Point of Deception
The bell rings shrilly through the stone walls. Students pour out of classrooms, filling the corridors with sudden sounds of laughter and talking.
She's stood there, her hair pulled back into a messy bun that took four times to re-do into perfect messiness. Her eyelashes are coated in mascara that took four minutes to perfect; the powder on her face took fourteen minutes to apply so as to make it look she wasn't wearing anything at all.
He's stood in the hall, in front of the notice board, and she reckons she can actually feel her heartbeat echo in her ears. It's nearly deafening, like she's stood next to the drummer in Petty's boyfriend's band.
His bag is slung over his right shoulder. She breathes in, carefully, and walks up to him. Behind her, Marlene whispers something encouraging, but she feels like she's far past encouragement. Because today's a time for foolish bravery; and the meaning of Gryffindor pounds through her blood.
She tugs at his bag strap. Black is the first to notice her, giving her a look that she isn't quite ready to read yet. Remus smiles kindly at her; so does Pettigrew.
James turns around. He looks down as if almost startled to find her standing there and really, it is sort of startling. She doesn't speak to him outside of Head Girl and Head Boy duties. He smiles easily, though, pushes his glasses further up his nose with the middle finger of his left hand and meets her request to speak with him with a casual shrug of his shoulders.
Remus tugs Black and Pettigrew along into the Great Hall, and she tugs James along towards one of the slightly more abandoned side corridors. A few first years linger, but they quickly disappear out of sight. James opens his mouth and against her better intentions, she slips slightly and allows herself to indulge him in a conversation.
After all, she knows, this is the last time he'll ever talk to her, anyway.
'I need to tell you something,' she says and then winces, because that makes it sounds far more important than it really is. As she feared, James looks a strange combination of curious, bewildered and worried.
'Er, all right. What's wrong?'
Her hands start to tremble. Knowing he won't notice, but feeling self-conscious regardless, she shakes her sleeves down to hide it.
'I – I fancy you.'
Silence falls. She can hear her own breathing, and the sounds of other students going up to the Great Hall for lunch. There's a feeling in the back of her head that's screaming at her for being stupid, for making herself vulnerable, for telling this boy something she should not have had to tell him in the first place.
Because she's not the boy, he is, and she's not supposed to be the one instigating the relationship, he is. Because it's what boys do. Boys follow girls around; and it's not the other way around. Her mother would disapprove.
'Oh,' James says.
It's anti-climatic and she feels her heart literally stop in her chest for a split-second, before it starts beating again at a sub-par standard.
'Yeah,' she adds, awkwardly, feeling her cheeks turn bright red.
Hers aren't the only ones, though. He's gazing rather stupidly at her, two highly flattering (stupid, stupid Potter) splotches of red on the arches of his cheeks. Somewhere in the back of the castle, the bell signalling the end of lunch rings shrilly.
'I need to – think about this,' he says, quickly, and before she can draw a breath he's gone.
Her head's spinning. She has the feeling that if she starts walking now, she'll collide with corridor walls and that probably will not improve the spinning. She tries to move, regardless. Her feet shuffle and feel like they aren't really a part of her body, because they are moving on their own, towards the Gryffindor tower, where she plans to sit on her bed and cry.
'Evans,' a voice calls.
Lily stops and turns, blinking. Potter is stood in front of her, cheeks flushed and breath coming out in short gasps. She raises an eyebrow at him. He shivers, smiles beautifully and says, very softly,
'Yes.'
And she's confused enough to wonder what he's saying yes to, because she didn't ask him a question, and he steps forward and grasps her hand in his, as if he's afraid she'll disappear, and somehow – somehow, it's all right.