Fan Fiction
Title: Nice Day for a White Wedding.
Word Count: A double-dozen over 7,000
Disclaimer: James and Lily belong to JKR. I just like trying to relieve James of his shirt!
A/N: First Draft. The conclusion.
Sitting at the remains of the nuptial feast, Mr and Mrs Longbottom having departed the scene, as had the other guests, Lily drifted randomly back through this most unusual day. If most of her mental images were of James at various points during the unfolding ceremony, she let it pass. Her thoughts were her own. She could think him dishy without condoning his antics.
Plenty of girls at Hogwarts played up to him because he was good-looking. The trouble was, he knew it and played on it shamelessly. She refused to be a notch on a post, especially to one as juvenile as him.
Except today, he’d been anything but juvenile. It might have been the highly formal robes, in which he looked perfectly at ease - and more mature - or the way he carried himself or the measured way he had spoken, fully understanding what they were doing, but there didn’t seem to be much left of the spoilt teenager who picked on Snape.
For instance, at the crucial moment she was supposed to cast the Sealing charm on Alice, Lily’s mind had blanked. In her panic she’d glanced at James, expecting the glimmer of a knowing smile aimed at Sirius. Instead, he had solemnly offered his hand as though it was part of the ceremony that they should mirror the Bride and Groom. With that warm contact her mental fog cleared and everything came back to her. They had completed what was required in unison; even the colour of the charms they cast had been complimentary, his, deep red and hers, gold.
When it was time to leave the chapel for the nuptial feast, Lily expected he would leave her to bounce across to his best friend, of whose stare she had been aware throughout the whole ceremony. She was wrong. James had transferred her hand to his arm, much to Sirius’s confusion, and escorted her to Alice’s side before excusing himself.
“So what did you think of your first wizarding wedding?”
Lily jerked so abruptly out of her reverie that her glass slipped and she almost dropped it. “Erm… I was feeling a bit queasy, actually. I only remember bits and pieces.” The shadow that grew over your face watching Frank and Alice kiss as man and wife.
James smiled. “You looked so fierce when it came to the vows, I think Frank decided he’d better say ‘I will’ before you hexed him, trainee Auror or not.”
Lily smiled weakly. Alice had mouthed ‘Relax’ at her. Easier said than done. James Potter was beside her. “You looked very distinguished,” she said a minute later.
James blinked. His eyes flicked about the table. “Thank you.” Evidently surprised, he shuffled forward on his chair and put his feet flat; the back legs left the floor slightly. “It didn’t show that I was shaking like a leaf?”
Lily tucked her feet under her. “You were nervous? The great James Potter?”
He snorted, smiling at the crushed rose petals strewn on the boards. “I had enough butterflies in my stomach to start an export business.”
His dry wit always gave her the giggles. “Well, it didn’t show.”
James repeated his bright-eyed impression of a ‘nodding dog’ and suddenly stifled a yawn. “Beg pardon. Long night. My father kept me up, running me through my duties until he was satisfied I could do it in my sleep. I think I nearly did.” He snorted softly, staring into the middle distance until a yawn surprised him.
Yawning is contagious and Lily duly yawned. “Sorry. What did you say to Frank’s mother? I thought she was going to turn into Maleficent the way she burst in.”
“The Dowager Mrs Longbottom is a formidable woman, isn’t she.” Again, he grinned, mischief personified, and stretched out. “She’s a friend of my mother’s so I know her reasonably well.”
You mean you wheedled and charmed her. “You must have come up with something better than ‘they’re of age and you can’t stop them’?”
“I did.”
Lily waited but no answer was forthcoming. He was being his usual frustrating self, lolling there, eyes closed. She nudged him with her knee. “Are you going to tell me or do I have to drag it out of you?”
In reply, he angled his head slightly. The glint in his eye suggested he was tempted to see what she would do to ‘drag it out of him’.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
His stare was like that ‘ever-fixed mark’ from his recitation, burrowing deeper as though he could read her mind as easily as she would a book, and not being a Pureblood, she had no training in Occlumency. Blood was rushing to her face. She swallowed. “That’s Shakespeare, isn’t it?”
He lolled back again and closed his eyes. “Yes. Sonnet one hundred and sixteen.”
Lily took a deep breath. Maybe there was something in what Alice had kept repeating for the last two years; that Potter had hidden depths he didn’t reveal to just anyone. How many wizards could quote Shakespeare? Her dad would be impressed. She shook thought impatiently away. Potter was never getting near enough to impress her dad with anything.
“Why did that work?” Why were her hands still shaking? She clasped them, forcing a semblance of serenity.
More silence.
“James!”
He flinched and grunted, his feet slipping from the chair stretchers. “Wasn’ me,” he muttered quickly and then realised where he was. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, sitting up. “Beg pardon. What were you saying?” He dipped into the pocket of his plain black waistcoat and came up with a delicate gold pocket watch. Whatever the face showed once he’d clicked the cover open and raised it closer made his eyes widen.
“Why did reciting Shakespeare at Mrs Longbottom stop her forbidding the marriage?”
James stood and stretched; his fingertips grazed the low ceiling. His waistcoat rode up to reveal a narrow segment of shirt. “Did I say she’s a particular friend of my mother’s?”
He didn’t give her chance to speak but continued, “The first call Mrs Longbottom made when the year of mourning her husband ended was to my mother. On that occasion she remarked that his proposal of marriage was based on sonnet one hundred and sixteen. I was at that curious age and looked it up in my father’s library. Later, of course, I had to learn it, and recite with understanding.” He smiled lazily. “My father has a very odd sense of humour.” He glanced at her. “We should be getting back to Hogwarts, before Avery and his little band petrify everyone below fourth year. If you would care to change first, I’ll thank Mistress Congeniality for her hostility.”
Standing, Lily fought to keep from laughing. “Don’t you mean her hospitality?”
James shook his head slowly. “I choose my words with care these days. I meant exactly what I said, Evans. I always do.”
Half way to the stairs, Lily paused to look over her shoulder; his head was averted but still her heart quickened.
Suppose that was true, that he always meant exactly what he said? ‘Any chance to be alone with you, Evans’, he’d said in the car.
Except that sounded too much like the rubbish he trotted out in school. Another of those trite phrases that boys picked up from watching their seniors succumb to Love’s ancient arts.
The room she and Alice had dressed in was chilly now, encouraging rapid changing. Her everyday clothes were cold too but she wasn’t allowed magic outside school. Lily dithered. Who was going to notice one simple charm in a wizarding inn?
Warmer now, she snuggled gratefully into her favourite cardigan. Grannie’s last knitting project, she’d claimed the pale, apple-green wool brought out the sparkle of the green eyes their shared inheritance had bestowed. Her eyes were the first thing everyone commented on. Everyone except Potter.
Potter, who hated everything associated with the Dark Arts and had still worked Blood Magic, because of his friend. Potter, who was waiting downstairs.
Lily scrabbled everything together quickly, flicked her wand over the formal gown she’d just wriggled out of and packed it as best she could into the small case Mrs Potter had generously loaned her. Snatching up her coat, she took one last look round and hurried to the stairs, another worn stone spiral. Forcing her tired body to concentrate and wishing wizarding builders had heard of handrails, Lily took her time.
James didn’t seem to be around when she carried his mother’s well-travelled tapestry case into the main hall of the inn. She’d only slipped once on the damned stairs but her legs were still wobbly as a result. His sheepskin coat was over a chair, though, and she took this as sign that she should wait for him here.
By the fire, she pulled her hair down from the complicated weave Alice had charmed up and when her fingers encountered too many snarls, she dipped into her bag for her comb. Her little make-up bag wasn’t there. Thinking she’d missed it in her tiredness, Lily unpacked and checked through the folds of her clothes meticulously but the end result was the same. The bag wasn’t there. Now that she thought about it, she remembered setting it on the narrow mantelshelf when she’d changed, intending to drop it in on the top of everything else after doing her hair, only she hadn’t combed her hair out. It must still be there.
After a second’s hesitation, she flipped the case closed and dashed up the narrow staircase. The door was thankfully ajar and when she swung round it, she nearly fell over so abruptly did she stop.
“Oh, hullo, Evans.”
It was probably possible to fry an egg on her face. Potter - James - turned on his heel, the shirt he had clearly just removed in one hand.
For an eternity, or two seconds, she stared at him, at his chest, his smooth shoulders, the rounded muscles on his upper arms.
“Evans?”
Shit, he was watching her, waiting for some sort of answer. The buzzing in her ears must have covered the question.
“Sorry,” she gasped. God, had she thought it was cold up here before? “I, er, I-”
He dropped the shirt and reached to the bed as though he was used to witches bursting in on him when he was half-naked. “What’s up?”
Rooted to the spot she watched him calmly bunch a jumper up in his hands and shove his head through the neck. Even when he’d pushed his arms into the sleeves, arranged the polo collar and ruffled up his hair in the way he had that irritated her so much, she still didn’t seem capable of looking away.
Somehow, she forced a long, slow blink in the hope that it would purge the image imprinted on the back of her brain; athletic physique, skin pale as peeled daisy roots.
“Was this what you wanted?”
What? Bloody cheek! “No! I came-” Oh. In his outstretched hand was her flowery make-up bag.
“I forgot to comb my hair out,” she whispered and took it with a muted thank you.
He would never let her live this down. He’d exult to Sirius that she’d ‘burst in and ogled him while he was changing’ the first chance he got and somehow, it would be round the castle by lunchtime, only embellished by the imagination of each person in the chain of whispers.
And now he was smiling, the sod, as though he wasn’t averse to the idea; that infuriating ‘I-know-something-you-don’t’ lop-sided smile that emphasised the twinkle in his eye.
Grannie used to call her a little scamp when she had a similar look. Maybe she’d like him more if they didn’t have similar impish traits.
If I once gave way to James, he’d crow and gloat for evermore, she’d said to Alice. Meaning I couldn’t bear to lose, or what? Was it only stubborn habit that made her refuse him now?
I choose my words with care these days. I mean exactly what I say, Evans, he’d said. Her perception of him altered. Suddenly, how he reacted once they were back at school and what he told about this day became a test of his much-proclaimed devotion to her.
Fresh resolve calmed her; if James did what she expected and bragged about it, even to Sirius, he’d lost any chance of convincing her he’d grown out of his adolescent antics.
And if he said nothing? demanded the side of her that gave the Slug cheeky answers. Her heart stumbled. If he says nothing, well; we’ll see.
He was suddenly beside her, his bulging book bag over his shoulder. “Evans? You okay? You’re rather pale.”
Lily nodded so quickly that she made herself dizzy and lost her balance. James steadied her, his hand under her elbow.
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No. I couldn’t. Don’t know why.”
“Strange bed. I never sleep properly the first week at home or back at Hogwarts either.”
Lily let his simplistic reason stand unchallenged. It was easier. And obvious, yet she had an inkling her sleeplessness had another cause.
Somehow, James reached the stairs first and after the first couple he turned to offer her a hand. “These stairs are a menace so please humour me. I’d feel guilty if you stumbled.” Self-consciously aware, Lily placed her hand in his; it was warm and smooth. She wasn’t sure what to make of this new solicitude.
At the foot of the stairs, he Summoned her bag (his mother’s case, on loan), took the make-up bag from her nerveless hand, placed it inside and flipped the top closed, adding it to his own automatically.
“I am capable of carrying my own bag,” Lily said sharply. “I’m not useless.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you were,” was the quiet reply. “If you’d like to wait here in the warm, I’ll bring the car round.”
Lily frowned as the door closed behind him. What had happened to acting like a grown-up and behaving with decorum?
*
They’d driven a few miles in a silence that Lily found uncomfortable. “Will I map read again?”
“No, it’s okay. Once I’ve driven a route, I remember it.”
Lily stared at him and then through the windscreen. Everything looked different under the powdery snow. “But we’re going the other way.”
He smiled. “And that makes a difference? You’ve got a Potioneers thought patterns all right- linear progression. Transfiguration teaches you to think outside the box.”
“I always thought it was the other way round,” Lily said at once. He’d thrown this point out back in fourth year, and repeated it at regular intervals ever since the Slug had stated that, in his expert opinion, she was an intuitive potion maker, bound to go far. “You only say that because you’re best in the school at Transfiguration.”
His mouth stayed open, frozen on his opening syllable.
“What’s the matter? No smart answer to that one?” Now who was gloating? It was a small victory, though, and enough small victories won the war. Not sleeping through History of Magic was finally good for something.
Lily wriggled back into her seat, smiling out into the brilliantly white morning.
*
“You’re not legally old enough to drive, you know.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “True, but I’ve been driving since I was fourteen. My father taught me during the summer after we won the Quidditch Cup.”
Lily couldn’t help the indignant exclamation that escaped. James only grinned.
“Believe me, if I could satisfy my father, I could easily pass a Muggle driving test. He would never have let me drive with you to Cambridge otherwise.”
“Oh?” So his father had high standards.
They had reached an awkward junction and James didn’t answer until he’d nudged the car over the thick white line and he was satisfied it was safe to turn. “He told me that my neck was my own to risk in whatever mad pursuit I chose, but if another had entrusted their life in my hands, I’d better be bloody sure I was worthy of their trust. In other words, no messing about or acting the fool.”
Lily’s respect for his father redoubled. Most parents she knew expected you to do what they said, or what they thought best. His parents seemed to be laying a framework wherein James could make his own decisions and choices.
“Your real objection to me driving is more to do with my apparent flouting of the rules.” He glanced at her. “Isn’t it? In my defence, I’ve been flying since I could toddle. A family friend told Father I had excellent reactions and -”
“Does he know you use them to hex everyone in sight at school?”
James accelerated and changed gear again. “Fidelius Rabnott.”
“Who’s he, when he’s at home? And don’t think I didn’t notice you ducked the question.”
James chuckled. “He supplies the Wasps with racing brooms.”
Lily shifted. “Oh. Quidditch.”
“Fff! ‘Oh. Quidditch’, she says dismissively.” James was still grinning. “One day, Evans, I’ll infect you with enthusiasm for the ancient and noble wizarding sport of Quidditch.”
Lily yawned behind her hand. “Good luck. I’ve had all my inoculations.”
James laughed out loud. “Fids, as I used to call him when I was small,” he said, when he’d calmed down, “was also one of the founders of the Nimbus Racing Broom Company.”
That accounts for your top-of-the-line broomstick, then.
There was a pause. “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
“Who said that? Your father?”
James shook his head. “No. A Muggle called Douglas Bader. Have you heard of him?” he asked and immediately continued, “he was a fighter pilot in the war the Muggles call World War two. He was shot down in his plane and lost both legs.” He paused. “It didn’t stop him. He persuaded the doctors to make him two false legs, learned to walk again and even flew more missions in the conflict. He was shot down again and tried to escape so many times that his captors were forced to take away his false legs.”
Lily was amazed, not by the life story James was relating, but that he knew so much about a Muggle. “How d’you know all this?”
“Fids knew I loved to fly and he told me about him. Gave me a book about famous Muggle aviators.”
“Right… why him though?”
For a minute she thought James wasn’t going to answer and then he said, “For the example.”
“In what?”
“Perseverance.”
Lily felt she was on shifting sand and stared determinedly out through the windscreen at the approaching town.
*
“Why d’you keep asking me out?”
The car lurched. “Bugger,” he muttered. “Foot slipped.” Colour over his cheekbone betrayed the white lie.
They were creeping along bumper to bumper to the traffic lights. It could have been the harsh quality of the streetlights reflecting off the snow, but he really did look ashy.
“You’re tired. Perhaps you should have had a couple of hours sleep first. You didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“Neither did you,” James countered immediately.
“Are we back to that? ‘Anything you can do I can do better’?”
He braked for the red light and she could see him chuckling silently. “I can go a night without sleep. Besides, it’s Saturday now so I can kip for a couple of hours when we get back to Hogwarts and not resemble the walking dead until, oh, at least eleven tonight.” His hand dropped from the steering wheel briefly.
Lily meant to smile but her body forced a yawn instead. The endless sameness of the blanched landscape threaded through with the grey ribbon of road was encouraging her eyelids to droop. It was getting harder to fight it. “So why d’you keep asking me out?” She turned slightly under the restraining Safety charms. She must be really knackered for this seat to be so comfortable. She might be lying on a big, plump cushion.
“You make me laugh.”
Under ton-weight lids, Lily stared and discovered he was looking down at her. How had that happened? Her head was too fuddled to concentrate. “That’s it?”
Another smile. “Does it take more than that? ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupèry, before you ask.”
There was something foreign to his intonation as he pronounced the name but she was too tired to pin it down. She felt the car rumble off again; the vibration was soothing in the same way as rain pattering on the window was sleep-inducing. She ‘ummed’ questioningly but her body was sliding into the toasty warmth of her little cocoon.
*
It was the lack of motion and the ingress of frozen air that alerted her. She sat up and James’s sheepskin coat fell to her lap. He’d made the car seat recline and covered her with his coat. She blinked. That was nice of him. Gentlemanly.
It was probably safe to bet that he’d offer her his cloak if they were in Hogsmeade on a date and it started lashing down, unlike that selfish oaf Paul Bateson. The prospect of sharing a cloak with Potter wasn’t quite as repulsive as she’d once thought. He might be a git, but he could be a considerate git with manners and ‘manners maketh man’ as grannie used to say.
The door on his side was partially open. “James?” Ugh. Croaky. She cleared her throat and tried again. There was no snow here, only weak sun glittering on a hard frost from a forget-me-not sky.
“I’m here. Father’s making a Portkey.” He appeared at her side of the car, arms folded across his chest, hands tucked in his armpits. “Took one look at me and said I’d Splinch us both if I even thought of Apparating.”
Lily shivered. “Right.” She reached for the handle but James opened the door and offered her his hand. Lily ignored it and slid her sensible lace-ups to the sparkling gravel. Far from looking offended, James smiled and then shivered.
“You’ll catch your death, you know.”
He shrugged again, or maybe it coincided with a shiver and simply looked that way. “All in a noble cause.”
“Yes, well, some of us don’t believe in women and children first, James. Here.” Lily held out his thick coat but he didn’t move. The low sun across his lenses stopped her seeing his eyes but she was certain he was watching her. Self-consciously, Lily stood and draped the coat round his shoulders.
“Thank you.” His simple gratitude barely disturbed the air yet it felt as though something had changed between them, as though he might let her take care of him as he had been considerate of her. It was a good feeling.
“James? Is Miss Evans-Ah! Good morrow, Miss Evans.”
They turned together, Lily still with her hands on his coat lapels. “Good morning, Mr Potter.”
Having greeted her with a small bow he seemed to find something amiss; he cocked his head. His silvery hair sticking up in an aureole around his thin face reinforced the image of ruffled Snowy owl. “I revise my decision. Neither of you are in any condition to Portkey. James, escort Miss Evans into my study.”
“Yes, Father.”
Greatly intrigued, Lily waited until James had put his coat on properly and once again walked at his side through his family home without really registering the décor while her hand rested in the crook of his arm. His father moved at a sprightly pace for a man Sirius had once described as ‘older than Merlin’s puppy’. “Why your father’s study?” she asked in an undertone.
“There’s a direct Floo connection to professor McGonagall’s office.”
“There is? But I thought-”
Mr Potter gave a slight cough. “It pains me to admit any deficiency in our joint creation, Miss Evans, but it can scarcely have escaped the attention of such an observant soul as yourself that little James has a rare talent - indeed, predilection would not be too strong a word- for mischief.”
“ ‘Little James’?” Lily mouthed, a smile betraying her delight and spluttering mentally.
James’s face was pink. He leaned in close and whispered, “Odd sense of humour. I did warn you.”
His breath sent a frisson round her shoulders. Lily rubbed her neck surreptitiously and didn’t dare look at his face.
Mr Potter rounded a corner, swept open a door of dark figured wood and gestured for them to enter. James hung back to let her precede him.
It was a large room with four full length windows furnished in a style best described as ‘Going for a Song’ meets the National Trust. The furniture encompassed every style and age, from the plain wooden chest spilling its burden of tight parchment scrolls to the elaborate curved desk, covered in sinuously twining inlaid flowers.
Mr Potter snatched a breath, one blue-veined hand resting lightly on his chest. “Yes, Miss Evans, Professor Dumbledore and I were in agreement that a direct connection to filial discipline would save dear Minerva the constant ennui of owling on a daily basis and possibly have superior results.”
Lily’s face was aching from suppressing her desire to drop to the exotically-patterned carpet before the tall marble fireplace and laugh until she cried. James had been in trouble every day? Why was she even surprised?
James’s father frowned over the tops of his little glasses, regarding his heir intently; James fidgeted. “Alas, as he passed up the school, I observed that all he had learned from these experiences was greater cunning in evasion.”
James found his tongue. “Which will stand me in good stead when I apply to be a Cursebreaker.”
His father sighed deeply, as though this was an old argument between them. “Play professional Quidditch, my boy. I’d agree to anything if I could have your promise not to be a Cursebreaker.”
The set look on James’s face as he returned his father’s stare only reinforced the family resemblance. Lily remembered that the senior Potter had waited several decades to marry the woman he loved. Would James be as stubborn in pursuing his chosen career, against his father’s wishes? There was a precedent. He’d chased after her as stubbornly.
“Anything?” James murmured with a note of daring, dropping his head a fraction to peer over his glasses. “Have a care, father.”
They kept the intent stare going. Lily wondered if they’d resorted to Legilimency to avoid arguing in front of her. A few more seconds passed and then, with another sigh, Mr Potter turned away and drew his wand. He tapped the ornate mantle in three - no - four places before throwing in some of the sparkly powder that fascinated her. The flames shot up at once.
“Hurry up, James. You’re keeping Miss Evans waiting.” He sounded tired.
James hugged his father and dived into the flames. Mr Potter shook his head and tutted. “Show off!”
Lily covered her mouth with her hand to give herself time to recover and then stepped forward. “Thank you very much for having me, and arranging everything, Mr Potter. Please say thank you to Mrs Potter for me for lending me her case.”
Mr Potter beamed at her. “It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Evans. You must come and take tea one afternoon. I’ll bespeak Albus and Minerva to secure their permission for a visit. Lovage enjoyed the refreshment of your conversation.”
Lily was still untangling this little speech and was surprised when Mr Potter raised the hand she thought he’d shake. Was he really going to -yes. The brief touch at her knuckles confirmed it. And she’d thought being kissed on the hand went out with fairytale books. "Your servant, Miss Evans." He handed her into the fire.
There was none of the giddy whirling with glimpses of other grates. She simply stepped through one fireplace and out into professor McGonagall’s study.
“Try not to bring any more ash onto the carpet, Miss Evans. Potter has made enough mess for three.” Professor McGonagall was at her desk, regarding their exit point tartly.
The pattern suggested James had come out of his diving exit in a roll. The culprit was paying great attention to cleaning off his trouser legs. His coat lay on the floor nearby.
“Yes professor.” Lily whisked the mess away with a discreet jab of her wand. Judging by the scrolls waiting on the floor and desk, Professor McGonagall had enough to get on with.
“The ceremony went well, I trust?” Apparently she wasn’t above a little curiosity.
James perked up and gave their Head of House a bright smile that Lily had seen too many times before. Was he about to say she’d forgotten what she was supposed to do and he’d had to rescue her?
“Very well, professor. Mrs Longbottom arrived in time, although I didn’t think her hat was appropriate for a wedding.”
Professor McGonagall raised a sparse eyebrow.
“Topped with a stuffed vulture,” James deadpanned.
Lily caught a flicker of amusement on their professor’s face as she turned back to her marking. “Your views on witching millinery notwithstanding, Potter, you may return to Gryffindor tower and retire. If I hear that either of you were seen outside your dormitories before dinner, you will have detention.”
Lily’s mouth fell open. What?
“With Madam Pince.”
James shuddered.
“I believe I gave you permission to leave? The house-elves will transfer your bags.”
On the way back to Gryffindor tower, James ran a hand through his hair. “Madam Pince! That ranks as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. I thought Mackie had a sense of humour but now, I’m not so sure.”
“Dealing with your antics on a daily basis, James, are you surprised?” Lily said brightly. Her nap in the car had helped. “It has been over six years.”
James groaned. “Thanks a lot, father.”
His pained mutter made Lily smile. He turned left then and she grabbed his arm. “Where d’you think you’re going?”
“See Moony. Hospital wing.” He blinked at her, clearly having difficulty keeping his blood-shot eyes open. It was a wonder he hadn’t walked into one of the pillars. Lily recalled the chapel she’d left only a couple of hours ago, and how this unlikely rapport with an ‘arrogant toe-rag’ had started.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said firmly, hauling him in the direction of the stairs. “You let me sleep in the car. You are going to do exactly as you were told, which was to go up to your dormitory and go to bed. And sleep.”
“But Moony-”
“Remus will be fine.”
James stopped dead and no amount of pulling or shoving could get him moving again. “No. See Moony first.” He set off in that direction, Lily trying to drag him back. She might have had a mule on a dog lead for all the effect she made.
“You stubborn, awkward, bloody - Look,” she puffed. “I’ll go and see Remus if you go to bed.”
James hesitated. “I’ll sit up by the fire. I’ll go up after you see Moony and tell me he’s okay.”
Lily stared at him, annoyance building. “You always have to have your own way, don’t you?”
“Not always. Only things that matter most.”
He swayed and in role reversal, Lily caught him. “You’re knackered. Bed! I’ll check on Remus. Start walking!”
He favoured her with another slow and very cheeky smile, raising his hands to hold them up in surrender. “Pax, Evans! I’m going.”
Lily watched until she saw him climbing the stairs, waited another minute to be certain he didn’t double back and then headed to the hospital wing, where she found Remus awake and grumpy that Madam Pomfrey insisted he stay where he was. Lily entertained him with her version of Frank and Alice’s wedding and when his eyes started to droop, promised to return later.
Peter was in a chair by the fire when Lily returned to the common room. He looked up at her, blinking watery eyes. Lily frequently felt sorry for him; it couldn’t be easy, having James, Sirius and Remus as dorm mates. They were so much brighter and quicker than he was and not as patient with him as friends should be.
“Peter? Where’s James?”
He jumped, almost guiltily, and slid to the edge of the armchair. “He fell asleep. Padfoot hexed him up the stairs.”
“Hex, Peter? I didn’t hex him, I encouraged him, gently.” Sirius grinned at them from the foot of the boys’ stairs. “Unlike Evans, who bossed him up to bed, the way Prongs told it.”
Sirius crossed to the fireplace, casually boosted the flames with a flick of his wand, grinned again and dropped into the adjacent chair to Peter, crossing one leg over the other. “Firm handling, Evans, that’s all Prongs needs.” He nodded and suddenly laughed.
Lily wasn’t keen on the glint in his dark eyes as he appraised at her. Had James let something slip already? “I was supposed to tell him how Remus was. It was important to him.” She found the explanation came out coolly.
Sirius’s smile changed, turned knowing, but Lily only raised her chin, refusing to avoid his glittering stare. Jenny Moody thought Sirius was bonkers and that only James kept him sane. At this moment, Lily wouldn’t have disagreed.
“Top of the stairs, Evans. Take your time.” He winked.
Lily crossed to the twin staircases and leaned up the girls’ one. “Jenny?” She waited. “MOODY!”
“Bloody hell!” Sirius exclaimed. “The sweet screech of a harpy! Thought I was back home, then, Wormtail.”
Lily ignored him. Jenny Moody’s tousled head appeared. “What’s up?”
“I need you to come up the boys’ stairs with me.”
Jenny descended a couple of steps. She was dressed but had slippers on her feet. “Cool! Who’s in trouble and why isn’t Potter seeing to it?”
“Jenny, just come with me,” Lily said, letting the plea leech through.
“Oh, I get it. You don’t want everyone knowing. Right, lead on Macduff.”
“So, who’s in trouble and why isn’t Potter dealing with it?” Jenny whispered as they climbed the spiral.
“No one,” Lily breathed. “We just got back from Frank and Alice’s wedding and I need to give James a message, that’s all.
“James?” Jenny demanded archly. “When did that happen?”
Again, that scalding lump jumped to Lily’s throat. “Is it me, or do these stairs stink? Have boys never heard of Freshening charms?”
“Most of them don’t know how to open a window, never mind anything else.”
“It smells like a potions accident!”
Jenny sniggered. “Like you would know! This is it.”
They were at the top of the tower, the last door. It was disconcerting, the rate her heart was running; it couldn’t be healthy. Lily watched her knuckles rap the door, replaying the last time she’d rounded a door that James was behind. Broad pale shoulders, defined muscles that belied Avery’s ‘skinny’ taunt, smooth skin God-stop it, girl!
She tapped again, a bit louder. “James?” Now her bloody voice was warbling.
“Oh go in, for crying out loud. He won’t bite.”
“He might be changing!”
“Lucky you!” With a grin, Jenny turned the handle and pushed her over the threshold. “I’ll stay here.
Only one bed had closed hangings. Lily tiptoed across, avoiding the dropped books and the orange peel, thankful it wasn’t dropped clothes. “James?”
She could see him through a chink in the hangings. He was lying on his side, one arm on top of the covers, clad in a psychedelically patterned pyjama shirt. “James?” He looked completely different without those heavy black frames.
He grunted. Daringly, Lily perched on the very edge of the bed. What unfairly thick lashes. “James?”
“M’ny?”
The devotion to his friend was touching. Something else she should figure into the unorthodox mixture of human traits that made up James Potter. “He was awake when I saw him. Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t let him out of bed though, and he was being grumpy about it.”
The very corner of his mouth turned up. “ S’Moony.”
She watched the smile fade as he drifted deeper into sleep. The slight frown was erased and his breathing deepened, slowed. Relaxed, stripped of the attitudes and mannerisms he donned each day to face the world, Lily caught a glimpse of a very different James Potter and found she quite liked what lay hidden beneath his posturing.
*
Sirius was leaning against the wall, conversing with the Fat Lady’s friend when Lily returned from rounds that evening. Violet was giggling and simpering at him and he was, as usual, lapping it up.
He turned the cocky grin on her. “So, Evans, what happened?”
A shiver chased after her sinking tummy. “When?” Oh God, here we go. “I’m not with you.”
Sirius pushed off the wall and approached. “At the wedding, after we left, when it was just you and Prongs.” He took another step, fixed on her eyes.
Lily folded her arms. “What has Ja-Potter said?” The arrogant bloody blabbermouth.
His grin returned. “Evasion… Nice try, Evans, but I grew up among expert interrogators. Prongs tried that one too, which is how I know something happened, but he’s oddly close-mouthed,” he added conversationally, looking around. Lily wondered if he was checking for observers and checked for herself.
Beside them, Violet and the Fat Lady were paying avid attention.
Sirius whipped his stare back on her; it was so sharp, she staggered into the wall and threw up a shielding hand. “What happened, Evans? Prongs and I tell each other everything.”
“Maybe you should go out with him, then,” Lily retorted, and shoved him back hard. “And if you ever do that to me again, I’ll-”
“Go straight to McGonagall?” He was smirking, completely unconcerned.
“No. Worse. I’ll tell Madam Pince you wrote in the last surviving copy of ‘Moste Potente Potions’.”
Sirius blanched. “Evans! That’s evil!” Then his slow grin returned. “Almost marauder-worthy… Interesting. You’re protecting each other.” His grin petered out, a haunted expression taking its place. “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but looking outward in the same direction.”
He gave the Fat Lady the password and climbed through in silence. Lily reviewed the last few minutes, trying to keep her feelings from running away with her. James was ‘oddly close-mouthed’ with his best friend of six and a half years? They were closer than brothers. What was going on?
And the last thing he’d said, about love and looking in the same direction, it had sounded like a quotation from something.
She put her hands over her hot cheeks. Why was she so bothered by it?
*
Lily propped her head on her hand and wondered what had possessed her to try for a NEWT in Transfiguration. Repressing a headachy sigh, she flipped back a couple of pages and re-read from the start of the chapter. It might make more sense the fifth time.
“Hogsmeade this weekend, Prongs.”
Lightning shocked her heart into a brief race. Lily froze, all ears for the reply.
“What about it?” James’s tone was guarded.
“I wondered whether you’d decided to forgo the ritual humiliation of being rejected by Evans this time in favour of asking someone who would actually like to go with you?”
Annoyance flared up at the sly grin in Sirius’s voice. Ritual humiliation? Who did he think he was? Things between her and James had been civilised since the wedding.
“It hardly merits as ‘ritual’, Padfoot,” Remus interjected hoarsely. “Ritual implies a consistent procedure.”
“She’s turned him down about a thousand times! What would you call it then?” Lily could imagine him swinging the chair nonchalantly back on two legs.
“Customary, perhaps,” Remus suggested. “Anyway, it’s James’s choice.”
Either Sirius didn’t pick up the air of finality in Remus’s words or he was determined to have the last word. “Get it over with, Prongs. Ask her now and get it over with. Then you can pick someone else.”
The common room fell into a tense, eager silence. Lily didn’t need to look up to know that she and James were the absolute focus of attention. What would James do next?
If he asked her, what would she say?
“Evans?” A carefully casual tone. Trying to show he didn’t care.
“Potter?” The moisture that should have been in her mouth was leaking through her palms.
She waited. ‘Potter has the Quaffle - will he feint and pass, or score?’
The common room waited.
“Prongs?”
At Sirius’s edgily muttered query, Lily looked over her shoulder. James was staring unseeingly at his parchment, the habitual slight frown and tensed jaw the only indicators that he was fighting an internal battle. He was trying to breathe through his nose, calmly, but the fact that she could hear him suggested he was anything but.
Why didn’t he ask?
His jaw muscles tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed.
And suddenly Lily understood. She turned back to her book. After the fragile rapport they’d established at their friend’s wedding, there was to be no return to pestering her to go out with him. He was trying to prove he’d changed, grown up, could accept her choice. What was it he’d said? Love alters not, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. ‘I choose my words with care these days. I meant exactly what I said, Evans’. It was down to her now.
“The weather forecast doesn’t sound too promising for Saturday, James.” She paused to bite back her impish grin. “If I were you, I’d make sure your cloak will cover both of us.”
Word Count: A double-dozen over 7,000
Disclaimer: James and Lily belong to JKR. I just like trying to relieve James of his shirt!
A/N: First Draft. The conclusion.
Sitting at the remains of the nuptial feast, Mr and Mrs Longbottom having departed the scene, as had the other guests, Lily drifted randomly back through this most unusual day. If most of her mental images were of James at various points during the unfolding ceremony, she let it pass. Her thoughts were her own. She could think him dishy without condoning his antics.
Plenty of girls at Hogwarts played up to him because he was good-looking. The trouble was, he knew it and played on it shamelessly. She refused to be a notch on a post, especially to one as juvenile as him.
Except today, he’d been anything but juvenile. It might have been the highly formal robes, in which he looked perfectly at ease - and more mature - or the way he carried himself or the measured way he had spoken, fully understanding what they were doing, but there didn’t seem to be much left of the spoilt teenager who picked on Snape.
For instance, at the crucial moment she was supposed to cast the Sealing charm on Alice, Lily’s mind had blanked. In her panic she’d glanced at James, expecting the glimmer of a knowing smile aimed at Sirius. Instead, he had solemnly offered his hand as though it was part of the ceremony that they should mirror the Bride and Groom. With that warm contact her mental fog cleared and everything came back to her. They had completed what was required in unison; even the colour of the charms they cast had been complimentary, his, deep red and hers, gold.
When it was time to leave the chapel for the nuptial feast, Lily expected he would leave her to bounce across to his best friend, of whose stare she had been aware throughout the whole ceremony. She was wrong. James had transferred her hand to his arm, much to Sirius’s confusion, and escorted her to Alice’s side before excusing himself.
“So what did you think of your first wizarding wedding?”
Lily jerked so abruptly out of her reverie that her glass slipped and she almost dropped it. “Erm… I was feeling a bit queasy, actually. I only remember bits and pieces.” The shadow that grew over your face watching Frank and Alice kiss as man and wife.
James smiled. “You looked so fierce when it came to the vows, I think Frank decided he’d better say ‘I will’ before you hexed him, trainee Auror or not.”
Lily smiled weakly. Alice had mouthed ‘Relax’ at her. Easier said than done. James Potter was beside her. “You looked very distinguished,” she said a minute later.
James blinked. His eyes flicked about the table. “Thank you.” Evidently surprised, he shuffled forward on his chair and put his feet flat; the back legs left the floor slightly. “It didn’t show that I was shaking like a leaf?”
Lily tucked her feet under her. “You were nervous? The great James Potter?”
He snorted, smiling at the crushed rose petals strewn on the boards. “I had enough butterflies in my stomach to start an export business.”
His dry wit always gave her the giggles. “Well, it didn’t show.”
James repeated his bright-eyed impression of a ‘nodding dog’ and suddenly stifled a yawn. “Beg pardon. Long night. My father kept me up, running me through my duties until he was satisfied I could do it in my sleep. I think I nearly did.” He snorted softly, staring into the middle distance until a yawn surprised him.
Yawning is contagious and Lily duly yawned. “Sorry. What did you say to Frank’s mother? I thought she was going to turn into Maleficent the way she burst in.”
“The Dowager Mrs Longbottom is a formidable woman, isn’t she.” Again, he grinned, mischief personified, and stretched out. “She’s a friend of my mother’s so I know her reasonably well.”
You mean you wheedled and charmed her. “You must have come up with something better than ‘they’re of age and you can’t stop them’?”
“I did.”
Lily waited but no answer was forthcoming. He was being his usual frustrating self, lolling there, eyes closed. She nudged him with her knee. “Are you going to tell me or do I have to drag it out of you?”
In reply, he angled his head slightly. The glint in his eye suggested he was tempted to see what she would do to ‘drag it out of him’.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
His stare was like that ‘ever-fixed mark’ from his recitation, burrowing deeper as though he could read her mind as easily as she would a book, and not being a Pureblood, she had no training in Occlumency. Blood was rushing to her face. She swallowed. “That’s Shakespeare, isn’t it?”
He lolled back again and closed his eyes. “Yes. Sonnet one hundred and sixteen.”
Lily took a deep breath. Maybe there was something in what Alice had kept repeating for the last two years; that Potter had hidden depths he didn’t reveal to just anyone. How many wizards could quote Shakespeare? Her dad would be impressed. She shook thought impatiently away. Potter was never getting near enough to impress her dad with anything.
“Why did that work?” Why were her hands still shaking? She clasped them, forcing a semblance of serenity.
More silence.
“James!”
He flinched and grunted, his feet slipping from the chair stretchers. “Wasn’ me,” he muttered quickly and then realised where he was. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, sitting up. “Beg pardon. What were you saying?” He dipped into the pocket of his plain black waistcoat and came up with a delicate gold pocket watch. Whatever the face showed once he’d clicked the cover open and raised it closer made his eyes widen.
“Why did reciting Shakespeare at Mrs Longbottom stop her forbidding the marriage?”
James stood and stretched; his fingertips grazed the low ceiling. His waistcoat rode up to reveal a narrow segment of shirt. “Did I say she’s a particular friend of my mother’s?”
He didn’t give her chance to speak but continued, “The first call Mrs Longbottom made when the year of mourning her husband ended was to my mother. On that occasion she remarked that his proposal of marriage was based on sonnet one hundred and sixteen. I was at that curious age and looked it up in my father’s library. Later, of course, I had to learn it, and recite with understanding.” He smiled lazily. “My father has a very odd sense of humour.” He glanced at her. “We should be getting back to Hogwarts, before Avery and his little band petrify everyone below fourth year. If you would care to change first, I’ll thank Mistress Congeniality for her hostility.”
Standing, Lily fought to keep from laughing. “Don’t you mean her hospitality?”
James shook his head slowly. “I choose my words with care these days. I meant exactly what I said, Evans. I always do.”
Half way to the stairs, Lily paused to look over her shoulder; his head was averted but still her heart quickened.
Suppose that was true, that he always meant exactly what he said? ‘Any chance to be alone with you, Evans’, he’d said in the car.
Except that sounded too much like the rubbish he trotted out in school. Another of those trite phrases that boys picked up from watching their seniors succumb to Love’s ancient arts.
The room she and Alice had dressed in was chilly now, encouraging rapid changing. Her everyday clothes were cold too but she wasn’t allowed magic outside school. Lily dithered. Who was going to notice one simple charm in a wizarding inn?
Warmer now, she snuggled gratefully into her favourite cardigan. Grannie’s last knitting project, she’d claimed the pale, apple-green wool brought out the sparkle of the green eyes their shared inheritance had bestowed. Her eyes were the first thing everyone commented on. Everyone except Potter.
Potter, who hated everything associated with the Dark Arts and had still worked Blood Magic, because of his friend. Potter, who was waiting downstairs.
Lily scrabbled everything together quickly, flicked her wand over the formal gown she’d just wriggled out of and packed it as best she could into the small case Mrs Potter had generously loaned her. Snatching up her coat, she took one last look round and hurried to the stairs, another worn stone spiral. Forcing her tired body to concentrate and wishing wizarding builders had heard of handrails, Lily took her time.
James didn’t seem to be around when she carried his mother’s well-travelled tapestry case into the main hall of the inn. She’d only slipped once on the damned stairs but her legs were still wobbly as a result. His sheepskin coat was over a chair, though, and she took this as sign that she should wait for him here.
By the fire, she pulled her hair down from the complicated weave Alice had charmed up and when her fingers encountered too many snarls, she dipped into her bag for her comb. Her little make-up bag wasn’t there. Thinking she’d missed it in her tiredness, Lily unpacked and checked through the folds of her clothes meticulously but the end result was the same. The bag wasn’t there. Now that she thought about it, she remembered setting it on the narrow mantelshelf when she’d changed, intending to drop it in on the top of everything else after doing her hair, only she hadn’t combed her hair out. It must still be there.
After a second’s hesitation, she flipped the case closed and dashed up the narrow staircase. The door was thankfully ajar and when she swung round it, she nearly fell over so abruptly did she stop.
“Oh, hullo, Evans.”
It was probably possible to fry an egg on her face. Potter - James - turned on his heel, the shirt he had clearly just removed in one hand.
For an eternity, or two seconds, she stared at him, at his chest, his smooth shoulders, the rounded muscles on his upper arms.
“Evans?”
Shit, he was watching her, waiting for some sort of answer. The buzzing in her ears must have covered the question.
“Sorry,” she gasped. God, had she thought it was cold up here before? “I, er, I-”
He dropped the shirt and reached to the bed as though he was used to witches bursting in on him when he was half-naked. “What’s up?”
Rooted to the spot she watched him calmly bunch a jumper up in his hands and shove his head through the neck. Even when he’d pushed his arms into the sleeves, arranged the polo collar and ruffled up his hair in the way he had that irritated her so much, she still didn’t seem capable of looking away.
Somehow, she forced a long, slow blink in the hope that it would purge the image imprinted on the back of her brain; athletic physique, skin pale as peeled daisy roots.
“Was this what you wanted?”
What? Bloody cheek! “No! I came-” Oh. In his outstretched hand was her flowery make-up bag.
“I forgot to comb my hair out,” she whispered and took it with a muted thank you.
He would never let her live this down. He’d exult to Sirius that she’d ‘burst in and ogled him while he was changing’ the first chance he got and somehow, it would be round the castle by lunchtime, only embellished by the imagination of each person in the chain of whispers.
And now he was smiling, the sod, as though he wasn’t averse to the idea; that infuriating ‘I-know-something-you-don’t’ lop-sided smile that emphasised the twinkle in his eye.
Grannie used to call her a little scamp when she had a similar look. Maybe she’d like him more if they didn’t have similar impish traits.
If I once gave way to James, he’d crow and gloat for evermore, she’d said to Alice. Meaning I couldn’t bear to lose, or what? Was it only stubborn habit that made her refuse him now?
I choose my words with care these days. I mean exactly what I say, Evans, he’d said. Her perception of him altered. Suddenly, how he reacted once they were back at school and what he told about this day became a test of his much-proclaimed devotion to her.
Fresh resolve calmed her; if James did what she expected and bragged about it, even to Sirius, he’d lost any chance of convincing her he’d grown out of his adolescent antics.
And if he said nothing? demanded the side of her that gave the Slug cheeky answers. Her heart stumbled. If he says nothing, well; we’ll see.
He was suddenly beside her, his bulging book bag over his shoulder. “Evans? You okay? You’re rather pale.”
Lily nodded so quickly that she made herself dizzy and lost her balance. James steadied her, his hand under her elbow.
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No. I couldn’t. Don’t know why.”
“Strange bed. I never sleep properly the first week at home or back at Hogwarts either.”
Lily let his simplistic reason stand unchallenged. It was easier. And obvious, yet she had an inkling her sleeplessness had another cause.
Somehow, James reached the stairs first and after the first couple he turned to offer her a hand. “These stairs are a menace so please humour me. I’d feel guilty if you stumbled.” Self-consciously aware, Lily placed her hand in his; it was warm and smooth. She wasn’t sure what to make of this new solicitude.
At the foot of the stairs, he Summoned her bag (his mother’s case, on loan), took the make-up bag from her nerveless hand, placed it inside and flipped the top closed, adding it to his own automatically.
“I am capable of carrying my own bag,” Lily said sharply. “I’m not useless.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you were,” was the quiet reply. “If you’d like to wait here in the warm, I’ll bring the car round.”
Lily frowned as the door closed behind him. What had happened to acting like a grown-up and behaving with decorum?
*
They’d driven a few miles in a silence that Lily found uncomfortable. “Will I map read again?”
“No, it’s okay. Once I’ve driven a route, I remember it.”
Lily stared at him and then through the windscreen. Everything looked different under the powdery snow. “But we’re going the other way.”
He smiled. “And that makes a difference? You’ve got a Potioneers thought patterns all right- linear progression. Transfiguration teaches you to think outside the box.”
“I always thought it was the other way round,” Lily said at once. He’d thrown this point out back in fourth year, and repeated it at regular intervals ever since the Slug had stated that, in his expert opinion, she was an intuitive potion maker, bound to go far. “You only say that because you’re best in the school at Transfiguration.”
His mouth stayed open, frozen on his opening syllable.
“What’s the matter? No smart answer to that one?” Now who was gloating? It was a small victory, though, and enough small victories won the war. Not sleeping through History of Magic was finally good for something.
Lily wriggled back into her seat, smiling out into the brilliantly white morning.
*
“You’re not legally old enough to drive, you know.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “True, but I’ve been driving since I was fourteen. My father taught me during the summer after we won the Quidditch Cup.”
Lily couldn’t help the indignant exclamation that escaped. James only grinned.
“Believe me, if I could satisfy my father, I could easily pass a Muggle driving test. He would never have let me drive with you to Cambridge otherwise.”
“Oh?” So his father had high standards.
They had reached an awkward junction and James didn’t answer until he’d nudged the car over the thick white line and he was satisfied it was safe to turn. “He told me that my neck was my own to risk in whatever mad pursuit I chose, but if another had entrusted their life in my hands, I’d better be bloody sure I was worthy of their trust. In other words, no messing about or acting the fool.”
Lily’s respect for his father redoubled. Most parents she knew expected you to do what they said, or what they thought best. His parents seemed to be laying a framework wherein James could make his own decisions and choices.
“Your real objection to me driving is more to do with my apparent flouting of the rules.” He glanced at her. “Isn’t it? In my defence, I’ve been flying since I could toddle. A family friend told Father I had excellent reactions and -”
“Does he know you use them to hex everyone in sight at school?”
James accelerated and changed gear again. “Fidelius Rabnott.”
“Who’s he, when he’s at home? And don’t think I didn’t notice you ducked the question.”
James chuckled. “He supplies the Wasps with racing brooms.”
Lily shifted. “Oh. Quidditch.”
“Fff! ‘Oh. Quidditch’, she says dismissively.” James was still grinning. “One day, Evans, I’ll infect you with enthusiasm for the ancient and noble wizarding sport of Quidditch.”
Lily yawned behind her hand. “Good luck. I’ve had all my inoculations.”
James laughed out loud. “Fids, as I used to call him when I was small,” he said, when he’d calmed down, “was also one of the founders of the Nimbus Racing Broom Company.”
That accounts for your top-of-the-line broomstick, then.
There was a pause. “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
“Who said that? Your father?”
James shook his head. “No. A Muggle called Douglas Bader. Have you heard of him?” he asked and immediately continued, “he was a fighter pilot in the war the Muggles call World War two. He was shot down in his plane and lost both legs.” He paused. “It didn’t stop him. He persuaded the doctors to make him two false legs, learned to walk again and even flew more missions in the conflict. He was shot down again and tried to escape so many times that his captors were forced to take away his false legs.”
Lily was amazed, not by the life story James was relating, but that he knew so much about a Muggle. “How d’you know all this?”
“Fids knew I loved to fly and he told me about him. Gave me a book about famous Muggle aviators.”
“Right… why him though?”
For a minute she thought James wasn’t going to answer and then he said, “For the example.”
“In what?”
“Perseverance.”
Lily felt she was on shifting sand and stared determinedly out through the windscreen at the approaching town.
*
“Why d’you keep asking me out?”
The car lurched. “Bugger,” he muttered. “Foot slipped.” Colour over his cheekbone betrayed the white lie.
They were creeping along bumper to bumper to the traffic lights. It could have been the harsh quality of the streetlights reflecting off the snow, but he really did look ashy.
“You’re tired. Perhaps you should have had a couple of hours sleep first. You didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“Neither did you,” James countered immediately.
“Are we back to that? ‘Anything you can do I can do better’?”
He braked for the red light and she could see him chuckling silently. “I can go a night without sleep. Besides, it’s Saturday now so I can kip for a couple of hours when we get back to Hogwarts and not resemble the walking dead until, oh, at least eleven tonight.” His hand dropped from the steering wheel briefly.
Lily meant to smile but her body forced a yawn instead. The endless sameness of the blanched landscape threaded through with the grey ribbon of road was encouraging her eyelids to droop. It was getting harder to fight it. “So why d’you keep asking me out?” She turned slightly under the restraining Safety charms. She must be really knackered for this seat to be so comfortable. She might be lying on a big, plump cushion.
“You make me laugh.”
Under ton-weight lids, Lily stared and discovered he was looking down at her. How had that happened? Her head was too fuddled to concentrate. “That’s it?”
Another smile. “Does it take more than that? ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupèry, before you ask.”
There was something foreign to his intonation as he pronounced the name but she was too tired to pin it down. She felt the car rumble off again; the vibration was soothing in the same way as rain pattering on the window was sleep-inducing. She ‘ummed’ questioningly but her body was sliding into the toasty warmth of her little cocoon.
*
It was the lack of motion and the ingress of frozen air that alerted her. She sat up and James’s sheepskin coat fell to her lap. He’d made the car seat recline and covered her with his coat. She blinked. That was nice of him. Gentlemanly.
It was probably safe to bet that he’d offer her his cloak if they were in Hogsmeade on a date and it started lashing down, unlike that selfish oaf Paul Bateson. The prospect of sharing a cloak with Potter wasn’t quite as repulsive as she’d once thought. He might be a git, but he could be a considerate git with manners and ‘manners maketh man’ as grannie used to say.
The door on his side was partially open. “James?” Ugh. Croaky. She cleared her throat and tried again. There was no snow here, only weak sun glittering on a hard frost from a forget-me-not sky.
“I’m here. Father’s making a Portkey.” He appeared at her side of the car, arms folded across his chest, hands tucked in his armpits. “Took one look at me and said I’d Splinch us both if I even thought of Apparating.”
Lily shivered. “Right.” She reached for the handle but James opened the door and offered her his hand. Lily ignored it and slid her sensible lace-ups to the sparkling gravel. Far from looking offended, James smiled and then shivered.
“You’ll catch your death, you know.”
He shrugged again, or maybe it coincided with a shiver and simply looked that way. “All in a noble cause.”
“Yes, well, some of us don’t believe in women and children first, James. Here.” Lily held out his thick coat but he didn’t move. The low sun across his lenses stopped her seeing his eyes but she was certain he was watching her. Self-consciously, Lily stood and draped the coat round his shoulders.
“Thank you.” His simple gratitude barely disturbed the air yet it felt as though something had changed between them, as though he might let her take care of him as he had been considerate of her. It was a good feeling.
“James? Is Miss Evans-Ah! Good morrow, Miss Evans.”
They turned together, Lily still with her hands on his coat lapels. “Good morning, Mr Potter.”
Having greeted her with a small bow he seemed to find something amiss; he cocked his head. His silvery hair sticking up in an aureole around his thin face reinforced the image of ruffled Snowy owl. “I revise my decision. Neither of you are in any condition to Portkey. James, escort Miss Evans into my study.”
“Yes, Father.”
Greatly intrigued, Lily waited until James had put his coat on properly and once again walked at his side through his family home without really registering the décor while her hand rested in the crook of his arm. His father moved at a sprightly pace for a man Sirius had once described as ‘older than Merlin’s puppy’. “Why your father’s study?” she asked in an undertone.
“There’s a direct Floo connection to professor McGonagall’s office.”
“There is? But I thought-”
Mr Potter gave a slight cough. “It pains me to admit any deficiency in our joint creation, Miss Evans, but it can scarcely have escaped the attention of such an observant soul as yourself that little James has a rare talent - indeed, predilection would not be too strong a word- for mischief.”
“ ‘Little James’?” Lily mouthed, a smile betraying her delight and spluttering mentally.
James’s face was pink. He leaned in close and whispered, “Odd sense of humour. I did warn you.”
His breath sent a frisson round her shoulders. Lily rubbed her neck surreptitiously and didn’t dare look at his face.
Mr Potter rounded a corner, swept open a door of dark figured wood and gestured for them to enter. James hung back to let her precede him.
It was a large room with four full length windows furnished in a style best described as ‘Going for a Song’ meets the National Trust. The furniture encompassed every style and age, from the plain wooden chest spilling its burden of tight parchment scrolls to the elaborate curved desk, covered in sinuously twining inlaid flowers.
Mr Potter snatched a breath, one blue-veined hand resting lightly on his chest. “Yes, Miss Evans, Professor Dumbledore and I were in agreement that a direct connection to filial discipline would save dear Minerva the constant ennui of owling on a daily basis and possibly have superior results.”
Lily’s face was aching from suppressing her desire to drop to the exotically-patterned carpet before the tall marble fireplace and laugh until she cried. James had been in trouble every day? Why was she even surprised?
James’s father frowned over the tops of his little glasses, regarding his heir intently; James fidgeted. “Alas, as he passed up the school, I observed that all he had learned from these experiences was greater cunning in evasion.”
James found his tongue. “Which will stand me in good stead when I apply to be a Cursebreaker.”
His father sighed deeply, as though this was an old argument between them. “Play professional Quidditch, my boy. I’d agree to anything if I could have your promise not to be a Cursebreaker.”
The set look on James’s face as he returned his father’s stare only reinforced the family resemblance. Lily remembered that the senior Potter had waited several decades to marry the woman he loved. Would James be as stubborn in pursuing his chosen career, against his father’s wishes? There was a precedent. He’d chased after her as stubbornly.
“Anything?” James murmured with a note of daring, dropping his head a fraction to peer over his glasses. “Have a care, father.”
They kept the intent stare going. Lily wondered if they’d resorted to Legilimency to avoid arguing in front of her. A few more seconds passed and then, with another sigh, Mr Potter turned away and drew his wand. He tapped the ornate mantle in three - no - four places before throwing in some of the sparkly powder that fascinated her. The flames shot up at once.
“Hurry up, James. You’re keeping Miss Evans waiting.” He sounded tired.
James hugged his father and dived into the flames. Mr Potter shook his head and tutted. “Show off!”
Lily covered her mouth with her hand to give herself time to recover and then stepped forward. “Thank you very much for having me, and arranging everything, Mr Potter. Please say thank you to Mrs Potter for me for lending me her case.”
Mr Potter beamed at her. “It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Evans. You must come and take tea one afternoon. I’ll bespeak Albus and Minerva to secure their permission for a visit. Lovage enjoyed the refreshment of your conversation.”
Lily was still untangling this little speech and was surprised when Mr Potter raised the hand she thought he’d shake. Was he really going to -yes. The brief touch at her knuckles confirmed it. And she’d thought being kissed on the hand went out with fairytale books. "Your servant, Miss Evans." He handed her into the fire.
There was none of the giddy whirling with glimpses of other grates. She simply stepped through one fireplace and out into professor McGonagall’s study.
“Try not to bring any more ash onto the carpet, Miss Evans. Potter has made enough mess for three.” Professor McGonagall was at her desk, regarding their exit point tartly.
The pattern suggested James had come out of his diving exit in a roll. The culprit was paying great attention to cleaning off his trouser legs. His coat lay on the floor nearby.
“Yes professor.” Lily whisked the mess away with a discreet jab of her wand. Judging by the scrolls waiting on the floor and desk, Professor McGonagall had enough to get on with.
“The ceremony went well, I trust?” Apparently she wasn’t above a little curiosity.
James perked up and gave their Head of House a bright smile that Lily had seen too many times before. Was he about to say she’d forgotten what she was supposed to do and he’d had to rescue her?
“Very well, professor. Mrs Longbottom arrived in time, although I didn’t think her hat was appropriate for a wedding.”
Professor McGonagall raised a sparse eyebrow.
“Topped with a stuffed vulture,” James deadpanned.
Lily caught a flicker of amusement on their professor’s face as she turned back to her marking. “Your views on witching millinery notwithstanding, Potter, you may return to Gryffindor tower and retire. If I hear that either of you were seen outside your dormitories before dinner, you will have detention.”
Lily’s mouth fell open. What?
“With Madam Pince.”
James shuddered.
“I believe I gave you permission to leave? The house-elves will transfer your bags.”
On the way back to Gryffindor tower, James ran a hand through his hair. “Madam Pince! That ranks as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. I thought Mackie had a sense of humour but now, I’m not so sure.”
“Dealing with your antics on a daily basis, James, are you surprised?” Lily said brightly. Her nap in the car had helped. “It has been over six years.”
James groaned. “Thanks a lot, father.”
His pained mutter made Lily smile. He turned left then and she grabbed his arm. “Where d’you think you’re going?”
“See Moony. Hospital wing.” He blinked at her, clearly having difficulty keeping his blood-shot eyes open. It was a wonder he hadn’t walked into one of the pillars. Lily recalled the chapel she’d left only a couple of hours ago, and how this unlikely rapport with an ‘arrogant toe-rag’ had started.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said firmly, hauling him in the direction of the stairs. “You let me sleep in the car. You are going to do exactly as you were told, which was to go up to your dormitory and go to bed. And sleep.”
“But Moony-”
“Remus will be fine.”
James stopped dead and no amount of pulling or shoving could get him moving again. “No. See Moony first.” He set off in that direction, Lily trying to drag him back. She might have had a mule on a dog lead for all the effect she made.
“You stubborn, awkward, bloody - Look,” she puffed. “I’ll go and see Remus if you go to bed.”
James hesitated. “I’ll sit up by the fire. I’ll go up after you see Moony and tell me he’s okay.”
Lily stared at him, annoyance building. “You always have to have your own way, don’t you?”
“Not always. Only things that matter most.”
He swayed and in role reversal, Lily caught him. “You’re knackered. Bed! I’ll check on Remus. Start walking!”
He favoured her with another slow and very cheeky smile, raising his hands to hold them up in surrender. “Pax, Evans! I’m going.”
Lily watched until she saw him climbing the stairs, waited another minute to be certain he didn’t double back and then headed to the hospital wing, where she found Remus awake and grumpy that Madam Pomfrey insisted he stay where he was. Lily entertained him with her version of Frank and Alice’s wedding and when his eyes started to droop, promised to return later.
Peter was in a chair by the fire when Lily returned to the common room. He looked up at her, blinking watery eyes. Lily frequently felt sorry for him; it couldn’t be easy, having James, Sirius and Remus as dorm mates. They were so much brighter and quicker than he was and not as patient with him as friends should be.
“Peter? Where’s James?”
He jumped, almost guiltily, and slid to the edge of the armchair. “He fell asleep. Padfoot hexed him up the stairs.”
“Hex, Peter? I didn’t hex him, I encouraged him, gently.” Sirius grinned at them from the foot of the boys’ stairs. “Unlike Evans, who bossed him up to bed, the way Prongs told it.”
Sirius crossed to the fireplace, casually boosted the flames with a flick of his wand, grinned again and dropped into the adjacent chair to Peter, crossing one leg over the other. “Firm handling, Evans, that’s all Prongs needs.” He nodded and suddenly laughed.
Lily wasn’t keen on the glint in his dark eyes as he appraised at her. Had James let something slip already? “I was supposed to tell him how Remus was. It was important to him.” She found the explanation came out coolly.
Sirius’s smile changed, turned knowing, but Lily only raised her chin, refusing to avoid his glittering stare. Jenny Moody thought Sirius was bonkers and that only James kept him sane. At this moment, Lily wouldn’t have disagreed.
“Top of the stairs, Evans. Take your time.” He winked.
Lily crossed to the twin staircases and leaned up the girls’ one. “Jenny?” She waited. “MOODY!”
“Bloody hell!” Sirius exclaimed. “The sweet screech of a harpy! Thought I was back home, then, Wormtail.”
Lily ignored him. Jenny Moody’s tousled head appeared. “What’s up?”
“I need you to come up the boys’ stairs with me.”
Jenny descended a couple of steps. She was dressed but had slippers on her feet. “Cool! Who’s in trouble and why isn’t Potter seeing to it?”
“Jenny, just come with me,” Lily said, letting the plea leech through.
“Oh, I get it. You don’t want everyone knowing. Right, lead on Macduff.”
“So, who’s in trouble and why isn’t Potter dealing with it?” Jenny whispered as they climbed the spiral.
“No one,” Lily breathed. “We just got back from Frank and Alice’s wedding and I need to give James a message, that’s all.
“James?” Jenny demanded archly. “When did that happen?”
Again, that scalding lump jumped to Lily’s throat. “Is it me, or do these stairs stink? Have boys never heard of Freshening charms?”
“Most of them don’t know how to open a window, never mind anything else.”
“It smells like a potions accident!”
Jenny sniggered. “Like you would know! This is it.”
They were at the top of the tower, the last door. It was disconcerting, the rate her heart was running; it couldn’t be healthy. Lily watched her knuckles rap the door, replaying the last time she’d rounded a door that James was behind. Broad pale shoulders, defined muscles that belied Avery’s ‘skinny’ taunt, smooth skin God-stop it, girl!
She tapped again, a bit louder. “James?” Now her bloody voice was warbling.
“Oh go in, for crying out loud. He won’t bite.”
“He might be changing!”
“Lucky you!” With a grin, Jenny turned the handle and pushed her over the threshold. “I’ll stay here.
Only one bed had closed hangings. Lily tiptoed across, avoiding the dropped books and the orange peel, thankful it wasn’t dropped clothes. “James?”
She could see him through a chink in the hangings. He was lying on his side, one arm on top of the covers, clad in a psychedelically patterned pyjama shirt. “James?” He looked completely different without those heavy black frames.
He grunted. Daringly, Lily perched on the very edge of the bed. What unfairly thick lashes. “James?”
“M’ny?”
The devotion to his friend was touching. Something else she should figure into the unorthodox mixture of human traits that made up James Potter. “He was awake when I saw him. Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t let him out of bed though, and he was being grumpy about it.”
The very corner of his mouth turned up. “ S’Moony.”
She watched the smile fade as he drifted deeper into sleep. The slight frown was erased and his breathing deepened, slowed. Relaxed, stripped of the attitudes and mannerisms he donned each day to face the world, Lily caught a glimpse of a very different James Potter and found she quite liked what lay hidden beneath his posturing.
*
Sirius was leaning against the wall, conversing with the Fat Lady’s friend when Lily returned from rounds that evening. Violet was giggling and simpering at him and he was, as usual, lapping it up.
He turned the cocky grin on her. “So, Evans, what happened?”
A shiver chased after her sinking tummy. “When?” Oh God, here we go. “I’m not with you.”
Sirius pushed off the wall and approached. “At the wedding, after we left, when it was just you and Prongs.” He took another step, fixed on her eyes.
Lily folded her arms. “What has Ja-Potter said?” The arrogant bloody blabbermouth.
His grin returned. “Evasion… Nice try, Evans, but I grew up among expert interrogators. Prongs tried that one too, which is how I know something happened, but he’s oddly close-mouthed,” he added conversationally, looking around. Lily wondered if he was checking for observers and checked for herself.
Beside them, Violet and the Fat Lady were paying avid attention.
Sirius whipped his stare back on her; it was so sharp, she staggered into the wall and threw up a shielding hand. “What happened, Evans? Prongs and I tell each other everything.”
“Maybe you should go out with him, then,” Lily retorted, and shoved him back hard. “And if you ever do that to me again, I’ll-”
“Go straight to McGonagall?” He was smirking, completely unconcerned.
“No. Worse. I’ll tell Madam Pince you wrote in the last surviving copy of ‘Moste Potente Potions’.”
Sirius blanched. “Evans! That’s evil!” Then his slow grin returned. “Almost marauder-worthy… Interesting. You’re protecting each other.” His grin petered out, a haunted expression taking its place. “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but looking outward in the same direction.”
He gave the Fat Lady the password and climbed through in silence. Lily reviewed the last few minutes, trying to keep her feelings from running away with her. James was ‘oddly close-mouthed’ with his best friend of six and a half years? They were closer than brothers. What was going on?
And the last thing he’d said, about love and looking in the same direction, it had sounded like a quotation from something.
She put her hands over her hot cheeks. Why was she so bothered by it?
*
Lily propped her head on her hand and wondered what had possessed her to try for a NEWT in Transfiguration. Repressing a headachy sigh, she flipped back a couple of pages and re-read from the start of the chapter. It might make more sense the fifth time.
“Hogsmeade this weekend, Prongs.”
Lightning shocked her heart into a brief race. Lily froze, all ears for the reply.
“What about it?” James’s tone was guarded.
“I wondered whether you’d decided to forgo the ritual humiliation of being rejected by Evans this time in favour of asking someone who would actually like to go with you?”
Annoyance flared up at the sly grin in Sirius’s voice. Ritual humiliation? Who did he think he was? Things between her and James had been civilised since the wedding.
“It hardly merits as ‘ritual’, Padfoot,” Remus interjected hoarsely. “Ritual implies a consistent procedure.”
“She’s turned him down about a thousand times! What would you call it then?” Lily could imagine him swinging the chair nonchalantly back on two legs.
“Customary, perhaps,” Remus suggested. “Anyway, it’s James’s choice.”
Either Sirius didn’t pick up the air of finality in Remus’s words or he was determined to have the last word. “Get it over with, Prongs. Ask her now and get it over with. Then you can pick someone else.”
The common room fell into a tense, eager silence. Lily didn’t need to look up to know that she and James were the absolute focus of attention. What would James do next?
If he asked her, what would she say?
“Evans?” A carefully casual tone. Trying to show he didn’t care.
“Potter?” The moisture that should have been in her mouth was leaking through her palms.
She waited. ‘Potter has the Quaffle - will he feint and pass, or score?’
The common room waited.
“Prongs?”
At Sirius’s edgily muttered query, Lily looked over her shoulder. James was staring unseeingly at his parchment, the habitual slight frown and tensed jaw the only indicators that he was fighting an internal battle. He was trying to breathe through his nose, calmly, but the fact that she could hear him suggested he was anything but.
Why didn’t he ask?
His jaw muscles tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed.
And suddenly Lily understood. She turned back to her book. After the fragile rapport they’d established at their friend’s wedding, there was to be no return to pestering her to go out with him. He was trying to prove he’d changed, grown up, could accept her choice. What was it he’d said? Love alters not, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. ‘I choose my words with care these days. I meant exactly what I said, Evans’. It was down to her now.
“The weather forecast doesn’t sound too promising for Saturday, James.” She paused to bite back her impish grin. “If I were you, I’d make sure your cloak will cover both of us.”