Lily Evans walked through the empty corridor idly, wishing that she were not alone on her rounds tonight. Normally she patrolled with the Head Boy who also happened to be her boyfriend, James Potter. But tonight he was off supporting his werewolf friend Remus Lupin Merlin only knew where, doing Merlin only knows what.
"It's probably illegal." Lily reminded herself quietly. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth, she hadn't meant to speak out loud at all. She looked around fearfully for a moment before remembering that nobody else was out of their dorms at this time of night. She lowered her hands and thought of what she and James would be talking about if he were with her right now. She decided to sit in the middle of the hallway like they did sometimes to talk.
She lay back on the cool ground and stared up at the castle ceiling, finding herself amazed that centuries of school children hadn't stuck more gum to the roof. She had been noticing little things like that more since she had started dating James. He always noticed the little stuff, like when she got a paper cut in class, or when she wore a different necklace than the one she normally did.
Patrols felt almost lonely without his presence. She pulled herself up off the ground and continued walking. She nodded as she passed the Grey Lady, the ghost of Ravenclaw. Lily found herself wondering where the ghost was off to at such a late hour. Was she perhaps meeting a fellow ghost for a secret rendezvous in the middle of the night? Lily was sure that James would bet she was in love with Peeves, but Lily decided that the Grey Lady and Nearly Headless Nick would make a handsome couple. She supposed that ghosts felt love and such, as she had once had a discussion with Nick about feelings. Nick said most students didn't bother being concerned with what the ghosts thought because they didn't think of the ghosts as being people with feelings. But they were once people too, and they had the whole range of feelings, perhaps more so than their live counterparts. She remembered to tell James about that conversation later, he would find it interesting. Perhaps if she saw Nick, she'd ask him about it so that she'd have more to tell James.
Lily turned the corner and stopped for a second to study the tapestry that hid a shortcut to the Potions room. It was really quite pretty. She had never bothered to stop and look at it before, because she was always in a horrid rush to get to Potions as it was her earliest class of all. She had a free first Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but Tuesday and Thursday she was always dashing to get to Potions on time. Lily decided she could wake up a tad earlier on the two days a week she had Potions so that she wouldn't have to rush so much. James had once told her to slow down, that she wasn't appreciating life enough but just going along for the ride. He was right, but she wouldn't ever admit that to him.
The Quidditch Pitch glowed in the light of the full moon as she looked at in out the window. Lily thought about how graceful James was when he was flying and how nothing could replace that joy on his face that was so evident when he was flying. She loved to watch him fly, and would sneak out to Quidditch practices to watch the team flying zooming around the pitch. James was always so focused at practice, the opposite of what his usual attention span was. He could focus for long periods of time on something that he loved and pour all his efforts into that one thing, but there were so many other things that he brushed away impatiently. He had poured all his efforts into their relationship for six years before she had finally decided he wasn't just an annoyance, and slowly developed the same feelings for him. Lily smiled; the sight of the pitch reminded her of James' crooked smile that was reserved just for her. How she loved to see him smile.
Lily sighed happily, in a matter of moments the patrol had taken a complete change of direction. Now that she was thinking of James, the corridors seemed to fly by and Lily realized that she was halfway done. She wondered idly when James would come back from his adventures with Remus and the other Marauders. She decided to wait up for him in the common room, hoping to talk with him for a second before she sent him up to get some sleep. She wanted her goodnight kiss.
Lily was nearly to Gryffindor Tower when she realized that she was humming. She never hummed! What was that tune? She thought for a minute; it was the one that James had turned up on the radio one day when they were sitting in his room working on homework. He had laughed and told her it reminded him of her. She smiled to herself at the memory. She couldn't remember when she had ever been this happy before.
"Shh, Violet!" The Fat Lady hissed as Lily approached the final corner. "Let's watch the two lovebirds. They're so obviously in love; I just know it's the real deal. Lily Evans is a changed woman now that he's in her life. I believe I actually hear her humming!"
Lily, however, was no longer humming. She had stopped with one foot around the corner, her mind in overdrive at something The Fat Lady had said. She and James were 'so obviously in love'? Lily thought about it carefully. He did make her happy and she could never spend too much time with him. The way she felt about James was different than the way she had ever felt about anyone else before. Suddenly it was obvious to Lily too, and she wanted to sing and dance rather than hum. She was in love with James Potter! She practically skipped the remainder of the way down the corridor and threw the password into her grateful thanks to The Fat Lady who looked overwhelmed but proud of herself for whatever it was Lily was so grateful for.
Lily dashed up the stairs to the boys' dormitory to be sure that James wasn't back yet, but the beds were all empty. She sat briefly on the stairs, but she was too excited to stay in one place, so she stood up and skipped through the room, looking at everything there possibly was to look at. She tried to distract herself with chess or a book, but she jumped up excitedly at every little creak, hoping it was James coming back. Finally she settled down in front of the fire, and she slowly drifted off into a sleep filled with dreams of James.
"Lily?" James said tentatively, shaking her gently, "Lily, love, wake up."
She opened her eyes slowly and took in how tired he looked; and then the feeling came rushing back and she remembered why she had wanted to stay up to meet him. "James!" She threw herself into his arms, knocking him over backwards so that they both ended up on the floor.
"Oof." He grunted, but he smiled at her. "You needn't have been so worried."
"I wasn't worried." Lily sat up and pulled James' arm until he was sitting up and looking at her. "I wanted to tell you something."
"Lily, it's three in the morning." James frowned, "What could you possibly have to tell me that couldn't wait until morning?"
"I love you." Lily said quickly, but while he was still talking.
He froze and blinked at her. "I don't think you said what I think you said."
Lily took both his hands and squeezed them, looking into his eyes so that there could be no question. "James Potter, I'm in love with you."
"Oh, no, that's what I thought you said." He blinked once as her words sunk in.
"You don't love me." Lily said, the happy look quickly fading off her face. She tried to let go of his hands, but he wouldn't let her.
"No, Lily, that's not it at all." James suddenly started laughing. Lily barely managed to keep herself from going into hysterics, for she assumed he was laughing at her declaration of love.
"I don't think this is the slightest bit funny." Lily said, her voice much higher than usual from the strain of trying to keep herself under control. "And if you think it is, then I'm going to bed and I don't think I'll want to see you tomorrow."
"No Lily," James pulled her back towards him, not allowing her to go anywhere. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her passionately. "I love you so much."
"Then why are you laughing?" Lily wailed, failing to keep total composure.
"See, Lily, the funny part is that we figured it out on the same night. As an animagus you feel things more potently than you otherwise would. Something reminded me of you and suddenly it was hard for me to think of anything else, that's how consumed by my love for you I felt at that moment. Love, I'm laughing because I was worried about telling you my discovery too early and scaring you. You, however, had no such fears."
"Of course not, because I know you feel the same way." Lily kissed his jaw, suddenly feeling very calm and safe in his arms. "James, you get this look of joy on your face when you're flying; that's the same way you look at me. You're obviously deeply in love with me. Everybody can tell."
"Who is this everybody?" James asked, kissing me lightly. "I didn't think we were that obvious about our feelings. After all, we didn't even know."
"The Fat Lady and her friend Violet were talking about it." Lily admitted. She touched his face gently. "You're exhausted; you should sleep."
"I want to be with you." James whispered. "Come to bed with me."
"You'll be too distracted to get any sleep." Lily argued faintly.
"I'm going to be distracted anyway, thinking about how much I love you." James pouted. "I'll miss you."
"Okay, I'll come to bed with you." Lily kissed him quickly. "Let me change."
"No, you can wear my clothes." James kissed her languidly. "I bet you look damn sexy wearing my shirt."
"You don't think it's too much?" Lily asked as James scooped her up off the floor. "Admitting we love each other and having our first sleep over in the same night?"
"I don't think you'll ever be too much." James laughed softly as he walked up the stairs. He set Lily on the bed, closed the drapes, and climbed in after her. He kissed Lily slowly and then winked. "Don't worry about making too much noise, either. I've had the drapes soundproofed for ages; Sirius snores like a troll."
Later, when both lay with their arms around the other on the brink of sleep, Lily lay her head gently on James' bare chest. His fingers lightly traced patterns on her bare back.
"Goodnight James." She breathed.
"Goodnight Lily." He murmured as they both drifted off to sleep.