For the Houses Competition

House: Ravenclaw

Year: 5

Category: Standard

Prompt: Torrential downpour

Word count: 954

WARNING for swearing

Lily always used to think that being caught out in the rain would be romantic. All those cheesy movies she and Petunia used to watch seemed to suggest so, anyway. She would imagine being with the person that she loved, when suddenly the heavens would open, soaking them to the bone, but they wouldn't care because they were in love and carefree. They would kiss, and it would be every bit as perfect as those movies said it would be.

Of course, those were childhood fantasies, largely abandoned by the time she fell in love for real. She dreamed of other things by then - graduating Hogwarts without her idiot boyfriend getting her into trouble, for one - although sometimes she would think back on them, and smile at how simple things had been back then. She wondered if Tuney still dreamed of those silly things, or whether she too had grown up and moved on. Probably the latter, knowing Tuney - Lily hated to think it, but she knew that her sister had likely stopped dreaming the second she was rejected from Hogwarts.

None of that mattered though, because, childhood dreams or no, she had never truly wanted to find out what being caught out in the rain was really like. Especially not with James Potter in tow.

Lily hated the rain. Drizzles, fine, she could handle those as long as she wasn't too far away from shelter if needed. Even a light shower was okay if she had a warm coat and an umbrella with her. But a torrential downpour? Nope, count her out, not happening. And a torrential downpour with neither a coat nor an umbrella, and instead a grinning husband who just kept laughing instead of offering solutions? Well. That was Lily's nightmare right there, and she hadn't even realised that until it happened.

The day had started out perfectly, not a cloud in the sky. James had gotten up early, for once, and suggested that they have a picnic while the good weather lasted. Part of Lily had wanted to say no, because she had a mile long list of other things they needed to get done, but the rest of her ached for a day off. She and James hadn't spent proper time alone in far too long, and she knew that a picnic would do both of them good.

So they'd gone, and it had been fine, until, in true West Country fashion, the sky had blackened all of a sudden and rain had begun to pour down on them. They, and the picnic, were soaked within seconds, and they had to scramble to get everything away from the wet.

"Shit," Lily cursed, shivering as she felt water begin to drip down her back. "Shit, shit, shit, now all that food's gone to waste. This was such a bad idea; I can't believe I let you talk me into this, James Potter."

James just laughed at her, putting things back into the bag with infuriating slowness. "Calm down, Lil, it's just a bit of rain."

"Just a bit of rain?" she echoed angrily. "James, this is torrential. I'm soaked, you're soaked, we don't have coats, it's cold, and we're twenty minutes away from home."

James shrugged, still smiling. "We could always just put up an umbrella," he suggested, quirking an eyebrow.

Lily frowned. "We don't have…" She trailed off, noticing James moving to grab his wand from his back pocket. "James, no. We can't."

"Why not? There's no one else here," James pointed out.

Lily hesitated. Strictly speaking, James was right - any nearby Muggles had smartly checked the weather forecast and decided to stay home. Still - call her paranoid - but they couldn't be sure they wouldn't bump into someone, and Muggles tended to be suspicious of two people staying dry whilst everything around them got soaked.

"No," she insisted, finally shoving the last item haphazardly into the bag and zipping it up. James sighed in mock exasperation, but she could tell that he didn't really mind.

Hoisting the bag up onto her shoulder and brushing a few wet strands of hair out of her eyes, Lily turned to trudge her way back across the field. She took one step forward, and immediately trod in a fresh patch of mud. Her foot slipped out from under her, and, feeling herself begin to fall, she tried to put out a hand to catch herself, but the bag hampered her movements.

Suddenly there were strong arms grabbing her shoulders, and she squinted through the rain to see James grinning down at her. He spun her around, but didn't quite help her to her feet, so she was stuck looking up at him from an odd angle.

"Guess you fell for me, huh," he said in a teasing tone.

Lily groaned; that had to be the worst line in the book.

"James, let me up," she asked, but as she was talking James started leaning in, and her mind froze. She was cold and wet and covered in mud and her husband was using shitty pick-up lines, and this had to be the least romantic situation ever -

James kissed her softly, and Lily's worries flew out of her head for a moment. She forgot about the rain, and just let herself not care, because she had dreamed of this moment as a child and she was not going to let stupid worries distract her from it now.

"Come on," James murmured, pulling away and setting her upright. "Let's go home."

Lily smiled at him and nodded, bowing her head and wrapping her arm around James's waist as they continued the trek back home. Perhaps the rain wasn't quite as bad as she had believed.

I hope you enjoyed that! Thanks for reading, and please leave a review if you have a moment!