A/N: Yet another submission written for Jily Fest over on Tumblr.
Anniversaries had always been squarely James' territory. From day one, when Lily had unsurely accepted his Hogsmeade proposal, James had been the one to eagerly catalogue all of their relationship milestones. All of their firsts. Even the ones that no normal couple would think to celebrate, like fucking seventh-month anniversaries, were heralded by James as deserving of a special date. Nothing, not even one of Lily's many reasonable protests that seventh-month anniversaries were fake, was enough to curb his enthusiasm.
For their one-year anniversary, Lily decided that she should take charge for once. James had made her feel special a dozen times over in the past year, and he deserved to be pampered for a change. Because one year-anniversaries were kind of a big deal. Lily still couldn't believe that they'd made it this far in the first place: through graduation, conscription into a war, the deaths of her parents. They deserved to celebrate.
Lily'd spent weeks plotting out exactly where she'd take James. It needed to be someplace with a hint of adventure because he craved excitement almost as much as dinner after a Quidditch practice. Eventually, she arrived upon the perfect idea – the amusement park. James' enthusiasm could be described in one word: child-like, so it was a more than fitting place to go.
With a lot of subtle hinting, Lily discovered that James had never been to an amusement park, didn't even know what one was. In the lead up to their anniversary, she filled in the blanks for him, crowing about the sweat-inducing blast offs and winding loops of the roller coasters until he was all but salivating to go himself. That's when she suggested it.
The extra special surprise was that she'd invited all of the boys along as well. Lily was certain that James would bring his mates along on every one of their dates if he thought he could get away with it. Whenever she wanted alone time with James, she had to practically banish the other Marauders from their apartment because they had unofficially moved in despite having their own flats, their own lives. In a lot of ways, dating James was like entering into a polygamous relationship. She didn't necessarily mind it, enjoyed the time with his friends, but she always wanted their dates to feel special. For their anniversary, she was willing to sacrifice that.
James had been visiting with his parents for the past few days, so Lily told him to meet her at the park rather than at the flat. At 9 am sharp, Lily was ready outside the park gates, book in hand. James was many things and habitually late was one of them. She didn't expect to see him for another half hour at least.
To her surprise, she had only just flipped to the second page when James came loping out of the woods – their pre-planned apparition point. He was carrying an enormous bouquet of flowers in one hand and waved eagerly toward her with the other. The wind picked up as he began to jog towards her, causing his shirt to billow back like he'd been ripped straight out of the raunchy romance novels her mother used to fancy.
Lily had told him to dress like a muggle, which, for James, normally meant one of his baggy t-shirts or maybe a jumper, always paired with trainers and jeans. Today, for some unfathomable reason, James had interpreted it to mean pirate. His cream-colored shirt was baggy and tied together at the top. It was currently hanging loose and exposed a thick tangle of chest hair.
Lily's laughter burst out of her, as unplanned as it was unstoppable. It was enough to bring James up short a few meters away from her, though his ever-present grin didn't falter for a second.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
Through her gales of laughter, Lily choked out, "You look ridiculous! That shirt!"
"This is what muggles find sexy," James said, gesturing to his billowing sleeves.
"Grandmothers maybe," Lily said, but then she kissed him because regardless of any questionable sartorial choices he might make, Lily did find him rather sexy. She wasn't sure how he could always make her want him, but she wished he would stop. It made being respectable in public a chore.
"Ready to go?" James asked.
He pressed the bouquet into her hand, and it occurred to Lily that he likely had no idea that she couldn't comfortably carry the flowers through the park. In his mind, it was probably as simple a matter as casting a quick levitation charm and having them trail along after her for the rest of the day. No matter how many times she stressed to him that muggles weren't completely oblivious, he still forgot the need for caution. It may not even have been forgetfulness. James had never shown caution in any area of his life.
She buried her nose into the bouquet and breathed. Daffodils. Never lilies because he knew her and how much she despised that kind of kitschy predictability. They were perfect. And they had to be binned for the sake of their day.
James looked peculiarly upset when she told him. Money was no object for him, so she promised to let him buy her six dozen daffodils later that night. It was enough to rid him of his puckered mouth moping and he turned to using his puckered mouth in more enjoyable ways.
When the rest of the boys came strolling out of the woods, James broke away from their kiss in a panic. "Evans, I swear I didn't invite them."
"I know. I did," Lily told him proudly.
Lily turned to greet the others, scoping out their outfits – all passably muggle, all reasonable, though Sirius would likely find the leather jacket to be a mistake once the sun peaked. With a peck on the cheek, Sirius wished her a happy anniversary as if they were the ones that had been dating for a year. The reminder that in many ways it was her anniversary with all of the Marauders, not just James, only served to confirm that she'd made the right decision in inviting them.
"You really have to follow me everywhere?" James laughed in lieu of a hello. There was a hint of tightness in his voice that didn't sit right with Lily. She could see the others stiffen under it too, but they all exchanged manly shoulder slaps in greeting and the tension diffused.
At the ticket counter, Lily paid for everyone. Out of some misguided commitment to chivalry, James shouldered her aside and tried to pay for her. He'd exchanged his galleons for pounds the night before with his parents' help, but he was still hopeless at sorting through the notes. The woman at the register grew increasingly bemused at the eighteen-year-old man who couldn't figure out which within his enormous stack of bills was a ten pound note.
Lily decided to intervene before aurors descended upon them for flouting the statute of secrecy because James was doing an awful job at being inconspicuous.
"He's foreign," Lily said at the same time Remus went, "He's daft with maths."
"Oy! I'm not daft," James said in a clearly English accent, and now the woman really looked confused.
They had to drag him away, arguing all the while that he can tell the notes apart when they're laid out before him, but it's confusing when they're grouped together like that.
Lily had been to the park once a year since she was six-year-olds. It was her dad's favorite. So she knew exactly which rides they should hit now before the park filled and which had the best wait-time-to-enjoyment ratio.
All of her advice on making their way to the Nova – an enormous wooden coaster with two loops – was ignored once Sirius got his hands on a map. Then, it was fifteen minutes of the boys arguing over which ride they should brave first and a long tirade from Remus on the map's deficiencies. Since making the Marauders' Map
They started with the carousel, and while it wasn't a good idea considering the lines were probably queuing up outside the Nova, Lily was hardly bothered because she couldn't buy the feeling of contentment that rushed through her at watching the boys stampede the children's ride. Peter and Remus fought loudly and violently over who got to ride the elephant, which was considerably more mature than Sirius who was doing the same over the dog with an actual child. Sirius lost and spent the ride pouting on a tiger instead.
For Lily, there was never any debate. James lifted her up by the waist and settled her atop the strawberry-pink unicorn. The gold detailing on the horn was chipped, but Lily loved it all the more for being well-worn. Wrapping his arms around her, James whispered in her ear about how this was the last time a unicorn would ever let her get this close as the real thing would gallop away at the first scent of her. She elbowed him in the stomach more on principle than out of actual anger. James snickered, managing to keep his seat on the unicorn, and pressed hot kisses into her neck. Under the disapproving stares of scandalized parents, Lily leaned closer into her boyfriend and found she didn't care at all.
Her plans to race towards the Nova were again put off when she saw the kissing ride. As she'd only ever visited the park with her Dad and Tuney, she'd never gotten to ride on it before and most of her adolescent daydreams about love had involved this very same attraction.
It didn't take much to convince James to agree to taking a quick ride though the others were a lot less excited. She knew it was a bad idea to start something that they couldn't finish, but, in many ways, James already did when he started kissing her neck.
Not knowing what to expect, Lily awaited the approach of the cart that would sail them through watery tunnels looping around the park. When the ride pulled up in front of her, she screamed with joy.
It was a swan!
"Can you believe it?" she asked Remus, grabbing his hands in excitement.
They'd shared a love of swans ever since one had attacked Sirius near the Black Lake in seventh year. Watching it peck at his ankles as he cursed and ran about like he was being maimed had solidified their friendship in a way that years of prefect patrols could not.
"James," Lily said imploringly, gesturing to Remus. She couldn't very well discover a ride with a swan theme and not experience it with Remus. Swans were kind of their thing.
"But it's a kissing ride. Kissing's in the name," James whined.
"But we snog all the time," Lily said, to which James muttered something that sounded dangerously similar to, "Not enough."
In the face of her unabashed excitement, James gave in. He climbed into a tiny swan alongside Sirius – these things really weren't designed for two grown men, so they were practically sitting on each other's laps in order to fit. James blew her a kiss goodbye as his float drifted off, ignoring the way Sirius blew her another four to mock him.
There wasn't much thrill to the ride, though Lily imagined there would have been a tad more had James been with her instead. But what the ride did boast was a great opportunity for Lily and Remus to share facts about swans with one another. They collected tidbits of information like it was a sport, waiting for the next swan sighting to share their newfound discoveries.
"I'm telling you, Lily," Remus said cheerfully. "They're the only bird with a penis. The only one."
"That sounds fake, but okay," Lily said, causing Remus to make a choked sound of frustration. "Oh, wait! You'll never believe what the fear of swans is called. You're going to die!"
"Swanophobia?" Remus chuckled.
"No! Cygnophobia," Lily cried, delighted.
Now it was Remus's turn for disbelief, "Shut up! Cygnophobia, like Cygnus Black? Sirius's uncle?"
"Sirius's fear of swans makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it?" Lily said smugly.
"I still think he'd have been better off just not harassing the damn things in the first place. But sure, let's blame it on the name," Remus said.
At the tail end of the ride was a camera designed to capture the embracing couples in a kiss. Jokingly, Lily leaned forward to try to slobber on Remus's cheek. He had much the same idea and turned to her as well at the same moment the camera went off. Not expecting to find her face so close, Remus's forehead slammed into her nose hard enough to make her neck snap back.
Technically speaking, you can't see pain, but Lily swore she saw it burst behind her closed eyes. It was too dark to see anything, but she knew her nose was bleeding from the wetness that leaked onto her hand, while she held her injured nose.
"Merlin, Lil, I'm so sorry!" Remus said, offering frantic apologies for the last minute of the ride.
Remus had to lead her by the arm over to where the others were standing, critically observing their own photos at the booth, because she was leaning her head back to try to stem the flow of the bleeding. The photo from Sirius and James' ride materialized on the main screen – James straddling Sirius and trying to snog the hell out of him, while Sirius gave the middle finger to the camera. Lily wanted to tell them to buy it, absurd prices or not, but the impulse was forgotten under the brouhaha that occurred when James turned around and noticed her injury.
There was a stand offering medical aid back towards the front of the park, so they all trooped back to see Lily's nose administered to. Not much to do for a bloody nose, the nurse on duty gave her tissues to shove in her nostrils to stem the flow of the bleeding and advised that she keep her head tilted backward to slow the flow. If she started to feel faint, she was to return immediately.
Because her boys were a bunch of stretched out toddlers, none of them had the presence of mind to eat breakfast, so food was next on the agenda.
"Park prices are a scam!" Lily tried to warn them, but no one cared about her diatribe against inflated prices and margins.
She shut up pretty quickly when James bought her an ice cream cone. A little sugar could only be good for her considering the blood loss. At least, that was how she rationalized it to herself as she lapped at the vanilla-chocolate swirl.
Peter, the consummate observer, had brought his camera along like always and documented them in repose as they slurped on their sticky treats and lounged in the sun. Like the idiot he was, James challenged Sirius to a hot dog eating contest to pass the time and soon they were out of muggle money with stomachs inflated like beach balls.
"What are those?" Peter asked excitedly, pointing to the spinning teacups.
"They're spinning teacups," Lily said because there wasn't much else to say that wasn't blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes.
"Like in Alice in Wonderland?" Peter questioned, eyes wide like the saucers on the ride.
Peter had adored Alice in Wonderland ever since Lily first showed him the movie for their Disney marathon night. It was the mouse in the Mad Hatter scene that did it for him. Since then, none of them had let up on giving Peter a hard time for his bizarre fascination with the tiny, squeaking mouse. Lily understood that a rat was his animagus form, but his interest bordered on the absurd. Far more ridiculous than say a passion for gathering facts on swans. No, that was altogether reasonable.
So, of course, they all had to ride it.
The first time, nuzzled into James' side and with Peter loudly quoting the movie with eerie accuracy, was nice. It was so nice, in fact, that everyone agreed to give it a second go, which was a terrible mistake.
One could ride the teacups back to back or have a hot dog eating contest. Both was an unforgivable error in judgment.
They were barely outside the swinging gate that separated the ride from the rest of the park when Sirius leaned over and vomited on her shoes. The barely digested hot dog chunks splattered outwards and got James trousers as well. Lily did the only thing a girl could do in such a situation and began to scream. Loudly.
This was hardly the first time Lily had been vomited on by one of her friends. Sirius especially was notorious for drinking his weight in firewhiskey and then throwing it up so that he could do it all again. In those cases it was only the small matter of a quick Evanesco and then the party could move along. In the crowded muggle park, they couldn't possibly perform magic though, so they had to run, screaming all the way, to the nearest loo.
Lily took off her shoes and made Sirius deal with cleaning them off, while she sat with the others. Already, her irritation had given way to wry amusement at what a prat Sirius could be. In a strange twist, it was James who was most bothered by the whole thing. When he walked out of the bathroom with Sirius, he was scowling at his friend without a hint of his characteristic playfulness.
Lily reached out to give him a hug, intending to cheer him up a bit, but then she caught a whiff of his pants and reeled back retching.
"Let's go to the water park," Lily suggested. "Run don't walk."
No one had brought a bathing suit even though Lily had told them at least four times that they'd regret it once they saw the water slides, and regret it they did. As they settled into the comparably tame flume ride, all James could talk about was the twists of the giant water slide on the edge of the park.
"They're not going to let you on without a suit," Lily told him for the hundredth time.
"I'm wearing pants, aren't I? What's the difference?" James protested.
"The difference is one of those things is going to get us thrown out on our arses for indecent exposure," Lily said.
James got over his disappointment long enough to enjoy the flume ride. They made a game of it, pretending they were pirates steering a ship in treacherous waters. Naturally, James assigned himself to be the captain, Sirius the first mate, and Remus the navigator.
"Evans, you're the busty pirate wench," James said.
"I'm not sure what you think that means, but I can promise you I'm not," Lily growled because in their imaginations she was going to be a hardworking member of the crew just like the rest of them, gender be damned.
"Yeah, Prongs, she's obviously the cook," Sirius said, from the back of the flume.
"Try again!" Lily barked.
"…Err, the best fighter on my ship?" James asked uncertainly.
Lily nodded her assent. "And don't you forget it."
There really wasn't much to the ride in the way of speed or fast turns, but they did their best to introduce a little danger. They all shifted their weight dramatically at each turn, forcing the flume to bank to the side and groaning in disappointment every time the flume bumped into the edges of the path.
"Port! Port!" James shouted as they rounded a turn.
Their vessel tilted perilously and with an enormous splash, Peter went crashing out of the flume and into the shallow water. No matter how hard they had pushed their tiny flume, Lily had a hard time believing that they had managed to upend Peter all on their own. A guffawing Sirius, who had been seated behind Peter and was now leaning overboard to laugh at his plight, had never looked more suspicious.
Security took the same view of the situation and soon they were all trapped in a poorly air-conditioned room towards the front of the park once more. Peter sat shivering in a fluffy, orange towel looking every bit like a person pulled from a traumatic car crash rather than a boy who'd been forced to doggy-paddle for thirty seconds.
"If you were all following the rules as you claim, you would have stayed in the float," a stern security guard lectured them.
"Well, that doesn't make much sense as we were all following the rules and yet Peter ended up in the water," Remus said sensibly.
"That's what I'm saying!" the guard snarled in frustration. "They're designed so this doesn't happen."
"So you're saying there's a design flaw?" James asked in his most obnoxious tone.
"Listen, I could have you thrown out of the park for this," the guard hissed, clearly not as entertained by James' antics as Lily was.
It was in times like these that Lily was very thankful to be a pretty girl. All it took was five seconds of concentration to force the tears out, sprinkling down her cheeks to cut a very tragic figure.
"Oh please, sir! It's our anniversary," she warbled.
Lily could see him wavering – torn between his dislike of James and his desire to appease the crying girl in front of him, so she decided to up the ante, "It was Remus! I saw him push Peter out of the flume!"
In the Sophie's Choice of friendship that they'd been forced into, Lily knew that James would rather spend the day with Sirius over his other mates, so, innocent or not, Remus had to go. With a promise to get vengeance, Remus and Peter were escorted from the park for dangerous play.
"Reckon that's what Azkaban feels like?" Sirius laughed when they were finally freed from theme park prison.
"I hope you're happy," Lily said, levelling him with her meanest look. "This is why you need to be nicer to Peter."
"Yeah, mate, listen to your mother," James joked.
James had to run the half kilo to the Nova because Lily chased him every step of the way, hell bent on strangling him with her own hands. Calling her Sirius's mum wasn't nice and Sirius took to using the title with her for the rest of the day. She feared it would become a nickname that stuck for life.
The line for the Nova was horrendous as she predicted. They'd have to wait at least two hours before they got to the front, but Lily knew the wait was worthwhile to see James' face after he finished his first coaster.
Waiting had never suited James. Never much suited Sirius either. They were both on their worst behavior in the line, oscillating between moody and inappropriately loud. Lily had to remind them every five minutes that park security had proven they were willing to throw them out if they got into any more trouble.
For the last half hour, they played I spy.
It was hot now. Horrifically hot in a way that made her wish she could claw her skin off. Sirius first took off his leather jacket. Then, twenty minutes later, tossed it in a trash bin because the prospect of even holding onto the heated leather was unbearable.
Annoyingly, James seemed immune to the summer heat and kept trying to pull Lily into bear hugs, to nuzzle the slope of her neck with his nose or lean his chin on her head. It was enough to make her forget why she liked him in first place, so the next time he leaned in for a kiss, she stomped on his foot. There was a lot of pouting after that but no more attempts to touch her, so Lily considered it a victory.
They finally arrived at the front of the queue just as the ride went dark. An unaffected park worker announced that the ride was being shut down for repairs. Both James and Sirius wore matching expressions of betrayal. They got their hand stamped so that if by some slim chance the ride was repaired before dark they would be moved to the front of the line, but it wasn't much consolation.
Sirius wandered off to buy bottled waters as they were all seconds away from passing out from dehydration, and Lily was left alone with James. The short temper that had been plaguing him all day returned and he kicked a wall in frustration.
"I'm so sorry, James. I wanted today to be perfect for you," Lily said sadly.
"Don't apologize."
"No," Lily insisted. "You're clearly upset, and this was all my idea. You put so much thought into all our other anniversaries, I thought it was my turn to show you how much I cared."
James softened when he saw that Lily was genuinely upset and brushed a strand of her hair that had escaped its ponytail out of her face. He muttered, "I just wanted today to be perfect for you."
"Weren't you listening? Today is about you," Lily said.
She cringed a little at how much they sound like one of those couples that couldn't hang up the phone because they were too busy arguing over who loved the other more. When they were younger, Petunia had driven up the Evans' phone bill to unforgivable sums with such behavior.
James looked at her in a funny way, assessing and heartbreakingly tender. Once upon a time, it would have made her fidget, but now she knew how to keep herself still. Knew how to force down the burgeoning sense of panic that was urging her to run away so that he can say whatever wonderfully romantic sentiment that was on the tip of his tongue. Because that was what that look meant.
He was about to make her fall in love all over again.
"I wanted to make today incredible for you. And the day after that. And the day after that," he said, oddly serious. Lily stuck her tongue out at him because he was being far too cheesy for her to stand, but he shot her a dark look that had her folding her hands behind her back to listen with the appropriate gravity, properly chastised. "I want to spend every day for the rest of my life, trying to make you even a tenth as happy as you make me."
Then, he was fumbling in his pocket and lowering to the ground. For a few moments, she looked around, trying to figure out what he could have dropped, but then he found the velvety box in his pocket and everything suddenly made sense.
All of the pressure he'd put on himself all day to make this perfect, the way he hadn't been excited to see his best mates and thought dressing like a sexy romantic hero was a good idea. The James Lily knew and loved didn't get anxious, not about silly things like anniversaries. He did evidently, however, get nervous about proposals.
"Try to keep quiet so I can get through this. I have a whole speech," James said
He didn't trust her not to make fun, and she wanted to kick him because nothing was further from her mind. Her heart was galloping a mile a minute. How could he think she had the presence of mind to put together a witty insult at a time like this? She was seconds away from keeling over, and it wasn't just from the dehydration.
"Evans, I have spent every moment that I've known you, loving you. I love you for everything you fight for, how you try. How you care. The way you treat your mates and your enemies alike. You've made me laugh and love and feel more than any person I've ever met, and I hope to keep that going, yeah?" James said.
Lily hardly noticed how he started to fumble towards the end because she had covered her face with her hands, unable to look at him as he stared sincerely up at her. Ridiculously, she was upset that she hadn't similarly prepared a speech for him. She'd come into today planning to give him a special anniversary, and she hadn't even thought of something sweet to say to him!
"I know we're young and a lot of people are going to tell us to wait, but I've always known what I wanted. Whether we die tomorrow or live to be one hundred and ninety, I'm going to want to wake up with you beside me every day of my life. That's not going to change just because we're a couple years older. So, why wait?" James said. Lily didn't immediately respond and James interpreted that as hesitance, so he added. "Plus, it'll really brass off Petunia if we send out the invitations for the same month as her wedding."
It was that joke, completely inappropriate but also completely brilliant, that had Lily opening her eyes to look at the ring for the first time. Simple, elegant, no frills about it. She had always imagined James would make a great target for predatory salesclerks. They'd show him the most expensive rings with karats in the dozens and diamonds that caused traffic accidents by reflecting the light, and he'd make a purchase without a second thought.
This ring, however, like his crack at Petunia was evidence that he knew her. And that had always been her biggest fear regarding relationships: that she'd wake up beside someone one day and realize they were a stranger. James wasn't a stranger. He was her soulmate, and in the wake of that certainty, there was only one thing she could possibly say.
"Yes. Put the damn ring on already, and yes!"
James jamming the ring onto her finger kind of hurt, but she didn't care because he was already pulling her into a kiss that made her toes curl and the figurative birds sing. In the background, there may have been the sound of Sirius whooping and a crowd of bystanders clapping, but they were drowned out by the cheering within her own head.
Breaking the kiss, Lily asked, "So, happy anniversary?"
"The best," James agreed.
Because besides the blood, the vomit, the swans, and muggle security, they'd spent the day with each other. Murphy's Law said that what can go wrong will, but what it didn't tell you was that none of that mattered when you faced it down with the person you loved.