Lily sat in the corner of the common room with her half-finished charms homework lying forgotten on the desk. She had her head tilted slightly to one side, so her long auburn hair sprawled across the desk like a molten flow of fiery copper. She was listening to the crackling radio the rest of Gryffindor house were gathered around in silence, waiting for the start of the most important match of the season so far for the British Quidditch team: Semi finals against the favourites to win the world cup, Sweden.
Lily liked to pretend she didn't care about Quidditch, or anyone who played it, but she couldn't help but feel her heart jolt and every inch of her body become hypersensitive whenever he'd reach over her, or walk past her, or talk to her, or look at her. Potter. She hated it. She hated him. He was arrogant and self centred and was always playing with his hair, or hers if he could. He'd done just that today in charms, asking her if she'd ever considered changing the style of it, "for our date on Saturday, maybe? Hogsmeade, what do you say?" She'd said no of course. He may be charming in an offhand sort of way, but-
"Lil?" Shit. Remus.
"Hey! Remus! How are you?" Too enthusiastic. Jumpy. "Shouldn't you be poring over that crappy radio over there?" Better. Remus sat down beside her.
"They're taking a break in play while they try and calm down the mascots. There was a huge fight." This was not a rare occurrence in Quidditch, Lily knew, but she didn't want anyone to know that she'd been following Quidditch more lately, lest she be interrogated as to why.
"Really?" She asked, feigning surprise. "Was anyone hurt?"
"Only the referee, and they were minor injuries, he'll live." Remus sent Lily a calculating look. "Are you OK Lil? You look a bit... weird."
Lily shot a glance from her friend to the other side of the room where a tall, dark haired boy stood entertaining a crowd of admirers. She quickly looked back to Remus.
"I'm fine. What's the score then?"
Remus had followed her gaze to his best friend in the corner, and a far too knowing smile grew on his face.
"Oh Lil, when are you going to tell him?" he sent her a pleading look.
Lily feigned ignorance.
"Tell who what?" She forced a confused look onto her pretty face, her eyes wide, her freckled brow furrowed.
"Don't bullshit me. I see the way you look at him. Just promise I'll always be your favourite marauder and I'll give you guys my blessing." He grinned and elbowed her playfully. Lily laughed.
"Blessing?" She looked up and met Remus' eye. "I couldn't tell him. I just couldn't." She pulled her charms homework towards her and picked up her pen. "Now if you wouldn't mind I have a lot of homework to do." She turned away from Remus, and started humming as if she had no idea he was there.
Remus sighed.
"Fine. The match has started again anyway. I'll see you later Lil."
He stood up with what seemed like great effort, looked down at Lily once more, and set off to join the crown on the other side of the room.
She watched him go, heaved a sigh and turned towards her unfinished homework again.
"I'd say I hope you're not trying to make a move on Lupin, but seeing as you're in love with my best mate, I'd just assume you two were discussing some wildly fascinating 'prefect's issue'"
Lily spun around in time to see Sirius lowering his air quotes as he settled himself in Remus' recently vacated chair. She decided to ignore him, and turned back around to her Charms.
"What? You're not even going to deny it? God, you must really be as far gone as Moony thought." Lily continued to ignore him. "Come on Evans, it's not fun if you don't join in! 'He's pathetic! I'd never go out with him even if I had been poisoned and he had a bezoar!'" Sirius imitated Lily's high voice.
Lily looked up and gave Sirius what she hoped was a pitying look.
"Sirius, sweetheart, I really appreciate the concern, but shouldn't you be more worried about getting all the fleas out of your hair?" It was a bad insult, she knew, but she'd been having problems with her usual quick wit recently. Sirius, however, looked startled and walked off towards Remus and James, turning back once to stay something, but thought better of it.
Lily returned to her homework, but couldn't for the life of her remember the name of the charm that lit a flame.
"Incendio." Lily looked up again to see yet another Marauder by her side.
"Hi Peter. What did you say?" She'd almost hoped that a different 7th year boy had come to sit next to her. Almost.
"Incendio. That's the spell that lights a flame." He pointed towards her blank page. "The wand movement is a basic swish and flick, but more accomplished witches and wizards can just point." A few people around Lily looked up, trying not to look too surprised.
Lily looked up at Peter. He had sort of mousey brown hair, all messed up from James and Sirius' constant ruffling. He had kind eyes, but he'd crossed his arms as if he was scared, or anxious. Most people didn't understand why the other Marauders were friends with him, but Lily understood. It wasn't pity. He was a good person; kind, clever, and funny.
"Thanks. You're not here to talk to me about Potter are you? I've had quite enough of that tonight." She looked pointedly at him. He grinned.
"Actually I just thought you needed the help. You've been sitting here all evening and you've written a paragraph and two sentences. I thought I might be able to speed things up, then you could come and listen to the game with us if you want? You don't have to, I just thought you looked a bit lonely here by yourself."
"That would be great, thanks Peter." She smiled. "Now, this colour-change charm, is it the same one as from our OWLs?"
They carried on like this for a while - her asking questions, him answering them with ease. She quickly finished her homework.
"Are you coming then?" Peter stood up and stretched. "To listen to the game? It's still close and there's no sign of the snitch, could go on for hours yet."
Lily's heart flipped. Hours? She couldn't listen to the game for hours with Potter so close.
Peter must have seen her face drain of colour, because he gently patted her hand.
"Don't worry - he gets so into these games he won't even notice you're there. Come on, I know you probably know more about this game than I do."
He pulled her off her chair and started frogmarching her to the opposite side of the room.
"Why would you say that?"
"Because Moony got you Quidditch Through the Ages for your birthday as a joke and you read it cover to cover in a day and a half."
Just as Peter had predicted, the game went on for hours. Slowly, people began to go upstairs to bed, mumbling about early classes. Eventually, the only ones left were the Marauders, Lily, Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald, and Amos Diggory, who had snuck into the Gryffindor common room from Ravenclaw, saying everyone there had gone to bed.
Peter and Remus had just got back from their third trip to the kitchens when Amos and Mary went to bed, leaving just the six. England was leading my 50 points, but the snitch hadn't been seen for nearly two and a half hours.
"Maybe someone's nicked it?" Marlene suggested for the seventh time.
"Marl, we already told you, no one could catch it except these players! These are the best in the world and the snitch can go up to 150 miles an hour!" Lily, although reluctant at first, was really enjoying spouting off little facts like this, especially because they got her a little appreciative look from James, who had had no idea she was into Quidditch.
"I watch all the Gryffindor games!" She'd said when he first asked where she'd learnt all about it.
"Yeah but I thought you just wanted to see me!" James had replied, winking, before turning his attention back to the radio.
Although he hadn't, everyone else had seen her blush.
Marlene and Remus were the next to depart as the clock crawled slowly closer to 2AM. Lily was tempted to go with them, but she was having too much fun.
Although she knew a lot about the game of Quidditch, she didn't know much about the players, so Sirius and James filled her in on the current England team, the biggest news being their new beater, Ludo Bagman.
"Is he good?" Lily asked, stealing Sirius' red and white England Scarf from around his neck and placing it around hers.
"He's great! And he never misses, hit Norberg right out of the sky earlier when he thought he saw the snitch!" Lily had got to the point where she asked James questions just to see his face light up with enthusiasm.
Peter had fallen asleep so many times that he decided to give up and go to bed at 3:30, leaving James, Sirius and a very tired but happy Lily.
"Aren't you coming Lily?" Peter had asked.
"No way, I've come this far, I'm seeing this through, weakling!" she teased, as Peter and Sirius shared a look.
After Peter left, Lily asked how long the remaining two thought the game would go on for.
"Who knows, could be days, the longest quidditch match ever recorded went on for three months, they kept having to bring on substitutes! I don't think this one will though, someone's bound to catch the snitch soon."
An hour later, however, when Sirius had finally given up and fallen asleep on one of the sofas by the fire, James didn't seem so sure.
"This is ridiculous, they've been playing for nine and a half hours! No one from the original team is still playing!" Barely a second after the words came out of his mouth, however, the commentator announced the imminent return of all but one of the original team, who'd been rushed to St Mungo's after a nasty incident with a bludger.
Ten minutes later another mascot fight broke out, waking Sirius up. He went up to bed, leaving just Lily and James.
"Evans?" James' eyes stayed fixed on the radio.
"Yeah?" Lily fiddled with the tassels of Sirius' scarf.
"Why did you say no?" Lily looked up
"When?" She knew when.
"In Charms... Why won't you come to Hogsmeade with me?" he looked at her for a split second. All the hair on her body stood on end.
"Where did this come from? You've never minded when I've said no before." Lily tried desperately to change the subject.
"Yes I have." For half a heartbeat, he looked crushed. "Seriously, Evans, why? It's not about Snape anymore, you know that I'm not a bad person, and you know that I really like you, so why?" He looked up at her now, his brown eyes searching her emerald ones. Lily looked away, heart pumping fast.
"What's brought this on? I don't get why you're asking me this now!"
"Moony told me to ask you. I thought, since you guys were friends, and I saw you talking earlier, that you'd tell me - that you had something to say." His eyes rested back on the radio, where play had resumed.
Lily took a deep breath and close her eyes.
"I'm scared."
...
"What?"
...
"I'm scared."
"What are you scared of?" he instinctively moved to sit next to her, but thought better of putting his hand around her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked at him, his closeness made her catch her breath.
"I'm scared that… that it's all been a big game. That you don't like me, and it's just been a stupid Marauders prank." A tear slid down her cheek. "I couldn't tell you in case you didn't really feel the same." She stood up and moved to the sofa next to the fire where Peter and Sirius had been sleeping.
"Wait-" James moved towards Lily and knelt on the rug in front of her. "You like me?"
She looked up at him.
"Do you like me?"
The noise from the radio increased - someone had seen the snitch.
James looked down into Lily's watery eyes.
"I don't like you Evans." Lily stared at him, speechless.
"I love you." He wiped a tear from her cheek, and the spot felt like it was on fire. She lifted her chin to reach his.
Just as their lips were about to touch, James' eyes widened.
"THE GAME!" He ran over to the radio and turned it up, eyes wide, just in time to hear "She's caught the snitch! English Seeker Ella Smith caught the snitch! ENGLAND WIN!"
"WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!"
Lily didn't get her kiss until an hour later, after James had woken up the entire tower to come down and celebrate, and Peter and Remus had gone down to the kitchens again, this time for pancakes and waffles - it was nearly 6AM after all.
Lily was sitting listening to Marlene's conspiracies - she was still convinced someone had stolen the snitch - when James came over, pulled her up onto a table and kissed her to wild applause. It was passionate, but short, and Lily was left aching for more.
Lily was shattered. She'd stayed up all night, spilled her heart out, and eaten like a pig…
But at least she'd finished her charms homework.