Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to JK Rowling. The title is taken from So This Is Love in Cinderella (Disney, 1950). No infringement intended.
So This Is Love
The colours hit the page like a mob running towards the police. Yellow dashed across orange, green smeared past black, white peeked through the confusion like a first year trying to interrupt one of McGonagall's lectures.
She was so wrapped up in what she was doing, as much a part of the riot as her paint brush, that she didn't realise a strand of hair was slowly sneaking over her shoulder towards the paper. He caught it, wrapped it back into the chaos of her bun. His chin rested on her shoulder and she inclined her head to nudge his cheek.
'I didn't know you could draw.'
She snickered gently, used her fingers to smudge the outline, dropped them into the water pot and rubbed them clean.
'Why would you?'
His mouth opened. Shut. He huffed out half a laugh, half a sigh.
'I don't know.'
Only he had watched her for five years before this moment. He thought he had her figured out. She had fit so neatly into little compartments he didn't remember making. Sure, every now and then, there was a new detail, and that slotted into place alongside the others. He had thought that with Lily, what you saw was what you got. Stupid really. Because if what you saw was always what you got then he would actually be that arrogant, snobbish idiot and Lily would be too busy scorning him to rush up to her dorm to show him the paintings she was most proud of.
Old habits die hard though, so he opened up his mental filing cabinet of all things Lily and stored this little nugget away under 'Hobbies & Passions'. She arrived back in the Common Room in a flurry of excitement, sitting next to him and offering him the paintings. Her hands waved and trembled through the air and her voice stumbled and chirruped next to him as she explained each one in such detail that he knew he had lost a little something of himself in that moment.
Rain swept the clouds to the side of the sky and the branches of the Forest brushed up the debris. She couldn't see him in the dark. Squinting, pressing her face up to the window, he still didn't appear. She sighed, tugged her cloak closer to her body and opened the door. The cobbles glittered and gave way to mud. She headed to the Quidditch Pitch, her wand held high in front of her, lighting the way. She didn't want to think about how filthy her shoes were going to be when she got back inside. Her beautiful new shoes that she had just bought the previous month in Hogsmeade. The same beautiful new shoes that she was meant to be wearing to graduation. But James was nowhere to be found in the castle and she really did want to see him tonight. What with full moons and homework and tutoring and girls' night, she hadn't seen him properly since Sunday afternoon and it was Saturday night now.
The Quidditch Pitch loomed out of the night. James didn't. She pulled at her hair in frustration. Probably would have stomped her foot if it wasn't trapped in the mud. She settled for turning round instead.
'What the hell are you doing?' Even in the limited light that her wand afforded, she could tell he was smirking.
'Looking for you, dungbrains.' She held out her hand and he pulled her towards him, her foot squelching attractively in the puddly-ground. She wriggled his cloak open and he flapped his hands frantically.
'Well if you're coming in, come in quickly, woman. It's cold!'
She snorted and closed his cloak around them both. He shivered into her body, letting his hands slip onto her hip and ushered back towards the castle.
'What's the hurry? You've not even said hello to me yet.'
'Hello.'
He picked up speed.
'Oi! What are you playing at?' She dug her heels into the mud, wincing inwardly at the imagined state of her lovely shoes.
He stared at her incredulously. 'Lily,' he said in a calm, patient voice. 'It's raining.'
'You love the rain.'
He blinked owlishly. 'I really don't.'
She tilted her head up to better see his face.
'You do! You love rain.'
'Lily, I wear glasses. What person who has to wear glasses twenty four hours a day loves the rain?' He waited for her input. None came. 'The minute I get inside, these damn things will fog up like no-one's business. Plus, have you any idea how hard it is to play Quidditch in the rain?'
She laughed, pressed her forehead into his chest. 'It always comes back to Quidditch.'
'Yes, yes. James is an adorable Quidditch-obsessed, rain-hating lunatic. Let's discuss this further inside, OK?'
She tripped alongside him, giggling and spluttering.
'You seem very decided in your opinions of the rain,' she told him.
He nodded, wrapped his arm around her waist and sped up.
'Is there any way I can change your mind?' She sneaked a kiss onto his upper arm.
He moved it away from her reach in a very obvious manner. 'Absolutely not. Get inside before I rethink this entire relationship.'
Her laughter fought with the splattering rain drops and won.
'What should we do?'
'We could do anything.'
'James, seriously. What should we do?'
'Lily, seriously. I've convinced you to bring me to London on a Hogsmeade weekend. About a dozen school rules lie broken at your feet. We could do anything.'
She pursed her lips. 'When I let you convince me to bring you to London, I assumed you had some grand scheme in mind.'
'Nope.' Popping the 'p'.
She sighed testily.
'Hey, relax.' He rubbed her knuckle with his thumb. 'We're in London, Lily. What do you want to do?'
She looked around them. Buses slinked past them, black taxis blared, people swarmed. She was more than a little out of place in an urban setting. This was nothing like the Sussex countryside she surrounded herself with when she wasn't at school. She looked back at him, watched the smile play with his lips, shrugged.
'Don't know.' Her hand found his and he chuckled.
'Want to go to the theatre?'
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
'Yes!'
He grinned at her, pecked her lips. 'This way,' he said. He led them effortlessly through the crowds, his saunter cutting through the urgent steps of the business men around them.
This was nothing that she had expected. And that was good. You don't want things to be as you thought. And not just this weekend. She had been so ready to settle down into ordinary. She thought he would fit her like a comfortable pair of jeans. They had known each other for six and a half years. They knew what to say when they wanted to start a fight. They knew how to look when they were apologising. She knew he was allergic to eggs. He knew she loved drinking black coffee with no sugar. Discovering that they could know all this and still know so little was so exciting for her. Even four months ago when they had first gotten together, she would not have known that James would suggest they go to the theatre on a sunny afternoon in London.
They arrived at some obscure little building tucked away down some side-street.
'Fancy a bit of Wilde?'
She laughed delightedly. 'Of course you know Muggle playwrights.'
'I'm James Potter,' he holds his hand out for her to shake. 'I know everything.'
They laughed their way into the box office and he bought their two tickets with too much confidence.
'Of course you have Muggle money.'
He kissed her temple and handed her the tickets. 'This air of spontaneity is a carefully studied charade.'
'Idiot.'
They settled down in their seats and slipped into the play. She leaned into his warmth and his arm enveloped them together. Perhaps after this, she could take him for a Chinese and she could discover how he coped with chillis. And tomorrow, they would carry on tumbling into love.
This is probably going to be the last little bit of nonsense I write in a while. At least, I expect it to be. But then, I always say things and do the exact opposite so this could probably be the most pointless ramble in the history of rambles.
I'll be lost in the word of post-grad for the next eight months or so and really won't have much time spare to do anything but breathe and buy apple juice. I do have lots of ideas though, and having taken so long to get into writing on this site, I'm not giving it up. Stories will appear sporadically, most likely during school holidays.
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/favourited/alerted my little stories (and me for that matter), it really has been so encouraging. I hope I'll find you all again when I start posting again.
I'm A Cuckoo x