My sad brain is on a timeout for the way it's been treating all of you. Stupid brain's in charge again.

I'm back, friends. ("Back" — lol)


It wasn't her least favourite part of the job, but it was definitely down on the lower quarter of the list.

She had things to do - there was a lab to run, an article to edit (again), a teaching observation for the DP&TC she was serving on, she had to catch up on research, write a new grant proposal… the list of things that she had to do just kept bloody growing, but instead of doing any of those things, she was dragging a bag of fliers across campus towards the University Commons to stand around in a ballroom for an hour while bored students and their anxious parents talked to her about what their baby could do with a degree in chemistry.

Nevermind the fact that there were literally a million papers on her table that said just what they could do with such a major.

Bloomin idiots.

She, at least, had it easier than her husband did.

She stood around for two hours and talked to kids whose parents were largely supportive of their ambitions, kids who thought the investment in their education was ultimately worth it. Poor James stood around for two hours and defended the humanities against sceptical parents who 'didn't see the use in a history degree, if they were honest,' and talked to students who routinely half-joked that they were going to be starving and impoverished forever.

So, really, she had the better end of the deal.

Still didn't mean she wanted to fucking do it.

She always got roped into these because her chair knew that Lily couldn't say no when he reminded her that 'she was something of a household name now, and students would love to see that she's active on campus' — as much as she wanted to tell Slughorn to fuck off, she knew that it was her own occasionally obnoxious ego that put her in this position. That, and the fact that once she'd agreed to do this her first year (which was somehow five years ago now) to 'get to know her new university,' she had apparently made this her responsibility for the rest of her fucking career.

This place was so fucking lucky that she agreed to move her family across the ocean for them.

She had to admit that it was nice to get out of her office for a little while during the day. It was warm for late October, the sun was still shining (something that it never was back home at this point), and the light breeze felt nice as long as she kept hold of the side of her dress to keep the damn thing from flying up.

She would also be totally lying if she said that she wasn't at least a little excited about the prospect of another recruitment fair. Not because she liked talking to parents (she didn't), not because she wanted to hear from more seventeen year olds about their kind of bland interest in chemistry (nope), but because James, too, always ended up getting roped into these things, and, over the past few years, they'd managed to turn this incredibly boring exercise into something that Lily found… well.

Let's just say that it was quite inappropriate to be thinking the things that she usually ended up thinking while she was wasting away at these events.

She arrived at the Ballroom a few minutes before noon, dropped her bag of crap at the Chemistry table and scanned the room. The tables were set, as always, in four long rows, the departments, academic or otherwise, lined up in alphabetical order. Her table was in the middle of the third row, the one that faced in towards the large walkway in the centre of the room (the one that lead towards the food at the back, and was, inevitably, the busiest). There were a few familiar faces, the same poor faculty that kept getting roped into these things, the work study students that clearly didn't want to be there, but she was far more interested in making her way towards the catering tables in the back of the room than stopping and chatting with anyone she might know. She waved to a few people as she passed, smiled, laughed at some things she kind of heard people say to her as she walked by, but there were plates and plates of sweets on the table she was walking towards and she was not trying to stop and talk to 'Dr Rob' (as he continued to insist that she call him) from Accounting because, one, he was a twat, two, she wasn't calling him doctor fucking anything, and three, sweets.

She had stacked her first four brownies of the afternoon onto her plate and was getting ready to make herself a cup of tea (while side-eyeing the giant pitcher of iced that still deeply offended her and would until her dying day) when she felt someone's hand on the small of her back.

'Hey,' he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek, 'fancy seeing you here.'

She leaned back into his touch, turned, and smiled at him. 'You know I can't resist a strong selection of bakes.'

James chuckled, grabbed one of the brownies off of her plate, took a bite. 'I do know your weakness, yes.'

She snatched the brownie back out of his hand, set her plate on her other side while she started preparing her tea. 'Ready to get your arse handed to you, today, Potter?'

He laughed, 'Oh, Evans, so cocky.'

She bit her lip to hide a smile, but it was too late. 'Oh,' James bumped her hip with his, 'mind out of the gutter, love.'

'Can't help it,' she said, 'I'm already thinking about how I'm going to collect my winnings this time around.'

'You have some interesting ideas, I expect,' James said, raising an eyebrow at her. Lily hummed noncommittally as she finished preparing her tea, let her chest graze his side as she leaned across him to bin her teabag.

'You could say that,' she said, 'but you seem pretty confident in yourself this time, so I don't know if it matters.'

'I really feel like this is going to be my fair. You not going to distract me into throwing it this time, Evans.'

She snorted, 'Oh my god, for the millionth time we both know that you didn't throw that one. You lost fair and bloody square.'

'So it's just a coincidence that you were being all sexy and I thought "well, my lovely wife deserves a win, maybe I'll let her have this one"?'

'First of all, I win every damn time, so don't act like you let me. Second of all,' she smiled, 'I'm always sexy, so that's incredibly rude of you.'

James leaned closer, opened his mouth to reply, but then someone cleared their throat behind him.

'So sorry,' James grabbed his things off the table while Lily bit back a laugh, 'we'll just - ' He started to back away from the table and once he'd moved, Lily saw who it was and she had to swallow an irritated groan.

'That's alright, son,' he clapped James on the arm, 'I certainly understand being distracted!'

He slid into James' spot next to Lily and she smiled as she grabbed her plate off the table, stepped back towards James. 'Nice to see you again, Bob.'

Dr. Rob frowned at her and Lily just kept on smiling. 'Dr. Evans, Chemistry. We've met a number of times before,' she lifted her tea to her lips and took a sip, 'It was really lovely seeing you, but we'll clear out so you can get in at these treats.'

James' lip was white when they turned to walk away, and he stepped closer to her, ducked down so that he could talk quietly just above her ear. 'I can't believe you called him Bob to his face.'

'I can't call him Broccoli Rob, can I,' she said, chuckling, 'Bob was a nice mix, I thought.'

'He didn't even correct you,' James said, 'that's a first.'

'I think he's still confused about the fact that I'm a woman with a doctorate,' Lily said, rolling her eyes, 'let alone a woman with a doctorate who is far more successful than he could ever hope to be.'

'You are cocky today,' James said, slowing down as they approached her still incredibly disorganised table.

'Confident,' she said, 'and don't act like you don't like it.'

James grinned, 'You know I love it, no point in pretending.'

They continued down the row of tables towards the back of the ballroom. When they reached the end of the row, James turned, smiled down at her. 'Best of luck, love,' he said, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her cheek. She grinned, turned and began walking back towards her row of tables.

'I don't need luck,' she said, smiling at him over her shoulder, 'but thanks anyway.'

James scoffed, shook his head at her, turned and headed up his own row towards the History table.

He was set directly across from her, and so he was in her direct line of sight as he started pulling stacks of colourful flyers out of his bag. She watched him as he laid the flyers out in neat stacks on his table, as he leaned over, grabbed his computer, and started setting up whatever he was displaying. He looked up as he turned his computer around, his eyes met hers, and he smirked, shot her a subtle wink.

She straightened her shoulders (ignored the fact that he was now chuckling to himself) and set up her own table.

She looked up from her flyers a few minutes later as a huge stream of people made their way through the doors at the front of the Ballroom and down the centre aisle, scanning the tables on either side, as they continued towards the food at the back. She caught James' eye between groups of people as they passed, and he grinned at her, mouthed something that looked suspiciously like 'It's on.'

Despite James' apparent confidence in himself, though, it wasn't long before they both realised that this fair was going to be pretty standard. He spoke with a few people, handed out a few flyers, even got a couple of students to write their names down for the department's listserv, but Lily was inundated with students and parents from the moment people started floating back from the catering tables, and they both knew that James had absolutely no chance.

People talked to Lily about their child's interest in medical school, pharmacy school, asked about research opportunities on campus and internships with nearby organizations, grilled her on all the requirements for majors and minors in her department, asked if they thought it was 'too hard'. Lily handed out leaflets about all those things, tried to suppress eyerolls when people said 'Oh my god, your accent! Where're you from,' and did her best to smile her way through an hour of near constant rambling.

Sometimes you happen to meet a kid that you genuinely think might astound you, a kid that you really, really want to encourage to come to your school, to work in your department, a kid that has a lot of promise - she met one, just the one, but Lily had given her her campus email and gotten her name on the department listserv before she walked away, so she counted it as a victory.

She and James looked up from time to time, flashed smiles at one another, sent mouthed threats across the way, but there was nothing that James could do to draw more attention his way (though he did get a few more people when he started doing that sexy hair rumpling thing he always did, the bastard). When the recruitment fair was over an hour later, James didn't even need to check his sign up sheet against hers. He just caught her eye from across the aisle, tipped his head at her in defeat, and started packing up his things.

Lily did her best to ignore the excited twisting in her stomach as she swept all the fliers off her table into the travel bag that Mary, their wonderful department administrator, had given her, and made her way down the aisle towards the door.

She met James a few paces away from the door and he immediately reached out, took her hand, wound his fingers through hers. 'Isn't Mary going to be cross with you for bringing the bag back to her like that again?'

'I'll tell her I had to fight a squirrel on the walk back or something,' Lily said, waving him off, 'she'll believe me.'

'She absolutely will not,' James said, laughing, 'she'll probably make you stand there and reorganise everything.'

'Whatever,' Lily tugged on his hand, started pulling him down the stairs towards the first floor, 'I really, really don't give a shit right now, James. More important things have come up.'

He smirked down at her. 'Not yet they haven't.'

Lily smacked him with her bag and James just chuckled in her ear.

They both walked a little bit faster.

Her office was only a few minutes away from the University Commons, a nice change from the last university she'd worked at where it was literally a twenty minute walk away. They walked as smoothly as they could through the post-lunch crowds, cursing under their breath about the campus' decision to end these damn recruitment fairs right during the middle of class change, and climbed the final set of stairs towards the Chem building.

They pushed through the last large crowd of people, Lily's bag of fliers now smashed completely against her side, and made their way towards the doors on the ground floor of her building.

They walked towards the lift at the far end of the building, hit the button for the fifth floor when they got inside. James smiled at her as the doors closed, squeezed her hand just a bit, stepped closer into her side.

'I like your dress, by the way,' he said, leaning back a bit and letting his eyes move slowly over her. She grinned when his eyes found hers.

'I like to be prepared.'

James chuckled softly, his chest rumbling against her side, and it took more self-control than Lily possessed to keep her wits about her for just a few more minutes.

She wasn't sure what the situation was going to be when they got to her department, if people were going to be milling around the halls chatting (it was just around the time that people would be coming back from lunch meetings) or if the path to her office would be completely deserted.

She had a plan either way (one involved exasperated talk about a teacher of Harry's that they'd invented for moments when they needed to get other people to ignore them, the other was basically just sprinting down an empty corridor and falling into her office as quickly as they could), but there was always those few moments of nervous anticipation that twisted in her gut before she knew one way or the other.

She couldn't pretend that the thrill wasn't a large part of the appeal.

When they exited the lift outside the row of Chemistry department offices, though, there was no one in sight. She could hear a few people chatting from down the hall, knew that a few people were probably floating around, but if they were quick (and she managed to actually fucking open her office door on the first try) they might be able to stumble into her office without having to pretend that Mr Shrewsberry was torturing poor Harry again.

She reached inside her jacket pocket, pulled out her keys as quietly as she could, started flipping through the ring until her fingers landed on the well-worn key with her office number engraved on the back. James stepped up behind her as they approached the door, let his hand rest lightly on the small of her back, and, while the action would normally have made her fumble the key in the lock (because no matter how many years they'd been together, James, apparently, still made her a completely hopeless klutz), she managed to get the door unlocked in one swift motion.

She pushed down the handle, wrenched her keys from the lock, and stepped into her office, reaching behind her and grabbing a fistful of James' jacket, and pulling him in behind her, shutting the door quietly to avoid alerting anyone to her return.

He turned her around the moment she clicked the door shut behind them, pressed his mouth immediately to hers. She groaned softly into his mouth, careful not to make too much noise, and dropped her bag onto the floor beside James'. James smiled against her lips as he put his hands on her hips and started guiding her back towards her desk.

He pushed her back into the edge of her desk, lifted her just a bit so that she was perched on the end, nudged her legs apart with his knee, and stepped into her.

She groaned a bit louder when their hips met, and James chuckled quietly, moved to kiss her jaw, her neck, before he took the bottom of her ear between his teeth.

'Shh,' he said, nibbling lightly on her earlobe, 'got to be quiet, love.'

She groaned softly, so quietly it was barely more than a breath, and James smiled against her neck, sucked lightly at the spot underneath her ear that he knew she liked.

She sighed, pulled his mouth back to hers.

James moved his hand between her thighs.

She barely bit back her moan when James' fingers slid into her pants, and her hands moved immediately to the buckle on his belt. James hummed against her lips , shook his head.

He mumbled, 'Gotta collect first, love,' against her lips, before he stepped back and dropped to his knees.

She almost moaned out loud just looking at him like that, from the mad rush of seeing him kneeling in front of her, his fingers looping over the waistband of her pants and shimmying them down her legs.

He dropped her knickers on the floor beside him, took her hips firmly in his hands, and slid her towards the end of the desk. She lost her balance a bit, and she just caught herself on her hands before James leant forward and put his mouth on her.

It was never a surprise how good this felt, never - it was a rush of hot familiarity, the way he hummed against her, the shock of electricity that zipped through her when he flicked his tongue over her clit. The tension was already building in her stomach, she was biting her lip to stay quiet, and then he moved his hand from her hip and slipped two fingers inside her and fuck it all she couldn't stop the moan that escaped her then. It was louder than was probably advisable, but far quieter than usual, so she half expected that he wouldn't notice, but James moved back, started peppering kisses along the inside of her thigh, looked up at her.

'You're being a bit loud, Evans,' he said, and if he didn't look so fucking hot between her thighs, if she didn't love it when he teased her like that, she really would fucking kill him. 'You sure you can handle it?'

He had the audacity to raise his fucking eyebrow at her, and then she really did consider strangling him. Smug bastard.

'I thought I won,' she said, the sharpness in her tone undercut by the fact that she was still breathless, 'aren't you supposed to be doing what I asked?'

James chuckled softly, and the heat of his breath against her almost made her groan, 'I'm pretty sure tenure won't save you if you get caught having sex in your office.'

'Well, I'm not having sex, am I, someone's too busy banging on about — '

The rest of her words died on her tongue because James laughed, leaned forward, and put his mouth on her again.

She pressed her lips together and wound her fingers in his hair before he started getting anymore ideas.

It wasn't long before he worked her up again, for the tension that'd been building to return in full force, wasn't long before she was teetering on the edge and she knew he could tell because the way he smirked against her whenever she let out a sharp breath was proof that he knew exactly what he was doing to her.

'James,' she could barely keep her voice steady, 'James, please.'

He hummed against her, curled his fingers inside her, and finally, finally, she came apart.

She grabbed his shoulders as soon as she thought she could lift her weight off her hands, pulled him to his feet, moved her hands immediately to his belt, made swift work of the thing despite her trembling fingers.

James, who normally would have laughed at her urgency, was trailing hot kisses up her neck, sucking that spot underneath her ear again, and the moment she managed to undo his belt and the button on his trousers, his hands moved to her hips and he slid her off the end of the desk.

He pressed into her, his hands sliding up over her waist, the sides of her breasts, her neck, and he pulled her mouth back to his, groaning softly against her lips when her fingers became even more frantic between them. She wrapped her hands around the waistband of his trousers, pushed them down off his hips, took his pants with them. She took him in her hand and he moaned a bit louder into her mouth and she pulled back, shushed him as she kissed along the underside of his jaw.

'We can't do this if you can't behave, Potter,' she said. She took his earlobe between her teeth and James sighed into her hair, his hands dropped back to her hips, his fingers pressing into her skin as though he was trying to steady himself.

He reached between them, grabbed her wrists, and spun her around so she was facing the desk, pressed his hips against hers as he leaned down and kissed her neck.

She breathed out a moan and James smiled against her neck. 'Yeah, Evans? Like this?'

'Yeah,' she said, and James groaned quietly in her ear, moved his hand from her hip, and up underneath her dress again.

She bit her lip, let her head fall back onto his chest for a minute, and as much as she loved the feeling of his fingers sliding against her, she needed more. She needed it now.

'If you don't fuck me right now, James, I swear to god.' She leaned forward, pushed her hips back into his, and, while James might have been tempted to keep teasing her, he knew they didn't exactly have all the time in the world.

He slid his hand from between her thighs, pulled her dress up over her hips, pushed into her, and she hadn't even — fuck — it didn't make sense that it was this good every fucking time, but then he was moving in swift, deep strokes and his hand was between her thighs again and she couldn't fucking breathe let alone remember why the fuck she needed to stay quiet. Who the fuck cared about tenure, anyway, she didn't need it.

She slid her feet closer together, breathed a hard sigh at the shift in the sensation, pressed her palms into the desk and let her head fall forward. James groaned softly from behind her, his hand tightened on her hip, he moved faster.

She was close again, the pressure wound so tight in her stomach that she could barely fucking breathe, and she could tell, from the way James' fingers swirled faster over her clit, that he knew she was nearly there. He was close, too — his hand was firm on her hip, his strokes were faster, harder, and when she leaned forward and laid flat against the desk, he barely, just barely, bit back a moan that would have completely given them away.

There'd be time for teasing him about that, later.

As it was, the pressure had spiked and her heart was racing and she didn't have time to tease him because she couldn't bloody think straight. She just muttered, 'James, I'm right there, I'm so close, just one more,' under her breath again and again until the tension finally broke.

James wasn't far behind, a few more quick thrusts, and he exhaled hard behind her, his hips moving erratically against hers. When they'd both settled, he moved his hand from between her thighs, reached up and wound his fingers through hers, before he leaned over, careful to keep most of his weight off of her, and rested his head on her back to catch his breath.

They were still for a few moments, James' forehead pressed against her spine, as their breathing slowly returned to normal. Eventually, James squeezed her hip lightly in warning, and sat up, pulled back.

Lily leaned forward immediately and grabbed the box of tissues from the corner of her desk, took a handful before she tossed the box over her shoulder to James. James chuckled, 'We really need a better way to handle this. This is, what?'

'I don't know,' Lily tossed her tissues in the wastepaper basket beside her desk before she bent over to retrieve her knickers off the floor, 'the fifth time we've done this? How many times have you lost?'

James swatted her bum and she shot him a smile over her shoulder.

They took a few minutes to get everything tucked away, and, when James had settled in the seat across from her desk, Lily walked over and quietly cracked her office door. She couldn't hear anyone out in the corridor, but she figured they might as well make the scene convincing should anyone happen to walk by.

'What do you want for dinner tonight,' Lily asked, walking back and sitting back behind her desk.

James shrugged, leaned over and turned on the kettle Lily kept on the corner of her desk.

'We still have leftover curry from the other night, yeah?'

Lily hummed, grabbed two mugs and her tea tin from the shelf over her desk, 'I think? Text Harry and ask him.'

James checked his watch. 'Harry's not home from school yet.'

'Yeah, but he'll know,' Lily said, dropping tea bags into their mugs, 'you know he has a mental inventory of everything in the fridge at all times.'

James snorted, pulled his mobile out of his trouser pocket. 'Good point.'

They made their tea (Harry did, indeed, confirm that there was curry in the fridge) and they were chatting about some interview Lily had lined up next week when there was a knock on the door.

Lily set her mug down on her desk. 'Come in.'

Slughorn poked his head into her office, his eyes flicking from Lily to James to Lily again before he smiled. 'Thought I heard you chatting away in here,' Slughorn said, leaning up against the doorframe.

Lily took a sip of her tea. 'James and I like to catch up after these things,' she said, catching James' eye for a moment before she smiled at Slughorn, 'Nice after an hour of recruiting to relax for a bit.'

'Oh, naturally,' Slughorn beamed at her, and Lily bit back a broad smile. 'How did it go,' he asked.

'I got a little over a dozen students interested,' Lily said, leaning back in her chair a bit, 'but I spoke to one student, uh,' she thought back to the list in the bag she'd practically tossed on the floor earlier, 'Dora Tonks, who seems like a really promising student. I've encouraged her to reach out to me with any questions, so I'm hoping that she gets in and decides to join the department in the fall.'

'That's great,' Slughorn said, 'and how about you, James? How're things over in History?'

James chuckled, 'About as you'd expect. No money, no students, lots of parents that think what we do is worthless - pretty standard recruitment fair.'

Slughorn laughed, 'Must be tough going with Lily, then, watching her get all that attention.'

James grinned, 'She always gets the attention, Horace, but she's bloody well earned it.' He smiled at Lily, 'I have no trouble bowing down to her when necessary.'

Lily took another sip of tea to hide the flush that had worked its way onto her cheeks.

Slughorn boomed another laugh, 'Secret to a good marriage, right there.'

James laughed, 'Don't I know it, Horace.'

Slughorn chuckled, 'Well, I'll let you get back to it. I'll see you at Core in an hour, Lily?'

She nodded, 'I just have to pop into the lab for a bit, but I'll be there.'

Slughorn rapped on her doorframe, 'Great. See you then,' and disappeared down the hall.

James grinned at her and Lily bit back a smile, shook her head at him. Her look, though, only made James' smile wider and his eyes lit up with amusement behind his glasses. She couldn't believe how much she loved him, how her heart still skidded to a halt in her chest whenever he caught her eye.

Twenty years, a kid, and two fucking countries, apparently, were not enough to stop her feeling like a giddy teenager whenever he smiled that way, like she was his whole world.

She grabbed her mug, threw back the rest of her tea, and sighed. 'Well, I better get to the lab if I want to be on time for Core in an hour,' she said, grabbing a hair bauble off the clip on her desk and throwing her hair back, 'I was hoping to avoid this damn meeting, but - '

'You can't help yourself,' James asked, smiling at her as he, too, finished his tea. They stood and she sighed, 'I'm a glutton for punishment.'

'Are you,' James quirked an eyebrow at her and she snorted, swatted his chest. 'Don't be gross.'

James laughed, grabbed his bag from where he'd dropped it when they'd arrived, slung it over his shoulders. 'You said it, not me.'

She rolled her eyes, grabbed her keys from the corner of her desk, and herded James out of her office.