"Want to watch the sunrise?" Lily awoke, having fallen asleep on the table, to James taking the kettle off the stove.
"Mhhmekium?" Lily lifted her head. "Wassa time?"
"Five. We both fell asleep for a little bit, and I woke up about ten minutes ago. Anyway. Sunrise? From my room, there's access to the roof, if you're prepared to climb out onto the gutter for a bit. The sunrise is gorgeous from up there." James put tea bags into two mugs and poured in the now boiling water. Setting one cup in front of Lily and placing the other cup on the bench, he turned around, got the milk out of the fridge and grabbed a pot of sugar cubes from the cupboard. He dropped two sugars into Lily's tea, one into his own and a dash of milk in each. James then proceeded to grab a spoon from the drawer, stirred his own tea once and Lily's twice, once clockwise, once anticlockwise.
"How do you know me so well?" Lily slipped off her chair and followed James out of the kitchen, down the hallway and up the stairs.
"I notice things. Peter's eyebrow twitches when he's thinking hard, Remus taps his left temple when he's stressed. You drink your tea with down sugars, a dash of milk and two stirs and you also play piano." James sipped his tea and pushed open the door to a bedroom that intimately reflected his personality.
A Montrose Magpies bedspread, pictures of their most famous players, several band posters, mainly of wizard band 'Wand Republic' and lots of pictures of the 'Marauders'. Sirius, Peter, Remus and James posed together in wizard photos, flying on brooms and just hanging out. A prominent photo was the 1977 Gryffindor quidditch team holding the quidditch cup, James, arms around Sirius and the captain, Charles Morset, was in the centre.
James handed his mug to Lily and pulled the doona off the bed.
"I have a feeling it's colder out there than it is in here." Searching through a dresser, James threw an old quidditch jersey over his slender but muscled frame. It read 'POTTER' across his shoulder blades and it was obviously from a few years back, as the sleeves only reached to mid-forearm. He pushed them to his elbows and unlatched the window. Lily could feel the cold seep through the window and she shivered.
"Could I borrow a jumper?"
James, head out the window, motioned to the top drawer of his dresser. Lily put down the tea and opened the drawer before grabbing the first warm looking item she could find. James' many years on the quidditch team had apparently granted him several team jumpers. Lily tossed the jumper over her head and pulled it on. James might not appear to be tall or built across the shoulders, but the jumper was massive on Lily. Her hands were covered with a good inch of sleeve to spare and the bottom of the jumper rested halfway down her thigh, almost entirely covering the pink, owl pictured, boxers she had been wearing.
"Alright. Leave the tea there and follow me." Bundling up the doona, James stepped out the window onto a small ledge. "Step carefully, it's not very wide. We just go along here." James, one hand on the roof of the house, stepped lightly along the tiny ledge. "And up onto there." Lily, both hands pressed to the side of the roof, was moving at a snails pace along the roof.
"Where? Oh." James had reached an area of roof that backed onto what was probably the attic. It was a medium sized alcove, probably a metre and a half wide by two metres and backed by two grubby windows that looked into the attic. He dried the concrete and put down the doona.
"Sit, I'll grab the tea." He bounded back across the roof, as comfortable as can be, twenty or so metres in the air on a tiled roof.
Lily settled herself down and pulled her knees to her chest for warmth. Breathing out, she could see her breath condense in front of her. Edges of light were peeking out from the horizon, enough to see by. Lily wondered how James had found such a place, adventuring, perhaps, or whilst flying around the Porter estate.
"Got them. It sure is chilly up here isn't it?" James plonked himself down beside her and passed Lily her still steaming tea. "I warmed them up a bit."
"How'd you find this?"
"I got bored one morning. Chelsea is a late sleeper, and both adult Porters get up at about seven or eight. I like mornings, they're fresh and pure. The day hasn't been tainted yet. I love getting up early." James sipped his tea, peering at Lily over the mug's edge. "You've got my new jersey on."
"Sorry. I just grabbed the first thing I saw." Lily tucked her frozen feet under the edge of the doona.
"It's fine, but would you mind switching? This one would still be big on you, and then my sleeves would fit. I've grown a bit since I wore this one last." James motioned to the too short sleeves of the jersey he was wearing.
"Sure." Lily pulled the jersey part way over her head and her shirt, evidently liking the jersey, pulled up with it. James grabbed the bottom of Lily's shirt, and brushing her stomach with the edges of his fingers, pulled it back down. "Tkanhs."
"Pardon?"
Lily removed the jersey and passed it to James. "Thanks for holding my shirt. It gets so awkward when it rides up."
Lily now watched as James pulled the too-small jersey over his head to reveal tan skin and lightly defined abs. He passed the jersey to her and Lily quickly threw it on. It was still warm from James' body heat and smelt overpoweringly of him.
"Not too cold?" James smiled at Lily, sipped his tea and settled back against the windows of the attic. "Just wondering, what exactly did you say to your sister? Chelsea said you called her a cow or something."
"No, my feet are a little chilly, but I'm quite warm. Thanks for the jumper." Lily giggled. "It's quite rude really."
"Lily Evans, rude? Never! C'mon, what'd you say? It can't be that bad." James chuckled, eyes never wavering from the beautiful sunrise flowing over the hills.
"I said 'Fuck you Petunia. Enjoy the rest of your boring life getting done up the ass by your whale husband." Lily smiled at James' shocked look. "I said it was rude."
"High five for Lily." James stretched out his palm to Lily, who slapped it with her own. "That has actually gotta be one of the best things I've ever heard you say. A girl swearing is literally one of the hottest things ever. I hate how they act like prisses cause they think it's going to get them guys."
"I've never done that." Lily put on a fake offended tone.
"True. You're just kinda a priss to start with. I like this you better though." James shrugged at Lily's expression of mild shock. "What? I call it like I see it, sista!" The high, girly tone and over-exaggerated hair flip caused Lily to burst out in laughter.
"Were you channelling Sirius with that hair flip by any chance?"
"Lily, my hair is perfect as am I and I am a sex GOD." James' impressions were precise. He even had Sirius' shocked look at Lily's hair comment. "I'll show you how perfect later." James' even had Sirius' overemphasized wink down to perfection.
"Where did you learn to do those?" Lily finished her tea and put down her cup.
"Easily bored. I've always had a good ear for music, and this was way more fun that piano, so I turned my talents towards the mischievous persuasion." James pulled out his wand and silently doubled the size of the doona before pulling it over himself.
"Piano is very exciting, in case you were wondering." Lily also grabbed the magically enhanced doona and covered her goose-bump covered legs.
"Four years of forced practice was enough for me. Easily bored, remember?" James slid an arm behind his head, against the wall and leaned back, Adam's apple bobbing as he spoke. "I saw your scar by the way. You must've been pretty banged up."
"I basically had to learn to walk again. Remember how klutzy I was in first year? I'd finished physio about two months before school started. Still a bit wobbly on my feet." Lily shrugged, face blank.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. You don't want to talk about that, I'm sure." James ran a hand through his hair and fiddled with his glasses.
"You do that when you're nervous. Fiddle with your glasses. The hair thing is a habit too, when you're thinking." Lily bumped James with her shoulder, "I don't mind talking about it, really, but no-one I told ever really asked. Hessy and Chelsea just took it in and didn't ask much. You're more curious, I guess and I'm not used to that so much."
"Inearlykilledsomeoneonce." James blurted. "AccidentalmagicwhenIwasfive."
"Pardon? I didn't catch all of that." Lily looked confused and James turned to face her.
"I nearly killed someone once. When I was five, some insane stranger on the street tried to kidnap me. I freaked and lashed out with what I could, which at the time, happened to be fire." James sighed. "It feels good say it, to be honest."
"Fire. Your accidental magic was fire? Shit. You've got some serious magic potential locked up in that skinny frame." Lily bumped James on the shoulder with a fist. "My accidental magic was saving a bowl from falling. A bowl. You get fricking fire and I get a bowl. Fantastic. The world is so unfair."
"That's your issue? Not that I nearly killed someone, but that fact that you saved a bowl and I managed to control fire. Lily, you have some screwed up priorities." James looked at the redheaded, green eyed, apparently crazy girl beside him and laughed. "I'm not skinny, it's all muscle, I promise."
"Yeah right." Lily made a loose fist and bumped James in the stomach. Taut muscle greeted her. "Ok fine."
"Ha. Told you so." He paused. "Your accidental magic was saving a bowl? That's weedy, that is. At least mine is sort of impressive."
"It was a very nice bowl, I've got to say. My parents got given it when they got married. I'm not entirely sure what my magic was thinking. 'Bowl, oh yes, got to save that but car crash, nope, don't kick in, everything will be fine'." Lily's face dropped as she and James came to the same conclusion.
"Maybe it did. I mean, no serious lasting damage, and you're alive." James looked over at Lily and her face was blank.
"I never thought about it like that. I could've died. I would've died if I was normal." Lily's chin wobbled and she burst into tears. "I'd be dead and, and, and…"
"Shh shh. It's ok Lily. It's ok." James wrapped an arm around her and pulled Lily in. "You're normal to me. You're normal in this world, and it's your world too, even though you think you might not fit at times."
"I'm a muggleborn in a world that despises us, an oddity in the muggle world. I don't fit in either and I miss being normal." Lily was pragmatic, too much at times.
"You fit here. Your friends love you, hell; I don't know how anyone couldn't at least like you. You're so confident and you try so hard and you still manage to treat everyone well, even when they don't deserve it." James' grip on her tightened, as he remembered the incident that occurred at the end of last years OWL's.
"Well, at least the sunrise is nice." Lily brushed away the tears with the edges of James' jersey. "I'm just a bit emotional, I guess. Not enough sleep will do that to you."
The pair sat and chatted for a good half hour, speaking freely of school, friends, family and everything in between. The sunrise they had come to see was lost as James and Lily conversed, and they only realized that it was eight o'clock when they heard Chelsea's voice, as she knocked on James' bedroom door.
