A/N: Hi! This is my first ever story on here, so please limit the heckling and tomato throwing. I was doodling in class yesterday and realized I had ink stains all along my hands/wrists. Then, I got lost in thought about how telling a person's hands are. From there, my mind put it in the context of James and Lily, and voila. A collection of drabbles about our favorite wayward couple, with specific focus on their hands.
*Disclaimer: I do not, nor do I wish to ever, own the rights to the magical world of Harry Potter that J.K. Rowling has so graciously welcomed us into. It seems like far too big a job and one I am willing to leave in the hands of the far more capable (thank you, Jo).
She's going to be late. She really is. The thought enters her mind and exits, just as quickly. A few months ago, that particular thought sequence may have stirred panic or fear into her heart. Fifth-year Lily Evans, however, is no longer a stranger to tardiness. The two are well-acquainted and have been for a good while now. In fact, it was more difficult to recall the occurrences she had been on time to Care of Magical Creatures in the past four months than it was to recall the moments of tardiness. Even still, Lily walked with purpose out to the edge of the Forbidden Forest where the rest of her fellow Gryffindors, along with the sixth-year Ravenclaws would be well into their lesson.
It was just too easy. Too easy to let her eyes drift closed again after her dorm mates left for breakfast. Too easy to enjoy the long shower that was afforded to her while the other sixth-year girls were in the Great Hall. And far, far too easy to slip completely unnoticed into the back of Care of Magical Creatures, late.
Every single day.
It was the year for O.W.L.s and Lily knew she should care far more about her attendance (not to mention her attentiveness) in the class, but there was a certain sort of pleasure from this routine of tardiness. Ninety-nine percent of Lily Evans life was put together and polished. This one percent felt good. She further justified her daily rebellion by reminding herself that no one even noticed. Lovely Lily, as Professor Slughorn so affectionately and sickeningly called her, was still very much in fact.
But of course someone noticed. It was too generous on Miss Evans' part to believe that not even one of her 80+ tardies has been noticed.
James Potter was a backseat student. Unlike Lily, he had lost the battle against tardiness early in his first-year. Although, to be fair, James never quite raged against it. It was expected of him, though. By peers and professors, alike. In fact, James had not received a detention of this lateness since third year. The Hogwarts staff came to the mutual conclusion that punishing James Potter for a crime he committed several times a day was far more consequential for the staff members involved than James Potter himself. Even so, it is not as if there were not other offenses that landed James in detention on a regular basis.
Somewhere between fourth and fifth year, he had recognized the slack he was being given concerning his attendance. In a moment of altruism, James decided to try his best to at least make it easy on the professors to overlook his late arrivals. The backseat became James' in every class. He could silently slide in without so much as a look from anyone, except for whichever Marauder happened to be sitting next to him.
In Care of Magical Creatures, this individual happened to be Peter Pettigrew. Remus had opted out of this O.W.L. on account of loathing for any additional association with "magical creatures" and Sirius, well, he very well could have been technically enrolled in the class. But, if James' achilles heel was arriving "late," Sirius' was arriving "at all."
James watched as Lily snuck into the back of the small clearing. He glanced at his watch—9:12. Of course. She arrived twelve minutes late every day. Never eleven. Never thirteen. Always twelve. James couldn't help but smile to himself. Even in her tardiness, she was exact. He supposed she couldn't help it. She was too innately Lily to afford even a bit of inconsistency. Even still, those twelve minutes confounded him every day. Why? Why twelve minutes? Why every day? And why in Merlin's beard would she choose a class as easy as Care of Magical Creatures to skive off when there were classes like Arithmancy at this school? The routines and workings of Lily Evans never failed to amaze and befuddle James Potter.
He continued to watch her out the corner of his eye. The fifth-year girl fished through her bag for a quill, ink, and parchment. Then, drawing her wand from her hip, she straightened the materials on the makeshift tree-stump of a desk in front of her. Frustration was etched onto her face as she tried to stop the quill from rolling off the bumpy edges of the wooded platform. Finally, she stabilized her materials into a perfectly straight line. Parchment, quill, ink, with wand perpendicular along the top. Like always.
Next, she took the hair tie that was around her wrist and gathered her hair into a ponytail, twisting her hand round and round the thick bouquet of red until there was no slack in the band. Sweeping the nape of her neck with her left hand, she insured there were no stray hairs left isolated. This particular motion gave James a small chill, as it did everyday when she reached this part of her class-prep routine.
Still unsatisfied with her situation, she maneuvered her right hand to undo the button on her left sleeve, struggling to use her left hand to hold the sleeve in place. Finally, the button snaked out of the button hole and her sleeve went slack into her hand. She smoothly pressed the sleeve into a two-inch roll and continued it up to her elbow. Even though Lily did this every day, James always found humor in noticing the difficulty with which she accomplished this particular part of the pattern. Before she moved to roll the right sleeve, she popped her fingers. This was yet another idiosyncrasy of Lily's that he found amusing, and somewhat baffling. He could hear his Aunt Frieda now, chastising this habit that James himself had fell victim to when he was a toddler. Jamie, dear, if you continue to pop your fingers in that horrendous way, your knuckles will be three times their size when you are older! James laughed internally, imagining Lily's delicate hands with large, manly knuckles protruding out. Not likely, Aunt Frieda.
Finally, Lily moved to work on her right sleeve. Using the same tactic on this sleeve, she used her left hand to clumsily maneuver the small white button around. Obviously dominant in her right hand, Lily was struggling. The frustrated battle against the button continued for what seemed like minutes. James was having a difficult time restraining his own hands from reaching across to assist the button's mobility. Somehow, though, he thought that may not pan out as he would desire, considering the red-head's intense loathing of himself.
"Agh!" A quick gasp of frustration flew out of Lily's mouth as the small button escaped from her grasp entirely and shot from the shirt onto the dirt in front of her.
It was just too easy. Too easy to let out a bark of laughter at the girl's misfortune. Too easy to forget that they were in a classroom of students eager to learn about Pogrebins and Pygmy Puffs. Well, James thought, 'eager' may be an overstatement. Too easy to lose sight of his mission to remain unannounced in his spying on Lily Evans' daily "late routine."
With all the commotion in the back of the class, no students even turned around. Even Peter continued to snooze next to James without so much as a snort of surprise or twitch of consciousness. Lily looked at James with wide-eyes, as if she had been caught snogging a hippogriff. He stared back with equal shock.
They had been found out. Lily in her daily routine of minor rebellion and James in his observation and appreciation of the said routine. Neither spoke for the first few seconds, until-
"Potter." She spat, quietly, leaning forward to avoid the professor's attention. "What are you staring at?"
James leaned forward, quickly settling into his normal swagger. "Well, Evans," he whispered, haughtily. "I was just about to commend you on actually showing up to class today. You were beginning to gather a bit of a reputation."
She looked taken aback at this. "What?! I have never been more than t-"
"Twelve minutes late." He beat her to it, with a roll of his eyes. "I know."
Pink etched into her cheeks. "Sometimes its thirt-"
"It's always twelve and you know it. Honestly, Evans, you can't even rebel without adding order to it. It's a right shame."
"Well, I-" She tried.
"Give me your arm." He whispered.
"What?"
"Your arm. Your sleeves are asymmetrical and it's bothering me." He pointed at her left sleeve, forgotten in the argument of the moment.
"You're bothered by my asymmetry? Potter, you pay entirely too much attention to details."
He grabbed her arm roughly and quickly rolled the sleeve to match her two-inch left roll. "There."
"Thank you." She muttered quietly, somewhat embarrassed, turning back toward the front.
After a few minutes of listening to Professor Kettleburn drone on about a creature they had both lost track of, James leaned back toward her. "Evans."
"Hmm?"
"If you're going to lose a button on your shirt, at least make it one in a more interesting place." He quipped with a lazy smile and pointed look toward her chest.
She quickly pulled back and used her "delicate" hand to flip him off. Lovely Lily, indeed.