A tap on her bedroom window disturbs her sleep and causes her to wake. Then, suddenly, a much louder thump.
She springs out of bed and walks over to her window, thinking it must be an owl— perhaps Mary is writing to her from Hogwarts; her friend had been rather disappointed that she decided to go home over the Christmas holiday of their last year— but bringing her wand just in case it is something else.
"Lumos," she mutters, the tip of her wand illuminating the olive green curtains that cover her window. With one swift motion she draws the curtains, and is greeted by a sight that nearly causes her to jump out of her skin.
Instead of an owl she is greeted by a figure sitting on a broomstick. A figure with unruly black hair and a crooked smile, a smile behind lips tinged pink from the cold, lips that call her name.
"Lily!"
She pushes the window open, shock and bewilderment etched across the soft skin of her pale face.
"James?!" she sputters in a harsh whisper (though really she needn't whisper, as her mother is out of town to visit her sister and her new husband), "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"
But nonetheless she lets him in, and her question is left momentarily unanswered as he pulls her small frame towards his much larger one and kisses her firmly. For a moment she is lost—devoured by the warmth of his lips and the cold of his hands that are clutching her face so tightly it's as if he's daring her to push him away.
And because she is completely enamored by this boy, this boy who is definitely not "just-a-friend" but is not quite her "boyfriend" (but perhaps he is so, so much more than that), she does not push him away. She sinks into his warmth, into the promising taste of his lips on hers, and she wishes to sink into his skin.
"I wanted to see you," he replies, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, as if the average person did this sort of thing all the damn time, and she was the crazy one for being shocked at his surprise arrival.
But James often made her feel that way: as though irrationality and quick thinking and living for here and now were what one was supposed to be doing. He made her doubt all of her planning and preparing, all of her sense, and all of the many reasons that told her not to fall in love with him. It was such a curious thing that Lily could not remember the exact point in time in which she realized she loved James Potter, only that she had fallen hard and fast, so fast that she had been terrified (fucking terrified) that she would end up broken, a pile of skin and bones and organs left in the dirt, discarded by a man she gave her heart to too quickly. And perhaps that was why their relationship was neither official nor conventional— because Lily Evans was tentative and always, always careful while James Potter was vibrant and reckless.
"You know I'm going to see you next week right?" she says, referring to the Christmas party that the Potters would be holding, a party that she told James she would attend.
"I know. Couldn't wait," he replies with fervor in his voice and his lips and his eyes, sharp and startling and burning with hues of green and gold (burning when he looked at her, only her).
"Also," he adds, staring straight into her eyes as he brushes a strand of scarlet hair away from her face, "I'm not so sure you're actually going to show up to the party." There is amusement in his voice when he says it, but Lily knows that there is also pain.
Because of this pain she pretends not to know what he is talking about, thinking maybe he won't be angry with her, maybe they won't fight, because she would really just like to lie in her bed with him (and to have him be where no other boy has been before).
"Of course I'll be there, James. Why wouldn't I be?"
He steps back from her now, and she desperately wants to cover his mouth with her own before he can answer, wants to be as bold and unrestrained as he always is when he kisses her. But Lily is kind, not rash, and so she allows him to say what needs to be said.
"Because if you show up to that party, all dressed up and ready to meet my parents, ready to be seen with me as more than friends and fellow Heads, then you'll have officially acknowledged that you're my girlfriend," he finishes, a note of bitterness in his voice.
"But we're not…I'm not your girl—"
"I know, Lily," he interrupts with anger rising in his voice. "I know you're afraid, but fuck," and he runs a hand through his hair, "we've been doing this for how long now, two months? I want to be with you, dammit!"
"You are with me!" she says, now growing angry as well, and she casts a quick Muffliato so that the neighbors will not wake up if they begin shouting and screaming at each other (like they have done so many times in the past).
"Don't act like you don't understand what I mean," and he raises his voice now, because he needs her to see, needs her to see the pain that drives through the planes of his heart, threatening to push up and boil out of his skin because of her reluctance, because of her fear of becoming vulnerable and exposed (like he is). "Don't bullshit me."
She stares at his feet and closes her eyes and breathes deeply. "Please, James. Please don't do this to me."
"Do what?" and he is definitely yelling now, yelling at the girl whom he loves more than anyone, whom he would do anything and be anything for, yet who can't seem to do the same. Not now, not yet. "You're the one who keeps fucking me over." His words are cold and he spits them out at her.
She knows that she should be angry, that she should yell and fight and tell him to go to hell. But all she can think about are the times they spent together in his dormitory (discovering what it was like to kiss and touch and feel one another), or the times they spent up in the Astronomy Tower (staring at the stars and talking about galaxies and the universe and God), or the time he took her to the Shrieking Shack by way of the tunnel under the Whomping Willow (where they got drunk on the wine he brought— the kind he knew she liked— and danced like children and collapsed on blankets strewn across the shabby hard wood floor).
So she does not tell him to fuck off, to go to hell for yelling at her. Instead she looks up at him, meeting his gaze while tears shine in her piercing emerald eyes. Instead of yelling she whispers "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh God, James, fuck, I'm sorry."
And instead of being timid and afraid she is overcome by a wave of feeling, a feeling that not even the most hardened of souls could call anything but love. So she quickly and quietly closes the gap between the two of them, pressing her body to his and holding him in her arms. For a terrifying moment he does not respond, his arms immobile at his sides.
"You know…" she says into his shoulder, "You know that I love you."
He pulls back from her and holds her at arm's distance, because while he has told her he loves her dozens of times (pouring his heart out to her and making a fucking fool of himself in the process), it is the first time she has ever said it to him.
He presses his forehead against hers and looks into her eyes, and she is burning up for him to see, and he is burning up so that she can keep warm, and he kisses her so that they can burn together, as bright and hot as the stars that they gazed at with wonder and awe from the Astronomy Tower. He kisses her because he is enamored with this girl, the girl who has seen more of him than anyone and maybe knows him better than he knows himself.
His mouth is nothing but heat and passion and fire and she is lost, absolutely lost, in the intensity that buoys up from deep within her and threatens to explode, turning her into nothing more than a puddle that melts in his hands like warm blood. He pushes her gently onto her bed, and she recognizes that he is right where she wants him to be, and that she is right where he knows she belongs.
She pushes off his coat and scarf as if he is being swallowed up by a fever while he kicks off his heavy boots. He in turn lifts her thin t-shirt off of her, just before discarding his own shirt. His hands roam over her bare chest and stomach, memorizing and drinking in every curve and detail of her skin. He stops touching and looks at her, committing the image of her pale and flushed and, by this point, completely naked body to his memory. He kisses her neck and moves down, down, down to her collarbones and then her breasts and her blush-colored nipples. She moans and breathes him in and pushes down his trousers, his boxers going with them. He moves up so that he can kiss her lips, so that he may steal some of the passion seething out of her. As his eager tongue is darting in and out of her mouth she wraps her legs around his waist and pulls his hips to hers. He moans her name, the word escaping his lips like petals falling from her namesake flower. He is vaguely aware that her hands are clutching his hair, and the whole world falls out of focus when she whispers in his ear.
"Make love to me."
And so he does the only thing he can do, the thing that he has been imagining for God knows how long, and as he enters her she cries out, a gasp, sharp and loud and tinged with both the pleasure and pain that comes with the first time. He is kissing her neck and moving ever so slowly as to not hurt her but she lifts her hips to meet his thrust, wordlessly telling him that the pain is gone and she is consumed by nothing but desire. For she is positively enamored with the feeling and the heat and the sounds and the way his left hand cups her breast while his right hand tangles in her hair. And she can feel it, feel every ounce of love as if it is being poured in to her bloodstream, as if he is giving her everything and telling her he wants everything in return, as if he is promising her the world and the moon and every star in the sky, and (oh God) she never knew, never knew that anything could feel as right and whole as the feeling of him inside her, the feeling of his very soul reaching out and touching hers as their bodies move together in unison until they are flying, reaching their peak just before his body crashes atop hers.
When, years later, Lily would recall that first night they slept together, she would not remember the inevitable imperfections or the fact that it did not last very long, but she would remember the way he looked at her, baring everything to her. She would remember the love she felt and the way everything just felt so goddamned right.
He lies beside her, curled around her naked body with her heaving chest and flushed cheeks and shaking fingertips. He looks at her faces and kisses her lips soundly and whispers that he loves her in to her hair. He knows she'll say it back now and she doesn't disappoint him. He revels in the glow of her skin and the hypnotic in and out of her breath. He basks in beauty, unrestrained and pure.
When he gets up and begins putting on his clothes she opens her eyes and asks if he is leaving.
"I wish I could stay, but I should probably be at home when my parents and Sirius wake up tomorrow morning," he replies, and there is an apology in his eyes. She nods her head sleepily and tells him she understands. Just before he leaves he kisses her once more, telling her he'll see her next week. She nods.
"I'll be there."
Yet as he Apparates back to his home with his broomstick in hand there is still a nagging feeling of uncertainty buried within him. He still can't be certain whether or not she'll stay true to her word.
He stands in a corner, drinking a firewhiskey and enjoying his lack of company. His eyes scan the spacious room, glancing at older witches and wizards dressed in their best dress robes, taking note of the elegant Christmas decorations that line the walls of his home. He spots his mother, drinking champagne with the Minister of Magic. He cares little for the high class partygoers and the abundance of politicians and wizarding celebrities. His eyes scan the room for only one girl, a girl who as of yet had not shown up to the party, despite the fact that it began nearly three hours earlier. His mood has soured a little bit more with each hour that has passed.
"She still hasn't shown up yet, huh?" asks Sirius Black, appearing suddenly at James's side, a fancy hors d'oeuvre on a tooth pick in his hand. James sighs and turns to look at him, annoyance etched on his face.
"Don't you think I'd be with her if she was here, you wanker?" he asks, more than slightly irate with his best friend. Sirius smiles at him, and just as James is about to ask him what is so funny about being stood up by the girl you love (made to look like a fool yet again), a girl you made love to merely a week before, he elbows James in the ribs and points to the entrance, positively grinning and bursting with exuberance for his friend's turn in fortune.
James looks to where Sirius is pointing and finally, finally he sees her, the person who has been on his mind nearly constantly for the past week, who he has thought and dreamt about and lost sleep over. He drinks in the sight of her— her crimson hair, curled and pulled away from her face for the party; her dress, the color of champagne and falling just below her knees, revealing the legs he has touched and kissed and admired; her bare shoulders, pale and dusted with freckles, freckles he knows. She is looking around nervously (surely looking for him) and he stares directly at her, a smile on his face as he waits for her to see him.
Her eyes finally (finally) meet his, and she smiles, her entire being glowing with all the glory of love and fulfilled promises as they cross the room towards one other.