Disclaimer and A/N: My ownership of these characters and canon is akin to my certified Hogwarts letter: as desperately as I've always wanted it, I've never had it and never will. All I own is the writing below and a lot of love to J.K. Rowling for her vision.

And without further ado...

Once he'd had time to process the sight: of a clean-faced Gryffindor prefect amidst the dingy haze of Britain's most notorious pub, he understood. The shock wasn't merely that she was there. It was that she seemed like she intended to be there—her face was calm as she lazily circled a long finger along the rim of her glass, seemingly unbothered by the glass's dirt, the suspicious package being exchanged between two hags in the corner, or the horned wizard leering at her from four seats away.

He knew he should leave her be. She had that look witches get, when you're more likely to get a hex than a hello. She clearly wouldn't have come here on a school night if she'd wanted to be found. Besides, poking a sleeping dragon in the eye was James's style, not his. He should walk away and never mention it.

But alas—he was bored.

"All right, Evans?"

She didn't look up, but he did detect a small sigh. "Go away, Black."

"Lovely to see you too," he quipped with a wink.

"Can I help you?"

"More like can I help you." She finally turned to him, and he met her narrowed and nonplussed eyes with unchecked mirth. "I could help you identify the misfits and miscreants you're so clearly here to bust? Vous avez l'air d'être une… what do the Muggles call it? Narc?"

She glared. He grinned.

"May I join you?"

"No."

"One gin and gillywater please, double," Sirius called out as he eased himself into the stool next to her. He flashed a smile at the young blonde witch who assisted the old innkeeper some nights. The girl blushed as red as Evans's hair and immediately set to bustling behind the bar. Sirius didn't need to look over to see Lily scowl.

"So. How go things, Evans?"

Lily stared determinedly ahead and answered only with a sip of her amber whisky.

"Like that, eh? Fair enough. Me, I spent the past several hours in the sodding dungeons. Slughorn is taking the piss, really, giving a month's detention for a simple—"

"Nothing with the two of you is ever simple."

"The two of us?" Sirius took a sip of his drink and slid two Sickles over at the still-blushing bartender. "No love, this was all me; James was being a good boy…Quidditch practise, or prefect duties, or some other bollocks." He waggled an eyebrow at her. "Care to hear what I got up to all on my lonesome?"

"I'm aching with anticipation."

"I'm sure you are. Alas—" Sirius downed a large gulp—"you'll have to wait a few minutes." He swept a pipe out of his coat and rose to his feet. "I'll be back right after my smoke." He winked. "Try not to miss me."

"…It's the Hog's Head. Quite sure you can smoke inside."

A small smirk tugged at the corner of Sirius's mouth. "So you would miss me?"

She blinked—long and deliberately, her dark lashes seeming to whisper a painful curse at him as they brushed her cheek.

Sirius chuckled. "Don't worry, I'll excuse myself. I wouldn't want to sully your air, madam," he drawled, gesturing ironically at the pungent fog surrounding them.

Lily stared up at him through the flinty green slits to which he'd reduced her eyes for yet another time that night. Sirius repressed a smile. He wasn't a lovesick nob like James, but he could see why his best friend enjoyed getting this reaction out of her – she was so expressive, and at the very least, had very pretty eyes. But her eyes held his interest in particular this time because they radiated no anger, nor irritation. She'd fixed him with a searching, almost appraising look… not unlike the one she gave that barn mouse last week when, after five tries, it wouldn't Vanish during a particularly difficult Transfiguration lesson.

Right before she set it on fire.

"You think you have me all figured out, don't you?" She didn't break the gaze, instead staring up at him while he furrowed his brows at her.

Suddenly her face split into a smirk. "Sit back down."

"Wh –"

"I said sit."

He sat.

She continued to smile that strange smile. "Now pass the pipe."

"Excuse –"

"Pass the pipe please," she said, smiling even more widely, with several theatrical bats of her long eyelashes.

Bemused, Sirius handed over the hand-carved oak pipe. In one smooth movement, Lily swept the pipe from his palm up to her mouth as she pulled out her wand.

Realising what she was about to do, Sirius began to laugh. "Evans… don't be ridiculous. There's no need to… prove anything…"

Lily ignored him and tapped the pipe with her wand.

"I'm serious, Evans. That's strong stuff in there, and you'll only make yourself sick –"

His words were cut short by the cloud of perfectly circular rings of blue smoke that Lily blew blithely into his face. The smoke cleared to reveal Lily's eyes coolly challenging his, with slightly raised brows. "You were saying?"

He gaped at her. The second cloud revived his powers of speech—partially.

"Um… I just didn't… I didn't know that you…"

"That I what? Sneak down to the kitchens sometimes for a late-night butty? Forget to do my Charms homework and then convince Professor Flitwick we didn't have any? Have snuck firewhisky into the girls' dormitory since fourth year? Know how to smoke a big bad pipe?"

She smirked and took a large swig of the firewhisky at that, swallowing without a flinch. She fixed her devilish grin on him again so suddenly that her hair flew across her face; she ran her hand through the tousled mane and Sirius found his eyes following her fingers.

"Fuckin hell, we've got ourselves a real serious question now," she said in mock graveness. "What will you do with this newfound knowledge, Mister 'Prefect'? Going to put me in detention? Tell McGonagall? The headmaster? Oh please, no, no, please don't take points from Gryffindor!"

Lily let out a wicked giggle and tossed her head back gleefully, letting the ruby waves fall down her back as she puffed several more rings into the faintly orange air of the pub, like clouds rising against a sunset. She tilted her head ever so slightly so that her large green eyes met his, sparkling with mischief and—flecks of gold, he noticed, mesmerised. With the blue rings still forming from her pink mouth, she looked like a rainbow.

"So," she drawled. "What exactly do you get up to all on your lonesome?"

Years later in the darkness of his Azkaban cell, it was still that image Sirius recalled at the thought of Lily Evans Potter: an image as bright as a rainbow, as vivid as though it were last night, as alive as though it were a photograph.

It was nothing compared to what came after. But… fifteen years after he and James had first laid eyes on her on the Hogwarts Express; five years after he'd last kissed her pale cheek as he walked out of hers and James's door, mere weeks before his whole world collapsed… well, he could never forget the first time he ever really saw Lily Evans.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Either way, please leave a review. Even if it's just to tell me to fuck off; at least I'll know that you a) read it and b) cared enough to say something xx