Disclaimer:
Chances are, it's not mine. Chiho Saito/J.K.Rowling—pick one. And...yeah. Okay I'm done.

Chapter 1: First Impressions

Morning light filtered through the branches of trees, tracing patterns across a wall and glass windowpane. Inside, water was gurgling and a pleasant hum emanated from the general vicinity of the bathroom.

And then it stopped…

…and was replaced by a quiet retching.

Minutes later, a face peered into the gilt-edged mirror above the sink. Red-gold hair spilled over in disheveled curls around pale skin, lustrous green eyes, and pretty mouth bent into a perplexed frown.

Lily Evans put her hands to her abdomen and swallowed. Hard.

"Am I..."

***

"...pregnant? I mean, it's really possible!"

Lily spun around in her seat, straw still sticking out of her mouth. It dripped cider into her lap for a few moments before she noticed it and returned it to her glass. Peering curiously through the leaves of a bush separating her table from the bar, she located the source of the voice: a young, pretty witch with short blonde hair. The woman was dressed in bright robes of robin's egg blue and sat at the bar sipping from a small glass of—from the looks of it—Tom's special cherry rum. Next to her was a man in neat black business robes. As he turned his head, Lily caught sight of his profile—he was, she admitted to herself, rather good-looking and strangely familiar. He had untidy black hair and a pair of glasses perched rakishly on his face, along with an extremely bored expression.

"So?" the man asked, shrugging.

"What do you mean, 'so?'" the woman turned to him, obviously getting very worked up. "James Potter, you're horrible! I was up all last night worrying about it, and you say 'so?'!!!"

The man sighed. "Meghan, you said you had something important to tell me, so I skived off a meeting just to come see you here. Was that it?"

She ignored him. "I kept sending owl after owl, but never got any reply! What do I do if it starts to show? I'd have to quit work..." She pulled out a handkerchief and began dabbing at distraught tears leaking out of her eyes.

By this time, Lily was crouched behind the planter box, hands holding leaves and branches aside so she could have a clear view of the couple at the bar.  It wasn't every day she got to witness drama firsthand.

"So you went to St. Mungo's to get the tests done," he said in an expressionless voice, his head still turned away. "And you got the results back already. You're not pregnant."

The woman froze.

Lily froze.

Grizzled old Tom, who was manning the counter as usual, made no attempt to disguise his avid eavesdropping. He froze and nearly dropped a bottle.

"How—how did you know??" the woman spluttered.

The man turned to her with an ironic grin. "Well, most women who find out they're pregnant and want to keep the baby refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages." He indicated her cherry rum. "Besides which, you're still wearing those stiletto heels...not at all like a responsible pregnant woman, Meghan."

The woman looked stunned.

"You were hoping to squeeze a marriage proposal out of this whole pregnancy farce, weren't you?" asked the man, taking a sedate sip of his own cocktail. "But...it wouldn't have mattered even if you were pregnant. Marriage was never a feasible option. It never is, when a relationship no longer exists. It hasn't existed for a long—"

Lily gasped.

"You bastard!" The woman threw her glass at the man's face and stormed off. The container struck his cheek and fell to the floor, shattering into a thousand shards of glass.

The man sat there with dripping robes for a while. He looked slightly surprised, but not really shocked. He casually cast a cleaning charm on his robes, a repairing spell on the glass pieces, and gingerly touched the spot on his cheek where the glass had made contact. The skin was already purpling into a bruise. He turned back to the counter and ordered another drink.

Lily tossed a handful of coins on her table, gulped the last of her cider, and left the pub.

***

"Hello, Prongs, old chap!" called a familiar voice. "What's that on your face?"

James Potter turned from his drink at the bar toward Sirius Black, who came striding into the Leaky Cauldron with his usual flair, winking at women as he went. As he settled down in the seat next to his friend, he dropped a small package into James's lap.

"Don't you 'old chap' me, you prat," James said grumpily, scowling at his friend. "It's all your fault my cheek's got a mottled purple lump on it. What's this?" He picked up the package in his lap. "An ice pack?"

"Cold compress, James," replied Sirius. "Got some handy healing spells on it too, methinks. Anyway, what happened with Meghan? Is she pregnant?"

"No, she just wanted to weasel a proposal out of you." James put the compress to his face and sighed in relief. "Ah, that feels good. Thanks, old boy. Next time, though, save us both the trouble and use protection, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sirius waved a hand dismissively. "By the way, what'd you do to make Lily Evans sweet on you? She's the one who sent me along with the compress, you know. I would've just dropped in at your flat later tonight otherwise."

"I should've known you wouldn't've been considerate enough to think of this on your own," groaned James, adjusting the compress to his cheek. "Who's Lily Evans?"

Sirius smacked James upside the head. "'Who's Lily Evans?' he asks me! Just Old Terrence's daughter, that's who!" He paused contemplatively. "And a looker as well. Those eyes...and those legs..."

"Yeah, well, now's not the time for you to indulge in fantasies, you great twat," James said loftily. "No idea who she is, though the name sounds familiar. Terrence's daughter? Must be a regular little spoiled princess."

Sirius shook his head emphatically as he downed the rest of James's drink. James raised an eyebrow at him and leaned an elbow on the counter. "Well, does she work?"

"Of course she does!"

"Where?"

"In Defense, like us, of course," Sirius nodded to Tom as he was passed a firewhiskey. "She's in admin, though, reports directly to Terrence."

James whistled. "So she's pretty high up there. Older witch?"

"No, Prongs, don't you remember anything, Mr. Head Boy??" Sirius frowned at him sternly. "She was a year or two behind us at Hogwarts. Prefect. Heard she made Head Girl after we left. Caused quite a stir, her being Muggle-born and all."

"Muggle-born? But if she's Terrence's daughter...?"

"Adopted daughter. Her parents were killed in our sixth year. Remember that attack in Surrey?"

"Oh? Oh....oh, right..."

"Yeah. From what I heard, she did some part-time charmwork for the Ministry during her later years at Hogwarts with recommendations from Flitwick and Dumbledore. That's how she met Terrence, and you know how the man lost his whole family a few years back...guess they found that they got on well together, and he adopted her so she'd have someplace to go after Hogwarts."

"I see." James drained his glass and dropped the cold pack to the counter. The bruise on his cheek was barely visible now. "Well, the meeting's over. Terrence'll have my head if he finds I've been off again. Dunno who this Lily person is, but if I get a chance to I'll look her up." He clapped a hand on Sirius's back before walking out. "And don't get involved with girls like Meghan anymore—they just spell trouble!"

***

Terrence Carruthers's collapse made front-page headlines of The Daily Prophet.

Even though the heart attack wasn't fatal, it was severe enough to incapacitate the Head of Dark Force Defense for several weeks. The fact that it had come directly after several rumored Ministry break-in attempts seemed to show that the strain of the job was wearing on him. Many people said that it was due to the tragic loss of his wife and only daughter several years ago that he had become careless enough to allow his health to go.

Fortunately, in his absence, he left his work in capable hands. Lily Evans, his adopted daughter, had already begun to live up to her potential after being Head Girl at Hogwarts and one of Dumbledore's rising talents. Entering into Defense immediately upon graduation, she underwent promotions by leaps and bounds and had ended up as Head of the League's administrative bureau before she had even left her teens. Popular, intelligent, hardworking, and beautiful to boot, Lily was one of those girls who men dreamt of and sought after but never hoped to attain.

Or that was what James concluded anyway.

He'd met Lily (finally) at a meeting she'd called the day of her father's hospitalization. Sirius had made the necessary introduction—James wondered how his best friend seemed to know her so well when he'd been so completely oblivious to her presence before—and the redhead had sent him a sweet smile that rendered him temporarily speechless. Then she'd politely excused herself and walked off to speak with the others in a flurry of shining red-gold hair and miles of slender, curving leg. Sirius had whistled softly under his breath as he took in the sight, which for some reason irked James beyond reason and made him shove his friend with a little more force than necessary.

James had wanted to whistle, too.

***

"He is SO ANNOYING!" Lily hollered as she stomped through the house.

"Master loves you," the house-elf said tremulously, as it followed Lily through the corridors. "Master only wants to show how much he loves Miss Lily...Master is showing how much he cares..."

"Yes well he could definitely show his love in more constructive ways," Lily grumbled. "First he's such a difficult patient that they kick him out of St. Mungo's and send him home, and then he starts throwing tantrums because people from the office come to visit him and he thinks they're boring. People are only showing how much they care about him, honestly!" She slammed through a room, rolling up her sleeves. "I suppose I'll have to go hunt up some people who can keep him entertained while I get some work done..."

At this point, she walked straight into a wall.

Or rather, what she'd thought was a wall.

Lily looked up with a surprised expression into the equally surprised face of James Potter.

"Sorry," James said, before he realized who it was he'd bumped into. Then he looked into those sparkling green depths and felt something in his chest constrict.

"James! Are you leaving now?"

The pair turned toward the voice. It was Terrence Carruthers, bedridden, it was true—but surrounded by beautiful witches in brilliant colors. And, apparently, quite happy that way.

"Yes, sir, I just wanted to drop by and escort these ladies here to see you," James said, bowing slightly. "I thought you might need some cheering visitors."

The older man grinned cheekily. "Only James knows what I like. Thank you, son, apparate safely!"

James waved and shut the door. Turning, he found himself once again alone in a narrow corridor with Lily Evans. As he gazed down at her eyes..and hair...and skin...he vaguely wondered where the house-elf had disappeared to. He stopped wondering abruptly when Lily ran a finger from the collar of his robes down to his stomach. His breath caught in his throat.

She smiled.

"Thanks for keeping Terrence happy," she said. She looked up at him consideringly for a few moments. With a completely serious look on her face, she said softly, "I think you might be the one."

"The one—the one what?" James finally found his voice and asked the first thing that came to mind. He was acutely aware that his face had heated up from the contact and that Lily's hair gave off the faintest smell of...lavender, yes, that was it. Silky waves tumbled around her shoulders. He had to clench his fist to keep from reaching out to touch them.

Lily gave him a mysterious smile and walked away, throwing him just one enticing backwards glance as she rounded the corner, hips swaying, and disappeared from sight. James realized his heart was beating a little erratically. Inadvertently one side of his mouth curved upwards as he jammed his hands in his pockets and apparated away.

A/ N:

I'm slowly, slowly reposting this because I feel guilty for not finishing it. :]

For those who are interested—this is based off Chiho Saito's short-story "Cupid's Egg" (rough translation). It can be found in her series "Love Stories," (what does that translate to, "Koi Monogatari?") which in itself isn't that great of a series...I just happened to like this story. Anyway, it's in volumes 4 and 5.