James Potter has a nice face, Lily realizes.
This epiphany is alarming, especially due to the fact it is unprompted by an outsider's thoughts. No, she has come to this conclusion entirely on her own.
Being friends with Sirius Black, it is easy to forget any merit his looks might have when compared to someone so excessively handsome. Sirius is everything one could hope their seventeen-year-old self to look like. He has high cheekbones and shiny hair combined with effortless grace. It is not that James is without his charm, it is that everyone looks plain in comparison to Sirius.
She does not quite remember arriving here. She had wanted to take a break from studying and now finds herself at the Great Lake, without ever having consciously thought of walking there. She is standing at a short distance from James and his friends, who sit under the beech tree by the lake.
Sirius, Remus and Peter are all speaking about something. Lily does not quite hear it, nor does she care to. She has not come to eavesdrop. She's not even sure what she has come to do. To greet them, perhaps, but then she would have announced her presence. The only one who has not yet said a word among the group is James. For once, he is conspicuously silent. When Lily looks at him properly, she is startled by what she finds.
James sits with an elbow propped up on folded knees. He leans his head against the bark of the tree behind him. His hands curl into the grass around him and the wind dances wildly. His hair seems to enjoy this opportunity for disarray. It his expression that shocks her most.
Lily feels as though she has walked into a painting. There is something so thoughtful in his face that he cannot be real. The James Potter she knows is all loud laughs and secretive smirks, but this person is looking at the world as if he sees everything and cannot bear it.
He could be thinking about the war. The distant, yet all too close battles that are being fought anywhere where there is blood to be shed. He could be thinking of his parents, who can no longer pretend they are entirely in good health. He could be thinking of his friends, or his future, or his past. Lily does not know. All she knows is that it has put an expression on his face that strikes her to her core. This is a man she could stare at for days.
He is not handsome. Handsome is not the right word. James is entirely something else. Evident, she wants to say. He is just right there, and of course she can see him next to Sirius, because whocouldn't see someone so blindingly apparent. She has never seen a more interesting face.
Then he turns and waves her over, and she thinks that perhaps he might be a little handsome after all.
When she reaches him, he grins widely, tugging her down to sit beside him.
(Just a little.)