This is the story of Lily Evans' and James Potter's first kiss. The Harry Potter universe doesn't belong to me.
"C'mon Lil," Mar groaned at me, squishing her face up so that she looked genuinely pained, when I knew that it was just the alcohol talking. "You have to dance with him, there's all this sexual tension between you that needs-"
"Mar!" I exclaimed, cringing at her wording. There was definitely not sexual tension between James and I.
"Oh don't even try and argue with that, you and the rest of the school knows that that is true. Since he tried to kiss you last year-"
"How does everyone seem to know about that?" I interrupted again, more confused than ever.
"on the final day of term, you've both been dancing around each other like fricking ballerinas since then, and I for one am sick of it." She continued, ignoring my plea for an explanation.
"We have not!" I argued, lying through my teeth painfully. It was true, when James and I could get over our awkwardness around each other, which only really happened when we were left alone and didn't have the rest of Gryffindor house watching our every steps or listening to every word we said to each other, only then could we be ourselves around each other and ignore the impending talk we really needed to have. Mar raised her eyebrows at me, seeing right through my failed facade immediately. I sighed and huffed at her.
"If I'm all alone this Christmas, you are certainly not allowed to be." She reasoned, attempting to guilt trip me into doing her bidding. I let out a short laugh.
"Oh ssshhh, you and Sirius will be back to sucking each other's faces off by the end of tonight." I argued.
"Doesn't really look like it." She countered, pointing to the good looking dark haired boy who was currently feeling up a girl I didn't recognise while they danced. After having known Sirius for six and a half years now, and being friends with him for five of those years, I instantly knew that the graceful yet brooding smile he was giving the girl he had wrapped around his little finger was extremely forced, simply a face he put on for those he needed to impress for a short amount of time.
Mar and I both knew that whatever Sirius was getting himself into was not serious, and if it lasted longer than tonight it would be over by the end of the week anyway. But that didn't change the fact that Sirius was throwing himself at girls as if Mar had never been a part of his life. She was hiding the pain well, extremely well actually. But I could still see the pain in the hard set of her mouth, and the way she looked away from them quickly, choosing to stare at the blinding disco ball instead.
"Fine, but if I dance with him, will you stop nagging me?" I implored. She considered this for a moment before grinning at me spectacularly.
"Of course." I saw a glint of something else in her eyes, however I wasn't in the mood to question it.
I brushed off my knee length emerald green party dress, smoothing down the layers of puffed chiffon gathered around my thighs before stepping out onto the dance floor. I spent ten minutes searching for him in the extravagantly large house, searching the different rooms in which loved up couples had wrapped themselves around each other. I was pleased to spot my best friend Dorcas twirling slowly on the dance floor, Remus Lupin's arms wrapped around her tightly. He looked slightly dazed to be there, and every now and then gazed down at the petit girl tucked against his chest, before grinning back up at no one in particular. But James Potter was nowhere to be seen at his own party.
Eventually, I found Sirius noisily making out with another girl in the corner of a busy room. Without saying a word to either of them, I grabbed hold of the back of Sirius' now half unbuttoned shirt and dragged him away from the new girl he was torturing.
"Oi!" He shouted, attempting to twist himself round to see who was dragging him, but failed when he nearly tripped over the carpet. I stopped when we were far away enough that enough people had obscured the girl from our view, and twisted the taller boy around to face me.
"What do you want Red?" He asked when he saw who he was dealing with. "There's a girl over there who is in desperate need of some Sirius time, and I'd quite like to finish what we started." I rolled my eyes.
"Can you tell me her name?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at the dishevelled and anxious man in front of me. For a moment, he seemed to consider lying to me, then remembered that I would see through any lie he told me, so instead he just sighed.
"No." He admitted tiredly.
"Then you won't be going back over to her tonight. You'll cause her far more damage and pain than is needed for Christmas eve, specially as I really doubt that she deserves any of it anyway." I explained. Sirius swept a piece of his black hair out of his eyes, his face hardening as he got ready to argue with me.
"How do you know that she isn't as resilient and tough as I am? Maybe she doesn't remember my name either, and all she wants is a simple hook-up on Christmas eve?" He argued, the fire in his eyes building with each word.
"Because you're not as tough as you think you are Sirius! No one is!" I burst out, my voice rising with the contempt in my words. "You are broken and desperately in need of the love you keep pushing away. And you try to hide it with these girls who you woo with your looks and practiced lines, hoping that the more girls you add to your list, the easier it will be to forget the one girl who matters to you." The moment I mentioned Mar, the fire disappeared in his eyes, and he returned to the broken Sirius we'd been seeing for a month now. He didn't respond, so I went on.
"She is waiting for you Sirius. She is standing over by the dance floor, waiting for the only person she can imagine dancing with to come and speak to her, ask her to dance, ask her how she is, ask her anything." I begged, trying to make him see how stupid he was being by pushing Marlene away from him. "All she wants is you Sirius. And I know that you want her to." We stood in silence for a few moments, Sirius trying not to show how bothered he was by how right I was, and not looking at me, as if that'll make my words stop whirling round his head.
"What do you want Lily?" he asked, as if I hadn't said anything at all to him. I sighed and shook my head, there was nothing I could do now, it was up to him to make a move.
"Where's James?" I asked, at that his face perked, even a small smirk appeared where his stony mouth had been before.
"Why? Finally taking Hogwarts most wanted bachelor for your own?" he teased. I lightheartedly punched his shoulder in annoyance.
"Just tell me where he is you shit." I repeated, letting the laughter fall through in my voice.
"He went into his Mum's study to think for a bit." Sirius relented, pointing to a blue door at the end of the corridor.
"Go talk to Mar!" I shouted to him as I walked away. I could feel the scowl he gave me on the back of my neck, but I knew that he wouldn't be able to avoid her from now on, she was back on his mind.
By the time I reached the old painted blue door, I could barely even hear the party back in the main rooms, how big was this house? Tentatively, I knocked on the door, before cracking it open enough for me to slip half of my body into. Surely enough, there was James Potter, perching on the edge of his Mother's desk, looking so intensely at the floor that I was surprised that he hadn't burnt a hole through it yet. He was so focused on his thoughts in fact that he hadn't heard me come in.
"It's not really custom for the host to leave the party." I remarked softly, announcing my presence subtly. He looked up at me in surprise, his glasses halfway down his nose due to the shocked face he was pulling.
"I'm taking a time out." He explained, smiling softly at me. I stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind me and leaning my back against it.
"What did your Mum do?" I asked, looking round at the large office, filled with remnants of James' late mother.
"She was an experimental healer." James answered, his smile filled with fond and happy memories. "She created new techniques and medicines for treating magical patients." He stood up from his seat on the desk, pointing to framed certificates and awards on the pale orange walls. "Often we wouldn't see her for days, she'd be cooped up either in here, or at her lab at St Mungo's. Then after a few days, she'd reappear, looking tired and beaten but with a certain spark in her eyes that always meant that she'd succeeded in creating whatever it was she was working on." He spoke with both love and sadness in his voice, not a mourning kind of sadness, just a soft sort of longing, a feeling I knew all too well.
"You must be proud of her." I observed. James turned to me, looking at me properly for the first time. He smiled gently.
"I was proud of her. She's gone now, there's nothing left of her to be proud of." He whispered, his smile fading into nothing. I took a step closer to him, turning round to point to the commendations and works hanging on the walls.
"Just because she's gone, doesn't mean you can't still be proud of her. Your Mum was a brilliant woman James, she did all of this while she was alive, and although she's not here, her legacy is. Her work and her love's still here. That's one of the things I learnt in the years after my Mum died, physically, she left us, but there are still pieces of her everywhere I go." I explained.
"Thanks Lil." He whispered, his eyes shining with tears I knew he wouldn't let fall onto his cheeks.
"She'd be proud of you too, you know." I whispered back. Now, a singular tear did fall. He wiped it away before it made it anyway past his nose, but he turned and gave me a grateful smile.
We stood in silence for a few minutes, admiring the study of the late Mrs Potter reverently, before James broke the silence.
"Do you want to dance with me?" He asked, his face clear from troubles now and smiling gleefully at me. I grinned back.
"I've been waiting for you to ask that." I answered. He looked slightly taken aback by my response, but took it all in his stride. James grabbed my hand firmly, and before I knew it, I was being pulled at a run out of the room and back towards the dance floor.
Somehow, he managed to find us a clear path right to the centre of the floor, before he suddenly stopped, letting my body slam right into his front. I have no idea how he managed it, but he pulled me into him immediately, placing a hand on my waist, and bringing my hand up to clasp his. Before I knew what was happening we were twirling around in graceful circles.
"Since when could you dance?" I gasped, not entirely in charge of my own lungs yet after the shock I'd just gotten. Smugly, he grinned down at me, and I knew whatever he was going to say next he would thoroughly enjoy saying.
"I've always been a fantastic dancer, I'm just naturally talented at a lot of things." He boasted, his grin growing wider with every word. I rolled my eyes.
"So if I went and asked Mar if you were naturally talented at dancing, she would say yes?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at his falling face. He seemed to debate lying to me for a few seconds, before grimacing and letting his head fall to look at our twirling shoes.
"My parents forced me to take dance classes every week when I was seven, despite everything I've tried, I cannot shake what I learnt." He explained quietly, I grinned in triumph and laughed contentedly. "That's when I became friends with Mar actually." He continued, looking over at his surrogate sister and my best friend as he talked. She was standing alone, again, and I wished that someone, anyone, would go and talk to her. "I'd seen her before obviously, at snobby pureblood parties that our parents couldn't avoid having to going to. But it wasn't until our dance teacher made us be partners for the next year that we actually became friends. We hated each other at first, I hated how she was taller than me at the time, and ended up constantly stepping on my toes. She complained that I smelled bad and whined too much. Naturally though, we bonded over a joint hatred for our teacher, and eventually began to enjoy dance lessons. Before we knew it, and much to the joy of my mother, we were best friends and going round to each other's houses every day."
"That sounds exactly like something you two would do." I chuckled. But James' eyes had turned from joyful and full of laughter to concerned, and I followed his gaze to find he was staring worriedly at Marlene herself. She was still standing alone, looking miserable and tired. I could see from her stance that she was pondering whether or not to leave, but she was meant to be staying the night with the rest of the gang, not to forget that James would kill her if she left.
"Do you think that she'll be okay?" James murmured, his voice filled with remorse. I squeezed his hand gently with my own, hoping that that small act would calm his worried a little bit.
"Eventually." I began, speaking softly while staring at my broken friend. "She's endured a lot over the past two years, and Sirius was the last straw really. It broke her."
"Godric I wanted to murder him when he left her, when he threw those two happy months they'd had together back in her face like they hadn't been the best months of his life. He broke her, and she'll heal eventually, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have gotten a hex or two in first, And it was all pointless." He interrupted. "He didn't even want to lose her, in fact, he couldn't bare the thought of losing her. But he forced her out of his life anyway, cast her aside as if he'd never loved her. But oh did he love her. I could see it when they were together, in the way he always had to be touching her, in the way that he stared at her, as if she was the moon and the stars and all things beautiful. He still looks at her like that, but as if she's something forbidden, a place he can't go or look at."
"Do you think he'll ever let himself get close to her again?" I asked, knowing that Sirius didn't have much self-restraint anyway, but with Mar he was different.
"Yeah." James breathed, smiling for the first time since this conversation began. "He loves her too much, he won't be able to stand it for much longer, being away from her that is. Mar will try and reconcile things with him, try to become friends for the sake of the group, so that it isn't awkward for the rest of us, But Sirius, Sirius just wants her. He won't be able to escape her for much longer."
"So new year then?" I suggested. James nodded and grinned down at me in satisfaction.
"New year."
We danced in silence together for a while, the songs continuing to be slow songs fortunately, so that we didn't have to step away from each other. At some point, I ended up leaning my head against his shoulder, I could his heart subtly as we swayed from side to side, His chest rose and fell at a fast pace, as if something was making him nervous, I could have a guess at what.
"Lily?" He muttered eventually, his voice shaky and unsure of itself. I looked up to find him looking nervously down at me.
"Yes?" I answered softly. His eyes were filled with an emotion I couldn't comprehend, something I'd never seen on his face before, only on the likes of Remus when he looked at dorcas and vice versa. Nervously, he coughed.
"I was waiting until new years to do this, in case….well I wanted you to have a problem free Christmas and that probably wouldn't go to planned if you don't like what I'm going to say to you. But, I'm not really sure I can wait much longer, and you're here with me, dancing with me, something I never thought would happen, and I just-"
His rambling was cut off by my lips pressed against his. I'd kissed him, though I wasn't entirely sure why, it just happened.
Scrap that, I knew exactly why I'd kissed him, because I liked him. I liked James fricking Potter. It was the reason for our avoidance of each other, it was the reason that Mar thought we had sexual tension, because we did. It was the reason that people kept trying to get us alone together, because they thought with the right push we'd finally admit our crush on each other.
When I pulled away, his dazed and stunned look quickly faded into a grin.
"So…..that means?" he asked, his smirk growing.
"Shut up Potter." I murmured, pulling his head back down for another kiss. He indulged me for a bit, letting me weave my hands into his hair, before he pulled away a tiny bit, leaving a gap between our heavily breathing faces. I could feel his hot breath on my face as he spoke.
"Just say it." he whispered. "Please." I grinned.
"I like you James Potter. A lot." I whispered back. He grinned with glee before crushing my body against his as he kissed me.
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