Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is property of JK Rowling.

...it was not your fault but mine
and it was your heart on the line.
I really fucked it up this time,
didn't I my dear?

Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons

Think it over and over and over

And he was kissing me as he'd never kissed me before. Desperately, frantically, nervously. As though this would all go away at witching hour. As though I would fish my acquiescence out of the air. And his lips were everywhere at once and my thoughts were racing and my heart was floundering and when we broke apart, that one word echoed between us –

'Yes.'

And I decided then that this would always be remembered as our first kiss.

'Once you've shown your true colours, you find it very hard to pack them back into your pencil case.' My dad told me that once, a very long time ago when I was still at primary school and my best friend snapped my favourite doll's head off and threw it into a pond.

Sev called me a Mudblood.

Barely a week later, he called a Hufflepuff third year a Mudblood. In the Great Hall. The third year had accidentally trodden on Sev's robes and ripped them. I already knew that Sev could not afford new robes for sixth year, and to have his robes ruined at the end of fifth year must have been more than a little irritating. Not irritating enough to throw that word out there though.

Sirius seemed to agree with me. He drew his wand faster than I could take the scene in and his mouth was already forming the jinx when James stood in between the two. He took the jinx. Vicious boils sprouted on his face. He paid them no mind as he caught Sirius' arm in his grip and pulled him out of the Hall.

I had already known before this that I wasn't an honest person. I really, really wasn't. I had lied to Mary when I said I thought Sev was good deep-down, when I said I thought his actions were due to peer-pressure rather than his own beliefs. I had lied to Petunia when I said that my magic wouldn't change our relationship. I had lied to Professor Slughorn when I said I was looking forward to the next Slug Club. I had lied to Mac when I said that her new fringe suited her. And I had lied to myself when I said would never think of James Potter as anything but an arrogant arse.

Because after that moment, I thought of him with a tinge of almost-admiration.

'Yes?'

Harsh breaths hit parted lips.

'Definitely yes.'

Chuckles rumbled around us. His mouth found mine again. I tasted sweetness and passion and happiness. I couldn't keep the grin back. I didn't think I should anyway. He deserved to know how happy I was in this moment.

Kisses fluttered across my face, interrupted by victorious smiles.

'It was always going to be 'yes', James.'

He didn't apologise until sixth year. I was walking back from a Prefect's meeting and James appeared as he is wont to do. We walked together peacefully, amicably, and then, halfway up a moving staircase, he touched my elbow and blinked solemnly and just said, 'I really am sorry, you know, about last year.'

Somehow I didn't need to hear it anymore. I had known for a while that he'd been sorry. Yes, he had been arrogant and ridiculous and a bit over the top, but he had been sixteen. Name a sixteen year old boy that hasn't acted like a prat some of the time and I'll fly to Jupiter. He had never been cruel. None of his pranks had ever been malicious, not really.

And, with some much needed distance between us, I could sort of begin to appreciate that Sev had not been as innocent as I'd previously believed. How many times had James or Sirius arrived to lessons or back at the Common Room with a busted lip or a cut cheek or a black eye? And how many times had I seen Sev afterwards sporting a secret little smile or a vindictively sparking glint in his eye?

When you want to believe the best in someone, it's stupidly easy to ignore the worst.

We weren't friends in sixth year. Not really, anyway. We didn't shout anymore, we were just – separate. His life continued in my peripheral vision and occasionally he would appear right in front of me and I would acknowledge him pleasantly. It was quite nice actually. Getting on with him. It wasn't quite enough. I wanted more of him. Sometimes there were moments when he spent more time in my direct vision than my peripheral. There were times when I sought him out, just to see what he was up to. I didn't always need to talk to him; just looking at him made me feel a tiny bit better.

Of course we had stupid moments, we always did. Mostly me. My brain has never been fully engaged with my mouth. There was an absolutely horrendous moment half way through the year when James' father died in the most gruesome of circumstances and I managed to bring up the whole 'arrogant arse' thing again. He forgave me for that, almost immediately. And then that was that. I looked at him nervously, hopefully, uselessly. He looked away.

His thumb drew patterns into my waist.

'Well, it would have been nice if you could have told me a little sooner.' His expression was teasing but his tone was hurt.

'It would have been nice if I could have figured it out a little sooner.' I pressed a kiss onto his knuckle. 'I told you as soon as I could.'

Now wasn't the time for words. I tugged his hand into mine, tugged his body closer to mine, tugged his bottom lip with my teeth.

And he was all too happy to let me.

This year he was still looking away, but more pointedly, as though he was trying to convince himself it is better this way. I was still looking at him, shamelessly, desperately, earnestly. I was pushing. He was running. What a turn up for the books.

(I lied, you see. He's not arrogant. He's caring and loving and daring and fascinating and a huge list of other '-ings' that just make me want to smile and smile. And I want him.)

And so I did what he did. I chased him and I flirted with him and one day, I did what he didn't do. I kissed him. It wasn't a game. I wasn't messing around with him. I understood why he thought I was. I wanted to go slowly and charge forwards all at the same time. I knew him so well but he was new and fresh and exciting to me and my head couldn't quite drown out the bells that clatter when he was near.

I needed him to be where I was, to catch me up. To just catch me really. I was doing things I didn't really understand and it was made all the more difficult when he reacted in such unexpected ways. I wanted to keep it between us, keep it for us. He never wanted that.

He would sit there, quietly confused; I would pretend to be unaware of the reasons behind it. I would approach him and he would make his feelings known and I would do all I could to twist them to fit mine somehow.

And wasn't that awful? He loved me. I knew. How could I dive into love? How could I ever keep up with the pace he was setting us?

As Sev began it, he ended it. A terrible day made worse by the sudden appearance of an old friend. Similar to finding a favourite cardigan from years ago and realising how unsuitable it had been for you. He arrived beside me in the Great Hall and he simpered and then he sneered and snitched about a conversation he had overheard between Sirius and Peter that James had taken to eating in the kitchen because he couldn't face the Great Hall anymore.

'How the mighty have fallen, Lily, don't you think?'

I knew when he had fallen. Or, I had my suspicions anyway.

When had I fallen? Had I fallen in fifth year when James stood between his best friend and his favourite target? Perhaps when he had suffered the cruel taunts of the Slytherins with regards to his father's death? Perhaps when he no longer looked for me.

Did it matter?

It was hard to find him. I didn't, in the end. He found me. He always found me. He always looked for me. I knew that.

And so it was all too easy to let the one last word that needed to be said fall from my lips. And it was all too easy to swallow up his smiles and his laughs and his joy.

Patrols were given up as a bad job and we retreated to the Common Room. I tucked myself into his side and his arm curled around my waist as though it had always been there. The weight of it was familiar, comforting, cheering, so very there.

My fingers traced a vain from his wrist to his elbow. His cheek rubbed my hair. His lips brushed my forehead. He hummed quietly to himself, the notes blended softly, gently, tenderly.

And I replayed our first kiss in my mind.