Lily trembled in the corner of a couch in the common room in reaction to the raging thunder storm outside. She couldn't wake up her friends; that wasn't fair to them. She was now a seventh year witch. It was just a little thunder storm, but no matter how brave she tried to be, thunder storms frightened her terribly.
She froze. Somebody was coming down the stairs.
James Potter bounded into the common room with a folded blanket.
"Hi, Lily." He said softly. "You alright?"
She bit down hard on her lip to force her chin to stop trembling. "Yes," she lied.
James smiled lightly, "You're lying." He informed her quietly.
She shook her head violently.
He walked over to her, not slowly, but not as fast as he normally would, and sat down beside her.
"It's alright to be afraid of the thunder." He said gently. "Everybody's afraid of something."
Lily shook her head again. "Not everybody's afraid of thunder."
James laid the blanket over both of them, and put an arm around her. "No, but everybody has fears."
She couldn't help it, he was being so sweet. She put her head tentatively on his shoulder.
"It's not really the thunder, it's the….lightening" she whispered that last word, almost afraid that it could hear her.
James nodded slowly, accepting her fears. "And that's okay." He whispered back.
Lily heard an enormous boom of thunder, and started. James held her closer to him, comforting her.
They sat there for hours, and Lily began to see that he wasn't always a pompous, arrogant jerk. He could be very sweet, and understanding. She wished desperately that he could be like that more often.
The rain began to let up, but Lily didn't want to go.
James was perfectly content to sit and stare into the fire that they'd started for as long as Lily wanted to. He'd loved her for years, but never had a real chance to tell her. Here it was.
Slowly, the thunder stopped, and the windows didn't light up with thunder anymore, but Lily stayed where she was; snuggled under that blanket with James.
"Lily?" he whispered. She looked up. "It's over."
"I know." Lily whispered back, but she didn't move.
He laughed quietly to herself, then closed his eyes and enjoyed being with the girl of his dreams if only for another couple hours.
There was always time to tell her that he loved her, and he was too scared of her reaction to tell her just then. He'd let her know tomorrow.
A/N- Finito! I thought this was really cute!
Dani