I was going to be late. Me, Lily Evans. Late. And not just a few seconds late. No, I was going to be more like nearly a quarter of an hour late, and for Professor McGonagall's class as well. Why in the world did I ever give into those hazel coloured puppy dog eyes? Again. It was shaping up to be a major weakness, one that I needed to get over as quickly as humanly possible, mostly so that I would never be tardy to Transfiguration again. I had a feeling if I listened to all of James Potter's pleas that I would be booted out of my position of Head Girl in a matter of weeks. Possibly even days. After all, he'd asked me to skive off patrols twice, begged me to let a couple first-years off easy because we were low on points, dragged me into a broom closet under the pretense of hiding from Peeves, and nearly gotten me caught out past curfew. And this was all in the past week.
Okay. Week and a half. But if we go back three weeks, he really did land me solidly in detention. Professor McGonagall was not amused when she caught the Head Students snogging when we were supposed to be patrolling. Not that this in any way deterred us from snogging all the other nights we were supposed to be patrolling; now we were just a tad more careful about keeping an ear out for approaching faculty members.
So maybe detention wasn't entirely James' fault, but this? This was completely his fault. At least, enough that he'd feel guilty about it later and 'make it up to me' which I fully looked forward to happening. Provided I didn't lose my post as Head Girl. Ironically I hadn't wanted to be Head in the first place, but I rather thought the only thing worse than being Head Girl would be getting the boot from the position.
Why was my being a quarter of an hour late to my first lesson of the day my boyfriend's fault? Mostly because it had been at his insistence that I'd stayed the night in his four-poster the preceding night instead of doing my usual shag and scurry. He'd literally begged me to stay, blatantly breaking our rule that I'd only stay over on the weekends. And yes, I realize I could have said no, but you've never seen those hazel puppy dog eyes in action.
If I had just gone back to my own bed like I'd wanted to do, I wouldn't be late right now. Because the girls get up a whole hour before the boys as we go to breakfast and they don't. Because the girls gossip and chatter the whole time they're getting ready. Because the girls don't need to soundproof their bed curtains to block out Peter Pettigrew's snores. Most importantly, because the girls never would have believed I'd 'get up in a minute', this being the seventh consecutive year they'd been taking turns dragging me out of my bed by my ankles to get me up in the mornings. James, however, was new to this concept, as he'd only been privy to my early morning routine for perhaps a month, and never on a morning when we had class. Thus, my morning went something like this when the alarm went off:
"Lily." James kissed my jaw. I promptly pushed his face away from me and rolled so my back was completely facing him. He reached around my waist and pulled me flush up against him and proceeded to kiss me awake in what he deemed a thorough manner. "Good morning, snickerdoodle."
This earned him a gruff "Go away, toerag." Mostly because it was a reflex for me to insult people who were waking me up, but also because we'd heard Amos Diggory call his girlfriend 'snickerdoodle' the other week. I told James the pet name made me feel mildly nauseated, like I'd never be able to eat cookies happily again; he'd insisted on calling me it ever since.
"Oh, you sure were singing a different tune last night, Miss Evans." James laughed. His voice skyrocketed into a falsetto, "Oh! Oh, James! You are a god!"
"Sod off, Potter. I do not sound like that." This time I managed to push myself out of his arms and give him a solid glare for good measure. He responded with a wide grin and a kiss on the nose. Then he pulled on his boxers, tossed me his Quidditch jumper, and gestured impatiently for me to pull it over my head. I did so grudgingly and lay back down, pulling the covers up over my head.
"Come on, get up Lily." James nudged me. He sounded particularly whiny this morning and I hoped I remembered to tell him later that this was not an especially attractive side of him.
"Go get ready. I'll get up in a minute." I waved him off. "I'll head back once all your mates are in the bathroom."
James sighed, but I had been pretty convincingly awake so he didn't argue. I figured he really just wanted the other boys to see me leaving on a Thursday morning. They'd gotten used to me popping in and out at odd hours, but never had I left James' bed at 8am on a day when we had classes. Sirius would smirk at me and high-five James for getting me to put out in the middle of the week. I didn't have the heart to tell him this was not at all a new accomplishment for James, just the first time that I'd stayed around until the next morning.
Anyway, James had disappeared for half a minute before reappearing quite suddenly, "I forgot."
"Forgot what?" I mumbled, already half asleep again.
"This." James kissed me soundly. "I love you."
I wasn't really positive why he'd popped back in to declare his love for me for the eighty-third time, but couldn't be bothered to question his motive. Or to respond for that matter. I'd already gone back to sleep, and he didn't stick around long enough to catch my reply anyway. Not that I ever had told him that I loved him. He'd been telling me for weeks, and I'd responded in several clever ways. "Sorry?" was my favorite response, after he'd uttered those words for the first time.
It wasn't that I didn't love him, I fully did and he well knew it; the problem was that I was vastly lacking in the confidence department. James' theory was that if he told me he loved me often enough, I'd just let it slip out one day instead of agonizing over forcing it out. Thankfully for the both of us, James had a more than healthy dose of self-confidence and didn't require me to verbally reassure him of my love on a regular basis (though he wasn't complaining about any physical reassurances to make up the deficit). So the few times when I did start trying to stutter out a response, he'd kissed me and assured me that he'd gotten the message before I made too much of an idiot out of myself.
I was dreaming of one such instance when James woke me up for a second time, this time by shaking me and then pushing me out of his bed. I sat up, conked my head on his nightstand, and caught a glimpse of a laughing Sirius Black closing the door to the dormitory. I'm not sure if he was laughing because I'd spent the night, because I'd cracked my head, or because of the rather vile word James had let off upon seeing me still asleep in his bed, a word I echoed as I rubbed the sore spot on my head.
"Fuck, Lily." James heaved me to my feet. "You've got five minutes before class starts. Why'd you go back to sleep?"
I swore for a second time and dashed for the door, skidding into it because I'd stepped into a pile of Sirius' dirty robes. James opened the door for me and shoved my wand into my hand and I dashed down the boys' stairs and up the girls' as quickly as possible.
"D'you want me to wait?" He shouted after me.
"No!" I called back; already I was cursing at myself for the mess I was about to make of my trunk. "No sense in both of us losing our positions."
"You two had better have bloody good sex." Heather, one of my roommates, informed me as she passed me on the stairs. She'd obviously already been down to breakfast and back up to retrieve something.
"You have no idea." I muttered to myself as our door banged shut behind me and I started tearing through my trunk, looking for clean clothes. I threw the clothing on and glanced at the clock; there was no helping the fact that I was going to be late, so I decided I'd rather take the extra two minutes to fix my hair and make-up so that it wasn't completely obvious I'd spent the night with my boyfriend. And brush my teeth; brushing my teeth was important. Then I grabbed my wand and bag and dashed out of the room and back down the stairs.
I ran as fast as I could toward the Transfiguration classroom and skidded to a halt at the end of the corridor before walking the rest of the distance at a quick clip. It wasn't until I was standing outside of the classroom that I realized the full implications of my being late, mainly that everyone would be watching me enter the classroom and make my excuses to the professor. The thought made me want to throw-up and I froze in the doorway before starting to turn around. I'd rather miss class entirely than come in late with everyone staring. Especially if it meant everyone watching me tell McGonagall that I'd overslept when everyone knew I was late because I'd been having a good shag with my boyfriend.
"Ah, Miss Evans. How kind of you to join us. Do come in." Professor McGonagall said, spying me in my still frozen state and cutting off any chance I had of escape. I managed a small step into the classroom before freezing up completely. I was staring straight down at the ground and began feeling rather light headed. I knew I had to be white as a sheet, and I thought it very likely that I'd pass out and end up missing class anyway. "Miss Evans?"
"S-s-sorry p-professor." I said, and winced at how horribly I was stuttering; I hadn't stuttered like this since primary school in the days before I knew I was a witch. I forced myself to take a deep breath and go more slowly. "S-sorry I'm late."
I could feel all of their stares on me as I stood there, but I couldn't make myself say anything more to the Professor. Equally impossible seemed to be making myself walk the short distance to my desk. I was just thinking perhaps I was going to have a panic attack when a huge booming noise echoed through the classroom. The entire class turned their attention to James, who appeared to have accidently-on-purpose knocked a filibuster firework out of his bag and set it off.
"James Potter! What are you doing to my classroom?" Professor McGonagall bellowed, turning to him and looking wide-eyed. Her wand was up and pointed directly at him for a full minute before lowered it, and I found myself thinking I was rather glad I'd never duel the woman as I seized back control of my actions. The professor and class had focused their whole attention on James, which allowed me to be forgotten completely. I slipped onto the bench beside him and sighed with relief.
"Sorry professor! I forgot that was even in there; I dunno what set it off!" James spread his hands wide and looked as innocent as possible. It was comforting to know those hazel puppy dog eyes worked on someone else, because I could see McGonagall believing his innocence. Her tell was that she finally tucked her wand back up her sleeve.
"Well! Be sure it doesn't happen again." McGonagall said as she turned back to the board and tried to regain her previous train of thought. After a moment she picked up the lecture right where she'd left off.
"Thanks." I breathed to James once the professor had started talking again.
He just smiled innocently, then winked, and handed me a quill, some ink, and a bit of parchment so that I could start taking notes. I unscrewed the cap, dipped the quill, and tried to write the gist of what McGonagall was saying. Unfortunately, my plan to regain normality was foiled. My hands were shaking so badly that you couldn't read the letters and I felt angry tears welling up in my eyes. Why did I freeze up like that? It was absolutely awful, like I couldn't even force myself to move. And now all I wanted was for things to go back to normal and my stupid hand wouldn't even write the words I was telling it to write. Nothing like this had happened to me since before that time after OWLs in fifth year when I had screamed at James in front of a large portion of the school for playing that nasty prank on Severus Snape. Before that day I'd been the girl who often went wide-eyed and shook her head when a professor even thought about calling on her. Once I'd gotten lost as a small child and legitimately forgotten my own name; the London beefeater had thought I was a mute. But since the day I'd lost my temper in fifth year I'd found some sort of hidden trickle of gumption, a trickle that had apparently dried up this morning.
James must have noticed something was wrong when he glanced over at me, likely because I was shaking the bench with my trembling (although thankfully that was dying down now). James took the quill from me and took my hand firmly in his, lacing our fingers together. He gave a big squeeze and started taking notes for me. He was obviously taking them for me because James Potter never bothered to take notes. I learned through a painstaking process of writing things down and looking back over them later; James simply had to listen one time and not even when the professor said it. He had kept his grades up in early years solely by listening to Remus Lupin study rather than actually paying attention in classes. I was forever jealous of that fact.
Today, for the first time in our Hogwarts career, James Potter was taking notes. And they weren't shitty haphazard notes either. James was painstakingly taking notes that could have been mine. Well, if his loopy calligraphy-like handwriting suddenly morphed into my tight cursive. Professor McGonagall temporarily lost her train of thought for a second time when she caught sight of this minor miracle. When he noticed her awestruck gaze, his eyes flicked to me for a split second as if answering an unasked question. McGonagall's gaze swept over me quickly and she gave a slight nod as she seamlessly returned to her lecture. Apparently the idea that James Potter was taking for Lily Evans didn't cause the alarm that James Potter taking notes for his own use apparently did.
"I love you." I whispered to him as the class broke into partners to practice the spell McGonagall had been lecturing us about. That was it. The three words had tumbled out magically with absolutely no effort; after I'd literally spent weeks trying to force the words out of my mouth. No stutter either, which was, frankly, a miracle after the stuttering mess I'd been about ten minutes previously. I was shocked that I'd said it, as I hadn't planned to say anything at all. I suppose James' master plan had worked after all.
James was completely floored by these words finally coming when he'd so little expected them. His eyebrows shot up and his jaw dropped, earning him a couple of strange looks from fellow students who noticed this reaction before he'd smoothed it over. I was relieved he'd managed to recover from the shock so quickly, as I knew I'd feel self-conscious if that expression had stayed on his face a moment longer. Now he grinned in an easy manner and just went, "I know." And I would never struggle to say those three little words to him again.