I don't own harry potter that would be the work of the lovely J.K. Rowling, read on.
I lay awake watching the hours go by on a little muggle alarm clock lily gave me for my last birthday, she said with its help I might actually get to class on time for once. When on earth did we start acting so civilly towards each other? Well we made peace towards the end of last year on the condition that I wouldn't ask her out anymore.
"Friends don't ask friends out" she said
"Padfoot go out with me?" I asked with a winning smile
"Fine but I'm not putting out unless you take me somewhere really nice." He responded not even looking up from his game of exploding snap against Remus.
"See? Friends ask out friends all the time!" I said
She laughed lightly and rolled her eyes "agreed or not potter?"
"Agreed…" I sighed.
Of course I wasn't eager to agree never to ask out the girl of my dreams but hey, friends was better than nothing right? Well seeing as my thoughts are taking a slightly depressing path and I'm not going to be able to sleep for a while, I may as well explore the castle a bit, look for something new. I tried to shake Sirius awake, knowing that after what he went through last night Moony needed the sleep and Peter would just get us caught.
"Tomorrow night Mars, I'm too tired" Sirius muttered
Not sure I want to know what that was about…
I continued to shake him, more insistently this time, until he opened his eyes and looked up at me.
"Sod off prongs, if I'm too tired to shag Marlene I'm definitely too tired to shag you."
Well guess I'm going solo tonight… Jesus Christ that is not what I meant, I meant exploring, exploring Hogwarts castle.
I cast a non-verbal lumos so as not to wake up my dorm mates, grabbed the invisibility cloak and left Gryffindor Tower. Only problem was, after seven years and an enchanted map there wasn't much of Hogwarts left to explore. After about twenty minutes of taking random turns, trying desperately to get lost, (seeing as that's how I made all my best discoveries), only to end up in the ever familiar territory of the Hogwarts halls, I decided to call it a night and go to the kitchens for a late night snack. Merlin's shaggy balls, I'm turning into wormtail aren't I?
I turned down the correct corridor and stopped in front of the large fruit bowl painting. I tickled the pear, causing it to giggle softly and swing open to reveal a hole much like the one leading to the Gryffindor common room. I climbed through easily and then took a step back in surprise, causing me to trip back though the portrait hole with a soft thump. My ambusher whipped around and looked skeptically at the supposedly empty space by the open portrait hole. She took out her wand and pointed it directly at me.
"Whoa calm down Evans!" I said taking off the invisibility cloak, I wasn't too keen on a full body binding curse right now. "It's just me"
"Sorry James" she said lowering her wand and storing it in the back pocket of her loose pajama shorts. She looked damn sexy, her hair was in loose, natural curls falling over her shoulders and her shirt featuring a muggle rock band Sirius liked called "Guns and Roses" showed a pretty decent amount of cleavage. Also she called me James that was new I thought to myself grinning, usually I'm just Potter.
"What are you looking so smug about then?" she asked with a small smile on her lips, making her look even more amazing.
"Oh just catching the perfect prefect sneaking 'round the kitchens in the wee hours" I invented.
She rolled her eyes.
"So what are you doing in the kitchens Lil?" I asked
"I could ask you the same thing James" she responded
"You could but I beat you too it so spill"
"Well if you must know I couldn't sleep so I decided to make some hot cocoa" Lily sighed
"Same, well, they couldn't sleep part I haven't the faintest how to make hot cocoa. Why didn't you just ask an elf to fetch you some?" I asked
"Didn't want to wake one, besides I'm perfectly capable of making it myself and the elves don't know the secret ingredient. Mine is much better."
"Were you going to offer me a cup of this far superior hot cocoa" I asked smirking
"No"
"Please, I'll help make it" I promised.
"You're not going to leave 'til you've had some are you?" Lily said with a sigh
"Aww… you really do know me!" I exclaimed
"Go fetch me some sugar and milk." She ordered with a hint of a smile.
"Accio milk" I said confidently as a jet of milk squirted at me.
Lily burst out laughing "you're completely hopeless, you need to summon it into something" lily stated as if it were quite obvious, drying both my pants and the floor with a single wave of her wand.
"Like this" she said "accio milk" but before the milk hit her she pointed her wand toward a small pot on the stove re-directing the high velocity milk strait into it without spilling a drop. I have to say it was quite impressive. She bent down (which gave me a view even more impressive) to check in a low cupboard for sugar, cocoa, and vanilla, apparently too no success.
"Could you check the top ones for me?" she asked a bit embarrassed
"Sure my little midget friend" I said reaching up easily and handing down the desired ingredients. In third year she was an inch taller than me and wouldn't let me forget it, and now, in seventh year I was a full head and shoulders taller than her, so the teasing was pretty much a given.
She rolled her eyes at my midget comment and smiled in thanks as I handed her the jars and bottles.
Soon the mixture was boiling merrily on the stove filling the kitchens with the wonderfully sweet smell of chocolate.
"And now for the special ingredient" lily said bending down again and reaching inside a cupboard to extract much to my surprise, a decent sized bottle of firewisky.
"They've had that in the kitchens all along? And to think of all the times me and padfoot froze our arses off to go buy some from hogsmead!" I said
Lily just smirked and poured a shot each into two large mugs, filling it the rest of the way up with the hot cocoa we made, and by we I mean she. She handed me a mug and took the other one for herself sitting by the fire in the corner.
"Cheers" she said as we clinked our glasses together, both drinking deeply. It was sweet and creamy, everything hot cocoa should be, but the added firewisky warmed my very bones and lit my chest on fire.
"Lily this is both delicious and alcoholic how have I never had this before?"
Lily shrugged "never stumbled into the kitchens at the right time?" she offered
"Hey, I stepped into the kitchen with all the grace of a swan, I stumbled out of the kitchen" I laughed
"Sorry my mistake, you never stumbled out of the kitchens at the right time." Lily corrected earning hearty nod of approval from me.
After a few minutes of sitting by the fire drinking in silence I decided to start up the conversation again, after all this was one of the few times I was alone with lily I'd be forced to kick myself tomorrow if I didn't make the most of it.
"So why couldn't you sleep?" I asked, the question seemed innocent enough, until she looked down at her bare feet as if remembering something particularly unpleasant.
"Family matters…" she muttered
"Want to talk about it?" I asked, being friends with Sirius Black meant I knew a lot about "Family matters" and what to do to help.
"Not even a little bit"
"Want to drink about it?" like I said my experience came from helping Sirius Black.
She laughed lightly "sure"
I found us some egg cups that would have to do for shot glasses and extracted the bottle of firewisky from the cupboard I saw lily return it to earlier.
"here" I said handing her a rather large egg cup full of firewisky, she chuckled a bit at my strange new use for the breakfast objects and downed it quickly, screwing up her face causing here nose to wrinkle and small dimples to appear on her lightly freckled cheeks, And I'm proud to say I only stared like the love-sick prat I am for a moment before downing my own shot.
About forty minutes and five shots later she told me all about her muggle sister Petunia and her Mother's failing health. I felt awful for her but I knew she wasn't the kind of person who would appreciate my pity, or anyone else's for that matter. So I just sat there and listened, and poured her shot after shot, and put in a few words of comfort where I thought they would help. I think I'd make a rather good bartender to be honest.
"… I've never been close to my dad, he was always working. And now my mum's got what muggles call cancer, and my only sister won't speak a word to me, my family is falling apart and were falling into a war..." she said angrily "I'm not ready for a war James" she added in a soft barely audibly voice.
"You don't have to be ready just yet, we have the whole year to get ready to face the world, and you won't ever have to face it alone." I said softly "as for your bitch of a sister" I started, the alcohol raising my voice slightly, "you don't need her you've got Mars, Dorcas, Mary, Alice, their all good as sisters! Plus there's Pad foot, Moony even Wormtail. And you'll always have me, no matter how hard you try to get rid of me."
She smiled a bit, "you're right, I've got my own little Hogwarts family."
"Exactly! The outside world could all go to hell and you'd still be safe in these walls, I- we'll make sure of it."
I said, smiling back and squeezing her hand reassuringly.
"I'm sorry" she said after a while.
"What for?"
"Dumping my problems on you, you must think I'm a ridiculous drama queen." She said with a small laugh.
"o'course not, Everyone's worried these days, and you've got more reason to be than most, with your family and all… besides I was being nosy and asked about your problems you didn't just barge in and lay them on me."
"Well then thanks for being nosey, I needed it tonight" she said laughing lightly.
"Any time" I replied, and I meant it, I wanted her to come to me whenever, wherever, I wanted to be the one to put a smile back on her face.
She stared at me for a moment and I stared back, her eyes were so beautiful; so bright they should have blinded me but I felt like I had never had clearer vision. Then she began to lean in, I could see every faun coloured freckle that made its home on her soft cheeks, I followed her movement until our noses were practically touching. Which, unfortunately, was when I came back to my senses and pulled back a few centimeters. "Lily you're drunk" I whispered.
"Thanks captain obvious" she said giggling
"It would be taking advantage of you"
"No, because you are just as drunk as me if not more so it's a simple mistake at most" she reasoned tracing my jawline with her pale fingers, her eyes were calculative and I got the feeling she was deciding the best way to introduce her lips to mine.
"Simple mistake" I repeated as if in a trance, what she was saying made sense, I was indeed very drunk and very much wanting to kiss her…
"Umhum" she agreed leaning in closer.
I could live with a simple mistake I make about a dozen of those every day. Having settled it I leaned in farther to close the gap between us, our noses bumped against each other awkwardly as we tried to close the gap causing her to chuckle and I took the opportunity to nestle my nose into her cheek and brush my lips softly against hers, she smelled warm and rich like treacle toffee and firewiskey, and her lips were as soft as I'd always imagined, I suddenly became hyper aware of myself, my lips were slightly chapped and my callused hands were probably in the wrong place, sure I'd kissed a girl before, I'd kissed loads of girls but this wasn't just a girl it was lily, this had to be perfect I was beginning to stress when one of her small hands made their way up to my hair. She deepened the kiss and immediately all was forgotten. My hands found their resting places; one on the small of her back and the other in her soft, red, hair. Our lips moved together as if that's what they were made to do and our minds went blissfully blank. In that moment there was no war against a dark wizard, no cancerous tumour growing inside lily's mother, no silent sisters and no outside world. There was only James Potter and lily Evans.
When we broke apart she looked at me and whispered three little words in my ear "not a mistake."
"Definitely not" whispered back with a wide smirk on my face, all poetry aside, I just snogged lily Evans.
Hope you liked my little one shot, I didn't have a beta reader so if you saw a mistake let me know
'Til next time,
-Jess
Aka TheBookLoverUpTheRoad