This is a short one-shot that I wrote instead of sleeping. I hope this benefits you more than sleeping could have benefited me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, but the fluffy fuffed up plot.
Lily lay down under the beech tree. Soft flickers of light flitted through her fanned out red hair, covering her face. The morning was soft and warm and everything Lily so dearly loved about getting up early enough to feel the sunrise over Hogwarts. It was peaceful and quiet too. A trait that was not normally attributed to any part of the school grounds, but it was too early for the students to be awake. No one would be up for another hour or so. And even then, the Marauders would not wake for another couple of hours. How they made it to classes every day, Lily would never know.
A slight crunching broke the peace as footsteps neared Lily. She didn't open her eyes or move. Partly hoping they did not belong to whom she knew they belonged to and partly hoping that he would continue walking and leave her be. But luck had other plans for her quiet morning and the crunching footsteps came to a stop as a warm body lay down beside Lily in the grass. She dared not move.
They were quiet for several minutes. Just soaking in one another's presence and the morning. It may have been because he wasn't a morning person or because it was just him (and not all four of the marauders that were rarely seen without one another), but he seemed more bearable than usual and Lily seemed content with having him lay next to her. As long as he didn't talk, of course.
"Did you know I love the sunrise?" he whispered.
Darn, him. She thought to herself.
"Its got this beautiful red that is so perfectly its own. I've only ever seen that red one other place. Many painters have tried to capture it, but they fail. They can't get the texture right. The smoothness of the red or the vibrancy of it. It's the same color as your hair," he whispered as if to himself.
Lily wondered what he was doing there, at sunrise, hours before classes began. He wasn't a morning person. At least, he never had been before. And she knew, because she had watched him very curiously over the last seven years. At first, she was curious of the boy with raven black hair and hazel eyes that seemed to crawl into the Great Hall each morning with a laugh that couldn't be muted by sleepiness. Then as time passed and their relationship festered, she swore she was only trying to learn his morning habits so as to better avoid him. She seemed to be able to fool everyone, but herself.
"Did you know I love grass?" he whispered.
Lily did her best to keep her face emotionless, but she had to admit she found his words a bit random and odd. Her curiosity was once again peaked.
"It's fresh and new and always growing. I like to look down at it while I fly across the quidditch field. Sometimes, when I fly fast enough, it looks like it could go on forever. It's a deep rich color, grass is. It's the same color as your eyes," he whispered casually.
Lily tried her very best not to allow his words to affect her. She had tried her very best not to allow his words to affect her for the last seven years. And yet they had. Lily had fallen quite hard over the last nine or so months, but she feared the reality of their relationship. She feared insincerity and roaming ways on his part. She feared defensiveness and self-doubt on her own. She was a very practical person and she could not think of any practical solution that would give her what she most wanted: him. Every situation she played in her head ended with him leaving her for someone else, him getting bored with her, or her running away. She figured if he didn't manage to muck it up, she would. And so she merely sighed and shook her head every time she thought of him for the last nine months. Which pretty much translated into nine months of constant sighing and shaking of her head. She swore she had whip-lash.
"Did you know I love you?" he whispered earnestly.
Lily didn't dare move.
"You're smart and funny. You don't let anyone pick on others. Even if they haven't earned your defense you still come to their aid. You stand up for yourself. You don't let anyone push you around. You know what you want and you go for it. Even if it isn't what people expect from you or what they would have chosen to do. You're brave enough to go for things that no one else would and wise enough to know how. You have enough self-control to keep up with all of your studies. Even though I know for a fact you hate divination, but that just makes you work harder. To make up for your lack of natural interest. You scrunch your nose when you don't want to eat something, but have to do it to be polite. You cover your mouth when you laugh, unless you're with people you are truly comfortable with. You actually enjoy reading, which I think is a miracle. Your hair is perfect and I could literally fall into your eyes. I want to kiss every freckle on your face and count them. So far, I've only counted 17, but I haven't gotten to kiss any of them and it really would help if I was allowed to look at you for a period of time without you yelling at me. When you sleep- and don't think I'm creeping into your bedroom or anything. You fall asleep in the common room while studying a lot- anyways when you sleep you mumble random nonsense. Sometimes about school. Sometimes about people. Sometimes about nothing at all. You can see something good in everyone. Well, everyone, but me." he finished softly.
James swallowed. He didn't really know what he was doing here or why he was confessing all of this to her. He just knew that it was all true and it was all real. And she was real and here, with him. He knew that he loved her and that soon their time at Hogwarts, their time to lay beneath the beech tree and feel the sunrise, would come to an end. And when that happened, he couldn't let his time with Lily come to an end as well. So he lay quietly and allowed Lily the time she needed before she reprimanded him.
"Did you know that I love that you're not a morning person?" Lily whispered.
James' heart skipped a beat. He hadn't actually expected her to say anything. He almost expected her to just get up and walk away, but he held his breath and waited for her to continue.
"You hate getting up in the morning. You're groggy and frazzled and you claw your way down the corridors to the Great Hall as if someone were leading you to your death. Yet you still laugh with every bit of life that you have. You try your best to make it to classes on time so you can get good grades. You don't really care about grades yourself, but they are important to your parents. And your parents are important to you, so you make an effort. You help first years who are lost, instead of hexing them. You never, ever gave up on me. No matter how cruel I am to you," Lily crawled over to James and rested her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
"And I love that you're not a morning person because it means so much more when you wake up before the sunrises just to come tell me you love me," she nuzzled her face into him, memorizing his scent and masking him with hers.
James smiled and closed his eyes. The light flitted through the leaves and gently caressed their skin. James and Lily stayed silent, feeling the sunrise together.
Reviews encourage more fluff and general continuation of writing :3 (And are just good general behavior)