, you’re stuck being my dance partner. A noble sacrifice I’m sure.” 

He chuckled and led her toward the center of the room. When they found a spot that didn’t require them being pressed against other people, he let go of her hand and placed both of his on her waist. “You say that like it’s a threat.” 

The firewhisky lulled his voice and almost broke her own ability to talk. The same lull she’d hear on sleepless nights when they both stumbled down to the Common Room, on tired mornings when he’d be half asleep in the Great Hall. The lull that accompanied the affection that left her speechless: the twirl of her hair in his index finger, the proximity of his face so close to hers that the idea of not kissing him tortured her, his thumb brushing careless circles on her thigh, his head against her shoulder in dramatic agony, the laugh that tumbled out of him so often that her heart palpated. Affection that made it hard not to let her sink into him. She wanted to sink into him so much that she could feel the spot reserved in her chest just for him.

She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked up at his lips, then his face. Her grip on his shoulders tightened more than necessary, but if it bothered him, he didn’t say. She tried to control the river-like thoughts overtaking her brain, aided by the firewhisky in her bloodstream. Whoever was in charge attempted to convince her how many bad ideas could work out if she let them. And how she wanted to let them.

“Maybe it is,” she confessed, her hips moving in tune with the song. “Haven’t you heard of the Twelve Dancing Princesses.”

He shook his head. “No—are they Muggle nobility?” His thumb traced along the curve of her waist, back and forth in absentminded strokes. She resisted the urge to sigh as she moved closer to him, letting her chin fall to his shoulder.

She hummed into his shoulder, a small laugh reverberated there before she explained who the Grimm Brothers were and delved into her favorite Muggle fairytale about twelve sisters sneaking out every night to dance. Their observant father—the king—noticing the strange status of their worn-out shoes challenged the men of the kingdom to discover what the sisters were up to. “Whichever men could successfully find out what they were doing could have his choice of princess to marry and, when the time came, he would become king. However, if he failed, he’d be killed.” 

“Killed?” James scoffed, his chin resting on top of her head slightly shifted with the gesture. “What kind of messed up stories do Muggles read to their children.” His breath hot against her ear caused her to sigh, the sound muffled into his shoulder. 

 She lifted her head up to aim a warning glare his way. “Most of the fairytales we’re told get a kid-friendly version—now let me finish.” One of her hands came down to slap his arm gently, her fingers lingering more than necessary. Maybe she was no better than Sybil Vell.

She placed her hand around his neck again and continued. “Where was I? Right, so the men have three days to find out what the princess get up to at night or they’re beheaded. A few try but none are successful. Then, an injured soldier enters the edge of town when he’s stopped by this older lady. She gives him an invisibility cloak to try his luck. However, she warns him not to drink anything the girls give him and to pretend to sleep after they visit him.”

“An invisibility cloak?” His lips twitch upward. “Are you sure these Grimm Brothers weren’t wizards?” 

The movement of his palm, now on her back, delayed her response. “It’s just a story, James,” she practically crooked out. “I doubt they actually knew about invisibility cloaks.” He pulled away from her as the song came to an end, taking with him the warmth of his body flushed against hers. Her hands fell to her side reluctantly, and she began moving away. The boyish grin on his face stopped her, and one of his hands took hers loosely as the next song started. The other ghosted along her waist. 

His hand guided her to a spin and she followed, the fingers on her waist lingering through its entirety. She swallowed, the heat residing in her felt like magic threatening to burst out. 

“You were saying?” he prompted when she came to a halt, once more pressed against him. Although, this time his hands held hers clasped in his, guiding one over his shoulder where he let them rest. The other wrapped around each other’s waist, tangled. Intimate.

Please don’t do anything stupid, she pleaded with herself. Like kiss him. Kissing him would definitely be stupid. So stupid.

She closed her eyes for a second. “The soldier agrees to the king’s challenge, following the advice of the old lady. After the elder sister visits him and offers him a drink, he feigns sleep and overhears the sisters reveal the information he needs to follow them.” She let herself enjoy his hand in hers, the gentle hold contrasted against the indecipherable screeches coming from the record player. James had long since given up following the rhythm of the songs, and as it kept her close to him, she didn’t argue. Her eyes angled to look up at him as she told the rest of the story: the secret trap door that lead out the palace; the use of the invisibility cloak to track them through the forest to the nearby lake and into the beautiful castle where each princess danced the night away with her respective prince; and the soldier’s stealth in hiding away with one of them in the boats, returning through the passage, and pretending to be asleep before they got back. 

“He follows them again with the cloak the next two nights,” she explained, “and made sure to get tokens on his way—some tree branches and a cup from the castle. When the king summons him after the third night, the full truth comes out.” Lily scrunched up her nose. “My cousin Matthew used to tell me a version where all the sisters danced until their feet bleed raw. But thankfully, this is actually one of their less twisted stories.”

James lessened his hold on her to spin her again, faster this time, and brought her in closer to him. Her front flushed against his, so close she could feel the heat of skin from underneath his robes. Tease. 

“So which sister does he marry?” he questioned, his breath sweeping over her lips.   

“Hmm,” she uttered, forgetting what he asked. 

“The soldier—who does he marry?”

“Oh, the eldest sister.” She tightened the hold of her hands on his shoulders, not willing to let any distance come between them so soon. “I always thought he should have picked the youngest. She was the smartest of the girls and the only one to suspect something out of the ordinary. Not that the eldest believed her.” 

He stilled for a second and raised one of his hands to her chin. “You’re not being bias are you?” If she moved the slightest, her lips would land on his. They looked as soft as the messy stands of hair on his head, the kind of soft that might ruin her. 

Now it was her turn to scoff, to hide the inappropriate thoughts that only partially resulted from the amount of firewhisky she consumed tonight. Although, the slight upturn of her mouth likely wasn’t convincing anyone. “Of course not.”

As much as James loved being cocky, he loved taking everyone else down a peg. She wished that characteristic didn’t make her want to let her own smugness over take control for the sole purpose of James’s attempt to humble her. She should have known it was coming when the slight rise of his mischievous grin and the matching glint in his eyes took form. He moved to spin her around again, only to take the last few seconds to dip her instead. 

Only the hand around her waist steadied her as he held them close to the ground, the grin never faltering in spite of the half-contained laugh that threatened to escape him. Had it been anyone else, she might have feared the stability, but she’d let him lead her anywhere, no questions asked. Her heart rate quickened at the realization.

Still, she had a part to play. “You arse!” Her laughter no doubt lessened the severity of the scream, but it made him laugh too, so she didn’t mind.

When he finally brought her back up, her vision a little disorientated, the next song had started. At this point, she had lost track of the songs they circled through. 

James used the hand he still held to twirl her for real this time and lead her back into his chest, closer than before. The adorable grin now on his face intensified the thumping in her chest. Maybe one day she would stop knowingly placing herself in trouble. 

His chin rested back on her head, and she counted to ten, not trusting herself to speak. “So who taught you to dance?” she asked after her time was up.

The warmth of his laughter against her hair did not help the panicked part of her brain. “My parents are the madly in love sort,” he said. “When I was younger I used to sit around drawing while they danced around the living room. ‘Course most of the time I wound up just watching them. Mam would end up forcing me to dance with her whenever dad got tired. ‘A gentleman must know proper dance etiquette, cariad’ she’d say.” The fondness in his voice was clear and made her look up, wanting to memorize this look among the others she had unconsciously collected. “I still watch them dance when I’m home for breaks. It’s what I want.”  

“To dance?” she teased.

Fondness still rolled off his tongue. “My parents, unfortunately, have set really high standards for me when it comes to love. They’ve been together for far too many decades to count, including a decade they spent apart after Hogwarts because both were scared to admit they were mad about the other, scared that it was just a fleeting infatuation.” He laughed, a small smile on the corner of his lips. “It wasn’t, and after all that time, they still want to spend every day together. They still look at each other like they did in their wedding pictures—the ‘I can’t believe this is really happening’ look of happiness. And, well, it’s nice to know that kind of love exists. That you can spend decades of your life with someone and still want more.”

The look he sent her caused goosebumps to go down her arms and her brain to question the nature of their friendship. He didn’t still fancy her? She knew better than to think that. It was the look Mary would try to convince her meant he was madly in love with her. The one Sirius would have raised his eyebrows at her for and nudged her to make a move, though he’d never directly tell her James’s feelings. “I won’t divulge his secrets anymore than I’ll divulge yours,” he had told her when she finally admitted to her crush. “But know that I wouldn’t encourage you to fail, Evans.” 

The smile on James’s face now wasn’t the lopsided one he often wore but rather one that took up the entire bottom half of his face and summoned the dimples on both sides of his mouth. The creased corners of his eyes visible behind his glasses as he looked down at her. The look was firewhisky, a warm sensation coursing through her veins and sending every thought spiraling through her head.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Her voice parched. 

“Like what?”

Like maybe you love me. He couldn’t look at her like that or she might actually need that time-turner for the amount of stupidity she would commit for that look. “Like you’re trying to read my mind,” she settled for instead.

He stopped his sway, forcing them both to a stop. “No—it’s just. Merlin, Evans, you are—” He broke eye contact and exhaled, a hint of frustration detected. “Never mind.”

She broke away from him slightly. “No, say it. I’m what? A terrible dance partner?” An idiot? The love of your life? 

“Stunning.” He mumbled, tensed. “You’re stunning.” He avoided catching her eyes but placed his hands slightly above her waist and resumed their dance. “I might be a little sloshed.” The drumming of his fingers on her dress matched the pace of her soon to be heart attack. 

“Is that so?” she managed to get out, not sure what to say that wouldn’t make her sound demented.

“Just a bit.” He tightened his hold on her. “I’m not even sure whether music is playing right now.” 

She laughed, the arms around his neck aided her in pulling him in closer as well. “I think someone put on an instrumental, so you’re probably not that pissed.”

She knew Sirius was right. She needed to be brave, to make her own choice. Problem was she wasn’t sure how. James showed her how to play chess, but even then, Lily had been clueless on making the first move and even more clueless on ending the game. This moment felt like that. Lily had never made the first move on a boy. She had never had to. In the past, all it took was a bit of flirting before whatever crush she had took the hint and asked her out. Simple. As the bane of her existence, James was anything but simple.

Flirting with James hadn’t led to anything in the past month, except for confusion and a string of made-up headaches whenever her failed attempts placed her in a bad mood for the remainder of the day. Her lack of momentum where James was concerned had caused Lily to reach two conclusions to everyone’s frustration. James didn’t have the heart to let her down. Or, James Potter wouldn’t know what flirting looked like if it hit him with a bloody Bludger. 

Right now, she was hoping it was the latter. She could do this. She could ask out a boy. 

“Hey, James—” she said at the same time he spoke.

“I’m glad we’re friends, Lil.” His voice low, as if he hadn’t decided whether he wanted her to hear him or not. 

Could he hear the whispered “Crucio” aimed at her heart in a voice that sounded just like his?

“I hope we’re always friends,” he mumbled. I don’t, she wanted to say. I may be falling in love with you, she wanted to scream with a stump of her feet, frustration at him—for him—tethering on insanity. Please don’t let him see the disappointment running through her. 

She waited out the song and all but fled back to their group of friends when it finished.

James Potter, Lily decided as she stole the firewhisky in Sirius’s hand, had no right to be that hot when he was breaking her heart. 

Throwing back her fourth cup of firewhisky, Lily recalled the six words she had said earlier that night. Louder though, she heard three words Sirius had spoken to her only two weeks ago in the Common Room when her frustration became clear. “Make him jealous,” he advised her with the casual shrug of his. She told him she was above that. Still believed it too. Unfortunately for her, the firewhisky was not so sure.  

James Potter was either not into her or a complete idiot. Perhaps both. But she would have to find out. Needed to find out if nothing more than to let it rest.

Without a word, Lily moved away from where her group of nine—now joined by Moira and Roland—sat and headed toward the retreating Ravenclaw. 

“Bran, wait up!” she yelled. The golden haired boy paused before the exit. He turned around, eyebrows furrowed together as he registered who had called after him.

He cast an appreciative look at her, followed by a raised eyebrow. “What can I do for you, Lily?”

On paper, Bran should have been her type. Prefect. Played Quidditch, though not Captain. Brainy. Attractive. His blonde curls contrasted against his tan skin. Broad shoulders set him apart in a crowd, a natural athletic build. He stood out. 

In practice, Bran wasn’t Lily’s type, not now.

She was about to tell him to forget it, make up an excuse about switching Prefect patrols. Yet seven blasphemous words tumbled from her lips before any rational thought could warn her against the idea: “Care to go to Hogsmeade with me?” 

The moment the words were uttered, a dread settled over her. Please say no. 

Lily didn’t like the smile he sent her way. It wasn’t the lopsided smile she had become accustomed to. Or one of fondness. It didn’t make her feel special or make her want to spend hours committing it to memory. 

“I thought you’d never ask.” He winked at her. “I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow.” With that, he stepped through the exit. 

She couldn’t meet James’s eyes when she rejoined the group, eyes that scorched her. He brought the drink in his hand to his lips, taking a big gulp before setting it back onto the table, the force he used caused the table to shake and easily could have broken the glassware had he wanted. She avoided looking at the girls who knew her enough to realize the horrible mistake she made, knew her enough to recognize she thought Bran Studwick was a massive prick. 

She skimmed past Peter and Remus and let her gaze rest on Sirius. Lily didn’t expect kindness, and perhaps that’s what she wanted: judgement, anger. However, Sirius wasn’t looking at her. His gaze lingered on James instead. A worried frown replaced the laugh Sirius’s face had held minutes before.

To his right sat his beautiful girlfriend whose quill tapped against the letter she had received from her mum at breakfast. Her bottom lip pulled slightly into her mouth as her eyes skimmed the page for the second time that morning, suppressing a smile. James couldn’t help but watch her. Hours after breakfast with Lily found him much more awake than he had been at the start of the day. He had even managed to stay up for the entirety of History of Magic. Given Professor Binns put even the most studious students to sleep, the inventor of Invigoration Draught deserved an Order of Merlin for that miracle. Although, he supposed the whispered commentary and shared looks from Lily had done most of the work in keeping him awake that morning. He swore there must be an invisible thread connecting them, pulling at him when she gave even the most microscopic tilt of the head. He couldn’t decide if that was a curse or a blessing. Though he had daydreamed about being with Lily an embarrassing amount of times since fourth year, nothing had prepared him for the reality of it. He had thought of the noise of it—the warmness of her laugh, the rustling of robes in broom closets, and late nights in the kitchen telling stories to one another with the banging of metal in the background. All of that had surpassed his expectations. 

It was the quietness he hadn’t anticipated. Neither Lily nor he were particularly quiet people, but even her silence was deafening. He wanted to treasure every second of it, drown in the quietude if it prolonged the time in her presence. He wanted every single second the universe would allow him with her even if it meant never sleeping again. And who could fall asleep when she looked at them with that look that seemed to promise him more than he could karmically afford? Didn’t she know that those emerald eyes could drive him to drown himself in the Great Lake if she asked? While brilliant, it wasn’t the color that drove him to insanity—thank Merlin—or he would have gone mad years ago. The softness and slight crinkle produced at each corner, caused by the rightful delight at her own wit, made his legs wobble and trapped the breath in his throat.

Throughout their schooling, he had looked into those same eyes and thought they were stunning, vivid and prophetic in nature; she could have read his mind had she been inclined, which would have resulted in more than one well-deserved hex. However, despite the grand number of metaphors that had run through his head since fourth year, fourteen-year-old Lily’s eyes were not nearly as beautiful as the ones he had seen when they became friends—when the laughter of his jokes reached her eyes and he swore his heart stopped or when a particular glint reflected her mischievous nature. Her eyes then were not nearly as stunning as they had been the past few months. The lively sight of them after he would twirl her around the packed Gryffindor Common Room—dancing with her and dipping her until he heard her emit that rib-cracking laugh that always made him kiss her to the horror of those trying to study (not that he cared). Or the delight he saw whenever he would transfigure a random item into a flower for her like he had done once a week since the day after she asked him to Hogsmeade. Tucking a strand of hair, she would put the flower behind her ear for the day. He couldn’t look at her for the remainder of it without restraining himself from kissing her because his heart could not take just how fast he was drowning in her. And the impish grin she threw him told him she knew it too. He saw it in the look she gave him whenever he’d get distracted by her laughter in his mock duels with Sirius and inevitably bump into something or end up having to undo whatever ill-fated spell Sirius sent his way. He’d take a thousand spells if it meant racking up enough karmic points to deserve that look directed at him.

He ran a hand through his hair, forcing himself out of his own mind. He looked down at the hand already grasped in her own and thumped his fingers against the back of her left hand. The softness of her skin grounding him in the classroom. A redness rose to her cheeks but her quill continued sliding against a fresh piece of parchment, a response to her mother rather than any notes on the Disillusionment Charm. She paused for a moment as the corner of her lips tilted upward. No doubt appreciating a witty response she made to her mother whose humor Lily often said she inherited with her father’s being a bit more direct. Her red hair cascaded down her neck now, and he grinned at the reminder of pulling on the gold bow that held her plait together in between pressing kisses to her collarbone. Afterwords, his fingers combed her curls into a presentable state for the Head Girl.

His eyes trailed down her hair to her nose to her lips again to her neck to their interlaced hands. An idea took over, and he let go of her hand to take a spare quill from his bag, rubbing it in between his thumb and forefinger. He shifted himself closer to her, his head moving to lay on his desk for a better angle. She looked down at the movement, eyebrows furrowed. He grabbed her hand in his left one and positioned it on top of his desk before pressing a soft kiss to it. He ignored the scoff from his left, knowing Sirius would have an entire comedic act ridiculing him later.

Softly, he pressed the tip of his quill to her skin, careful to avoid pricking her as he began his first design. She nudged him and he raised his eyes to meet hers, noticing the arched eyebrows above the spark in the emerald. The corner of her mouth, he could tell, resisted smiling at his antics. The unyielding response that, had they not be in class, would have resulted with his lips kissing the spot repeatedly until he garnered the reaction he wanted out of her: the little giggle with her hands on his chest before she called him a prat or an arse or a toerag with such fondness that he couldn’t help but listen to the accelerated drumming of his heart, the part that whispered that maybe she loved him like he loved her.

Instead, he shrugged and continued brushing the quill against her skin, gripping her fingers between his own. Stay with me, he wanted to say.

He grinned at the completed image on her hand. The small snitch a mirror of the one he had doodled on a scrap of paper at the end of their DADA OWL exam, down to the LE scribbled on it. Above it, he began adding other simplified images on the canvas of her skin: stick figures of them, a squid, and a catapult to symbolize one of his favorite Quidditch teams as well as the scene of their first kiss. He hesitated for a moment before sketching a ring, minuscule compared to the other figures but there nonetheless. Only then, did he look back toward her. He didn’t consider himself someone who typically sought approval on any of his decisions, except when it came to Lily. With her, he wanted to know that her heart raced for him faster than a Seeker after the Snitch; he knew his did.

And there it was again. The soft glint of something in the emerald of her eyes—whether it was the reciprocal love he had for her or just love for him—that told him that perhaps he could have everything he wanted with her. Maybe they were it.

Do you like it? he mouthed at her.

She was about to respond before Flitwick set them free to practice the spell. She looked at him like she wanted to say something but nodded instead. She squeezed his hand once more in hers, then let go and stood up.

“Don’t turn yourself too translucent,” she teased.

He chuckled. “Even then, you’re not getting rid of me, Evans.”

For the remainder of class, he alternated between watching her practice the spell with April and Mary and attempting the spell with his own group. Her fingers occasionally flipping through her Charms textbook. The familiar laugh sounding around her when she’d catch him looking at her.

Sirius, who had made some headway halfway through the practice, had begun practicing on Peter whenever Flitwick would become preoccupied helping another group.

Sirius rolled his eyes at the frustrated boy before sighing. “You’re too in your head, Wormtail,” he said, “You need to cast it like a rope, not a streamer.”

“It’s not a streamer,” he defended, waving his wand around him again. This time with more of a flare. It was very much still a streamer. He heard their debate and heard himself joking around with Sirius and heard the sound of chatter around them, but nothing stuck today.

He was relieved when class ended and she was by his side again. He threw his arm around her shoulder, glancing behind him to see Sirius and Peter talking before he began steering her away. Sirius met his eyes and arched his eyebrow. It was serious when even his best friend didn’t tease him about his behavior.

They walked in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. Lily shifted closer to his side, a peaceful hum reverberated from her lips. “I love the doodles,” she whispered after a moment.

A grin slid on his face. “Did you now?” He stared down at her to see her already gazing up at him. “Which was your favorite?”

“Are you aiming for a compliment, James Potter?”

He flicked the side of her arm fondly. “From you? Until the day I die.”

“If your ego continues, that may be any day now.”

“Probably from all the bruising you give it.”

“You call it bruising—I call it humbling.” He shook his head, laughing in time with her own. Once she stopped, she said, “I like them all too much to choose. I wish I could keep them forever, like a tattoo.”

“A tattoo?”

“Muggles have a special process where they insert ink into your skin with a needle to make the images stay on permanently.” She waved her left hand in front of his face. “I used a variation of the water-repelling charm. That should last about a day, so it’s almost like having my own James Potter tattoo.”

The words were on the tip of his tongue. The I love you. The I am in love with you and always will be. As he worked on committing every part of her to memory, he knew his own look could be read clearly on his face, but there was no rush today he realized. They may not have all the time in the world, but they had the next few months to enjoy the shield of the castle. After that, he imagined a small secluded house—perhaps a cottage—by the lake where the sea salt smell would cling to her skin. He saw a big yard where he could fly around and teach their children Quidditch, coming down to the ground to kiss her or teaming up with her against the kids. He saw Sirius and Remus a Peter and Mary and April coming over. He saw her—in bed with her red curls spread around the pillows … in the kitchen, drinking tea while he attempted breakfast and burned the toast … on the floor, playing with the children. He saw the bad too—the foot-in-the-mouth fights and sleepless nights and the war—but all that mattered was her arms woven around him.

He blushed, knowing he was getting ahead of himself. But even though it had only been two months, he knew it wouldn’t only be two months. Months would turn into years that if they survived—and Merlin he would wreck havoc on Earth if she left without him—would turn into decades. He would love her for all of them.

“Would you want it to be permanent?” he asked, not talking about the tattoo.

Lily weighed her options. None, unfortunately, as pleasant as the Giant Squid. Immediately, she dismissed the seat next to Severus and, a table over, the one beside her most recent ex-boyfriend, Adrian Thornbridge. Prefect meetings were already more than enough time in Adrian’s company. The three-month relationship had ended in a nasty spat over her friendship with Severus and escalated due to Lily’s already growing disinterest. While a bit competitive, she had initially found Adrian easygoing and charming with the kind of smile that roamed her thoughts for days, only to come to the realization that the Hufflepuff Chaser was a sore loser. An afternoon spent listening to Adrian’s theory that the Gryffindor Chasers had cheated, leading to a Gryffindor victory despite Hufflepuff possession of the Snitch, had been more than enough for her to lose feelings.

With a sigh that could convince someone she had been sentenced to Azkaban, Lily sat at the table closest to the door and forced herself not to overthink the decision as a pair of eyes followed after her. She took a deep breath, inhaling a recognizable scent from a nearby cauldron. For a moment, she imagined she was elsewhere—back home browsing through her dad’s record collection or outside by the lake with the smell of saltwater sticking to her skin. She hesitated for a second, unsure of the faint whiff of grass. Or was it wood? Pushing the cauldron from her mind, she placed her textbook down on the desk, tightening her hold on it. Directly across from her, James Potter glanced up at her. A slight wrinkle lined his forehead. The furrowed eyebrows behind his square frames emphasized his clear confusion. He said nothing but gave a small nod of acknowledgement, as if accepting the peculiarity of her choice. Next to him, Sirius Black raised an eyebrow at her, an indiscernible look in his grey eyes. Despite their complicated history, she knew she had made the best of four horrible choices. While more tolerable than Adrian, Maisie Croft would enjoy Lily’s company as much as Lily would enjoy Severus’s.

Lily wasn’t naive to how other Muggleborns, like Maisie, looked at her. Attacks on Muggleborns had been a constant mention during Prefect meetings the previous year. The pointed looks from Maisie may as well have made her an honorary Slytherin for the fire they surely wanted to incite. Severus, she reminded herself, hadn’t just shattered their friendship. He had, unbeknownst to Lily, turned her into one of those Sindy dolls she and Petunia would play with as children. Lily had liked to make her doll talk in different voices and experiment with their careers (from dancer to scientist to actress), only to be reprimanded by Petunia under threat of not playing with her anymore. Severus, like Petunia, had convinced Lily that she had a choice. After all, the words that left her lips were her own, her actions her own. But was it really a choice when her actions were influenced by the fear of being abandoned by them, the guilt of how they would feel? Severus, she could now admit, had wanted her to decide she was okay being special to him because they had been best friends. Subconsciously, she had been okay with it. For no one else, she knew, would she have turned the other cheek. She had heard the rumors about Severus (and his friends) and chosen to ignore and brush them aside as one of many rumors Hogwarts had circled around until little truth remained to the story. Some, however, had been too convincing not to believe. The rumors they had fought about she had let him convince her were blown out of proportion, had convinced her to forgive him because above anything, they had promised to be best friends. Every time she had forgiven him or let him drop the subject, she had sent the message to him (to everyone) that she didn’t care. How could anyone think her brave, or even kind, after that? Her fingers brushed the cover of her potions book, swallowing the anxiety in her chest that threatened to reveal itself. She would do better this year, she had to. If she couldn’t belong, she could at least make up for last year.

Perhaps that’s what hurt the most about her return to Hogwarts. Even during that first uncertain night in the castle, with Petunia’s resentful words looming in the background and the disappointment about being sorted in a different house than Severus, Hogwarts had held a familiarity to it that no where else had ever incited in her, not her hometown of Cokeworth nor the Irish countryside Lily had spent part of every other summer growing up. Hogwarts had been the first place Lily belonged, where the magnetic pull of magic coursed through her veins. Seconds after the hat had declared her a Gryffindor, her placement in the world had no longer been wishful thinking spoken between two young children who had often been reminded they were different. The hat had told everyone in that room that she belonged, proved there hadn’t been a mistake. And now, that didn’t seem to matter. Hogwarts had become just another place she had belonged, forcing her to confront the unpleasant voice in the back of her mind that wondered whether there was anywhere she truly belonged. No matter what she said otherwise, no matter how many cruel words or spells left her lips, the voice could no longer be silenced.

Wrapped up in her thoughts, Lily failed to notice Slughorn approach the cauldron next to her table, failed to consider the potion. Now, her hand went up at once to identify it. Confirming her answer, a fatherly smile graced her professor’s lips. The resemblance to her own grandfather’s smile forced her to look away from him. Two months after his passing still seemed too soon to see any reminders without heartache pulsing through her.

“And I have no doubt you know its defining characteristics.”

She nodded, using the tip of her nail to scratch the surface of her textbook. “The mother-of-pearl sheen, the steam’s coiling spirals, and the smell. Each person smells something different depending on what attracts them the most.” Without doing so consciously, she took another small breath of air. “I smell my dad’s record collection, my mum’s perfume, and … saltwater.” She hoped no one noticed the small hesitancy in the end. The earlier smell, she realized, was the Quidditch Pitch. Adrian had never really smelled like the field, and she’d be mortified for him to believe otherwise.

“Of course she would know,” whispered Black with an eye roll, diverting her attention from Slughorn’s praise. With just enough room for a cauldron and supplies, the tables were not vast in size, making private conversations practically impossible. While they had gotten on the wrong foot from the moment they stepped onto the Hogwarts Express, Black had rarely been rude to her outside of any interactions with Severus. Even then, she suspected his bait was meant for Severus more than her. Already not in the mood to tolerate whatever problem he decided to have with her, she opened her mouth to retort, but unexpectedly, the words uttered weren’t her own.

“Quit it” came Potter’s response. An unpleasant turn of the mouth present on his face.

Black sighed. “Whatever,” he replied in a tone that declared the subject of little importance. Yet the cold expression on his face when he met her eyes would convince no one.

She tuned back into her professor’s lecture. Chuckling, Slughorn said, “We’ll come back to this one later in the year.” He turned to a table of giggling students who whispered amongst themselves. “Don’t get to excited,” he replied. “We’ll be working on the antidote then, but for now, time for you to start today’s assignment.”

Lily studied the cauldron on Slughorn’s desk in confusion and saw similar expressions on some of her classmates’ faces. As if on cue, Maisie raised her hand, pointing toward the tiny cauldron in question. At the words “Felix Felicis,” Lily, like many others, adjusted her seat in hopes of a better look at the golden liquor.

“Can anyone describe the potion’s function?”

To her surprise, it was James Potter who answered. “It’s liquid luck, professor. It’s supposed to make you extremely lucky until it wears off.” The soft, curious tone contrasted against the raspy pitch of last year. It suited him better, she thought. “My dad said it’s complicated to make and can be, well, unlucky if done wrong,” he finished, pushing his glasses further onto his nose.

For once, everyone’s eyes seemed to be trained on the professor as he elaborated on the substance and went on to answer the aberrant number of questions asked. “Moderation, my dear. Too much of anything good can be dangerous. Abusing the potion can cause reckless behavior, misplaced self-assurance, and extreme giddiness.”

“Sounds like a Gryffindor,” Adrian said louder than he seemed to intend. Snickers sounded from a few nearby tables. The smirk on Severus’s face caused a frown to grace her own.

Never one to take anything, it was no surprise Black barked back. Begrudgingly, she couldn’t help but admire the trait. With an unimpressed expression and an arched eyebrow, he looked directly at the Hufflepuff. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Thornbridge,” he said. “We’re not cowardly enough to need a potion to be daring. Although, flying on a broom seems to be hard for you, so maybe you need it.” Potter’s shook his head at his friend, knocking off his hat in the process, and whispered something she didn’t catch with the laugher echoing off the walls. She couldn’t help the way her own lips twitched upward.

Slughorn silenced the class. Despite its small size, the phial he produced from his pocket was enough to regain the students’ attention. At the promise of the reward for the best quality Draught of Living Death, the class got to work. Metal sounded against marble, chairs scrapped across the floor, pages flipped faster than a deck of cards. Lily was still copying down the ingredients on a spare sheet of parchment when a pair of sneakers stopped in front of her. Hesitant, Potter opened and closed his mouth as if unsure whether to speak. She didn’t blame him after their last conversation. Still, Lily said nothing. Instead, she took Black’s approach and arched an eyebrow in his direction. Potter ruffled his already disheveled hair and let the lopsided smile take over his face, the smile that was a combination of overconfidence and sheepishness. Lily had always had a soft spot for that smile. It was objectively a nice smile, she told herself.

“I’ll go grab the ingredients for the table, make it easier on all of us.” Before she could respond, he headed toward the store cupboard.

She didn’t need to turn around to know Severus had been watching them. Still, the second Potter stepped away, she glanced over her shoulder. The moment their eyes met, she looked away. There was no use giving him any satisfaction. Only after turning back did she notice Black’s eyes on her too. The slight frown the lone indication of any emotion. For some reason, she had the impression she had somehow failed an exam for a class she wasn’t taking.

“Careful,” he said with a sardonic grin. “Your boyfriend’s still watching.”

She was still glaring at him when Potter returned to the table minutes later.

Despite the palpable sense of stress and confusion around the room, Black and Potter chatted across the table as they would in the Great Hall. Inexplicably, her attention kept drifting back to them.

“So what’d you smell in the Amortentia?” she overheard Black ask, an ease in his tone that matched the pace in which he cut through the valerian roots.

Potter chuckled, though there was an edge. Without looking up from his own cutting, he responded, “Pretty much what’d you expect.”

Lowering his voice, Black took on a teasing note. “I thought you didn’t keep secrets.” Having spent the last five years in the same house and sharing multiple classes, she recognized the fondness in which Black spoke to his friends at times, the softness that came with familiarity and caused a feeling of longing in her. For as much as she loved her friends, she envied the way Black pushed with such self-assurance. Lily feared pushing, feared it was the catalyst in ruining relationships (no matter how much one claimed to love you). She had pushed with Petunia, and that only seemed to make her sister hate her even more. She had been moderate in her pushing with Severus, losing him to his gang of future Death Eaters.

“Drop it, Sirius,” Potter said with no malice in his voice.

“Fine,” Black responded, unbothered. She wondered what it was like to not fear in the fragility of those who loved you. “I thought mine was rather interesting. Sleekeazy’s, anise, and old leather. Although, it also kind of smelled like our dorm.”

The blue fog emitting from her cauldron provided a slight barrier of denial in watching them. Glancing up from under her eyelids, she noticed the tilt to Potter’s mouth and the facetious retort that no doubt would have fallen from his lips had Black not addressed her.

“How about you, Evans? What else did you smell?”

Her eyes moved to Potter who avoided looking at her, a vein twitching on his neck as Black’s name slipped through his lips, a warning.

She laughed in surprise and shook her head at him, a look of incredulity on her face. Deciding to play nice, she replied, “Some secrets you take to the grave.”

Black shrugged. “What,” he said looking back at Potter who had picked his knife back up. “It was worth a try.” Potter rolled his eyes, but there was an affectionate look there, one of half-wonder and half-fondness.

“Why’d I agree to take two classes with just you for company?” Potter teased, prompting a bark-like laugh.

Twenty minutes later, Lily was stirring the now rose-colored potion when Black addressed her once more. She wondered whether she would soon regret not sitting next to her ex-boyfriend instead.

“Yes, Black?”

“Who was dueling?”

“What?”

“You said you were late because someone was dueling in front of the Great Hall, and you had to go to the hospital wing. So, who was it?”

Surprised at his attentiveness, she paused her stirring for a moment to meet his eyes. Without thinking, she said, “I’m sure Remus will tell you about it later.” Black’s ladle clashed against the cauldron, reverberating sharply in her ears.

“Remus?” Potter asked, stopping his own stirring.

“What does Remus have to do with anything?” Black questioned at the same time Potter asked, “Is he okay?”

A cold expression took over Black’s expression, his gaze shifting to the two Slytherin tables suspiciously. “I swear if any of them so much as laid a wand on him—”

“What about Peter?” Potter cut off, his furrowed eyebrows showing a rare concern.

Brief confusion took over her before clarity set in. “Remus isn’t hurt,” she said, lifting her gaze. “I was on my way to breakfast when I passed Davey Gudgeon and his friends playing dueling tag with some of the Ravenclaws. Half of them were injured, so Remus helped me take them to Madam Pomfrey.”

Black’s nostrils flared for a moment, mumbling what sounded like “looney woman” under his breath. Potter laughed. He had an infection laugh that vibrated through his entire body, a laugh that made his relief tangible. She looked down at her potion, hiding her smile.

“Not the best place for that, is it?” Potter said after his laugh had settled down, the glares from their stressed classmates left unacknowledged. “The Quidditch Pitch is much better, or the dorm if you’re in a tight spot. Although, transfiguring the furniture out of the way for the additional space can be tedious.” She raised an amused eyebrow for the second time that day. “Not that I would know, of course.” He grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh along with him. She ignored the intermittent glare to her back, swallowing down the guilt.

“Funny,” replied Lily, a softness in her own voice. “Remus said the same thing.”

***

With a genuine grin on her face for the first time all week, Lily slipped the phial full of golden liquor into her robe’s pocket and slowly stowed away her notes and spare parchment into her bag. She had just finished tying up the ends of her now-frizzled hair when Potter leaned up against the side of her desk, his bag hanging from his shoulder with the end of his pointed hat peeking through.

“Congratulations, Evans,” he said. His hand hovered up to his hair before it fell to adjust his glasses instead. Beside him, Black faced away from her, leaning against the space Potter had occupied.

“I’m glad it wasn’t a Slytherin,” Black uttered without so much as peering in her direction. This, she thought, might be as much of a compliment as Black could handle giving her in whatever mood he seemed to be in.

Self-conscious, she uttered a quick “thank you” to the boys before continuing to pack up the rest of her belongings. She couldn’t wait to get out the room and escape the intensity of Severus’s glares. Their classmates passed them on their way out the room, most seemingly eager to leave the chilly confines of the dungeons. Potter, usually among the first in past years, lingered. A conflicted expression appeared on his face. After a moment, he spoke up.

“Look, Evans,” he began, his voice steady but lacking its usual confidence. “I just wanted to—” He paused and let out a frustrated breath before running a hand through his hair as he had resisted doing earlier. “Look—I’m sorry about what happened after our Defense OWLs—asking you out like that. It wasn’t right, and you didn’t deserve to be humiliated like that. That’s all.” Black tensed up but didn’t turn around.

“I know.” She looked down to avoid his eyes. Her fingers drummed absentmindedly against her book. “It was a really nice letter, Potter,” she responded, blushing.

“Letter?”

Her eyes glanced up to scan his face for signs of a joke. She saw none and paused, contemplating her next move. Her eyes drifted over her textbook. She hoped she wouldn’t regret her next decision. “This is from you, right?” she asked, retrieving the letter she had stuffed in the back of the book over the summer. Black’s curiosity seemed to have won, for he adjusted his position to focus on the letter that soon came into Potter’s possession. Hazel eyes quickly scanned the creased parchment that had been folded and unfolded countless times over the summer for reasons she couldn’t even explain to herself. Unlike the many unanswered letters she had thrown into the fireplace over the summer—letters inquiring on the aftermath of the Snape-Potter Debacle—the thought of burning this one had felt wrong. The words “I think you’re so brave, so kind, so beautiful. And I hope Snape and I haven’t caused you to be any less so” echoed in her mind still.

As each second passed, Potter’s grip on the single sheet of parchment tightened and the tanned skin of summer blanched. He hesitantly placed the letter on the desk and shifted his attention to Black who shrugged, an unapologetic grin on his face.

“I wrote it, yeah,” Potter uttered, watching Black slip out the room, a short laugh escaped him as he looked at Potter one last time. You’re on your own, it said. Then, Lily understood.

Potter faced her again, the start of another apology on his lips. She cut him off. 

“Can I ask you something, Potter?”

“Go ahead,” he said, though the tone indicated his mind left the room when Black did.

She lowered her voice, not exactly wanting to be overheard by the remaining stragglers. The last thing she needed was to be caught in another one of Hogwarts rumors. Against her better judgement, she voiced a question that had been bothering her for months now. “You asking me out at the end of term,” she begun. “Were you just trying to get a rise out of Severus, or … ” She trailed off, not sure how she wanted to end the sentence without embarrassing both of them further.

He shook his head, as if deciding against something, and sighed. “No,” he admitted, his voice almost inaudible. “It wasn’t a joke—I wasn’t exactly subtle about fancying you, Evans. I was just a bit of an idiot.” Now, he was blushing too. “I’m over it though, so you don’t have to worry about it happening again.”

Her cheeks flushed, the red likely not as flattering on her face as it had been on the light tan of his. She grasped the letter and placed it back in her book. “Right,” she replied in as neutral of a tone as she could muster. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She was over whatever minuscule crush she had had on him and, even if she hadn’t been, her and Potter would never work. It was just curiosity, the heaviness that overcame her was nothing.

“All right, Evans?” he asked, bringing her back to the moment.

“Yeah, sorry. Skipping breakfast must have affected me more than I thought.”

She watched Severus leave, having the expression on his face of someone having just eaten something rotten. Only after he left did Lily bid farewell to Slughorn and move toward the door. Potter followed in the same direction.

“Are you still taking Arithmancy?” he asked, breaking the momentary silence as they left the dungeons. Lily confirmed she was. “Cool,” he said, grinning down at her. “I’m going to go murder my best friend now, but I’ll see you there in fifteen.”

Professor Abacus was already at the center of the room when Lily walked in alongside Moira, who had parted with Roland after Potions. Thankfully, the number of those who took Arithmancy was small to begin with despite there being over a hundred students in their year. Those eligible and wanting to advance to the NEWT level was an even smaller pool. Moira and Lily moved toward the second to last row where April sat with her back toward them. Her honey blonde hair bobbing up and down as she conversed with Remus who sat behind her.

Lily slid in next to April and Moira moved in after her. April grinned at the girls, looping them in on the conversation, then changing topic to discuss what Lily had missed at breakfast. However, Lily’s thoughts drowned out the news that may have piqued her interest the year before. She nodded at the proper intervals, letting her eyes drift around once every minute to check for any last-minute surprises. When she and Severus had selected their third-year electives, Arithmancy had been the happy medium in an attempt to guarantee a shared class. Lily had wanted to take Divinations and Care of Magical Creatures and Severus had wanted to take Ancient Runes and Alchemy. They compromised on Ancient Runes—at Severus’s insistence that it would come in handy—and Arithmancy, which she had argued was a midpoint between Alchemy and Divinations. Severus had never taken a liking to Arithmancy, calling it pseudoscience only a hair better than Divination. Lily could only assume he dropped the subject this term like she had dropped Ancient Runes in spite of earning an E in her OWL exam.   

Distracted by the looming uncertainty of Severus’s appearance, she gave a little jump at the sound of something dropping onto her desk. She twisted in her seat and noted how the green of Potter’s hazel eyes stood out more here than in the dark light of the dungeons. “It’s coffee,” he said, pointing to the travel cup, with a small shrug. “And toast.” Here he motioned toward the object neatly wrapped in napkins. "Thought you could use it after Davey ruined your breakfast.”

Heat rose to her cheeks once more. “Thank you,” she said after the tangible second of silence. She wrapped her hands around the cup that was notably not from the Great Hall. With a brief nod and the hint of a smile pulling at his lips, he walked away. She glanced over her shoulder, watching him move into the seat next to Remus, the latter raising a questioning eyebrow. Not waiting for a response, she turned back around.

“What was that about?” April whispered. Lily ignored her question as the lecture began, letting the sweetness of the coffee take over her senses instead. Placing the cup down after two glorious sips, she carefully unwrapped the slice of buttered toast and lifted it to her mouth. Lily reached for the discarded napkin that had been on top. However, bright blue ink drew her attention, and her lips tilted up in amusement. A doodle of a bespectacled boy with frazzled hair, who she assumed to be Potter, took up the napkin’s white space. The words “Truce?” written in a thought bubble next to the figure. A small laugh escaped her. Professor Abacus glanced in her direction at the noise, and unconvincingly, she transfigured it into a cough. The questioning looks from her friends did not go unnoticed.

Where dwell the brave at heart, continued his father’s voice. That’s all I can ever ask of you, Jamie. To be brave.

James took a deep breath and ruffled up his hair for the first time since his shower, sending droplets onto the steps of the staircase. He climbed up another step only to slow down again at the recognizable voice of his best friend.

“—Merlin, you’re ridiculous. Have I told you that before? Because if I haven’t, I will remind you this every day until you finally sn—”

“Sirius, shut up.” His stomach flipped at the petal-like softness of her voice, a flip that should be studied. Perhaps then he could take an anecdote that stopped whatever curse caused his head-over-heels insanity for one of his best friends. The same curse made the Amortentia potion Professor Slughorn brought to class smell like a carbon copy of the lavender fragrance of her hair, the hint of saltwater that lingered on her skin from all the time spent by the lake, and teased the grape-flavored chapstick she had applied to his lips one night, the closeness of her body to his and the playful smile on her own lips had sent his mind fascinating a different way the chapstick could have been applied.

He closed his eyes. There was no use thinking about that now.

“Merlin, you can be a brat,” Sirius’s voice echoed, and James couldn’t help but chuckle at the brusque tone that made up Sirius’s signature coolness. Sirius had never been known for filtering his thoughts, a characteristic that often led him to coming across as more misanthropic than his friends knew him to be.

The sound of a shove reverberated and warmed James’s heart. While most people would bite their tongue or back down at such a remark from Sirius, Lily only ever stood her ground, all too aware that Sirius was more bark than bite. “I hear something, you unobservant twat.”

“I’m unobservant? Pot calling the cauldron black much?”

“Wizards have the weirdest phrases,” she responded back, the sound of her getting up partially drowned out by his own footsteps.

The sight of her wand pointed at him as he reached the top of the steps only intensified the pounding in his chest. Beauty, he knew, was subjective. However, a vivacious Lily Evans had always caused his hormones to go haywire; she was an unearthly level of beautiful in this state.

The amused smile from Sirius who sat cross-legged on the floor told James that, as always, his best friend could read the thoughts passing through his head.

“Nice of you to join us, Prongs,” Sirius said as Lily lowered her wand, a hint of redness illuminating her pale face.

“You know,” he begun, drawing out his words. “I could have disarmed both of you by the time you stopped bickering.”

“Please,” Lily scoffed, eyes narrowing in on him. A small thump beat against his chest. “I had my wand aimed at you, and I only need two seconds to take your wand, Potter.”

Before he could respond, Sirius spoke. “How’d you find us?” The words “without the map” were unspoken. A wolf-like grin spread across Sirius’s face. “Lily here thinks we have a map.”

James chuckled, flashing Sirius the knowing look they exchanged whenever Professor McGonagall knew they had been up to something but couldn’t prove it.

“A map?” he said in his best tone of innocence. “Wouldn’t that be useful?”

“Imagine all the mischief one could get done.”

“And if one only had, let’s say, an invisibility cloak, one might be able to get away with an abundant of illegal activities.” At the same time that their eyes met, James and Sirius begun laughing, the sound resounding against the stone of the wall and lost to the wind.

“Oh you two think you’re so funny,” Lily said with a roll of her eyes. “I get it—no one could make a map of Hogwarts.” A tangible silence lingered over the room.

His eyes met grey ones again. Never having to explain much to Sirius, the other boy stood up and made his way to his side, patting him on the back before stepping onto the first step heading down.

“Don’t mess it up,” he whispered. “Nice chat, Evans. Take some of my advice, yeah?” Sirius threw over his shoulder in a much louder tone. And with that, he was gone.

Never one to like awkward silences, James took a seat next to the singular glass wall that overlooked the Forbidden Forest, his legs spread out before him. “Nice spellwork,” James said, offering her a white-flag smile, the smile that was half-charming and half-apologetic.

“I got bored before Sirius found me,” she admitted. She bit her lip for a moment, a small expression of doubt crossed her face before sitting down across from him, pulling up her legs to her chest. Her own white-flag smile graced her face.

“Lily,” he said at the same time his own given name slipped off her lips. He chuckled. “Mind if I go first just this once?”

She nudged his foot with hers, a shy glance thrown his way. “Not at all.”

He sighed, a nervous edge to the sound, and glanced up to meet her tired eyes, the usual emerald dulled. “I’m sorry. That comment about your friendship with Snape was uncalled for.” He took a deep breath, as if he were about to admit his middle name. “It’s just—” Another deep breath. “You sort of hurt my feelings, Evans.” He ruffled his hair, the now-damp strands sticking up in their usual fashion. “The boys and I rarely fight and when we do, it’s five seconds of being annoyed, followed by taking the piss out of one another. Fighting with mates is foreign to me outside of calling one daft or a git. So yeah, you saying you didn’t know why we were even friends got to me, and I said the first thing that popped into my head.” He nudged her foot back. “If you recall, that’s how I usually end up making a fool out of myself in front of you.” His eyes held hers. “I really am sorry, Lil. You’re one of my closest friends, and I’d hate to go back to not speaking every day over a fight I honestly don’t quite understand.”

Her eyes remained on him as the fingers of her left hand drummed against the stone floor. “Can I be honest?”

“I’d hardly like for you to lie.”

She nudged him again, a small tenderness juxtaposing the uncertain aura. “The fight was never about you, James.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, you prat.” Another soft nudge. “Cerys interrupting us just … it gave me time to think about something I’ve been suppressing lately. Everything that went wrong with Severus, everything Voldemort is doing. I’m scared about what’s happening, so scared that I feel numb some days. And being scared makes me mad. There are days I want to fight just to have an outlet to all the anger. I know I fit the hot-tempered redhead persona, but I never considered myself someone capable of this much anger.” She scoffed bitterly. “I’m starting to get why you never hesitated to hex a Slytherin—it’s not all of them, but it’s hard seeing the passive ones standing by all the rubbish, hard not too lash out at the shite-talkers spreading the bigotry even if that’s the extent of their action.” He shifted to sit cross-legged, and she moved to sit next to him, only a few inches separating them now. “I’m sorry you got caught in the crossfire. You’re one of my favorite people, James, and I’d hate for you to think otherwise.”

He shifted for a better view of her and hesitated before making the bold decision to take her hand in his own. “A little humbling from time to time doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“I suppose that big head of yours does need something to keep it grounded.”She squeezed his hand.

“I’m glad we’re friends.” He paused before asking the question that had bothered him since she left his dorm. “We … we are friends, right?”

“Don’t be daft—of course we are, you git.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’re one of my best friends, Potter. I love you.” His heart beat increased at those three little words she so casually uttered.

“You love me?” A lopsided grin made its way onto his face. He hoped it conveyed the adoration for the girl who had stolen his heart and roamed his thoughts on an endless loop since they were fourteen.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” she paused, a sly smile on her lips. “It’s hard not too.”

He chuckled and pressed a tender kiss against the side of her head. “I love you too, Evans.”

She leaned in closer. “Can you promise me something?” she asked in an almost inaudible voice.

“Anything.”

“Mm…that’s a big promise, Potter. Let’s just start with the one, yeah?” She sighed. “If you haven’t noticed, I have a bit of a temper sometimes.” He laughed, and she shoved him with a laugh of her own, drowning out the mumbled “prat” that escaped her mouth. Silence followed their fit of laughter before her tone turned serious. “Be patient with me? I’m not used to people challenging me with good intentions, so know that if I snap at you when you do, I’ll hide in embarrassment before getting over it and apologizing.”

“Let’s make a deal then.” He took his hand from hers and wrapped it around her shoulder. “I’ll be patient with you when you lose your temper, and you’ll hear me out when I’m a bit of a conceited toerag. Deal?”

Her eyes roamed his face before grinning, the most beautiful grin he had ever witnessed. Although, she only had herself as competition. “It’s a deal, Potter.”

He got up from the floor and held out a hand to help her up. She accepted the gestured and kept her hand in his even after she was back on her feet.

“How did you find me?” she asked, the enduring Evans curiosity lingering in the question. “Sirius said he asked around until someone told him they saw me come up here, but you took a shower it seems.” Her unoccupied fingers reached up to his head, running her fingers through his hair. He suppressed the worship-worthy sigh on the tip of his tongue. “And you only came in about half an hour after he did, so what’s your secret?”

He smirked, hiding the effortless way she made his head spin and heart palpitate. “My secret, Evans,” he said, shifting so she was pressed against the stone merlon. “…is that I won’t ever need a map to find you. Sure, it would be convenient, but I like to think that all these months of friendship have helped me know how you think and how you react. If you were mad and wanted to be alone, you’d want to be somewhere peaceful where you feel the breeze on your skin, see the stars as they begin descending. You’d want to be somewhere high, but nowhere someone could see you or ask if the rumors are true. The Tower was the only place that fit that description.”

A pensive look dominated her soft features as her emerald eyes gazed up at him. He smiled down at her and moved a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Okay,” she finally said, a blush coating her cheeks.

He stepped back from her and  begun leading her down the staircase. “Let’s nick some food from the kitchen, yeah?”

“It’s after-hours—we’ll get caught.”

“When has that scared you?”

“It doesn’t, but Filch is patrolling. I assumed you’d like to avoid him.”

“Always looking out for me,” he grinned. “Good thing I have an invisibility cloak,” he said nonchalant. She rolled her eyes at him, a clever retort ready to be thrown at him no doubt. Before she could respond, he took out a thin, silvery-grey fabric from his pocket and passed it to her.

Her melodic laugh rung out and his stomach flipped again as if practicing for a victory lap at the Quidditch Cup. “I should have known you had something like this.”