Lily's head sank slowly to the table, her forehead coming to rest on the pages of her book. James, watching her, laughed quietly. Of course she would fall asleep while studying – on Christmas Day, no less. It was late, and the dying fire in the common room made Lily's normally fiery hair a softer color, like autumn leaves. James liked it this way.
"Hey, Lily. Wake up." She didn't move. "Lily." James shook her shoulder slightly, but she continued to sleep with her head pressed into the book. James yawned. It was late, and nobody should be studying on Christmas, anyway. Sighing, James shoved his books and homework into his bag, sprinted up to the dormitory and dropped it on his bed, and ran back downstairs. Lily hadn't moved.
James eased the book out from under her face and packed all of her things into her bag. Then, leaving the bag there, he carefully picked Lily up and started carrying her up the stairs to the girls' dormitories.
When he reached the sixth step, however, the staircase disappeared and turned into a giant slide. James tipped backwards with a yell and slid down the newly formed slide, coming to a stop by banging his head into the leg of a table halfway across the common room.
Lily had woken up, and was bemusedly staring at James. Her face turned pink when she realized she was half on top of him, sitting in his lap, really. But then she noticed that he was hurt and forgot about it.
"Are you all right, James?" she asked, leaning closer to his face. James groaned.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He half sat up, balancing on his elbows, and rubbed the back of his head, wincing. "Why do the girls' stairs have a trick step?"
Lily grinned. "To prevent prats like you from sneaking up in the middle of the night."
James was uncomfortable (not that he didn't want Lily sitting on him). He started to lift Lily off of himself, but she blushed and stood up herself. James stood up too. He felt something brush the top of his head and looked up. There was a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling – they were all over the room, really – but this one was right in between James and Lily's heads, and they were standing very close together.
Lily looked up too. Her brow wrinkled as she realized what they were standing under. She looked at James, unsure of what to do.
James wasn't paying much attention to Lily, for once. His mind was in turmoil, and his thoughts were going at a hundred miles an hour. His mental struggle went something like this:
Kiss her! It must be a sign!
What the hell? That's stupid. She just thinks of me as a friend.
You don't know that! And what if she decides you're not that bad because you're such an amazing kisser?
Seriously, brain, Lily isn't that shallow.
Still! You've been waiting four years, and if there's any time to make a move, it's now.
Damn, James thought, because, try as he might, he couldn't convince himself that he didn't want to kiss her. He was just afraid of it.
I'm James Potter. I'm not afraid of anything.
And before he could convince himself to think, he leaned in and kissed her.
Lily couldn't believe what had just happened. James Potter had just kissed her. Was still kissing her. And she wasn't doing anything about it. In fact, she was kissing him back. Her hands were twisted in his hair, and she was pressing herself into him like her life depended on it.
How did this happen? She couldn't give herself a logical answer. One second she'd been laughing at James, his flustered face and attractively messy hair, which fell endearingly into his clear hazel eyes – Stop it, she told herself.
She quickly unwound her hands from his hair and pulled back. James's glasses had fallen off, his clothes were slightly rumpled, and his eyes had an unfocused look to them, though this might have been because his eyesight was terrible and she just looked like a red-faced blob.
"I – I didn't –" she started to say.
"Please don't tell me you want to go out with me just because I'm a good kisser," said James.
"That's – what?" James repeated what he said.
"Right, first of all, Potter, I don't, nor will I ever want to go out with you, and second, why the hell did you just kiss me?" Lily pushed herself away from him and glaring at him angrily. Since he had a good few inches on Lily, she had to look up at him, but that just made her angrier. "Well, it seemed like it was the right moment," he said, shrugging and squinting at her. "No? Should I have waited?"
"I cannot believe I thought you'd changed. I thought you were a better person." Lily crossed her arms.
"What exactly is your definition of 'better'?" asked James. "I technically haven't changed much."
"Which is exactly why I didn't – why I haven't – I think I lo–" Lily stopped suddenly, looking mortified.
James frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing – I – good night." And she turned around and marched up the stairs, skipping the sixth step.
James stood there for a second, looking bewildered, and then kicked the table leg behind him. The leg flew off the table and across the room; the table itself fell over and cracked down the middle. Cursing under his breath, James mended it with a flick of his wand and retrieved his glasses. Then he stalked across the room to the stairs, went up to his dormitory, and collapsed onto his bed, though he knew sleep wouldn't come for hours.
Lily stayed where she was on the eighth step, just out of sight from the common room. She heard a crash and then a curse, then silence. She stood there just long enough to know that James wasn't still in the room.
"I think I love you," she said softly, then climbed up the steps to her dormitory.