Chapter One: Holy Ground
"I guess we fell apart in the usual way, and the story's got dust on every page."
Only Petunia would find a way to spoil Christmas Eve.
"Try not to embarrass us at dinner, freak." Petunia sneers from her doorway across the hall.
Lily doesn't care that their mother can hear her yell. "You do that just fine on your own!"
Ignoring a call from downstairs, Lily sharply closes the door to her room - not quite slamming, because that would be enough to make their mother respond more actively - before Petunia can do it as the last word. She leans against the wood for a few seconds, trying to tame her flaring temper. Her heart is racing and hands shake in a way only her sister can inspire.
She closes her eyes and counts to ten, trying to regain control of her thrumming heartbeat, but everything is still the same when she opens her eyes. The same pale pink walls she's had her entire life. The same infuriating sister in the other room. The same desire to sink into a life where a battle doesn't happen so regularly in her house.
Winter break feels like an eternity.
Unlike most high school seniors, Lily Evans can't wait to be back in school. There, she doesn't have an older sister hanging over her shoulder, waiting and successfully finding every place to strike. There, she knows her place and comfortably slides into it, free in the moments where people don't notice her.
A few days of being stuck in the house has ruined some of her usually neat habits. Homework assignments are scattered across her desk, lines of incomplete equations and diagrams. She looks past the messy pile of sweaters on her bed and crumpled sticky notes to her window. Her curtains are pulled back from that morning, when she nearly jumped out of bed to see the snow. In the house next door, a light is on in the bedroom directly across from hers.
For the first time all day, the tension in her shoulders loosens and she knows what to do.
She crosses the room to her desk and rifles through the top drawer. Lily scribbles a few words onto a sheet of torn notebook paper with a Sharpie and sticks it to the window with a piece of tape, the message facing toward the other house's lit bedroom window.
Did your mom make the cookies I like?
To stop herself from expecting a reply, she turns away and assesses the pile of sweaters on her bed. None of them passed her earlier inspection, so she still needs to find something to wear.
After a few minutes of forcing herself to fold clothes and stack them neatly in her closet, Lily lets herself turn back to the window. The paper on the window makes her drop the sweater she's holding and almost press her nose against the glass to see better. He's already gone by the time she looks, but the words are visible enough from across the space between their houses.
She did. Doubt there will be any left by the time dinner rolls around.
Instantly, Lily tears down her old note and reaches for a new sheet of paper. Before she can start her response, Petunia yells something she can hear through her closed door. It's muffled, and Lily doesn't bother yelling back to figure out what she said. This is more important.
Determined, Lily tears off a piece of tape with a flourish and puts up her reply.
Then it's not worth it. Tell your mom I died in a tragic accident.
This time, she doesn't even bother trying to busy herself. She sits on her bed, just out of sight, so he doesn't see that she's waiting for his reply. The response comes quickly, she notices, since she can see his outline moving from her perch.
Come now, Evans. Surely the cookies aren't the only reason to come over?
In spite of herself, Lily smiles a bit. The sign is a nice reminder that she won't be completely alone at dinner. Her sister wants to make things difficult, but someone will silently be in her corner. He doesn't have to know how much she's looking forward to it, but he does have to know that the problem isn't with his house.
It's the only reason I'll sit at the table with Miss Prom Princess.
Lily pulls the new festive sweater she found at her favorite thrift store from her closet and throws it on her bed. While she tugs her regular shirt from a boring day at home over her head, she searches her room for everything else she needs. She glances toward the other window while she tries to put in an earring without a mirror.
How dare you. You know that was the proudest moment of her life.
With her boots in one hand, Lily shakes her head and scrawls out the next sign.
Not you too.
When she's dressed, another sign is already waiting for her.
Always me, Evans. Mom is calling. See you later!
Suddenly, she's reminded of the past few years and how things change. This game is familiar since it's one they've been playing since they can both remember, but it isn't the same.
Nothing is.
Without an immediate reply in her head, her marker hesitates over the paper for a few seconds. Petunia makes another sound in the room across the hall, and Lily writes a final message.
You better save me a cookie, Potter!
Without another look back, she checks her mirror one last time and goes downstairs.
The hardest part about the Potter-Evans annual Christmas Eve dinner isn't the fact that James is forced to hang three extra stockings, filling them with small lotions and soaps as though he's Saint Nick himself while Sirius tosses them at his head.
It isn't the fact that his mother is in full combat mode against the small bits of dust that hide under crevasses - which don't seem to matter any other time of the year - for the entirety of the day, forcing him to enlist alongside her and shouting at him for not using the Swiffer in enough of a pivoting motion. His father, meanwhile, gets to avoid the dinner preparations every year since he's working his shift at the hospital. Granted, he also misses out on the meal, but still.
It isn't even the fact that he has to pathetically bake Lily a batch of her favorite cookies, and then pretend they're from his mother, because he doesn't want to be seen as pathetic.
It's the fact that he's in love.
Impossibly, incredibly, head-over-heels-over-feet-and-back-again, sort of love.
With Lily Evans.
And she doesn't know it.
"You missed a spot," says Sirius. He's lazing about on the sofa, watching the old claymation Jack Frost while James is rearranging his mother's Christmas village on the fireplace mantle that his supposed best friend wrecked. "Get out of the way, will you?"
"Look, it's not my fault that the television is stupidly placed above the fireplace and I'm ungodly feet high," grumbles James, clutching a little fireman and his dog so tightly he's surprised they don't shatter. "You know the fireman doesn't go in the cafe. He goes in the fire station, because he's on duty. He's got his little outfit on and everything."
"Jesus, get your knickers out of a twist. He needed a coffee break."
"He just got to work! There's coffee in the station!"
"Do you hear yourself?" laughs Sirius, one arm propped underneath his head in such an easy fashion that James wants to flip the couch. "It's your mother's Christmas village. It's not like I replaced baby Jesus with Bart Simpson again."
James whips his head around, spotting his mother's nativity scene and noticing that it is indeed in perfect condition. Which is almost suspicious.
James sighs. "No, I suppose you haven't."
"Not yet, anyway. Listen, I know that you're all in a tizzy because Evans is coming over later. But, honestly, she's not going to care that the fireman is at the cafe or the mailman is hooking up with a Christmas caroler behind the barn."
"He - what?"
"Your town needs more red headed children," yawns Sirius, stretching out on the couch. "Anyway, Evans isn't going to care. So why do you?"
"Because everything has to be perfect."
"Everything in the house has to be perfect? Or you have to be perfect?"
James can't explain to Sirius how much Christmas means to Lily and, therefore, how much Christmas means to him.
Because, there again, is where he is pathetic.
But he can't help it. He loves Lily. And Lily loves Christmas. So James throws himself into making the house look like a winter wonderland for her every Christmas season.
Maybe, just maybe, if everything is perfect, she'll think that way of him too.
Pathetic, he thinks to himself. Perfectly pathetic.
"The mailman doesn't need a mistress," he grumbles aloud, snatching the couple that's standing face to face hidden behind the barn. "He's married to the bookshop owner."
No matter what else is going on, Lily looks forward to their annual trek to the Potters for Christmas Eve dinner. For a past few years, she let her sister think it was another chore, but that was only to keep her from finding a way to twist it. Once school lets out for break, Lily allows herself to start counting down until the minute they knock at the house next door.
The Potters' house, she decided a long time ago, is what Christmas is supposed to be.
It looks, she swears, like one of those houses they put in glossy magazines. It isn't structurally that much different from hers, but that doesn't matter. It's not the house itself, really, but the people and things she finds inside it.
Unlike her house, everything feels complete and intentional. It's a home with everything just so. Things have their place while still looking like people live there comfortably. The Evans' house always feels a little over-full and empty at the same time. The Potter house, on the other hand, has all the right things in all the right places.
The lights, even though they're the same ones that she convinced her mother to buy at the store, give the illusion of magic. While she doesn't mind having a fake tree most of the time, Lily can't deny that the real one makes the whole house smell like pine and wonder and Christmas.
Mrs. Potter even hangs up a stocking for her, right beside the ones for Mom and Petunia. There's cookies, a much more elaborate meal than anything they ever have in their house, and everything just feels right.
And then there's James.
She's still stung from sparring with Petunia, but Lily makes it downstairs a few minutes early to check on her own contribution to dinner. She carefully places the iced cake into a container with a clear lid that lets her worriedly check it every time she moves.
Then, she's hurrying them out the door and hoping she isn't too obvious.
Before she knocks, Lily's mother reminds both of her daughters to tuck away their phones (though Petunia is the only one looking at hers) and smooths out a few non-existent wrinkles in her skirt. Her mother holds the cake, so Lily stops herself from reminding her not to tip it. Instead, she shifts her weight between her feet and watches the little window by the door.
When the door opens, any lingering worries about the over-the-top spirit of her fabric antlers from the dollar store or Christmas sweater are completely gone.
James is standing in the doorway with a curled elf hat and his mussed hair sticking out in every direction. His flushed cheeks tell her that Mrs. Potter has put him to work all day in preparation.
How can anyone look at him in that ridiculous hat and not smile?
Her smile falters slightly when Lily notices the bespectacled deer on his chest that's just similar enough to the sweater she picked for the occasion. She stops herself from noticeably looking down at the sliver of sweater that can be seen between the open sides of her coat.
He won't think she planned that, will he?
A noise behind her tells Lily that Petunia definitely notices James' sweater.
Ignoring her sister, Lily makes eye contact and lets out a nervous laugh. "Hey," she says before anyone else in her family can say something embarrassing. No matter what else has happened, walking into the house and seeing him loosens one of the knots in her stomach. "Nice hat."
"Thanks," he says, voice cracking slightly. Lily isn't sure if the word got stuck in his throat or if he had been waiting to say anything. He tends to talk a lot. Too fast and too much at times. "Nice antlers, by the way."
He's far too cute for someone who looks so silly.
"Embracing the holiday spirit," Lily answers, tilting her chin up in an exaggerated show of pride. She flips the ends of her hair and lets them fall at her shoulders. "I always think -"
"God, Lily," groans Petunia dramatically. Petunia has a flare for dramatics. She literally majors in it at the local community college. "It's cold. Stop blocking the door and let us inside."
Lily barely has enough time to move out of the way before Petunia is stomping through the door, knocking Lily into the doorframe. The snow that clings to her Ugg boots crunches along the Potters' polished floor.
"Right," Lily says under her breath, reaching up to straighten the crooked headband of her antlers. "The long trip from next door."
"Does your mother need any help, James?" her own mother cuts across them, sweeping past Lily and opting for her increasingly common strategy of avoiding any trace of conflict between her daughters.
"She's just got a pie in the oven, but if you go in the kitchen she's likely to put on her happy mom face and start barking orders," grins James.
"Perfect." Her mother nods. "Be good, girls," she says, patting Petunia's shoulder as she passes into the kitchen with Lily's cake.
Lily's relieved to have one less person in the room, even if she's annoyed at the implication that Petunia's behavior is somewhat her fault. Her breathing evens out a bit when she looks around the room and finds her stocking in its usual place. "Mrs. Potter still knows how to go all out," she comments, folding her coat over her arm.
"Yeah, well, you know Mom," says James, reaching up to run a hand through his hair and knocking his hat off. The little bells jingle as they hit the ground, and James quickly moves to grab it. "Presentation is important to her."
She can't lie to him, even if that's the cool thing to do. "I love it."
"Did you guys plan to match?" asks Petunia so harshly they both jump. She's fixing her hair in the Potters' hallway mirror, but Lily can see the corner of her sister's eye trained on her for a reaction. "Or did the universe just decide that you two ought to share a fetish for reindeer?"
It's probably what Petunia wants, but Lily feels heat race to her cheeks. "It's just a sweater, Tuney," she answers, hoping she comes off as dismissive as she's trying to be. She looks at her sister's left hand for a few seconds too long and then back up to her face, clearly noting what isn't there. Despite Petunia's best efforts, she's sure. "Not an engagement ring."
Lily's volley hits its target.
Petunia whirls around, her features worked into a snarl. She'll have snarl lines one day, Lily suspects, rather than frown lines. "Don't even start on that with me, Lily. Vernon and I haven't even talked about getting engaged yet. But, trust me, it will happen and it will be one more thing that I have and you don't."
Unlike Petunia's previous barbs, this one gives her a burst of strength. The world narrows to her sister and the overwhelming desire to win. "I'd rather die alone than marry Vernon Dursley."
"Oh, believe me, you're not too far away from that path. Tell me, when is the last time you've been on an actual date?"
In her Petunia-fueled state, Lily barely notices Sirius enter. "As if I'd ever want to -"
"Clearly I've just walked in on the middle of something," Sirius says, mirth shimmering in his eyes. Sirius loves drama. At least, he used to, from what Lily remembers from middle school. "I just came to tell you guys that dinner was ready. So save your show for then, yeah? I love dinner theater."
"Sirius," groans James, smashing his elf hat down in frustration. "For the love of God, not now!"
"Timing is everything, and my timing has always a bitch," says Sirius, before saluting the lot of them and disappearing back into the kitchen.
Petunia rolls her eyes, stalking out after him and taking with her an unresolved argument that Lily desperately wants to win.
Though, she's not sure how to do that yet.
Lily lets out a frustrated sigh, almost knocking the antlers out of her hair when she runs her hands through it. Christmas Eve dinner with the Potters is the bright spot in her break, but Petunia is doing her best to dull its shine.
A few seconds tick by while Lily tries to temper her anger. It's still there on the edge, but she can think about other things. How she doesn't want to ruin Mrs. Potter's idea of her. How Mom will lose it if she actually has to acknowledge that there's something more than sibling rivalry going on between her daughters. How this is supposed to be a good evening.
She looks over and notices James, his back against the wall and eyes a little wide. This time, the color stays on her cheeks for a different reason. "Sorry you had to…" She makes a vague hand gesture toward the direction where Petunia just disappeared. "It's a sister thing."
"It's fine, really," he says. James takes half a step towards her, though he's so tall that his half step is more like two of Lily's full steps. She has to look up slightly at him. "Are you alright, though?"
"Of course," she answers immediately, shrugging and forcing one side of her mouth into a half-smile. She's not going to ruin his Christmas Eve. "It's fine." Lily tilts her head toward the dining room. "Let's go. Don't want your Mom's dinner to get cold."
Things are not going according to plan.
Not that James has actually made a plan. There certainly isn't a detailed, idiot proof, ten step plan in the notes section of his phone. Because that would be ridiculous and something Sirius would surely heckle him mercilessly about if he ever managed to get ahold of said phone.
But if there is a plan and step one just so happened to be say something swoon worthy when you first see her, then he has miserably, wretchedly failed.
Because he hasn't really said anything to her. The moment he opened the door and saw her standing there in a sweater nearly matching his own and a pair of antlers on top of her head, he was fairly certain he swooned.
And if it couldn't get any worse (and if there is anything James has learned in all his years dealing with the Evans women, it's that things can most definitely get worse), Petunia noticed him noticing Lily. Smirking at him from behind Lily's back when they got into the hallway in a way that made him feel as though he were sinking into the ground.
She has a smirk like quicksand, Petunia does.
From there on, James was overly conscious of every step he made around Lily, because every movement was being watched by Petunia like a hawk.
The final straw, the catalyst of once again ruining a perfectly good evening with Lily Evans, comes in the form it normally takes.
Once again, Petunia.
Honestly, James wouldn't be able to see how Petunia Evans could possibly be related to Lily if it wasn't for the fact that they're both extremely hot headed and quick tempered. At least when it comes to each other.
"Did Lily tell you that her proposal for the yearbook theme got rejected, James?" asks Petunia, ripping a small portion of dinner roll off and placing it in her smirking mouth.
"They picked Mary's because it's brilliant. She deserves it," Lily counters quickly, ripping her dinner roll in half and unconsciously mirroring Petunia when she takes a bite.
"That's alright," says James. He wishes that Petunia wouldn't do this. "You'll still get to go to my games this year, right? I always thought you had a better eye than any other photographer on staff."
"You didn't tell me you were going out for editor, Lily," Mrs. Evans adds, attention turned to her youngest daughter with the suggestion of disapproval in her voice.
"It's fine," Lily dismisses her mother's comment, looking over the table at him and no one else. "Yes, James, I'll still be at all the games. I'm sports editor this year."
"Oh, that's lovely, Lily!" His mother has beaten him the punch, but he's a bit thankful. His initial reaction to her being made sports editor was nearly a squeal. "You'll probably be at all of James' games then, as editor. We'll get to be bench buddies!"
"Mom!" groans James, playing the part of embarrassed son, even though he's slightly thrilled at his mom's suggestion.
"I'll have to sneak away to take pictures," Lily replies, turning her smile toward his mother. "But I'd love that, Mrs. Potter."
"Mia's recruiting for the fan club," Sirius comments right before taking a too large mouthful of mashed potatoes.
"Yes," says Petunia, looking at Sirius in disgust and wrinkling her nose. "Well, not that James really needs much a fan club support, though, does he? He's quite popular enough at school as it is."
James, feeling the heat creep up, rubs the back of his neck. "I'm not that popular -"
"Come now," says Petunia. "Don't be modest. I went to school with you guys last year. It's not like you and Lily tend to run in the same social circles. We hardly saw you since you started playing sports, you know."
"Whatever you're getting at, Petunia, can you -"
"I'm sure she didn't mean anything, Lily dear," her mother interjects. "Can you pass the cranberry sauce?"
Pushing the sauce toward her mother stiffly, Lily tries again. "She knows exactly what she's doing."
"And what is it, exactly, that you think I'm 'getting at?'" glares Petunia. She voices it as a question but presents it as a dare.
And James knows Lily - or knew her well enough before, once upon a time - to know that she isn't one to turn down a dare. Although James is a clever boy, he does not think he's well versed enough in the ways of women to properly interject. So, instead, he braces himself for the eruption.
"You were so popular and your freak sister can't do anything right, so you need everyone to know how different and weird you know she is!" Lily snaps back.
"Lily, your sister isn't -" her mother tries to add, but Lily doesn't give her a chance.
"Better make sure no one could possibly think you're anything like her!"
"Lily," retorts Petunia, speaking as though she's addressing a child. "We are different. We couldn't be more different. You can look at our closets and tell that. My skirts verses your t-shirts. My heels and your sneakers. Not to mention the fact that you're on yearbook committee, and I was runner up for Prom Queen. It's not my fault your differences keep your circle smaller than mine."
"Runner up for Prom Queen," Lily says, judgment clear in her tone, "also known as the Prom Loser, is the most impressive thing you're ever going to do in your pathetic life!"
"Lily!"
Ignoring her mother's outcry, Lily pushes away from the table and stands. Once she's up, anger still visibly coursing through her, she looks too agitated to sit back down and act like nothing happened.
"I need some air," she declares after a heavy pause. "Excuse me, Mrs. Potter." With that, she turns on her heel and goes into the kitchen to slip out the backdoor.
The ringing silence in the dining room breaks when Sirius starts a slow clap.
"Bravo," he cheers. "Encore!"
"Shut up, Sirius," James says instantly, throwing down his dinner napkin with a glare in his best friend's direction.
Lily thought maybe, just maybe, getting away from Petunia's triumphant expression and Mom's excuses would make her feel better. Getting some distance from them would let her breathe and decide if she overreacted.
Unfortunately, the cold air does little to clear her head. Everything is just as jumbled as it was when Petunia was sitting next to her.
And, in the true fashion of a good storming out, she didn't grab a coat.
Instead of feeling better, she's shivering as well as sniffling on the middle swing of the old play set in the Potters' backyard. Stubbornly, she scrubs her sweater sleeve over her face. She should know enough by now not to cry when Petunia tries to upset her. Even though her sister can't see, she doesn't want to give her the satisfaction.
"Hey," says a voice, startling Lily. James has followed her out of the house, wearing a letterman jacket that makes his Christmas attire appear out of place. "You look cold."
As if on cue, a chill goes through her and she hugs herself. "A bit," she answers, forcing a note of casualness into her tone.
"Here, take this," he says, shrugging his jacket off and draping it across her shoulders. Lily pulls it closer around her as he sits down on the swing next to her, noticing that it smells like peppermint and James.
"Now you're cold," Lily replies, although she makes no move to him give him back his jacket. She slips her arms into the sleeves. "Did they send you out to convince me to come back in for dessert?"
"No, they didn't. I came out here on my own. Are you alright?"
She looks sideways at him. "I'm fine." Even though she has said it a thousand times, this time, her voice catches. "You don't need to freeze because of me."
"I'm fine," he says, though he's rubbing his bare hands together. "You, though, Lily, you're not. I know we're not as… close as we used to be, but I still know you well enough to know that what Petunia said in there hurt you."
Lily pulls the sleeves of her sweater out from under his jacket and over her hands. "Here," she offers, avoiding the point for a few seconds and moving to hold his bare hands between her sweater-covered ones. She takes it as an excuse to look at his hands instead of his eyes.
"Thanks," he says, his voice barely there. She would wonder if he even spoke at all but for the puffs of breath she can see leaving his lips.
"I should be used to it by now, shouldn't I? None of what she said is news to me."
He clears his throat before he speaks. "You shouldn't have to be used to it, though. She shouldn't speak that way to you at all. Every word out her mouth is meant to tear you down."
They're both older than the last time they sat side by side on these swings, but she recognizes traces of an expression that she used to know as well as her own. "Thanks, James." She swallows before trusting herself to speak again. "I guess... it's nice to hear someone else say it."
They're silent for a moment, the only sounds between them being the chains from the swings groaning in unison and Lily's sniffles.
"I just think," he says slowly, "that you're so much more than whatever box she's trying to put you into. And I hope that you know that. So what if you aren't Prom Queen or Prom Princess or whatever the hell it is? At least you're not a shitty person."
"It's nice to hear you say that too." She tries to inject some lightness into her voice because his words cause a warm glow in her chest. Lily nudges the ground with the toe of her boot. "You're pretty good at this," she admits, squeezing his hands between hers.
Maybe some part of her should want to defend her sister, but it's easy to push away that urge.
"Nah," he says, shrugging. "I just know when someone is being a terrible person. Which your sister always is."
"I'll have to make it up to you," she replies, gaze lifting to the hair sticking out from the bottom of his hat instead of his eyes. "This was a pretty bad way to spend Christmas Eve."
"It wasn't all bad," says James. He hasn't moved his hand from between hers, and Lily can feel the largeness of it as she stretches her fingers to keep the blood flowing. "I got out of doing dishes, after all."
He grins at her, and Lily laughs again. This one, she's happy to notice, sounds more like her usual laughter. "Anything I can do to help." Meeting his eyes is easier this time. His grin makes him look more like James Potter, her next door neighbor, and less like James Potter, the star of two school sports teams.
"We should do this more," Lily offers. "Well, maybe without me yelling at my sister first, but…" She shrugs. "We should talk more."
"I know," he nods, the little bells on his hat jingling with the motion. "I miss it. Us." He rubs the back of his neck in a way that would look awkward on any other person.
But he's not any other person. He's James.
"Petunia was wrong, you know," he says, after a moment passes without either of them speaking. "Well, about a lot, but specifically about us being in too… different. My circle has enough room in it for you."
Her heart speeds up in a way she isn't willing to give meaning. The cold air, at least, keeps her from doing something embarrassing like blushing. "Then, it's a deal," Lily says, impressed with how smooth the sentence sounds. "We'll widen our circles a bit and not have to miss someone who lives next door."
"Deal."
There's another brief period of quiet, but her sniffles don't fill it this time.
"Do you think you're ready to go back in, or do you need another moment? You're not too cold, are you?"
His jacket on her shoulders is fending off the cold better than she would have thought from looking at it. She doesn't think it's just the jacket keeping her warm, though. "No, it's okay," she replies, the kindled fire in her chest only getting stronger. She doesn't tell him that part. "Being out here is making me feel better."
"Excellent." He's got that glint in his eye, the one she used to see everyday. "Luckily for us, I prepared for this. Check my pockets."
She tries not to notice how her hands feel colder when they leave his to do as he says. When she smiles because her fingers close around a sealed bag in the pocket of his letterman jacket, he rocks his swing side to side slightly, bumping shoulders with her and giving her his trademark half-smirk.
"I'd call you a genius, Potter," Lily says, holding out the cookies to him, "but I don't think your ego needs the boost." She breaks off a piece for herself and tastes it, instantly remembering why Mrs. Potter's cookies are impossible to replicate. She does, thankfully, keep herself from audibly reacting.
"My ego could always use a boost, Evans," he says, his mouth half full of cookie. "I'm surprised this old thing has held up for so long." He leans back on his swing, his hat nearly slipping back in the process, and allows the chains to twist around.
"It's reliable," she answers, pushing back on her swing to hear the chains creak. "Took us on plenty of adventures." Dragging her feet on the ground, she turns to face him again, mischief in her eyes. "Bet I can still swing higher than you," Lily challenges.
Before he has a chance to pull ahead with his longer legs, she kicks off the ground.
Back in her room, a little windswept and rosy cheeked, Lily falls back onto her bed with a sigh.
It wasn't the Christmas Eve dinner she outlined in her head. She left half the food on her plate and missed dessert (except for a few cookies, thanks to James). She didn't take her customary tour of the house's decorations. Mrs. Potter's gift stocking is still unopened.
Despite all of that, it may be the best Christmas Eve dinner ever.
When they came inside, Petunia was surprisingly easy to avoid. In the flurry of finding everyone's coat, saying thank you, and wishing a round of Merry Christmases, they could ignore each other without much notice. Mom was happy to oblige and didn't press when they got home. Lily darted up the stairs with little more than a kiss on her cheek.
Storming out of dinner wasn't ideal, but something good did happen.
She got James back.
Well, he wasn't lost, exactly, but tonight was different than any other time they've talked in the past few years.
Lily covers her face with her hands, noticing how cold the tip of her nose is.
It's pathetic, really. They talked and laughed and swung on a play set that's a few years younger than them. It wasn't a date. They barely ate dinner, didn't have a plan, and, of course, he didn't kiss her goodnight.
Not that she even wanted him to do that.
So, why does she feel so giddy?
It must be the Christmas spirit getting to her. Watching too many Hallmark movies has gone to her head. Everything is more magical around Christmas, so it could be the general spirit that's causing the warm feeling in her chest.
She has to go to sleep before the magic wears off. Lily shifts on her bed and realizes what she should have noticed the minute she walked into her house.
James' letterman jacket is still over her shoulders.
Lily scrambles up, automatically pulling the jacket more tightly around her.
Did anyone notice?
They asked suspiciously few questions about what James and Lily did outside, now that she's thinking about it. Even Sirius didn't say much to her, and he loves every chance to gloat and stir up potential drama.
Did their families see them alone and come to some kind of conclusion?
What does Petunia think?
She knows some of what Petunia must think. James is so popular, so honored in the halls of their school. Someone like Lily, with her smaller circle, debate trophies, and yearbook spreads, couldn't be friends with someone like James, who has his state championships and photos throughout the yearbook.
Petunia doesn't know anything.
Just that night, James said his circle has enough room for her in it. He had that sincere look when he said it, the one from when he swore vows and made promises, so she knows that he means it. He could have easily brushed her aside with a vague suggestion, but he didn't.
He wants to be her friend.
Plus, Lily is the one with a letterman jacket from the high school quarterback while Petunia can't talk a ring out of Vernon.
Even so, being friends with James won't be quite enough to get Petunia's blood boiling. It would prove her wrong, sure, but there isn't much power in it. They'll have to go a step farther. They'll have to be a step farther.
The thought strikes her. Would it really be so hard to believe that someone like James Potter could want to date someone like Lily Evans?
Taking the names away and removing herself from the situation, it sounds logical enough. If she saw a girl spend the whole evening with a boy and come back inside with his jacket, she would believe it.
Of course, he doesn't actually like her that way, Lily reminds herself. That doesn't matter, though, since she doesn't like him that way either. Obviously. Petunia only has to think they like each other like that for the skeleton of a plan she's forming in her head to work.
Besides, in a few months, they'll be packing up for college and getting out of their town. It doesn't have to mean anything. For the last few months, this can be a great excuse to spend more time together and bother Petunia in the process. She can get under Petunia's skin in time to have the dramatic ride into the sunset that comes with a fancy admissions letter.
Then, something that would bug Petunia even more than watching her sad sister date the school sports star tickles her mind until it worms its way into the idea.
She could beat Petunia at her own game. She could win the thing that escaped her sister. Petunia may rest on the laurels of her high school popularity and gossip trading, but Lily has a secret weapon.
James.
Couples always do better in the running. With James, she wouldn't need to settle for runner up. Who wouldn't want to vote for him? With him as a running mate, she would have an actual shot at winning. Combining votes from across high school social groups could ensure something Petunia couldn't do.
Lily could be Prom Queen.
She nearly gasps aloud when she sees it all in her head. It could work. She knows it could.
Holding James' hand at the table would annoy her sister, but Lily can imagine Petunia's expression when she gets to take home a crown that's better than the treasured tiara sitting on Petunia's vanity.
Right then, she's tempted to find a way to tell James everything. She glances at the window, seeing his light still on, and has her phone in her hand. She opens the messaging app, her thumbs hovering over the keyboard.
Then, she pauses and puts the phone down.
It's better to explain it all at once. Tomorrow morning, she'll catch him before he has a chance to accidentally say anything to his parents or Sirius. She'll let him know her brilliant plan, and he'll have to agree. She remembers how much he loved planning pranks and jokes when they staged master plans in their backyards. It's exactly the kind of plan that he would love.
Even if he doesn't know about it yet, she can still be setting them up strategically.
A few seconds later, Lily caps her Sharpie and tapes the sign to the glass before turning out the lights and curling up under the covers, the sleeve of his jacket still held in one hand.
Good night! the note facing his window says in curving scrawl before ending with a hastily drawn heart.
The vast majority of James' morning has been spent with his mind preoccupied by the heart drawn on Lily's last note from the previous night. He couldn't manage to tear his thoughts from it during Christmas morning presents, and he always gives his Christmas loot his full attention.
It's just a heart. Something simple and quickly drawn, but he wonders if there's something behind it all. Some sort of hidden meaning in the way that the lines loop and curl.
Lily has never signed her notes with hearts before. Normally, her notes were some sort of dig at him, - nice hair, Potter, bit windy is it? - so there must be a cause for this sudden signature change.
Maybe - just maybe - she's starting to develop something other than mild annoyance for him.
Not that's she's ever said that she finds him annoying, but she must. Nearly everyone else does. His mother tells him that he's annoying her at least six times a week. But, mostly, that's due to his pranking of her.
Lily used to find him endearing. She would laugh with him and whatever joke they were on about rather than at him. He used to be more charming whenever he was around her, something that he hopes to find his way back to again before the end of their senior year where they will part for college.
He doesn't want to go to college and be Lily's old, slightly annoying neighbor.
He wants to be her boyfriend.
Though, he will happily settle for a boy that is a friend.
Like he was before everything.
But still, there is that bit in him that pines for her in a way he has never been quite able to squash. That bit that says, while friendship with Lily Evans is something he does desire, it's not everything that he wants when it comes to her.
He feels as though a clock is ticking somewhere in the background of his mind. Waiting to chime at the last possible moment that he has to woo her. That this is his last possible chance.
Or, perhaps, he's an overly analytical idiot. Which is something else his mother has called him.
"James," drifts his mother's voice from the kitchen, causing his teeth to grind. "I need you to take this trash out, please!"
James wants to grumble that Christmas shouldn't be about cleaning the house and taking the trash out. It should be spent opening presents and thinking about Lily Evans. But he knows his mother well enough to know that she'll give him one of her forty five minute speeches over how she never asks him for anything and how her own mother would turn over in her grave if she witnessed what an ungrateful son her daughter is raising.
So, instead, he grabs the trash from his mother and trudges outside. The ground is packed with freshly fallen snow, something he hopes his mother hasn't noticed or she'll ask him to shovel the sidewalk as well, and he shivers against the chill of the air.
It's colder than it was last night, but James can't bring himself to mind that he let Lily wear his letterman jacket home. No one else seemed to notice - he isn't even sure if Lily herself noticed she was still wearing it when she left - but he did.
He always notices when it comes to Lily.
His mind is drifting, wandering to visions of Lily grinning at him while wearing his coat, and he's certain his cheeks are tinted pink though not from the cold. He's so far in his own mind that he doesn't notice the set of fresh footprints in the snow until he's right up on them, and then he's so distracted by them that he is completely caught off guard when someone jumps out at him from behind his trash can.
"James!"
Lily is actually standing in front of him and isn't just an image in his mind. With her pink cheeks and loose hair under a winter cap, she looks a little wild. She's wearing his letterman jacket over her pajamas, the sheer bulk of it nearly swallowing her.
But, of course, he notices all of that only after he lets out a high pitched scream that causes several birds in a nearby tree to scatter.
"Jesus Christ, Evans!" he hisses, clutching at his chest and stumbling into the trash can. "You scared the absolute shit out of me!"
"Oh my God, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's alright," he says, his heart still pounding wildly. He's not sure anymore that it's just from the scare. "Just… don't tell anyone that I screamed like that."
"Okay," she agrees, grinning. "Marauder's Promise." Lily offers her pinky to him and attempts to temper her grin with a more serious expression. She doesn't quite succeed.
James raises his eyebrows, looking down at her outstretched pinky as though she's offering him gold rather than a simple pinky swear. They haven't made a Marauder's Promise in years. He links his pinky around hers as though they're ten again, trying not to feel overly swooned about the whole thing.
His pinky is much larger than it was when he was in middle school, but it still curves around Lily's own on instinct.
"Excellent," he says, his hand flexing by his side as he drops it. "What are you doing out here, anyway? Behind my trash can of all places? You could have come inside, you know. I would have made you waffles or something."
"Didn't want to interrupt Christmas morning," she explains, shoving her hands back in her - no, his - jacket pockets. "Besides, I really wanted to see you." Lily glances over at her house and then back. "I want to ask you about something."
"Oh yeah?" he says, quirking an eyebrow. He isn't sure what exactly Lily would want to talk to him about. Alone. He allows his mind to wander to all the possibilities. "Shoot."
"Maybe this is weird, but I was thinking..." She pauses, clearly struggling for her next words. "I mean, I had this idea and wanted to ask you if -" Lily breaks off again and shakes her head.
"Evans," says James, shoving his hands in the pockets of his pajama bottoms and bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. I mean - come on. It's me."
"There's no way this isn't weird, so I'm just going to try to say it." Lily lets out a deep breath that fogs in front of her face. "Do you think we could convince Petunia - convince everyone - that we're dating?"
James blinks once.
And then once more.
And then again.
He isn't quite sure that he's heard her correctly. He can't have heard her correctly. Because while it's not exactly what he is wanting, it's close. Nearly pretend, but close.
"I - you - what?"
"Let me try to explain." Lily lets out another breath. "Last night, I was thinking about what Petunia said. And what you said. About how stupid all of that stuff about social circles and - and whatever is." She shifts her weight between her feet, as if moving around will work out whatever she's thinking. "Wouldn't it be great if we proved her and proved everything wrong?"
"What are you saying?"
"What I'm saying is, we don't have to follow whatever Petunia - whatever anyone - thinks of us. If we convinced her and everyone that we were dating, it would go against all that." She makes a face like she's worried that she may have offended him. "Not that you have to date me. We just have to make her think you are."
"So, let me get this straight. You want to date me - fake date me… to prove your sister wrong?"
"Well, that just makes it sound... It's not just that." Lily shakes her head and stops fidgeting. "Like you said yesterday, we have to make room for each other again. There are all these unspoken rules, but if we were - if they thought we were a couple, then maybe we could do something about it. Change something. It would be like hacking high school."
James ruffles a hand through his hair, feeling himself teeter on the line of caving. He's never been able to deny Lily anything, and he knows he's one final push away from not being able to deny her this.
Even if part of him is screaming that it's a horrible idea.
"And if we do this - if we let people think we're dating, what would be the end result? What would we get out of it? What would we change?"
She straightens. "We'd get a good semester out of it. We can be friends - real friends - again. Avoid all the petty high school drama of relationships and who likes who. Show people that all of their rules don't matter. Plus, James, it could be fun."
He's swaying. Just yesterday he had been in that space between friendship and absolutely nothing, and now he is being offered everything he wants. Everything he has wanted for such a long time.
But it's not real. None of it would be real.
James knows himself well enough to know that he clings to any sort of fantasy. And Lily Evans… she's been his very favorite fantasy for years now. If he does this, if he agrees to it, James knows he's going to have a hard time coming back down to reality once it all ends.
"So, we fake date for a semester," he presses on, knowing that he probably shouldn't. "We let everyone think it's real, and make our own rules for the rest of the school year?"
He knows he's just repeating what she's been saying, but he isn't arguing. She knows it too, he can tell, by the way her eyes light up.
"Exactly. All of the fun and none of the pressure." Lily reaches out her hand, possibly to shake on it, before she drops it by her side quickly. "There's… one more thing. The prize at the end."
You, he thinks before shaking his head.
"What prize?"
"Prom King and Queen."
"Prom? What's that got…?" James trails off, knowing exactly what Prom Royalty has to do with this. "Petunia. This is more than just trying to prove your sister wrong. This is about trying to one up her. To get something that she doesn't have."
He knows he's hit the nail on the head even before Lily crosses her arms.
It's always Petunia.
James isn't sure why Lily is so dead set on always trying to prove Petunia wrong, but he knows that Lily's sister is the driving force behind all of this. More than that, he knows that Lily is trying to prove something to her sister about herself. That she's more than however little it is that Petunia thinks of her.
"Maybe it is," Lily allows, "but we could do it. We could win, James." She looks down at herself and back up to him, stuffing her hands in the pockets of his jacket. "You're the only person I can ask. I need you. You could get Prom King without even trying, but that's not why. It'll actually be fun with you. I trust you."
It's her words that do it for him, that final small push that he needs to cross over to her side.
I need you. I trust you.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the sudden thought dawns on him that even though this would all be fake, the possibility for something real could be underneath it all. That if she trusts him enough, it wouldn't have to stay fake.
He could win her over, if he tried. He could show her by being her fake boyfriend how good he could be at being her real one.
"Okay, Evans," he says with an outstretched hand before he can stop himself. "You've got yourself a deal."