Boggarts
Words: 1610
Couple: Lily Evans and James Potter
Generation: The Marauder's Era
Book: Harry Potter
Disclaimer: All characters that you recognise belong to J.K. Rowling, the prompt is credited below.
Credit to admin '~hermy' on the Facebook page, '"I love hearing Mum shout at someone else, it creates a nice feeling"-Fred' for posting the HeadCanon that inspired this, though I changed some of the original HeadCanon to fit this.
Set their sixth year.

…

"Boggarts! Can you tell me what they are?" Professor Charles Wilkinson asked, smiling over the sixth year Defence Against the Dark Arts students in front of him.

Two hands rose instintaniously, and that was no surprise to their fellow students. None of them really cared as to what the answer was, but they all enjoyed the intense competition between the two students.

"I see that Mr. Potter and Miss Evans are the only ones who do not think that just because it is the last week of term before you leave for Christmas holidays, that they can slack off," the older man said, sighing, "what are they Miss Evans?"
"They are a shape-shifting creature that takes form of the viewer's worst fear," she answered simply, smiling proudly as the professor grinned.
"Exactly that Miss Evans! Ten points to Gryffindor!"

The few Gryffindor students in the small class smiled, but when Miss Lily Evans looked over to her usual enemy for answering these questions, he rolled his eyes at her before giving her a small smile from his seat.

The female Gryffindor student tuned out from listening to the professor's explanation, having already read about Boggarts in the school year's course text books during the summer, and several more times throughout the first term. Her attention was uncharacteristically focussed on one of her least favourite topics – her strange friendship with James Potter.

No, it wasn't a friendship; it was an arranged agreenment to disagree. To her, it made all of the sense in the world, same to him, but someone on the outside of their little friendship, it seemed like two people trying their hardest – and failing – to keep up original appearences while hiding what feelings they had for each other.

That was how Hestia Jones had explained it to her best friend, adding that they weren't fooling anybody with this charade. The prefect had only shrugged the girls comment off, knowing that it was working for them, or rather working for her.

"We have a special guest with us today class," Wilkinson called over the class, drawing the classes attention the the cupboard to his right, "Professor Dumbledore has allowed us to momentarily kidnap a Boggart that had hidden itself somewhere in between Mr. Potter's and Mr. Black's school records, obviously it was finding the story of their most recent pranks quite thrilling, as it had put up a bit of a fight to be removed from the spot."
"Atleast someone appreciates our work!" Sirius Black laughed, highfiving his best friend.

The professor only shook his head slightly, before getting the class to stand and line up in front of the cupboard. Taking her place behind James Potter and in front of Remus Lupin, she turned to her fellow prefect and smiled.

"You all know the spell," the professor called over the talking that has begun quietly, "once you've faced the Boggart move on and let the next person go."

From where she stood, second last in the line of fifteen odd year six students, she watched as each of them faced the creature. The Boggart emerged from the cupboard in the form of a spider, being dealt with before it changed into a clown, then a snake, then made it look as though they were miles in the sky, about to fall. It did this as each student stepped forward at took it on, each with wavering confidence that got better seeing their fear made more tolerable.

Every member of the class was laughing, the spider having donned rollerscates and unable to move without slipping; the clown's clothes having been replaced with dresses, and the knife that it had been pulling out on the student had turned into a water gun. The snake was stretched out and tied into the shape of a balloon dog; and the sight of the ground, miles away, had become a cement footpath with children's drawings on it in chalk.

Sirius Black had laughed upon seeing the Boggart turn into a hooded cloak figure in front of him. Lily had noticed James tense up upon seeing it, obviously knowing the story behind the fear his best friend had conjured up out of the Boggart. The Black descendant had flicked his wand lazily, and the watched as the dark hooded figure melted slowly into a puddle. He gave his best friend a re-assuring smile, though she knew that there was going to be a conversation between the pair later that night.

"Good luck Prongs," he smiled, walking off towards the side before his friend stepped towards it.

She was unsure of what had happened, but whatever laughter or talking that had been echoing the room stopped, a female scream piercing the room. Lily Evans' eyes snapped to figure twitching on the groan, screaming in agony. The female's familiar red hair was sprawled out underneath her head as she continued to twitch.

"Lily," James whispered.

Lily would argue that it was the shock that had begun to drive her actions. Slipping her hand into his and pulling him to the side, letting Remus step forward to deal with what had been done. Placing a hand on either side of his face, and trying to coax him out of his feared expression.

"Lily," he repeated, eyes wide.
"I'm here. I'm right here," she assured him, "I'm right here James, right here."

Over the Chaser's shoulder, she could see Remus and Sirius sending the Boggwart back into the cupboard, to their professor's surprise, who had begun to move to do exactly that.

"I'm right here," Lily repeated, leaning into the hand that he rested against her own cheek.

Nodding slowly, his hand slipped from her cheek to holding her waist, pulling her towards him as she wrapped two arms around his neck and hugging him. Over his shoulder, she saw Remus smile lightly at the scene before walking with the Black descendant away from the pair.

"Class dismissed."

…

"I heard something happened today in D.A.D.A," Hestia Jones said, straight to the point, as she dropped into the seat beside her best friend.
"Hello to you too Hestia," she answered simply, not taking her eyes or pen off of the partchment in front of her on the coffee table in the Gryffindor Common Room.
"Want to talk about it?" Hestia pressed.
"James' greatest fear is watching me be hurt, it's no different to my fear of watching you or any of the Maraduers being hurt, what is there to talk about?"
"That his fear is seeing you get hurt," the girl smiled, "not Sirius, not Remus, not me, not Peter. You."

The female prefect looked up at her friend who only shrugged in response.

"I just think it's something I should point out, seeing as your 'agreenment' with James Potter is going so well," Hestia told her, "don't think I didn't noticed you didn't call him Potter."

Lily sighed, rolling her eyes and going back to the homework in front of her. Her best friend gave her a small smile, before telling her goodnight and making her way up to the dormitories, leaving the girl there by herself.

The quill scratched against the partchment without hesitation, it never lifted off of the partchment as she continued to describe the impact the Goblin Wars had on the Wizarding community and the roles that witches and wizards played in the time of history. It only lifted when a warmer body sat to her right, breaking her focus.

"James," she smiled, looking up at the boy who had leant his broomstick up against the edge of the couch.
"Hello Lily," he replied, smiling slightly in return.

Taking a short moment to write the short conclusion to the essay, she rolled the partchment up and put a cap on the bottle of ink and returned it all to her school bag before turning back to face the boy.

"Are you alright?" James Potter asked her slowly.
"Yeah, I am," she said, "but you aren't."
"I'm fine."
"And going out and doing laps of the Quidditch pitch in negative degree weather is normal?"
"Yes."

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly, but sighed and leant forward against him.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he whispered after a moment, slipping one arm around her waist to pull her tighter to his body.
"It's fine, we're fine, I'm here and it wasn't real," Lily told him in a murmur, closing her eyes as her head rested on his shoulder.

It wasn't real, He repeated in his head, it wasn't real. She's here. She's fine.

…

When Lily woke early the next morning, she sat up in her alarmed, but feeling a slight squeeze at her hand, she calm down slightly. Sometime during the night, someone had carried her to bed, looking down at her appearance; she found her school uniform crinkled but her school schoes tucked neatly beside her four-poster bed.

Squeezing her right hand against what ever was holding it, she turned to find James Potter lying in a desk chair beside her bed, with his invisibility cloak draped lazily over his body as he slept. Smiling, she leant over and woke him enough so that he would let her pull him up onto the bed.

"What time is it?" he asked, his voices slurred from tiredness as she pulled him to the bed.
"Barely three am," she replied simply, laying beside him.

Curled up against his body she smiled a bit more. It was an agreenment to disagree, their friendship, but that was only for now. There was a lot of agreeing to do on her part in the near future…

…

A slight drabble based of a HeadCanon posted on a Facebook page.

Mostly because I haven't posted anything Harry Potter related lately, I've been working on my Castle and NCIS: Los Angeles fics and I've been burried in homework.

So it's drabblish, well it feels it. But yeah.

You could take it as an established Jilly at the end, but it's up to you!

Thankyou!

All mistakes are mine.

Review?