this is a disclaimer.
AN: Idea taken from Ollivander's line to Harry in Philosopher's Stone about how he remembers Lily coming in and buying "her first wand".
dragons, defeated
Predictably, it was Prongs who noticed it. Not that her friends were unobservant, or didn't care; but Prongs had a way of noticing a lot of things.
(Like the way she wore her hair, and her shoelace being undone, and whether her current glare denoted anger or sadness or plain exhaustion, and what cake she liked best and how she drank her tea and where he ought to touch her to get her to shiver and writhe and mouth helpless kisses along his jaw.)
She still thought of him as Prongs; it was difficult to say why, except that she'd thought of him as James Potter for years, and calling him Prongs was more intimate than that but not as intimate as James. (For example: she hadn't believed she'd be the type to be noisy, but there was a feeling in her gut that suggested that the first time she called him James in bed she'd be irrevocably gone for good. There was enough messed-up overproud fifteen year old left in her to baulk at that.)
Anyway, Prongs noticed it in Defence. They were practicing Patronus charms; Lily's memories of her first sight of Hogwarts, her Sorting into Gryffindor, her Mum and Dad beaming at her as she got off the train that first Christmas, already talking nineteen-to-the-dozen, was producing a lot of silvery mist and not much else. Prongs' own happy memories weren't much more effective.
"It takes practice," said Professor Meadowes, and pushed her hair back from her face.
"I don't understand how we're meant to hold on to happy memories when we're being attacked by things that forcibly leach them away," said Lily.
"I didn't say it was easy," said Meadowes ruefully. "Come along, Miss Evans. Most ecstatically happy you've ever been!"
Beside her, Black gurgled. Rather against her own inclinations Lily went red; it was impossible not to, she blushed at anything, especially compliments and dirty jokes in public.
Sod him, he was right; she thought of last Saturday and Prongs' hands moving under her shirt and called out "Expecto Patronum!", putting all the feeling she had for that moment into her voice.
The silver mist coalesced into a doe who tossed her head and cantered around the room while Meadowes clapped and Black fell over himself and Moony and Wormtail in sheer glee, but Prongs was watching her and not the Patronus that so clearly marked - for those who knew to look - him as the repository of her best happiness.
She'd kick Black later and be embarrassed in private.
Prongs flicked his wand. "Expecto Patronum!"
Silver-shining and unashamed, the great stag tossed his antlered head and cantered to her outstretched hand.
But on the way out of the classroom, while everyone was snickering, he threw an arm around her shoulders and said, "Nice wand."
Lily tensed, and then she sighed. "You would have seen that."
"What happened to the willow one?"
"Sort of thing that happens to thin sticks of wood occasionally."
He snorted. "What, you lost it at Poohsticks?"
In spite of herself, she laughed. They wandered the Transfiguration corridor in silence and dodged a vengeful-looking Professor McGonagall, sweeping along with a couple idiot third-years in tow. Prongs shook his head. "Lesson one, never get caught. I ought to set up courses."
"You'll keep your educational instincts under control while you're wearing that Head Boy badge if you please," said Lily primly. "Petunia snapped it."
She didn't need to look at him to know he missed a step; his arm around her shoulder tightened and his body jolted against hers.
"Why?"
Oh, she loved him for not raging first.
"Because I was happy. Because I came home from Christmas Eve dinner at your parents' house with a pile of books you'd bought me and a smile on my face. Because I spent two days between Boxing Day and New Year's planning my future, and in every corner of it was magic."
Peeves floated round the corner ahead of them with a Dungbomb in one hand; he sprang to attention when he saw them and swept a bow. "AHA! Everybody HAIL the King and Queen of the Forest! All you're missing is a fawn."
"Sod off, Peeves," Lily and James said simultaneously. He blew a raspberry after them and swooped off.
"I'm sorry," Prongs added as they wandered on.
Lily stepped on his foot. "It's hardly your fault, is it? Don't you pull your face and be kind and understanding, I'll cry. She's vile and she's unhappy and she hates me. I'll manage. It's not the first time."
"Evans, I don't think he hates you," said Prongs dryly.
"He doesn't get to pick and choose which parts of me to be friends with," said Lily flatly.
"... Not quite what I meant."
Lily looked away. "He doesn't get to fancy some imaginary adult version of the selfish nine year old he met in a park, either."
James sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Look, this is depressing. I've had my Grave Face on for at least twenty minutes and it's starting to ache to be perfectly honest with you. Lily, you're the light of my life and the joy of my heart; if you want I can nip over to Surrey this afternoon and hex her face off, but you won't want that, and I don't know what else to offer you that'll make you feel better. I flooded the Slytherin common room the last time Reggie and Cissa were filthy to Sirius, but Petunia lives at home and I don't want to inconvenience your Mum."
Prongs had a way of saying outrageous things with a straight face and a steady voice that could make you almost believe him, and then you laughed because surely he wasn't being serious; except, of course, he generally was. Look at the time he'd told her he had to go see a bloke about a giant inflatable alligator, and two days later it had turned up hanging from the ceiling of the Great Hall: pink, with bright orange polka dots, trailing half-eaten House banners from the corners of its jaws and cheerfully snapping at anyone who tried to take it down.
Lily sighed and shifted her weight from foot to foot and eyed the hand she could see in the crook of his opposite elbow speculatively. She had a thing about hands, she knew that rather well, and the scars Bella had put on James' when they were twelve did nothing to marr the beauty of them.
He raised his eyebrows.
She grinned.
"Go make Black plead our excuses to Sprout and then snog me in the Room of Requirement?"
"That," said James, eyes narrowing, "I can arrange. Why the Room of Requirement?"
"It's not on that map of yours. I always feel watched when we're together and you haven't got it."
He laughed at her all the way down to the Great Hall and over to Sirius; Lily waited at the doors while much laughter and expansive (expressive) gesturing took place, and, feeling more than a little pleased with herself, remembered her gorgeous silver doe.