Love, she decides, is the moments she spends reflecting on the beauty that surrounds the pair of their bodies while he lies next to her. It is when she glances over at him and realizes he has been looking at her the entire time, the most content of smiles on his face. It is the moment just before he kisses her, when his eyes cloud with desire and his hands become unrestrained and free. It is important, she realizes, to record these thoughts that flutter through her mind like moths flying past a flickering bulb in darkness. It is necessary to have a record of these feelings that fill their transient bodies before they perish like paper-thin substance exposed to a flame.
She reckons that she must have first fallen in love with him some time in October of their Seventh Year, when the air was cold and their breath could be seen in the air, clouding their mouths while they lie on the crisp grass, his hand clutching hers as he points to the stars that shine so far from their own shining faces.
"You see that group that makes sort of a T shape? That's Cygnus, the swan."
She is fascinated by the enthusiasm with which he points out constellations, his face aglow in the pale moonlight. She tells him she can't quite find Cygnus, and her heart feels ready to burst when he presses his cheek to hers and points up at the sky with his arm in her line of vision so that she can find the cluster of stars.
He turns his head a fraction of an inch when she exclaims, "Found it!" and suddenly she is sure he will kiss her. He does not disappoint her. His lips press against hers gently and his arms move so that they are wrapped around her. His mouth urges hers open and she feels his tongue push against her own. He breaks away from her and in the moment before he speaks she realizes how alive she feels, as if he had awakened something within her that had merely been lying dormant, waiting for the opportunity to burst through her veins and flood her being with a sense of completion and radiating joy.
"Lily," he speaks. "I really like spending time with you." She smiles, brilliant and luminescent.
"Would you like to spend more time with me, James?" she asks. He nods.
"Good."
Her mother told her not to fall in love when she was still so young, but it was easy to say things like that when there wasn't a pair of warm hazel eyes burning into her skin from his position next to her at the breakfast table. Their friends sit across from them, but everyone (everyone but him) drops from her plane of existence when she feels his hand on her thigh, so oddly confident and delightfully assertive. She glances at him for a mere second and is caught in the snare of his gaze, unable to take her eyes off him.
Minutes later they are in his dorm, not even worried about missing their first class, and his lips are on her neck as his hands fumble with the buttons of her shirt. His hands brush against her breasts as his mouth follows. There is no thought; there is feeling. There is nothing but raw emotion and bright bursts of light that flash in front of her vision as his mouth moves down, down, down and suddenly her very soul is on fire.
And there is a different type of fire that burns with a fierce intensity when she yells at him, because God damn it if he doesn't royally piss her off at times. They yell and shout and she wishes she could turn off her feelings for him because maybe things would be easier then, if he didn't have to deal with the troubles that came with her blood status, the criticism hurled at his family and the danger he puts himself in just by being seen with her.
When she is feeling particularly overwhelmed with emotion she records the feeling and thoughts that fill her and boil over, erupting with ink onto paper. She reflects on and records these feelings of greatest love, because she is sure that it is important— that it is necessary.
The first time she decided to write anything down was sometime in January of their last year at Hogwarts. She had been sitting at the desk in her Head's dorm while James slept in her bed, having not yet woken up for the morning. She hears him stir but continues to write, her quill scratching against the crisp parchment. She senses that he is behind her— can smell him and feel his presence. He wraps his arms around her from behind, enveloping her, protecting her.
"What are you writing?" he mumbles, traces of sleep still evident in his voice. "Are you honestly doing homework on a Saturday morning?"
She laughs. "It's not homework, I promise. I'm writing about us."
"Can I read it?" he asks.
"When I'm finished."
He nods and begins to bury his face against her neck, his breath warm on her skin. His lips dance across her skin as he moves to kiss her earlobe.
She inhales sharply and puts down her quill.
His lips are sucking at the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, and she begins to feel a familiar tension blossoming within her. She turns her head and catches his mouth with hers, her lips moving against his with intensity and urgency as his hands trail down to cup her breasts.
She rises from the chair and suddenly has him pushed against a wall, her hands pulling down his boxers. She slides down his form until she is on her knees in front of him, and he is moaning and tugging at her hair as her mouth teasingly kisses his inner thighs and hip bones. When she takes him in her mouth he cries out, and after a few moments he pulls away and kneels beside her on the floor.
"I need to be inside you," he says as his hands remove her clothing with fervor. He lays her down on the floor. His fingers move up her thigh until they are at her entrance, and she moans his name over and over. She can't think straight when he positions himself on top of her, when she feels his skin moving against hers. She has to bite down on his shoulder to keep from crying out and possibly waking the entire castle when he thrusts in to her. He is rough with her, gripping her hips as he brings her closer to release, and when she finishes she does cry out, her nails digging into the skin on his back and leaving little crescent moon indents there. He is repeating her name over and over as he climaxes, and he holds her face in his hands and kisses her as he moves off of her, his mouth tasting like sweat and fire and passion.
The sex is always this way, she thinks as she lies on his bare chest. At times she would describe it as lovemaking and at times she would call it fucking, but it was always the same. A physical confirmation of their love and passion for each other. A promise to one another.
She remembers vividly the night she lost her virginity to him— she had listened to him whisper he loved her in her ear while also listening to the sound of rain on his dormitory window. He had moved slowly, trying both to restrain himself and to not hurt her. She remembers looking into his eyes and feeling as if her soul was crying out, telling him that she belonged to him. She remembers the tears in his eyes that were present as they lied in bed when they were finished, and she remembers his explanation for them.
"I've never loved anyone but you. I never knew what it was like…to— to love someone like that."
In May, when they have finished their NEWTs and the weather is turning warm she invites him to her sister's wedding. She watches him laughing and dancing with a group of her cousins, and she is overwhelmed by the boyish charm that seems to put everyone he comes into contact with under a spell.
When she is driving them from the reception hall to her house he turns in his seat to look at her and says, "Let's get married."
She smiles at him. "You're insane."
He grins broadly at her.
And when the horrors of war surrounded them—when death was a hair's breadth from them at any given time, when danger was real and they could no longer hide behind the protective walls of Hogwarts, when attending the funerals of the friends who had fought by their side became a regular occurrence, when hiding became their only option—Lily only had to write to remember their night beneath the stars, to remember when happiness was easy and love was new and bright. And sometimes, when she was lucky, she would see those stars reflected back at her in James's eyes.