~ Twenty-six ~

~ A Jily oneshot ~

Disclaimer: I own nothing

N.E.W.T level Transfiguration was hard.

It wasn't one of Lily's best subjects, so she worked hard at it to get good marks.

But it was harder when one was distracted.

For Lily, it was even harder than that, because her distraction was not a something, but a someone.

Ironically enough, Lily had escaped the many noises and bigger distraction in the Gryffindor Common Room, and resided in the Heads' common room. It was just her luck that she faced an even bigger problem. The trials in life seemed to appear more often for her, rather than her friends.

Her distraction went by the name of James Potter. He had settled down on the comfiest armchair near the fire. It also happened to be situated directly opposite the table Lily was working at.

James had come back freshly showered and changed after his Quidditch practice, greeted her with a 'Hey Evans' and started to read 'A Chaser's Ultimate Guide to Scoring Penalty Shots'. The pair of them had been silent ever since.

Lily would never admit it, but she had been sneaking a fair share of glances at James. But really, it wasn't her fault that her stomach flipped every time she looked at him. Every now and then he would rumple his already messy, slightly damp hair, and Merlin, he looked good.

Lily smothered the thought, making a tiny noise of annoyance. It caused James to look up and shoot a lopsided smile at her. Lily was positive she nearly melted but managed to respond with a wobbly smile. She looked back down, forcing herself not to whack her head on the table. She used to despise that smile and the 'hands-running-through-hair' habit! That boy was going to the death of her. Not to mention the top two buttons which were undone, exposing a bit of his drool-worthy chest.

But, it wasn't just his looks. After being forced to work with him outside of class, she started to see a mature, loyal and different side of James. They had gotten to know each other more than ever and any past impressions were quickly discarded. Nowadays, she seemed to find every small thing he did attractive; the way he loosened his tie at the end of the day, his laugh, how he listened to her attentively when she was talking, the way his eyes lit up when he talked about something he was passionate about.

"Evans, are you going to work on that until midnight?" His voice jolted her out of deep thought.

"Well, Potter, some of us actually want to get ahead of our work and finish on the weekdays, unlike slaving away on the weekends" Lily didn't add that since he had come into the room, she hadn't written more than a small paragraph.

James closed his book and put a hand to his chin in mock thought. "Nah, it's far too hard to break the habit of leaving work until the last minute."

Lily shook her head, but a small smile was on her lips. They considered each other friends now, despite their rocky relationship in the past. How exactly it had happened, nobody knew . But after all, Lily mused, people do change.

"Hey Evans, stop working for this evening and relax"

"No can do, Potter" Lily replied

"Fine. Five sugar quills in the exchange of not doing any work for the rest of the day" How he knew Sugar quills were her favorite candy, Lily still did not know. She was a sucker for them, but she had a competitive streak, so she wasn't giving up that easily.

"Bribery won't work, Potter!" She said in a singsong voice.

"What if I give you my essay, so you can copy off me" James suggested. Lily gave him a pointed look.

"Okay, okay, I haven't done it, but you're going to look banshee in the morning if you carry on like this" James said matter-of-factly.

"Wow, thanks James" Lily muttered. There was a pause in which Lily thought he had given up.

"Alright, I dare you to stop working relax for the rest of the evening" James played his trump card. Unfortunately for Lily, it was a very good card. Due to her said competitive streak, she could never back down from a dare. She couldn't count how many times people had used it against her. Only her friends knew about that weakness, so once she considered the Marauders her friends, it got a whole lot more dangerous.

"Well played" Lily sighed as she cleared away her books. James let out a whoop in triumph, causing her to shake her head despairingly.

"It's a miracle, Lily Evans actually agreed to-"

"Shout a bit louder, they can't hear you in China" Lily interrupted dryly. He smiled brightly in response, motioning her to sit down.

"Wanna play a game?" James asked, jumping in his armchair like an over-excited child.

"What type of game?" Lily said cautiously, once she was settled down on the sofa.

"It's called hangman. It's a muggle game"

Lily gave James a look. He looked down and turned a bit pink as he realised Lily was a Muggleborn and had probably played it more than him.

"Besides, how do you know that muggle game, of all muggle games?" As always, Lily's curiosity got the better of her.

"Ah" James turned a bit more pink "You see, one day Sirius got bored and kept annoying Remus. So Remus taught him this muggle game. Sirius claims that he only plays it so he can write rude words for Remus to find, but the rest of us think he's only doing it to learn really long and fancy words from Remus"

"Oh! That's why he seemed so smug last night! I was just thinking out loud whether to eat this new type of pie, and Sirius comes along and says 'Go on Lils, gormandize the pie. I've heard it tastes quite nice'."

"I knew there was a reason behind his Cheshire cat behaviour!"

"How have you read Alice in Wonderland...? Actually, don't answer that. We'll just play the game"

James laid out the rules for Lily "The winner, yes there is a winner in this version, is the first to reach the score of five rounds. To win a round you need more that two points. There are four words per round, two for each player, and each word is worth one point. To win a point, you must either guess the word of the other person correctly before you die, or you write such an amazing word, the other person gives up and stops guessing. Simples!"

"You're forgetting who you're up against though" Lily smirked

"Ah, but you're forgetting that Remus is also my friend and you both mostly read the same books"

"Oh really. Want to find out for sure?" Lily asked leaning closer to James.

"You bet I do" James replied, leaning closer as well. Holy Hippogriffs, were they flirting? Lily's stomach felt like it had been hit with a Wobbling Jinx and her heart was pattering. Pulling back, Lily said "Game on" and the Hangman contest began.

It was four rounds each when the clock chimed ten in the Heads' common room. It was a battle, a battle of words. There had been a few mishaps during the game. They had banned spells in written form on their game, because one of Lily's words were 'Aguamenti', and when James correctly guessed the word, he had been waving his wand absentmindedly and nearly flooded the room. It was those times when Lily had to restrain herself from hexing James to Mars.

It was James' turn and he surprised her by writing two words:

"Oh so you're going that way" muttered Lily, deep in thought. Small words were sometimes the hardest; there were more letters and a bigger chance of getting hung. Lily went the practical way and started with the vowels.

"A"

"No"

"E" Bingo! Now the word looked like:

_ E _ _ _ E

There were only certain consonants that went with 'e'. Le, Be, Me, He. Wait - He! Convinced, it was the first letter was 'H' she confirmed with James.

But her only response was smirk and a line drawn across for the beam of wood the man would hang from. There were only two other combinations. It wouldn't make sense if the short sentence began with 'Me'. So Lily turned to the other option. The letter 'B'. Which proved to be correct:

B E _ _ _ E

"O"

"Nah. Wrong again!" sang James

"U"

"Nope"

"I"

"Oh dammit"

B E _ I _ E

What would the world be? At this rate James would probably win the whole thing. It could be 'tide', 'ride, 'pride' – No, that was five letters- 'fine', 'nine', 'line', 'mine', 'pine'. Then Lily's breath hitched. It couldn't be. He couldn't have written that. It was impossible. He'd given up on her ages ago. She sank back into the sofa.

"Given up?"

"Yeah" Lily said breathlessly. She swung her hair round to cover her face as she pretended to act defeated. She could almost hear James grinning as he added another line to the tally of his points.

"Uh, we're running out of parchment. I'll be right back with more" Feeling flustered, Lily hastily rose and went to her dormitory to fetch more parchment, her thoughts dwelling on the words James had come up with.

The moment Lily disappeared around the corner, James' grin fell. He muffled his groan with his hands which covered his face. He didn't know what came over him, to make him write 'Be Mine' for the hangman game. It was the epitome of cheesy. Thank Merlin she hadn't figured it out.

Cursing his stupidity for writing that, he gathered up the many pieces of used parchment and put it to one side. While filling the ink pot using magic, he began to daydream. He'd been intrigued by Lily from the time she entered their compartment on their first train to Hogwarts. He'd wondered why anyone would want to be friends with Snape. She had always been the odd one out. She had always been that girl with the pretty green eyes and the long red hair.

It was only in third year he had worked up the courage to ask her to go to Hogsmeade with him. Much to his chagrin, she had refused. He suspected it was the it was the fact that he had shouted his question down the corridor in front of their whole class. He was infatuated with her ever since. And he still was, to be honest.

Fifth year was a turning point, after the 'incident'. Sixth year was civil conversations with Lily. There had been the odd time he'd ask her out (with the usual answer: 'no') but he had matured a lot more, according to teachers, friends and his parents. But this year had been very surprising. To go from acquaintance, to enemy (or crush, in James' eyes), to tolerated house member then close friend, it was a miracle.

He almost didn't want to admit it, but after seven years, his feelings for her had never changed. He always said that he had gotten over her, but in deep down, he knew that he would always, always love her. Lily Evans would always be the apple of his eye.

"Hey. Penny for your thoughts?" A breathless voice called out. Lily was at the foot of the stairs to her dorm, clutching a stack of parchment, her cheeks rosy from running down the stairs in a hurry.

"Eh, nothing really" he replied "Just thinking up a really good word which would baffle you so much you couldn't think straight." James added cheekily. But kissing her senseless would be great as well he thought ruefully. He saw her roll her eyes in amusement and sighed inwardly. It would've felt a tiny bit better if she said he was friendzoned now, rather than the painful process of hoping and failing to achieve being the object of her affections.

"Ready to be defeated?" Lily asked him a glint in her eye. An look passed through her face, but it went as soon as it had come, so he didn't have any clue to what it was. James looked down at the dashes he had to fill in to discover Lily's word.

"Ah. Three letters" James looked at the word with dismay "You, Miss. Evans, are a very clever witch"

"I do try" Lily said with a superior air, smiling playfully. But James couldn't help agreeing fervently. She was amazing.

James started guessing "A"

"No"

"O"

"Nope"

"Uh...I?"

Lily tutted in response, drawing another line as the floor of the platform.

"E"

Lily wrote a neat capital 'E' in the middle dash.

_ E _

James looked at the word, his mind whirring. What could go after and 'e'?

"T"

"Nope!"

"N" James gulped. The man now had a head.

"S" James put forward. He celebrated with a whoop.

_ E S

"R...P?...D...F"

James looked the man. It was now missing an arm, two eyes, a nose and a mouth.

"Erm...L"

The other arm was drawn.

"W"

A dot resembling an eye appeared on the face.

"M"

Another eye.

"H"

A straight line for a nose appeared on the face. There was just the mouth left. He only had one more chance.

"Y...?" He would die. There was no chance that random letter could possibly be in the word.

Yet the letter 'Y' appeared on the only remaining blank space.

Y E S

James stared at the word. How did it...oh. He looked at the stack of used papers and placed it next to the parchment they were just writing on. From behind him, Lily murmured an incantation. Elegant script slowly filled in the missing blanks of James' word. It all fit together.

BE MINE?

YES

James gaped at the papers. Wordlessly, he turned to Lily, who was scarlet faced. He opened his mouth, trying to say something. After failing to voice his thoughts, he resorted to closing it again.

Lily looked up "James-"She stopped when she saw the look in James' eye.

"Lily" He said her name carefully, as if it was as delicate as glass. "Did...did you mean that? For real?"

She opened her mouth to answer but James powered on."Of course you didn't. You wouldn't. Merlin, what was I thinking. I shouldn't have written that. I shouldn't have ruined it. You probably-"

And right there and then, she kissed him.

Lily wasn't sure how exactly it had happened. She could've sworn that she was quite the distance away from James. But somehow, before her brain could comprehend what she was doing, she was kissing him, capturing the rest of his speech in her mouth.

It was only after James had started to kiss her back, she literally began to melt in his arms. Then, almost as quickly as it began, she finished it, pulling back away from his lips.

Lily gasped, clapping her hand to her mouth. The sheer truth of what she had done had hit her like a bowling ball. She had just snogged Potter. She had just snogged -and liked snogging - James Potter. James. Potter.

He sat opposite her, completely flabbergasted. When Lily tentatively met his eye, he began to smile. A dazzling, 'in cloud nine' smile. He opened his mouth to speak but before a sound came out of his mouth, Lily pressed her hand against it, cutting him off.

"I only wanted you to shut up! Really!" Lily protested. But the small smile that graced her face said something different. It seemed like James noticed that smile, because his eyes shined in amusement. Lily bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. Her hand was still preventing him from speaking. Unfortunately, she didn't realise what would happen next.

"Ewww!"

James burst out laughing at the sight of Lily's face; he had licked her hand while it was covering his mouth. As expected, her immediate reaction was to pull her hand back, disgusted.

"Argh! You prat!" Lily wiped her hand on his arm, ridding it of James' saliva. She held back from saying 'Way to ruin the moment we were having'. He was still laughing, so Lily promptly pushed him over. But the act backfired when he pulled her with him when he fell back on the couch. Their faces ended up inched away from each other.

"Hi" Lily said softly

"Hey" James whispered.

"You know, you should really-"

"Shut you up. Exactly" And with that cheeky note, James lent forward and pressed his lips to hers.

And she was lost once again in the amazing sensation of being snogged by James Potter. She was putty in his arms. Lily moaned as he sucked on her lower lip. Her fingers threaded through his hair as the kiss deepened. She playfully bit his lip, smiling against his mouth as he groaned, a wonderful rumbling sound. Merlin and Agrippa, the rumours were true. James Potter was fantastic in the snogging department. They broke apart, both breathing heavily. His peppermint breath fanned across her face. They sat up slowly, almost not believing what had happened.

"You know what?" James' voice seemed so loud in the Heads' Common Room. Lily hummed and shrugged her shoulders, smiling as she noticed that the messy-haired boy beside her was playing with some curls of her hair.

"I think I won the game"

"Oh, shut up!"

"Gladly"

Lily sighed into his mouth as they began to snog again. 'Shut up' was officially her new favourite phrase.

~O~

Thanks for reading!

And reviews are better than cheesy endings!

until next time, nilesalt