DISCLAIMER: Lily and James's last words and the one-line descriptions of their deaths were taken directly from HPDH 17: "Bathilda's Secret." Those segments as well as the overall concept and world of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling; I take no credit. Cover art by anxiouspineapples.
The WIP updates are coming! In the meantime, here's a drabble/one-shot hybrid that's been on my mind. It's probably going to make you feel awful. Sorry, but I wasn't about to go down alone. The formatting's experimental; not hard to figure out, but keep an open mind here – it was the right way to tell the story as it was in my head.
Fall For You
You're my backbone, you're my cornerstone
You're my crutch when my legs stop moving
You're my head start, you're my rugged heart
You're the pulse that I've always needed
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum my heart never stops beating
I love you long after you're gone, gone, gone…
– Phillip Phillips –
When they died, they were blind to the flash of green light that consumed them. They were numb to selfish worry for their own safety. The words they had so often spoken to each other rang in their heads, playing on repeat in a defensive maneuver to block out the words that would spell their inevitable deaths: Harry. Save Harry.
Meanwhile, they acquiesced to their humanity and left their wands behind.
"To have –"
A band of gold encircled a finger.
"– and to hold."
A band of gold encircled another.
Their fingers caught, intertwined, and clung. Their smiles – uncontainable, face-splitting, goofy, in love – met.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
Husband and wife ran into the front hall. He stopped while she fled upstairs, disappearing in an echo of their son's laughter, a flash of crimson hair and the lingering scent of strawberry perfume. James was torn between the desire to protect his family and the unbearable, ripping, tearing, shredding pain of losing them.
He heard a door slam, he saw a wand rise.
"Evans – hey, Evans!"
He was fifteen years old, awkward in his newly acquired height but confident in the way he walked. He stumbled as he caught up with her. She kept up her pace, head bent against the cool breeze that wove its way through the courtyard.
"Potter, hey, Potter," she deadpanned back to him, and he could swear he saw her lips twitch.
"Go out with me?" He rumpled his hair because he thought she'd like that. He was grasping at straws. It probably wasn't the best way to ask, but as if he'd ever come up with a better one.
She looked at him, one eyebrow hitched up and the other down in her patented give-me-a-break expression. He knew a lost cause when he saw one.
"So that's a no?" he guessed. Perhaps she would be impressed with how well he could read her.
"You're catching on," she said. Approvingly, he hoped, but she was deadpanning again and he was never without his hope, so it was hard to tell. Too much bias.
He gave it up for now (he'd try again later) and let her get a few steps farther away, and then he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled "Some day, Evans!" because there was really no doubt in his mind. He couldn't chance the doubt. He couldn't give her up.
She twirled a hand over her head to indicate that she'd heard him. "When pigs fly, Potter!"
He made a pig fly the next afternoon. She still wouldn't go out with him.
James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...
"Marry me."
"You know I will."
Lily heard. She was dragging furniture towards the door to barricade it, but it wasn't enough; she heard the curse and she heard her husband fall. She screamed, sobbed, choked out his name and choked back the tears. Harry blew a spit bubble, oblivious and happy. Oh, he looked like his father. Her heart cracked but she didn't have the time to grieve. For once there was something more important.
She heard the door creak on its hinges, opening despite her efforts, and she begged the shadow that swept through it.
"Not Harry! Please – I'll do anything –"
She saw a wand rise.
"Lily?"
She was seventeen years old and in love with the boy who'd just said her name. She nearly dropped the pile of books in her arms. He helped her to catch them.
"James." She straightened and continued to shove the tomes back into their places on the library shelves. Her sleeve hitched up with the movement and he caught her wrist.
"Heard this happened," he said. His voice was dark as he looked at the scars that zigzagged their way up and down her forearm. "Another run-in with Mulciber?"
"Another run-in indeed." She didn't want him to look at the scars. She didn't want him to stop touching her, either. So she tried to shrug it off with a "Nothing new. Nothing right, but that's nothing new, too."
His hand guided hers down, away from the shelf, and his fingers stroked over hers. "Lily, I –"
"Go out with me?" She looked at him as she blurted it out. It probably wasn't the best time to ask, but as if such a time existed anymore, anyway.
"Yeah," he blurted right back in his surprise, his eagerness, both of which showed in the sudden wideness of his eyes. "Yes, Lily, I – well, I – never mind, sod it –"
He cupped her neck and kissed her against the bookshelf. She kissed him back and squeezed the hand she was still holding. She held on, and so did he.
The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband.
"Until death do you part."
Lily snorted and James laughed at her. Their bands of gold glinted in the flicking fairylight. They both shook their heads and corrected the wizard who presided over their vows:
"Until we meet on the other side."
When they died, they were blind to the flash of green light that consumed them. They were numb to selfish worry. They saw nothing but the memories, heard nothing but the promises, felt nothing but the falling.
When they parted, they met again on the other side.
"Told you you'd fall for me, Evans."
He said it with a cheeky, bordering-on-smug grin, but his heart shot upwards; self-satisfied as he was, he loved her. She rolled her eyes at him, but her heart exploded with butterflies; exasperation aside, she loved him, too.
"You fell for me first, Potter."