Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or Kate Nash's lyrics. I don't really own much, thinking about it...
He finds her crying by the fire at midnight, sobbing her fiery little heart out. He'd planned on going out for a fag, but the sight of her there, curled up in the fetal position and wailing the kind of wail that he can feel in his very soul, makes him decide that, actually, his need for nicotine is not the most important thing tonight.
He coughs quietly, and she looks up. "Oh," she says, and she tries to wipe her tears away (it's too late, he's already seen) "it's you."
"Yeah," he says, and he sits on the settee with a schlump, "sorry. I could go and get Marlene, or…"
"No," she replies quickly, standing up (oh Merlin, those legs, he thinks to himself) "no, it's fine, Potter, I was just going anyway-"
"He's an arsehole," James isn't entirely what he just said or why he said it, but the look on her face tells him quite clearly that he should not have said it at all.
"You're an arsehole," she snaps at him, and as she turns to go, he grabs her wrist (and somewhere in the sky a star is born) but she pulls away. "Leave me alone." James Potter simply raises his eyebrows in that devil-may-care way that she hates so much, and Lily Evans is reminded that he is the reason Severus called her what he did. "Do you hear me, Potter? Leave. Me. Alone."
"He's an arsehole," he repeats, staring straight into those emerald eyes without blinking, "he's an arsehole and you are best off without him."
Is she? "He's my best friend," she tells Potter sadly, "he's my best, best friend."
James goes to grab her wrist again, but misses, aims too low, and grabs the tip-top of her fingers, half holding her hand. It's clammy, which is surprising because he thought she would burn. She glares at him again, but doesn't move. "Evans," he says, voice low and (he hopes) soothing, "get a new best friend, one that doesn't hurt you so bloody much."
She sighs, and tugs her fingers away from his. "Not that simple, Potter. It's really not that simple."
They're lying on a blanket under the stars, and feeling like absolute clichés, when he is reminded of that night, all those moons ago.
She has had a fight with Marlene.
"I don't want to cry," she tells him, head resting on his shoulder, "I really don't want to cry over that stupid, awful, cruel idiot, but I am, so I apologise."
He chuckles as she sobs, "S'fine, Evans, I've seen you cry loads of times."
"This is different," she spits, "I should not be wasting any of my tears on that cow. Ever."
He refrains from reminding her that she once wept over Severus Snape, and instead squeezes her shoulder in a (he hopes) comforting way. "She's your best friend," he points out, and Lily laughs coldly, running a hand through that long red hair.
"No," she murmurs, "no, she is not my best friend." And then she sighs, a sad little sigh that causes the stars to dim, and he wonders if she has stopped crying. But a stifled whimper tells him that she hasn't.
"Oh Merlin," she mutters, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, "oh, Merlin, what am I going to do, James, what am I going to do?"
"Evans," he tells her quietly, grabbing those thin fingers and finding that they are just as clammy as they were the first time he held them, "get a new best friend, one that doesn't hurt you so bloody much."
She laughs shakily. "No," she whispers, "no I don't need to."
"Why not?"
"Because my best friend is you."
And above them, a supernova explodes.