A/N: Hello again! I'm sorry, but I just got so inspired when I listened to Mary's Song the other day, and just had to write this. I promise I will get around to finishing the next chapter soon!
Disclaimer: All characters, places, general story-ness all belong to J.K Rowling, as usual. All song lyrics belong to the lovely Taylor Swift. As always, the fluffy crappiness belongs to mwah.
She said, I was seven and you were nine
I looked at you like the stars that shined
In the sky, the pretty lights
And our daddies used to joke about the two of us
Growing up and falling in love and our mamas smiled
And rolled their eyes and said oh my my my
Take me back to the house in the backyard tree
Said you'd beat me up, you were bigger than me
You never did, you never did
Take me back when our world was one block wide
I dared you to kiss me and ran when you tried
Just two kids, you and I...
Oh my my my my
Well, I was sixteen when suddenly
I wasn't that little girl you used to see
But your eyes still shined like pretty lights
And our daddies used to joke about the two of us
They never believed we'd really fall in love
And our mamas smiled and rolled their eyes
And said oh my my my...
Take me back to the creek beds we turned up
Two A.M. riding in your truck and all I need is you next to me
Take me back to the time we had our very first fight
The slamming of doors instead of kissing goodnight
You stayed outside till the morning light
Oh my my my my
A few years had gone and come around
We were sitting at our favorite spot in town
And you looked at me, got down on one knee
Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle
Our whole town came and our mamas cried
You said I do and I did too
Take me home where we met so many years before
We'll rock our babies on that very front porch
After all this time, you and I
I'll be eighty-seven; you'll be eighty-nine
I'll still look at you like the stars that shine
In the sky, oh my my my...
Dorea Potter looked out of the kitchen window, giving her a good view of the park that was just across the road. She watched a messy haired nine-year-old ruffle his hair after falling off of the swing, playfully glaring at a small redheaded girl who was clutching her sides, laughing at him.
"Watch how they'll grow up and fall in love," Charlus Potter, her husband, said, nodding to the small children.
Dorea only smiled and rolled her grey eyes.
"Lily, stop laughing!"
"I-I-I," she began, trying to form a coherent sentence, but really couldn't help it. Her best friend and next-door-neighbor James Potter had been trying to prove to her that he could fly, that he was magic, and had got himself all worked up – only to fall flat on his face. Like good friends do, she had only burst out into laughter, then worried for his health. Once she had found out he was okay, she had returned to the laughter – because really, it was just so adorably stupid.
"Li-ly!" he whined, breaking up the syllables.
She swallowed her giggles for a moment and wiped at her mirth-filled eyes. "Sorry James."
"That wasn't funny," he grumbled. He hated making himself look like an idiot in front of her – he was older! She should be the one getting laughed at by the other.
"You're right," she agreed. He looked at her strangely for a second – she never agreed with him. He thought she was playing another round of opposite-day – which he found extremely annoying and confusing – until she finished with "it was hilarious!"
"Stop it! Or… I'll beat you up!" he said, with no evidence in his voice that he could carry out the threat.
Lily only rolled her eyes. As much as he said he would, that he had nothing to loose because he was the bigger – which he unfortunately was. He had at least a good foot on her – and he was obviously stronger – which was debatable; he never, ever followed through. The most she had gotten out of him was a barely-there glare.
"I mean it," he tried again, but knew it was no use. He'd never hurt her, both he and she knew that.
"Of course you do, James."
"James, can I tell you a secret?" Lily whispered to him as they sat under the big oak tree in his backyard.
Their parents, who had been friends with each other since Lily's family had moved here back when Petunia was born, all stood chattering around the barbeque.
Petunia, as always, was with her own group of girlfriends who were sitting at he end of the garden, giggling and gossiping to the other in hushed tones.
James looked down to see Lily's big, green eyes staring up at him, filled with excitement.
"Go on then," he invited. He knew nearly every one of her secrets, so he was surprised to hear she may have any more – not that he wanted her to catch on, of course.
"I think…" she took a deep breath, and a bright grin grew across her face. "I think I can do magic!"
His eyes widened. James' family was all witches and wizards, and he had found out that he himself was a wizard too, only a year ago. The first thing his mother had made him swear to do was to not, under any circumstances, tell anyone. Especially Lily. He had whined and complained and asked why, but in the end he promised to keep it a secret.
Could Lily be a witch, also? He wanted to believe it, but it sounded too good to be true.
"Really?" he asked, trying to keep the hopefulness out of his voice.
"Yeah!" she was positively glowing now. "I can make things fly around, and – watch this!"
She plucked a daisy from the grass below her, and set it into her palm. Her little face crinkled in concentration, and the white flower blossomed, its petals straightening out and changing to a cleaner white, the pollen turning a finer yellow, and the floral scent grew until it was clouding up the air around them.
That was the first time little Lily Evans had left him truly speechless.
"I dare you to… knock on Mrs. Piper's door and hide… then make her cats fly around her head!"
"James, I can't control the magic yet!"
"I'm not stupid Lils. I know you can! Liar, liar, pants on fire!" he chanted.
She huffed. It was true – when she really focused on it, she could control her magical outbursts and do whatever she wanted. While sometimes it got her into situations like this – making cats fly around peoples' heads – she was glad she could do it, because James – who had always acted like he could do things better than her, simply because of age – couldn't. And it made him extremely jealous.
Still, she didn't like Mrs. Piper. She was the horrible, crazy, old lady down their street who had lots of mangy cats from rescue shelters. Once or twice she could have sworn she saw Mrs. Piper throw said cats at passersby, yelling in garbled tongue at them. Lily wasn't a cat person in all, but she made an exception for James' own, Algernon.
"Shut up! I'm not a liar!"
"You're just scared, Evans. Chicken!"
Lily glared furiously and huffed. "I am not a chicken!" she protested indignantly.
"Oh but I think you are," he continued smugly. He loved getting on Lily's nerves.
"I am not!" she cried again, storming up the gravel path of 72 Bakers Rd, to the battered door of Mrs. Piper. Turning back to him, she glared and stuck out her tongue, her cheeks slightly pink. Loudly, she rapped the knocker and then proceeded to duck behind the hedge that lined the old lady's porch.
Seconds later, the door swung open and out came the old lady, waving her cane in the air, a few of her ugly cats following her out. Lily concentrated hard, a slight frown crossing her face and she squinted her eyes shut, then –
She heard James' hoot of laughter first. Her eyes flew open and saw Mrs. Piper standing in a ratty blue dressing gown and slippers, watching her cats with an amazed-cross-horrified look. Three in all had risen, and were floating gently in the empty air around her head.
Her laughing companion joined her, trying to stifle his loud guffaws. That was the problem with him – he always gave them away with his stupid, loud, infectious laugh. She squeezed her eyes shut once more and the cats came falling down, hissing and spitting. Once again, James burst into laughter, and before their crazy neighbor could make out the street's troublemakers, she grabbed his hand and ran off, down the pathway that lead back to their favourite place – the park.
"Okay…" Lily began, taking deep breaths. "I dare you…" she thought hard. She wanted to embarrass him. A moment later she was grinning. "I dare you to kiss me!"
James looked at her, his hazel eyes wide underneath his square spectacles. "What?" he asked, his voice high.
She only laughed in response. She knew just what she was doing. "I dare you to kiss me, James Potter! …Unless you're chicken."
"I'm not!"
"So you're going to kiss me then?"
He went red in the cheeks.
"Bwack, bwack bwack, bwack!" she clucked, imitating a chicken, letting go of his hand and tucking her own under her arm, flapping them wildly while she nodded her head.
"I'm not! I'll do it!"
She looked at him mischievously. "Go on then."
He leaned forward slightly, his face rivaling a beetroot. She waited until he was only inches from her face before she took off running once more.
"Lily!" he yelled, chasing after her.
"But I don't want you to go!" nine-year-old Lily sobbed, as she clung to eleven-year-old James on Platform 9 ¾. It would be so strange, not to see him for the majority of the year, not to have him around in the morning so he could eat Lily's mum's infamous pancakes, not to see him and his family on every Sunday night when they came over for a Roast dinner. It would be so lonely. He was her best friend.
"Lily, stop it. James has to go." Her mother tried again, but Lily only tightened her grip on him.
James was fairly sure his shirt would have a big wet patch when he finally got her off of him, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. He would miss Lily, too. He wished she could come along to Hogwarts with him.
"Lils, I'm going to miss you too," he started, speaking just low enough so only she could hear.
"Then don't go," came her muffled reply. She was still very small. Her head only came up to his chest.
"I have to," he said. "But I promise I'll write every day, okay? I can't have you forgetting about me."
"I'm not going to forget you, idiot."
"Just in case you do, I'll write."
"You better." She lifted her head from his shirt and looked up at him with watery, but narrowed nonetheless, eyes. "Every. Day. Are you sure you want to promise that? I'll hold you to it."
"I don't doubt you will." He grinned at her. While two years younger, marginally smaller and a lot cuter than he was, she could still scare him just a bit. Now was one of those times, for he knew for definite she would hold him to the promise.
"So do you promise?" she insisted.
"I'll pinky swear it." Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. The two of them took their pinky swears seriously. And when they say seriously, they mean seriously. James had once broken one – by complete accident, of course, and Lily had refused to talk to him for a whole week (a vow she nearly broke within an hour of making), and went out of her way to make him trip up on things, have objects explode in his proximity, and generally have bad luck (which wasn't unusual, since she did that anyway).
When Lily broke hers (she tended not to think too much when excited), James had gone two weeks avoiding her company (which he thought was a kind of two-way punishment – not speaking to Lily sucked), and just to annoy her further, had spent the weeks occupying his time with Petunia, who was nice enough, but nowhere near as much fun as Lily was. It was fair to say breaking the promises only hurt both in the end.
"If you break it, then I will never, ever speak to you again. Do you accept these consequences?"
"I do." In some cases, it may have been laughable how they acted like making the swear was the height of trust, but to them, it was.
"Then you can take my pinky." She held up her little finger for him to hook with his. He took it, shook once, and stamped his thumb with hers.
And the thing was, he knew he would write. It may not be a yard long sheet of parchment detailing his day down to what he had for breakfast, but he knew he would make an effort to scribble out a joke he may have heard in the corridors that he thought she might like, or something funny happening to him in the course of the day, just little things.
"I'll still miss you," she admitted.
"And I'll still miss you." He had promised himself not to cry, but he could feel the corners of his eyes filling up.
"Well obviously," she snorted. "I'm fabulous."
Lily remembered being on this platform two years ago, sobbing and clinging to James like it was the end of the world. She remembered the year before, were she liked to believe she had just a tad more dignity (though she still did cry – earning a teasing from Sirius Black, James' best friend (who he informed didn't have a patch on her), who she had become familiar with thanks to him spending most of the summer holidays at James').
Now, she was standing with a trunk at her side, her owl in its cage, James at her side, and finally, she would be boarding with him instead of being left behind.
"Excited?" he asked. He was thirteen now, and as much as she didn't want to admit it, he was starting to look seriously good.
"A bit."
"You have to get sorted into Gryffindor, okay? I don't want you in another House."
She felt her cheeks getting hot. "And why's that?"
"Well, if we versed you at Quidditch, you'd be cheering for your own house's team, consequently not cheering for me…"
"So it all just comes down to Quidditch?"
"No. I'd miss you, too."
"But we'd still be in the same castle," she reminded him, though her stomach was fluttering wildly.
"Yeah, but you would be in your houses Common Room, and I couldn't have chats with you and stuff."
"You mean you couldn't annoy me and stuff."
"Yeah, that too."
She only rolled her eyes.
James made it his mission to cheer the loudest and most outrageously when Lily got sorted into Gryffindor. It had earned him a glare from her, but he still prided himself in his ability to make her blush. She had gone completely red, and looked like she wanted to sink into the floor, especially when, instead of sitting at the end of the table like all first years do, he had grabbed and dragged her over to his spot and made her sit with him and his friends. He couldn't help it though. He always knew that if one thing could make Hogwarts better, it would be Lily Evans.
It was strange to see Lily with other guys.
He was in his sixth year now, her in her fourth, and she had blossomed like the flower she had shown him all those years ago.
She had always been cocky, confident and beautiful to him, but now it was out in the open for everyone to see. She radiated energy, and in his opinion, the world always seemed a fraction brighter whenever she was near.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn't the only one to see her as one of the lights in his life.
Lily had got herself a boyfriend, a fifth year Ravenclaw who, if you asked him, didn't deserve her at all. Not that he did, per say, but he doubted that this boy knew what Lily's favourite smell was (talcum powder), what she was most scared of (spiders), or even her favourite book (Little Women).
He wasn't too sure why he felt so protective of her. He put it down to purely just brotherly love, but the pull in his gut whenever he saw her with this boy, or the way he just felt so at ease and happy whenever he was with her told him otherwise.
Lily hadn't been having a very good week. She had tons of homework, an impending detention for accidentally-on-purpose cursing Lindsay Dale when she had none too quietly stated her opinion of Lily in the fourth floor corridor, and what she thought to be the worst, James seemed frustrated with her for no apparent reason.
While the two were close, it wasn't a perfect relationship. They had always fought, for they were both strong characters with different opinions, but they had always worked through them and come out even closer than they were before.
She had gone over in her head what she could possibly have done, but came up blank. They had barely even spoken the past month (not her choice, but it was inevitable when he had NEWTs to prepare for). Since there was only a short amount of time left, she had hoped he would ditch the books and that they could spend the rest of the year together, like usual, but he had made excuses, gone out of his way to avoid her, and to be honest, it made Lily feel like shit.
"You okay, Lilyflower?" asked the boy next to her, Callum Sweeny, her boyfriend of four months. They were in the library, supposedly studying, but looking at the books and parchment in front of them, it was clear he had been doing all the work.
She didn't like the pet name he had bestowed her. 'Flower', 'Lilyflower', and any other rendition of it made her want to punch the poor boys sweet face. It wasn't that she didn't like him, because honestly, she did, it was just that the name made her sound so delicate and fragile, completely the opposite of her nature. She had tried to explain this to her friends, but they had all laughed and said, "Let him be nice to you, silly!"
She had a feeling only James would really understand where she was coming from, but since he wasn't speaking to him, she couldn't go and complain. Also, she had a feeling talking to him about Callum wouldn't be the best of ideas.
"I'm fine," she replied tiredly.
"Revision boring you, huh?"
"Must be."
"Evans wants to know wants what she's done to make you hate her, and what she can do to make up for it." Sirius said as he entered the dorm.
James sat on his bed, a snitch in one hand, his other behind his head. He had built up a repetitive pattern of catch. Release. Catch. Release. Over the course of half an hour, leaving him to do something with his hands as he thought over everything that had been bothering him.
"I doubt she said that," he replied, his eyes not leaving the golden ball that was fluttering a few inches above his palm. He caught it again when it tried to make a break for freedom.
"Not in so many words, I'll agree, but when she's sitting down there with a face like death, there's only two things that could possibly be wrong." He held up two fingers, and counted them off. "You, or there wasn't any treacle tart for dessert. And considering I ate a few dozen platefuls of said tart for dinner, I'd say you're the problem. What'd she do?"
He didn't reply for a while. "She hasn't done anything."
"Then what's wrong?"
"Herumbfruid," he mumbled.
"What?"
"Her boyfriend!"
To his surprise, all Sirius did was laugh and roll his eyes.
"You, my friend, are pathetic."
James had given up with his not-speaking-to-Lily game the next day. As much as he wanted her for himself, he wasn't about to upset her just because of some crush he had developed.
Lily seemed to be delighted to have him speaking to her again, so that was enough of a consolation prize for him, he thought.
Summer had come and gone, with a mixture of days playing Quidditch with his friends, and trying to teach Lily – who was hopeless, may he add – nights at his own house with the Marauders and Lily on the occasion, nights at the Evanses with his parents chatting away to Lily's like anything, and that one night out under the stars he and Lily had shared. That was by far his favourite.
"Did you hear? Lily Evans broke up with Callum Sweeny!"
"No! What is she thinking? Has she seen him?"
Three weeks into the new school year, and the Hogwarts gossip mill was already running like crazy. The rumors of Lily and Callum's break up had been spreading through the school like a wildfire. James couldn't say he didn't like them, but he didn't want to believe it until he heard it from her.
At the end of the day, he found Lily sitting in an armchair by the fire, a weathered copy of Little Women in her hands and a frown on her pretty face.
A group of girls who couldn't be older than thirteen sat on the sofa across from her, talking and laughing loudly, constantly stealing furtive glances at her from within their circle. If James had to guess, he'd say they were discussing the latest scandal – her breakup with the boy who James had deemed not good enough.
He strolled on over to her, and dropped himself on the armrest of her chair. He didn't say anything, just waited for her to make some acknowledgement of his presence.
When she didn't do anything, he sighed loudly and pointedly, and stretched out an arm, which he then placed around her shoulders.
Still, no reaction.
It got to the point where she was atop his lap before she closed her book and turned, very slowly, to face him and fix him with one of her worst glares.
"Can I help you?" she asked contemptuously.
He shrugged and grinned, happy to finally have her attention. "Just wanted to see my favourite girl."
She rolled her eyes and slid herself around, so her back was resting on the armrest instead of his front. He missed her warmth, but like this he could see her in full, so it wasn't too bad.
"What did you really come for?"
"Why didn't you say hello when I first came over?" he countered.
"I was reading."
"You haven't turned the page for the past quarter of an hour. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression you were smart, and didn't have any reading troubles."
"I was trying to really understand the words."
"You've read that book over fifty times. I think you know it off by heart."
"Forty-three times, actually."
He held up his hands apologetically. "I beg for thy forgiveness."
"Thou hast not been forgiven."
They both held the others gaze, neither blinking, waiting for the other to back down.
James won when Lily looked away to glare at the group of girls who were still discussing her, now with a new fervor, thanks to the show going on right under their noses.
"What have they been talking about?" he asked her innocently, thinking this would be the best way to get her to talk about what he really came to find out.
Either tact was just not his forte, or Lily could read him better than he first thought.
"Yes, James, I ended it with Callum, but no, I did not stab him with a knife, curse him, or go back in time and wipe his memory, then return to the present, destroy the clone of myself from the past, and then restore his memories, except the ones of me, so he would never even remember us dating. I don't even know where that came about."
"I doubt the real way is as interesting as any of the above?"
"Nope. Just nice and simple, 'I don't think its working out, maybe we should see other people'."
"Any reason why it wasn't working out? I thought you liked him."
Her face grew red. "I liked him, but…"
"What?" the stupid, hopeful, insane side of his brain started imagining scenarios where Lily told him it was because she was madly and passionately in love with him, and couldn't deny her feelings any longer.
"Well… This is going to sound stupid, okay? Don't laugh."
"I won't."
"He had this… This nickname, I guess. And while I never told him, specifically, I just… I hated it!"
"That's why?"
"Well, not all of it, there were some other… worthy factors, but that was one of the main reasons."
"What did he call you that was so bad?"
"It doesn't sound bad when you say it, it's just – it's so annoying!"
"Tell me!" James insisted.
"He… He wouldn't stop calling me Flower."
"Flower? That's it?"
"It's awful! It makes me sound so delicate and fragile and stupid, like I need protecting and –"
"If there's one thing I know, it's that you definitely don't need protecting, Evans."
Four months past, and Lily's sixteenth was just around the corner.
This year, her birthday landed on a Hogsmeade weekend, so James had planned to take her, and make sure she had an amazing day.
The weekend rolled around, and Lily woke up with a note attached to her forehead.
Lily,
Happy Birthday! Put on something pretty and meet me in the Entrance Hall by eleven. I'm going to make sure today's the best birthday ever.
-J
In Lily's opinion, just that note had made her day ten times better than the year before.
He refused to let her pay for anything, bought her everything, and charmed a badge he'd found to read 'IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!', and occasionally yell it out at the most inappropriate times. So far, Lily really was having the best birthday yet.
They were sitting at a booth in the Three Broomsticks, Lily having just tried her first real shot of Firewhiskey (James had insisted she needed to take a birthday shot to commemorate, to which she had replied that he was a bad influence – but she'd still had one anyway), and were having a cheery conversation about the current rumor that Professor McGonagall and Filch were having a secret affair.
James could feel a bubble of panic and anticipation fill him at about what he was planning to say. He knew for sure how he felt now, and thought it only fair for him to let her know.
"Lily… I – I have something to tell you."
She glanced at him and cocked an eyebrow, her eyes still filled with tears of mirth from their previous conversation. "I'm all ears."
"See… The thing is… That…"
"Come on," she encouraged, wiping her eye and smiling at him. "I'm not that scary, am I?"
"Lils, I – I think I'm in love with you."
"Think?"
"Really? Really? I just confessed my feelings for you and you…" he sighed. "I don't know why I bother."
"I thought you loved me?" she teased.
"Bloody hell, Evans. Kick a man while he's down?"
"Sorry." She had a mad grin on her face and kept fidgeting in her seat. James didn't say anything for a while.
"Aren't you going to, then?" she asked finally.
"Going to what?"
"Kiss me."
He looked at her as though she had grown an extra head. "What?"
"That's what people generally do when they like each other, right?"
"Wha –" he began to say again, before the realization set in. "Oh!"
She raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to, then?"
"I might do."
"Well hurry –" the rest of her sentence was lost when his lips met hers.
And because it seemed to be the correct moment, the badge yelled out "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!"
The next summer holidays were the best yet. Sleepless nights spent at his new flat, car rides at 2am for no reason other than Lily being bored and wanting to see the stars (which you couldn't see well at all from his flat, Lily had said), and days lazing around in the park they loved so much when they were kids.
It wasn't all perfect though. Of course, because it was them, Lily Evans and James Potter, they still fought like crazy. He couldn't even really remember the details of their first proper fight, but he recalled Lily slamming her front door in his face, and him sitting on her porch all night, until she woke up the next morning and found him there. And, like all their fights, they were resolved quickly.
James was sad that he wouldn't be with her for the next two years, thanks to him finishing school, but now he knew what it must have felt like for Lily back when he began school, and left her behind.
She had pinky promised (yes, they still did mean as much as they did six years ago) that she would write everyday, just they same as James had promised (one he had kept, if the fact she was still conversing with him meant anything) when he first left for Hogwarts. It still didn't fill the ache he was bound to feel, which he knew would be even more painful than the first time, because he didn't have her the way he did now back when he was eleven, but it was enough to know she would at least be thinking of him.
September first rolled around far too quickly for his liking.
"Don't go." Kiss.
"I have to." Kiss.
"No you don't." Kiss.
"Yes I do." Kiss.
"Stay here with me." Kiss.
"I want to." Kiss.
"Then do it." Kiss.
"No." Kiss.
"But I'll miss you." Marginally longer kiss.
"I'll miss you too." Even longer kiss.
"You can't leave me with hanging after a kiss like that!" he protested as she detangled herself from his embrace.
"I can and will." She winked at him, picked up her trunk and ran for the train. She blew him a last kiss, which he pretended to catch and hold close to his heart, before she disappeared in the mass of students.
While Lily was away in Hogwarts, if it were possible, James found himself even more in love with Lily than he had been before. The saying 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' didn't even cover what he felt. He missed he like crazy, her warm body pressed against his on his dingy, single camper bed, the way she snorted when she laughed, then got embarrassed about it after, everything.
She had kept to her word and written him everyday, some saying things like I miss you. Get here now or just I love you, Potter. Others were filled with little rants about the Professors and the amounts of homework she was receiving – I think McGonagall's out to kill me with this transfiguration, do it for me? – Others keeping him up on the rumors – Apparently Helena Barber and Johnny Shell shagged – and some, though very few, held intimate and private things only intended for him to read.
It was in this time away from her that he fully understood just how much he cared for her, and it was then that he made a certain decision that not many eighteen-year-olds make.
The first thing Lily was greeted with as she stepped off the train was a hug/kiss/I-need-to-get-you-to-as-close-to-me-as-possible attack, from James. Not to say she was complaining or anything, for she had missed him just as much as he seemed to have missed her. Everything she had written in her notes to him were the truth, how her favourite armchair just wasn't as comfy as it was with him on it aswell, how she needed him in her bed holding her to fall asleep, and how she was going to murder whoever it was who had the bright idea to enforce the NEWTs. She thought the last one could wait, though, as she was a bit preoccupied with the boy in front of her.
It was nearing Christmas, and despite the weather, the two had decided to go for a picnic in their park, just for old times' sake.
It was brutally cold, and Lily had bullied James into giving him her hat, saying it was the gentlemanly thing to do, asking if he really wanted his girlfriend's ears to freeze off, yada, yada, yada.
He seemed more on edge than usual, and Lily hadn't the faintest idea why. The past five months had been amazing – Lily had moved into the flat with James (and Sirius, too, it seemed, for he was there every other night), nothing extraordinarily bad had happened (apart from those few nights Lily had spent back at her parents'), and, as far as she knew, they were happy.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or?" she asked.
"I have a question."
"…Yes?" she said, after a short pause when he didn't elaborate.
"And… said question would be a lot better if you answered with yes."
"Is that so?"
"Yup." He said, popping the 'p' at the end.
"And are you going to ask me said question?"
"I want to," he admitted.
"So do I."
"Okay…" he took a deep breath, and in all honesty Lily had completely no idea what was going on. That was, until he got down on one knee.
"Oh – James – oh," she tried to steady her breathing.
"Lily Evans, you've always been the girl for me, and I can't imagine being with anyone else. Will you make me the happiest man alive, and be my wife?"
For a blinding moment, she couldn't speak. There was a lump in her throat, her eyes were watering and she had to put in effort to make sure she was breathing properly.
"Of course, you big idiot." She finally chocked out, tears running down her face as she held out her left hand. He slid on the thin band; a single diamond gleaming in the centre, and then kissed her hand. She rolled her eyes and yanked him up, and crushed her lips on to his.
"What did I say, Dorea?" Charlus Potter asked as he watched his soon to be daughter-in-law walk up the aisle, a huge grin plastered onto her face.
"Be quiet," she chided half-heartedly, tears filling her stormy grey eyes.
"That's my girl," Lyle Evans said, pride resounding throughout his tone as he sat down next to his wife after walking his daughter up to meet her fiancé-almost-husband.
"Ah, we knew this would happen all along, didn't we, Dor?" Olivia Evans said, nudging her friend, her eyes in the same state of tears as Dorea's.
"When have we ever been wrong?" she replied simply, and finally let the tears flow as she heard the matching 'I do's echo through the church.
"We need a real house," Mrs. Potter said from the darkness of the room.
"We have a real house," James replied, his arms tightening around his wife's waist.
"I mean one were we don't sleep on a camper bed, and one were Sirius won't crash out in." Lily explained.
Despite it being their wedding night, Sirius didn't see the problem with spending the night on their couch. 'We're all family now!' he had cheered, before promptly passing out.
"I can fix the bed problem, but we're never getting rid of Sirius."
They did end up buying a new house. A big one, in the country, surrounded by fields and forests and creeks and adventure, somewhere you could always see the stars.
Their kids had grown up here, and eventually left to pursue lives of their own. While it hurt back then, they were okay with it now, and still got to see them every now and again, with the added delight of their grandchildren.
It was a warm, August night when eighty-seven year old Lily Potter sat with eighty-nine year old James Potter, watching the stars and thinking about just how lucky her life was.
A/N: I love Taylor Swift. That is all.