Lily took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. As she heard every morning, a bell rang as the door opened, swiftly followed by a delighted cry of "Lily Evans!"
"James." Her thoroughly unenthusiastic mumble did nothing to dull the beam of one James Potter, who leaned past an amused customer.
Every morning, Lily Evans walked into London's most underappreciated coffee shop: The Marauders. It was run by four boys no older than Lily, and she couldn't stand 3 of them. Well, 2 of them. James and Sirius were unbearably arrogant, and she could scarcely breathe when she even imagined seeing either of them. Remus was wonderful. He was exactly the sort of boy her parents would have longed for her to end up with, and who she could not for the life of her imagine ending up with. Peter existed. She thought, in another life, that she might have found him very agreeable. In this life, he was wholeheartedly devoted to a group of boys who he would always look up to, and never quite live up to. She didn't despise him, but could not quite imagine herself caring for him.
Every morning, Lily Evans walked into The Marauders. Every morning, James would invite her to dinner, a "good time", or to bed. Every morning, she would dismiss him.
Others have asked her why she would continue to go to the coffee shop when she so thoroughly dreaded seeing him. And she had tried going to other places. But every morning, as she hit up different coffee shops, she would grow increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of the coffee, the number of other customers, and the lack of interesting atmosphere. Sure, James Potter sucked. Sure, if she wanted to talk to Remus, she had to go at unexpected times to keep James from switching his shift to see her. But the shop was good. Everything was just to her taste, other than the obvious. So she continued to go, dealing with every difficulty to get to the coffee.
"One large pumpkin spice latte, please." Her voice was smooth and crisp, and she was secretly pleased at how totally not rude she sounded.
"Would you like anything else with that?"
"No, James."
"Would you like a date with that?"
"No, James."
Sirius bumped his shoulder against James' as he walked past to work on Lily's order, his smirk sharp enough to cut. "Tough luck, Prongs. Giving up yet?"
James snorted, but didn't say anything. He shot Lily a crooked grin, ran his fingers through his messy hair, and took the order of the teenager behind her. Lily sneered slightly at his habit, but pushed her face into a more uncaring expression. Though her heart urged her to verbally rip him to shreds about how obnoxious she found him, she had manners. Manners that required her being gracious and generous. She grabbed her drink and glanced at the tip jars.
Narnia or Middle Earth? Lily bit her lower lip, but took only a second to push a pound into the Middle Earth jar. Sirius hummed in appreciation, and she nodded at him as she took her usual seat by the window. After a moment of admiring the green of the trees, she pulled out a copy of Emma. She let out a loud sigh of pleasure as she sipped her drink. As exhausting as just seeing James was, the drinks were worth it.
Lily sat in her office. Her office. She, Lily Evans, had her very own office. Sure, she had gotten the job 4 months ago. But she had her own office, and she worked for a company that's sole purpose was to relocate the victims of domestic abuse. As disheartening as it could be, she had a job that mattered. Who cares if it hurts when so many hurting people are healed?
She sat in her chair at her desk in her office, typing at her computer to talk to her clients. Hers. She had a life. That belonged to her. It was the first time she had had a life that totally belonged to her, utterly free from worried yet loving parents, a needy yet judgmental sister, and a devoted yet unkind ex-best-
Severus walked by, totally ignoring her. Lily suddenly felt very small, and her ears rang. She couldn't breathe. She saw his thin frame, the quickness of his step, the dark of his hair, and she couldn't breathe.
You don't care, Lily Evans. You cut him off months ago, and you don't care. You don't care if he is part of an anti-immigration group. You don't care that you thought he was different than the rest of them. You don't care that he said those terrible things about you when he was with those people. You don't care, because who you are does not depend on who he is. He didn't care about you enough to support you, so you can't care about him continue treasuring his friendship.
He didn't even look in. He hadn't looked in since a month ago, when she threw her shoes at him. Honestly, she was relieved that he had stopped, because a part of her thought that she would be unable to say no to him if he asked for her forgiveness again. It wasn't that he was a perfect friend, but he was an old friend, and her only friend. Since he had said those things, she had been all alone.
She was tired of being alone. No. She wasn't tired of being alone. She liked drinking her latte in silence. She enjoyed dancing to music alone in her apartment, and reading books by herself. But when she saw mothers walking with their children in the park, or sisters linking arms as they shopped, she found that she was growing weary. She had even, God forbid, grown jealous of those Marauders. She may enjoy being alone, but she didn't fancy being lonely.
"Oi, Evans? Ever imagined what the inside of my apartment looks like? It would look even better with you inside."
"I assure you, James, I spend more of my time imagining ripping off one of my arms and beating you with it."
Lily continued sipping her coffee, but a bit of the drink spilled past the corners of her mouth as she grinned at Mr. Knightley's admission of love. There will always be hope if you want to get with me, Knightley. We can get past the decades long age difference.
A napkin landed on her lap, and she looked up in surprise. James was wiping the table next to her, and he smiled at her.
"You know, Evans, you are the first girl I've ever been into that hasn't properly figured out how to drink out of a cup."
She rolled her eyes, but gestured to the front of the book. "It's Mr. Knightley. He's just jaw-dropping. No sane woman could drink successfully after this scene." He peered down at her book, but shrugged.
"I've never heard of it." She gaped at him, and shoved the book into his hands without thinking.
"Read it. You simply have to read it. It's my favorite book."
He looked at the cover, looked at her, and dashed back behind the counter. He ducked down, and she could only see his floppy black hair for a moment before he popped back up. He pushed his own small book into her hands.
"It's A Study in Scarlet. It's my favorite book. My coffee-reading book. If I read yours, you can read mine." She looked at him thoughtfully before nodding.
"Yeah, okay." She stood to leave, but paused when he called back after her.
"Are you interested in coming to the Weekly Saturday Movie Night with the boys?"
"I actually can't, I'm supposed to help my aunt's seal floss his teeth." He looked at her with interest, but gave a surprised laugh when she smirked at him.
As she left the shop, it occurred to her that she felt weird. Not weird weird. Maybe… full? Less empty? For the first time since him, she didn't feel alone. She just felt sort of warm.
Lily walked into The Marauders at noon, picking orange leaves from her darker red hair. Remus was at the counter, and he shot her a tired grin. She gave him her order, but stayed by the counter after he had given it to her. The generally slow store was even less busy than usual, so she could sit with her friend and catch up. She waited for him to finish with a customer, reading through the day's tip jar options.
Bert or Ernie? She snorted, pulled a pound out of her coin purse, and dropped it into the Bert jar. That wasn't even a question.
"How have you been, Remus? It's been a while." He gave a soft laugh, and she glanced up at him in confusion.
"You ask whatever you want, Lily. But don't expect me to answer questions you don't vocalize."
She sighed, her heart already aching. "Still HIV, or AIDS?"
He nodded in appreciation. "Good, Lily. I do like my friends being straightforward. HIV. We still have time."
She smiled at the news, and her smile exploded into exuberance when she considered the rest. Friends. Not Severus, but maybe something better.
She remembered part of the reason she had come. "Oh! Is James going to be in today? He wasn't here this morning."
Remus raised his eyebrows at her. "No, James is on vacation this week. Why? Did you want him to be here?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "I need to give him something." Lily pulled his book from her purse and set it on the counter.
"That's James' favorite book. It was his father's favorite book. He really let you borrow this?" When Lily gave him a confused look, he proceeded to explain James' family history. Apparently, James was born to two very kind, very old, very wealthy people. As is to be expected from such a family, James was very spoiled and very loved. His father had a dangerous job, so James spent his childhood dreading his father's death, and spent every moment soaking in his presence. He had been so prepared to lose his father in a dreadful way that he was blindsided by losing him to old age. James was not prepared for the loss, and had trouble coping. His father was a role model in life, and an idol in death.
"He gave you his father's favorite book. He shared his father with you. And I thought you hated each other." Lily didn't say anything. She couldn't say anything. She had given him her favorite book, too. Why did she do that? She had hated him. Right?
James had come back a week later, significantly tanner and more culturally educated than he had been when he left. He had raved about her book, exclaiming about Frank's nerve, his surprise about the secret engagement, his delight at Emma and Knightley's long overdue romance. Lily never told him so, but she suspected he was overselling his enjoyment. He certainly hadn't hated it, but she thought perhaps he just enjoyed talking to her about it. She had reread his book three times, unable to forget what Remus had said. He was sharing with her. It shouldn't have mattered, since she didn't like him. But somehow, it did. She had missed intimacy. Severus had never wanted to understand what she loved about Jane Austen's novels, but James wanted to understand her. The knowledge was appealing, and somewhat addicting.
After trading those first two books, they had continued to swap literature, discussing opinions on his breaks and during her lunch hour. She had slowly increased the number of times she visited from once a day to two or three times a day. They told her about buying a coffee shop to rub it in the Black family's face that Sirius didn't need them, and how it had succeeded. She learned about Peter's crush on Mary, the newspaper vendor outside. She memorized Remus's doctor appointment schedule. She had grown a somewhat shaky friendship with Sirius, founded on sarcasm and a mutual disrespect for James. Good-humored disrespect, but all the same.
"Oi, Evans, I need a favor." She looked at Sirius in surprise. He plopped down across from her, drumming his fingers against the table. "James' birthday is this weekend."
"That is true, Black. But alas, that isn't a favor. Sorry."
"Ah, but you can make it into a real birthday bash. His birthday falls on our weekly movie night, as I'm sure you recall." Lily, of course, could recall being invited to several, and nodded. "Since you are apparently one of his best friends or his secret mistress, I want you to come and surprise him. He'd go nuts. If you don't come, Pete will be the only possible lover there. We can't have that."
Lily made a noncommittal sound. "I'll think about it. No promises." She got up to leave, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at the thought of seeing them outside of The Marauders. She dropped a pound into a tip jar (of course she chose Star Wars over Star Trek), then left the little shop she had grown so fond of.
"Hey Lily? Fancy hitting up the food truck after my shift?"
"No, James, I don't like eating. Anything. Ever. Sorry."
Lily paced outside of the apartment. Sirius had emailed her the address, and she had shown up. She had been about to ring in, but panicked before she could. This felt like a big step. Was it a big step?
If two roads are diverging in a wood anywhere, it must be here. Calm down, Lily. These are your friends. They might actually like you. They might not even be racist. I should raise my standards.
She paced some more, looking anywhere that wasn't the door. She looked at the sky, the snowman by the building with two heads, and her eyes froze on a pole a few steps away. She stalked over to it and ripped off a flier with Severus's phone number on it. She drank in the sight of his advertisement for a fricking anti-immigration rally. She remembered when he started going to them, assuring her that it didn't mean anything, and that he didn't plan to do anything, or say anything.
Explain that, Sev.
She balled the paper up and tossed it into a garbage nearby. With her head held high, Lily Evans walked up to James Potter's apartment and away from thought of Severus Snape one last time. She watched movies with her boys, no longer caring about what she had lost. She laughed without reserve, spoke without fear, and did not hesitate to kiss James on the cheek as she left. Lily may have pretended to not hear the ecstatic cheers as she closed the door, but she couldn't push away the silly grin and butterflies that came with the sound.
Lily had gone to The Marauders pretty early. Well, really early. She beat the boys there as she waited for it to open. There wasn't a reason, exactly. She just wanted to see them. Especially James. She had finished another book of his: Ender's Game. It had been a bit too long winded for her taste, but she wanted to hear his thoughts. Now that she thought about it, she always wanted to hear his thoughts. And his words. And see his face, and hear his laugh, and watch his hands flail as he spoke. Ever since his birthday a month before, she had just wanted James. He still asked her out, but it never felt that serious. It was a serious matter for her, but perhaps just a friendly tradition for him. If so, she couldn't just say yes. That would be a mortifying thing to explain away. Lily was great with words, given the field of work she was in. She had to be able to speak with ease and care, but she had no clue what words could salvage a friendship marred by a crush. So she waited and longed and watched, willing to endure a lifetime of unrequited affection so long as he was near her.
By the time James arrived to unlock the door, she had been sitting for an hour, fully conscious of how pathetic it was. She had no clue when he would show up, so she had figured she could wait. After all, she wouldn't want to miss a moment of alone time. He seemed thoroughly surprised, but not at all displeased. He beamed at her as he let her inside. He laughed with her as she helped him wipe down the counter. He gave her soft smiles as he made her a coffee. She sat on top of the counter, totally aware that it was in no way sanitary and that he would in no way be willing to tell her to move. He carefully wrote down the tip jar topics of the day, but shielded them from her view when she attempted to peer over his large, wonderful shoulders. Goodness, she had fallen fast.
He finally turned with them and slowly pushed them over to her. She hesitated before reading them, surprised by how vulnerable his eyes looked.
Go out with James Potter or be friends with James Potter?
She looked at his face again, and he ran his fingers through his unruly hair. She was struck by how long it had been since she had seen him do that. He was nervous. She hadn't made him nervous in months. This mattered. It wasn't just a joke. If she wanted him, he would be hers. She did like having her own things, and he had practically owned her for months. This wasn't even a question.
She bit her lip, slowly rummaged through her coin purse for a pound, and put it in the jar that read date. She had no doubt in her mind that she would be happy with her decision as his hazel eyes lit up, meeting her green ones. She would never have a doubt about it in the future, either.