Challenge: 19 and maybe some more years later: A Next Gen Competition
Characters: Lily Luna Potter and Lysander Scamander
Prompt: Song I Don't Believe In Love by Dido

I want to go to bed with arms around me
But wake up on my own
Pretend that I'm still sleeping
Til' you go home.

I Don't Believe In Love
Dido

&& he's known her his whole life and that was why it felt so awkward when he realised that he was in love with her. He knows she's the kind of girl that doesn't believe in love even though she sees it every day at home. He knows she's afraid of love and even, possibly, of failing where her parents have succeeded. She firmly believes that love isn't love until it hurts like hell and he knows there is no way she'll voluntarily open herself up to that pain. She has watched her cousins and friends as they have pursued love and then held them together when it has come crumbling down around their ears. Still there were the lucky ones. His own twin brother, Lorcan, and her closest cousin, Lucy, for example. Nobody could deny how unbelievably perfect they were together. Lucy however had her fair share of heartbreak before finding her happily ever after.

So he didn't tell her when he realise that he was in love with her and just looked on as she shied away from the idea of love. He sees her roll her eyes when friends and relatives inquire about her love life and she flashes a smile at him because she believes that he finds the idea of true love as ridiculous as she does. He'd told her once that he didn't believe in love, that he thought it was nonsense. They had once laughed at the gushing couple who were so sure that their relationship was forever. He wasn't such a cynic now. It felt like a cruel joke to make him fall in love with the one person who truly didn't believe in the idea of love.

There are still friends though, best friends and she confides in him about everything. He's glad that she's the kind of girl that doesn't believe in love because she wrinkles up her freckly nose and says no in a firm, solid voice when some other bloke asks her out. It's like the warmest kind of relief to him. Still that last year at Hogwarts was torture for him because it was his knee she always sat on, his hand she always held and it was him she always hugged tightly so he could feel her body warm against his. He thought it would be better once he had left and they couldn't see each other every day. In fact, they would only see each other in the holidays. It was worse. He hated not seeing her every day with her fiery red hair and liquid chocolate eyes along with her sharp wit and bewitching smile. He began to worry that she would grow up and begin to believe in love. Then when she came home there would be some other boy on her arm and he would have missed his chance.

She hadn't changed by the time she had finished Hogwarts and she still didn't believe in love which made him sigh in relief. He had plenty of time to tell her how he felt. He still hasn't told her yet and he finds it awkward when they go out together and people ask if they are a couple. She laughs. She always laughs and says that they don't believe in ridiculous nonsense like that. It made sense in his head. His brother, who takes after his mother so much, believes in all sorts of impossible things and Lucy, if he was honest, she's just plain quirky and maybe that was why they found true love. They had never doubt its existence, unlike him. Now he had to pay for his mistake.

So yet again he's slumped on a bar stool with a firewhisky in his hand and he is watching her dance around like the fun-loving girl that she is. He can see the other male eyes that are on her and he can almost feel the longing emulating from the other men in the bar as they run their eyes up and down the impossible length of leg. He has the great urge to growl at them all until they look away. He doesn't though. He's never been the type to act on impulse unless someone is insulting his brother. Then his impulses take over and earn the offender a hex or a curse. He tries to focus on Lily rather than on the men around her and he stares in her eyes and she smiles like a cat that's got the cream. He can feel eyes flickering to him wondering what he had done to deserve this attention. Sometimes he wonders the very same thing. Lily dances towards him and he can feel the smile spread on his face. Then unexpectedly she straddles him rubbing up against his thigh until she is close enough to whisper in his ear.

'Let's get out of here.'

So they run into the night and drizzling rain. She pulls him into a deserted alleyway and he wraps his arms around her before they apparate. They arrive in her little flat and before he knows what is happening she undoes his jeans, pulls them down and she jumps on him wrapping her impossibly long legs around his slim frame. She kisses him passionately as he slides his hands under her bottom. His heart seems to soar out of his body as he responds with enthusiasm. He doesn't realise he's moved from the middle of the room until there's a slightly thud and her back is against the wall. He breaks away from her a little trying to remember where her bedroom is. She pulls off her top in one swift movement revealing a red bra and the strawberry and cream skin of her breasts. He hears himself take a sharp intake of breath and swings to his left with her still in his arms. His trousers round his ankles make it difficult to walk but he makes it to her bed and pitches them both into it.

Lily doesn't seem to mind as she struggles out of her knickers and then yanks his top off over his head. He grins at her and then begins to kiss his way down her neck. She tastes of sweat and that expensive perfume he had bought her for her last birthday and he feels her desperate hands at his hips pulling down his boxers. He stops kissing her and looks into her eyes which are full of longing and lust. He bends his head to kiss her soundly on the lips and he can feel her lithe body underneath him practically trembling.

He wakes in the morning his arms wrapped tight around her body and the first thing he smells is her strawberry shampoo from the cloud of hair that drifts across the pillow. He slowly disentangles himself from her and rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. It was perfect, he thinks, our first declaration of love. There is some sort of fire in his heart but he doesn't question it and he sits to wait for Lily to wake up. She doesn't though and after an hour and a half he leans over to look at her. She looks like she is sleeping and he can tell that her breathing is low and even. So he slips out of her bed and decides to go and buy some food. He'll make her breakfast in bed because that's the kind of guy he is.

He quickly dresses and then let's himself out of her flat and he can feel the bounce in his step as he makes it onto the street. He crosses the road quickly and when he reaches the other side he turns to look at Lily's windows. His heart sinks as he sees her there standing by the window her white sheets wrapped around her and her long fiery hair hanging down her back. Suddenly it hits him like a ton of bricks. She's been awake the whole time. She's doesn't love him. She doesn't believe in that ridiculous nonsense.

He stares at her for a moment longer until she moves away from the window and he feels physically sick. They had been best friends forever and he had always known everything that she wanted. How was it that he didn't know this? How was it that he didn't know she was capable of this? He wonders if she knew that he is love with her. He hopes not because he doesn't like think about Lily that way and slowly he turns to walk away. Maybe she is right. Maybe love is just ridiculous nonsense.