a/n: a short dumb thing dedicated to kitty because she said she liked married couples but theyre not married yet so lets just pretend she said pre-married jily

(ps headcanon teenage james is naturally as angsty as harry when alone)

It was not a Saturday when he saw her again.

Since it was not a Saturday, but a Friday, he was wearing his only pair of muggle jeans and his school button up. Since it was not a Saturday, he was not out with his friends or down by the lake or out devising a plan for the start of the week, but inside his room, doom and gloom about nothing in particular. Since it was not a Saturday, or a full moon, there was no need for the invisibility cloak or a rucksack full of bandages, but only his wand and imagination to dream up of nothing in particular.

Somehow, he had noticed, nothing good ever happened on the third Friday of the month. Last time had been the Incident with Snape and bubbles and Lily Evan's words of hate, and the month before had been his near-suspension because of that one Slytherin prank that had gone awry. Three months prior, he had just received the news that his cousin had died from a Death Eater raid, and four months ago, he had discovered that his parents couldn't come home for Christmas because of Auror business, and he acted like he didn't care for any of those instances, because that was what was expected of James bloody Potter.

That day, he was bracing himself for the worst, because so far nothing good has happened on the third Friday of the month.

And something bad did happen, but not to him.

Sirius had just come up to their dorm and began howling, wiping pseudo tears from his face, claiming that he had just pulled an A class prank that his best mate would enjoy thoroughly. Eyes lighting up, James poked and prodded, forgetting completely about the Potter Curse with 3rd Fridays.

Surprisingly, the moment Sirius opened his mouth to tell what happened, James' excitement flushed down and withered away.

"You did what to her?"

There was no moment in time that James Potter did not love Lily Evans. From the moment he met her on the train, there was always a part of him that had solely belonged to her, and her only. It was desperate, and there was so, so many times he longed to rip it out of her and take it back, because it was just not fair—that she couldn't even look at him with those pretty green eyes and smile as genuinely as she did to anyone else. Fair wasn't real in that world anymore, was it?

He had never felt so angry at his best friend before that moment, and it was only later did he realize he shouldn't have been at all. For years his friends had been trying to pull him out of that hole, as big or small as it may have been, putting him on those stupid dates with those stupid girls. And he did want to get rid of whatever he felt towards That Girl, but it just came tumbling back the next moment he'd hear her laugh or see her breathe. It was just another kind of curse spelled on him.

So he ran.

He ran and ran and ran, not knowing where he was going, except that he had always found her before, and that streak wasn't going to end tonight. He loved her and loved her and loved her and it was going to come spilling out his capillaries and the roots of his hair if he wasn't going to tell her within the next cycle of his life.

James found her at the top of the Astronomy tower, wiping her face with a blanket of stars.

(You know that kind of love where it's not even the kind where you think about them and you smile, but the kind where you look at them and want to cry because they're so beautiful and unreachable?)

"Lily," His voice wasn't the same. It didn't sound like the boy who played with explosives or dealt with werewolves, but a tiny boy whose hand was cut by a broken glass because he wasn't careful and it had fallen apart the moment he touched it.

"Hello, James."

And, as if the universe above them shattered like the voice of James Potter, they both fell deeper and deeper into what is known as love.