(A/N: Without a doubt, the most shameless fluff I've ever written. Happy V-Day!)


Jasmines

Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars -alights,
And is lost in balms!

-Emily Dickinson

It's the smell of her skin, her hair, the scent she leaves behind when she walks. People say that flowers turn towards the light, but he's dazedly watching the sun and the stars spin around her, intoxicated by the fresh white jasmine of her body, and nature's turned upside down again.

Lily Evans in spring is a revelation unto herself, and something about the muggy, drowsy air of the Divination classroom makes it impossible for James Potter to look away. He stumbles through her scented trail, chasing after the elusive promise that is her and sun, and sweet, sweet perfume. The trees and the grass seem to offset her brilliance outside the Great Hall, and he feels a little punchdrunk when she smiles at him. He's bitten three times in Herbology by a Venomous Tentacula, but even the rapid, sharp pain of his swelling hand seems to vanish when he brushes past her and carries the pristine haze of jasmines into the Hospital Wing.

Over the summer his mother is convinced he's lost his mind when she finds that he's bought thirteen bottles of Matin Blanche to spray on his pillow each day (but how can he explain that this is as close as he can get to the essence of Lily when she's not here).

And then, as the leaves fall, he, too, swoops dizzily around her eternal spring, a leaf carried on a merciless wind. The orange of her hair matches the waterfall of red and orange foliage, but James is still seeing flowers and white, white, white in the pale ivory of her hands. (And one last bottle of Matin Blanche follows him to school, a last bulwark against winter.)

But the white of the snow, the curt bite of winter brings him the most beautiful bloom of all, when Lily Evans, reddening at the nose, and flushing at the cheeks, leans up to press the jasmine of her mouth to his-

And James is lost.