Author's Note: Hello, hello! Here with another Jily fic! I hope you guys enjoy this little story of mine.

You Have Stolen My Heart

James Potter has a lot going on his life as of the late. Other than NEWT classes which every other seventh year is busy dealing with, he has other duties with regards to his Headship and his Quidditch captaincy. When he isn't on the pitch, in the library, or in the Head Office, he spends his spare time catching up with his mates who have their own troubles in their personal lives. Sirius is trying to save his brother from becoming a Death Eater. Remus is trying to have a normal relationship despite his lycanthropy. And Peter is left with the responsibility of coming up with plans for their Marauding escapades since both Sirius and James have their minds fully occupied, plans which are yet to be fruitful. Despite their troubles and responsibilities, they are held together by their strong friendship, a group whose loyalty to each other cannot be shaken, and their promise to Moony since their third year has never once been broken.

And then there is Lily. Lily who has never been lovelier in his eyes. She has taken the time to know him, to catch him whenever the load gets a tad too difficult to carry, to study with him to make sure neither of them fall behind in their demanding classes. She did everything with a graceful smile on her face. Never once breaking, never once showing she's tired. And James finds himself falling a bit harder for her each day. On top of everything else, he makes sure to give her something to show his appreciation. A note, a small flower. Anything. And whenever he catches her smiling, he feels his heart bursting at the seams.

Sirius calls him an idiot. James ignores him.

So, when he finds Lily standing at the entrance of Potter Manor in the middle of the winter holidays with a red nose and bloodshot eyes, he didn't hesitate to welcome her into his warm home. Her whole body is shaking, but he doubts she even noticed. With her lower lip trembling, she looks up at him with her bright green eyes shining with fresh tears.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't know where else to go."

James forces a smile despite his heart breaking. "You don't have to apologize, Evans. You're always welcome in my house."

Euphemia sends the house elves running to the kitchen to prepare hot cocoa and biscuits despite Lily's weak protests not to, and Fleamont places a warm blanket on her shoulders when James has finally coaxed her down on the couch. The older man has a smile on his face when he says, "Save your breath, dear. She won't listen to you."

It takes a couple of hours before his parents finally got the hint that James wanted to be alone with her.

"This is my first Christmas without my parents," Lily tells him. Her shoulder brushes his, and he tries his best to stay still. "My sister's gone off to the Bahamas this morning with her whale of a boyfriend without even telling me."

James feels anger spark inside his chest at her words but chooses to keep his mouth shut to avoid saying the wrong thing. Lily sniffs, "Mary's in Spain with her family, and Alice is spending her holiday with Frank. Out of sheer desperation, I've even thought about knocking on Severus's door."

She lets out a death of humorless laughter. With a soft sigh, James rests his arm behind her, wanting nothing more than to hug her because she didn't deserve to feel this way. "Then I remembered you telling me that you'll be home for Christmas," she murmurs, shyly looking up at him. "And I…"

James finally scoots closer and wraps his arm around her. "I'm glad you came here," he interrupts her. "You're always welcome in my house, Lily."

Her eyes flickers from his down to his lips, and he feels his air get trapped inside his lungs. "You've always been so good to me," she whispers.

James doesn't know if it was the look in her eyes or the tone of her voice that made him lean in. He can feel his heart hammering inside his chest when his nose touches hers and a slight thrill at the realization that she still hasn't pushed him away. He fills the space between them and presses his lips against hers. Gentle and unassuming. Her hand reaches up to his hair, her long fingers running through the soft strands. The kiss deepens and he wonders how much stress his heart can take in one evening.

He finds himself craving for her all the time. Her smiles, her touch, her kisses, her laughter. He finally admits that he is in so much trouble the moment she convinces him to let her ride his favorite broomstick alone. She spends her entire winter holiday with his family, and he swears he sees the moment his mother had wedding bells ringing inside her head. Lily goes back to her house the day before they were to catch the train back to Hogwarts, and his mother finds the time to give him her engagement ring.

"Mum, I…" James lists a couple of protests in his head.

But before he can get any of them out, Euphemia cuts him off, "I approve which means your father approves. I see the way you look at her, and she at you. Believe me, I've only seen that a handful of times in my life."

He must have still looked like a deer in the headlights because his mother gives him a light swat on the arm. "Oh," Euphemia chides him. "You don't have to give it to her now."

He pockets the ring and gives her a kiss on the cheek. He boards the Hogwarts Express the next day with wild thoughts about having a grand proposal or a quiet one, having the Marauders involved or not, and how Lily might respond to each of them. He can already picture her hitting him on the head with the grand ones but saying yesanyway. Then he decides it'd be best if it were just the two of them somewhere nice and intimate. He is jolted out of his thoughts when Lily plops down unceremoniously beside him in his compartment with his mates. They regard the two of them suspiciously, and he knows they were trying to come up with an acceptable reason why Lily Evans would choose to sit in their compartment rather than be with her own mates. She reaches over to take a piece of candy from his pile and he swats her hand away.

There was a long stretch of silence before Sirius bellows out, "You two shagged!"

Lily turns bright red, and James chucks a balled-up candy wrapper at his face.

With his temple resting on his knuckles, James's eyes religiously scan the worn pages of the Charms book he had taken from the shelves as he writes additional notes for his essay for Flitwick. Other than the occasional chair scraping against the floor, the library is quiet despite the numerous students studying. He finishes another paragraph before lifting his eyes up to rest them for a moment then they catch his favorite girl storming towards his desk.

Her fiery hair is pulled into a side braid. Her beautiful face still the epitome of grace and beauty – but he might be a bit bias – despite the slight twitch of her left eye and the pursing of her lips that screamed something is bothering her. He feels a slight thrill at the thought of him noticing these things and knowing her a bit more than other people do.

"I'm late."

Lily takes the seat beside him with her eyes looking a bit wild. It takes a moment for him to understand, and he closes the book to focus his attention on her. "Do you feel okay?" he asks as he rests his arm on the back of her chair.

"I feel fine," Lily answers him as she knots her fingers together anxiously. "I just… I've never been late before. I'm just worried that…"

James carefully pulls her chair closer to him, smiling at the blush he got from his actions, before wrapping an arm around her. He leans forward and lowers his voice even more, "Do you feel nauseous? Do you ache anywhere?"

She shakes her head. "No."

He gives her a kind smile and a soft kiss on her temple before murmuring in her ear, "We were careful. There's nothing to worry about, Lil."

"Are you sure?" she asks, searching his eyes. "I…"

His lips quickly silence her, and they only pull away because of the obnoxious coughing from the fifth year sitting behind them. James ignores him, staring into Lily's eyes when he says, "I'm sure. There's no Potter in there… yet."

Her blush deepens after he gave her a wink. "You're awfully sure about yourself," she tells him with a nudge on his side.

"It's one of my best qualities."

Lily snorts out a laugh, earning a wide grin from him and a shush from Madame Pince.

After using magic (and that Muggle test she insists on using), they find out she isn't pregnant. James is surprised at the disappointment he felt when she announced it. A wild, happy grin on her face as she did. He had a couple of girlfriends before her, but he had never imagined settling down with any of them. With her, he imagines a little boy or girl with his dark hair and her green eyes, with her fire and his humor, with her love for books and his love for Quidditch. The thought makes him giddy. And it makes him think about the velvet box he has hidden inside his trunk.

The nightmares arrive without warning. A green light. A baby's cry. A gaping hole in his heart. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's enough to make him cry out in anguish every night. His mates keep throwing worried glances at him during breakfast, making him draw the curtains at night and whisper a Muffliato spell before going to bed to spare them the trouble. Some nights, he chooses to wander down the halls underneath his Cloak, a trip to the kitchens usually did the trick.

One night, he had an unfortunate run-in with some Slytherins out after curfew. He escorts them back to the dungeons and reports them to Professor Slughorn, sparing the details of their duels. He has a limp going back to Gryffindor Tower, finally submitting to his injury since no one's around to see their Head Boy not in his best shape.

He passes out on the couch in the Common Room, and the nightmares come back in full force.

Green light. Brighter.

"Lily, run!"

Avada Kedavra.

"James!"

He painfully swallows a lungful of air the moment he wakes. His heart is pounding in his ears as his lungs struggled for air. His eyes register nothing but the silhouette of a girl with red hair in front of the fireplace. His chest feels like lead is weighing it down, and breathing is suddenly not as easy as it usually is. Lily calms him by inhaling and exhaling with him, and it takes a while before the burden in his chest is lifted. He finds her underneath him, his head resting on her chest as she ran her fingers through his hair, and he thinks he can finally sleep peacefully if she continues to do what she's doing.

"Why are you sleeping in the Common Room?" Lily asks just before he was about to give into his drowsiness.

James feels too tired to explain his misadventures with the Slytherins and opts for one-word answers, "Nightmares."

Lily pauses, and he sleepily tells her not to stop. "Nightmares?" she echoes, ignoring him. "What kind of nightmares?"

He sighs as he buries himself deeper in her embrace. "Losing you." He feels her heart beat speed up.

She returns back to combing his hair with her fingers before deciding to change the subject, "Did you go down to the kitchens again?"

"Guilty," he says, happy with the fact that she decided not to push the topic of his dreams further.

She shook with quiet laughter. "Did you see anyone out of bed, Head Boy?"

He answers her without thinking, "Just a couple of Slytherins."

He stiffens when he's realized his mistake, and she once again stops her actions. She pries him off of her despite his protests and begins to run her hands over his body to check for bruises. An inappropriate comment is about to fly off his lips but is replaced with a curse when her hand touches a bruise on his side. Lily pulls off his shirt, and her expression hardens at the sight of the black and blue forming on his skin.

She finds his sprain as well and muttered a quick spell that made him curse loudly. She is in the middle of treating his bruises when she says, "You know they're doing this to you because you're with me."

"What?" he asks through gritted teeth, watching her ministrations warily.

"They call you a blood traitor, don't they?" her tone hollow.

His body numbs when the meaning of her words sunk in. He takes her hand to get her attention. "They're just some kids who think they can mess with the rules and their Head Boy. Nothing more."

Fire flashes in her green eyes as she retorts, "You and I both know there's more to it than that."

James holds her gaze with his own. "You are a brilliant witch and an amazing human being. No blood status is going to change that, and nothing is going to change the way I feel about you. So, I don't care what they call me or what they think I am. I'm in love with you, Lily Evans, and I will stay by your side as long as you'll have me."

Lily looks pleasantly surprised by his words, and slowly her lips turn up into his favorite smile. She leans in for a kiss and pulls away with glassy eyes. "I love you, too. So, so much."

They were resting underneath the beech tree when he asks her the question. They have only a week left in Hogwarts before they will be sent off into the real world, and James knows with more certainty than ever that he doesn't want to live the rest of his life without her in it. She is sitting between his legs, her head resting on his chest, as they admired the setting sun, and he decides to pull the ring out of his pocket.

He wonders if she felt his heart rate spike up when he says the words. "Marry me."

She pauses before sitting up to face him. There is a strange look on her face, a look he has never seen before, and he nervously holds up his mother's ring between his fingers. Her eyes turn glassy when they look back up to his. He gives her a small smile before saying, "You are the love of my life, Lily Evans, and I cannot see a life…"

Lily cuts him off with a fierce kiss. He pulls back with a protest, "I wasn't finished."

She sniffs before letting out a breathy laugh. "Just ask me."

His expression softens at the look of love in her teary eyes, the warmth of her arms around his neck.

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she answers with a giggle.

"Finally!"

"Sirius!" Remus chides. A swat and a curse are heard that made the newly-engaged couple laugh.

The Marauders come around from the opposite side of the tree with congratulations, and James cannot tear his eyes away from the radiance that was Lily laughing with his mates. He grabs her suddenly and places a fierce kiss on her lips despite the protests from his friends, and he feels her melt into him.

She has stolen his heart, and he never wants it back.

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