AUTHOR'S NOTE: Even though only mentioned briefly, thank you to ghostofbambi and cgner because I've read so many of their fanfictions that I couldn't possibly give James' cat any name other than Algernon. I actually thought that was a cannon name until I googled it. Regardless! Hope you enjoy, and I'm sorry in advance... ;)

Twenty-three minutes.

That's exactly how long James had been waiting at a table by himself. He'd arrived at 8:27 and decided to wait outside for a couple of minutes. He walked in at exactly 8:30 and got a table for two by the window. Five minutes went by, and nothing. Ten went by, and nothing.

8:53. He started rising from the table, throwing his coat on and sighing. He should've known this would happen. Why would Lily Evans ever want to have a drink with him, anyway?

But just as the thought crossed his mind, a particular redhead burst in through the door. Her emerald eyes scanned the room and she smiled when she spotted him, walking over to him.

"Hey." Lily said breathlessly as she sat down on the chair across him. "I'm sorry I'm late. Cat ran out as I was trying to leave. Had to chase him through the whole flat building. But I'm here now… how are you?"

James looked at her, unsure whether to believe the whole cat thing, but he slowly sat back down anyway. "Uh, s'aight. I'm good. Was about to leave, thought you wouldn't show up." He admitted.

"Sorry about that." She shook her head, her cheeks flushing. "Not a good first impression. Although I guess it isn't really a first impression, but you know what I mean. I won't be late again, promise. Sherlock's just a pain sometimes."

"Sherlock?"

"Yeah. My cat."

"You named your cat Sherlock?"

"Yes. You know, like Sherlock Holmes. I used to absolutely love the books when I was a child, even dressed as him for Halloween once- you don't know who Sherlock Holmes is, do you?" She said after seeing his confused expression.

"No clue." He admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "Famous Muggle?"

"Uh, not exactly. He's a famous Muggle character, in a famous Muggle book. You've really never heard of Sherlock Holmes?"

James shook his head. "No."

"Alright, that's fine. I'll show you Sherlock Holmes someday. I reckon you'd like it."

"You want to go out again after today?"

"Well, if you to, of course." She said hastily, her face flushing. "I'm content with just being on good terms with you even if we never speak again."

He smirked. "Alright, whatever you say. Though after the second time, you're obligated to end up at my flat, it's only fair." He teased. Though those were not his intentions, he would be lying if he said he wouldn't mind that, there was no denying that she was drop dead gorgeous.

"Haven't changed at all, have you?" She muttered flatly.

"I have, quite a lot actually. But if you're expecting me not to tease you, I'm afraid that we can't speak again after today."

"I guess I can deal with that. Alright, tell me about your life. I haven't spoken to you in ages."

"That's because you hated me." He pointed out. "What do you want to know? You're not a reporter, are you?" He teased.

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "No, I'm not. I am a writer, though."

"Really? What kind of writing?"

"I asked first, tell me about your life, then we can move onto mine. What did you do after Hogwarts?"

James rolled his eyes, but spoke anyway. "Fine. I actually didn't want to play Quidditch professionally after Hogwarts. I wanted to be an Auror. So, I went to Auror Academy. But I got offered a job as a reserve for the Appleby Arrows. I thought I'd just do that on the side, as I wasn't obligated to attend every single practice. Soon enough though, the Captain said he wanted me on the main team. I was forced to pick between Auror Academy and Quidditch. It was really difficult, choosing between something I'd been dreaming for my whole life and my passion. Eventually I realized Quidditch would make me happier in the long run. So I dropped out of Auror Academy and now here I am. I've been playing for the Arrows since. What about you?" He was careful to tell her enough of what he'd been doing without revealing anything too personal.

"Told you, I'm a writer. That's pretty much all I've been doing. And other odd jobs to make ends meet, writing is not an easy career choice. I guess I relate though, I thought I wanted to be a Healer for a while, but I quickly discovered it was not for me. I live in a small flat that's literally across the street from here. It's just Sherlock and I. Why do the Arrows train here, anyway? Aren't they supposed to be in you know, Appleby?"

James laughed, shaking his head. "In Appleby? Appleby has like, three people in it. It's too small for a nice, professional Quidditch pitch. There is an old one there so we do occasionally go and train there as it is where our team is from and well, we have to use it if we keep claiming to be from there. But we mostly stay in London. There's a bigger fan base here and a lot more media. It's just easier to do most things in a big city."

She nodded in understanding. "I get it. Plus, more girls in the big cities." She teased.

He chuckled, nodding. "That, too. I'm not gonna lie, when you first asked me if I remembered you, I thought I'd gone on a date with you and forgotten who you were and then you came to hex me or something."

Lily's eyes widened as she laughed. "Merlin, that's why you looked like that! How many dates have you gone on that that was your first thought?"

"Er, I don't wanna talk about it." He said sheepishly, chuckling lightly. "In my defense, I was heartbroken and I needed a distraction. Or twenty."

"Was that because of a certain blue-eyed ex-girlfriend?"

His heart skipped a beat. "How do you know about Phe and I?" He asked quickly.

She shot him a 'really?' look. "James, Phoebe Martin was infatuated with you since we were eleven. I'm still friends with Mary MacDonald, so she kept me up to date about what was going on at school. No surprise that you two ended up together. And your relationship was well-known by gossip magazines when you started gaining fame."

"I guess our relationship was quite public." He muttered. "Too public. Became an issue when I joined the Arrows. That kind of led to…. I don't know why I'm telling you this." He blushed, shaking his head. "Sorry, I got carried away."

She smiled warmly. "Don't worry about it. I like it, actually. It's nice knowing there's more to you than I thought when we were at school. You're clearly in love with her, it's cute."

His face went even more red as he shook his head. "I'm not. I'm not gonna lie, she's a special girl. But it just wasn't meant to be." He shrugged. "Besides, I'm hardly in a place where I can date someone. Too busy."

"How so?" She asked, tilting her head slightly. "I mean, you're here with me right now. If you had a girlfriend, you'd be with her. You have time to be here."

"Yeah, but only being able to go out on the weekends is not really apt for a relationship." He muttered. "I wouldn't be able to do this every day. Most days, I'm home a tad earlier than today, maybe at around six or seven. I train from seven in the morning to three in the afternoon every single weekday during Quidditch season. Of course, we have breaks and such. We've got an hour and a half lunch break at eleven. After practice, I shower and then go to the Arrows' offices at 4:30. I speak with my manager and he tells me anything new, and then I spend at least two hours doing various things- signing posters, going to interviews, photoshoots too unfortunately-"

"Not a big fan of photoshoots?" Lily interrupted, amusement in her voice.

"I only do photoshoots because I get fired if I don't." He said bluntly. "They want me to take my shirt off all the damn time. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have to look like a complete arsehole holding a broom while you're half naked and winking at the camera? Do you know how embarrassing it is when you see that on the cover of Witch Weekly? Or even worse, when your own mother frames it and puts it on the living room wall!"

Lily burst into laughter. "If it makes you feel any better," She said in between laughs, "I know exactly what picture you're talking about because all of my female - and a male or two - coworkers were swooning over it last month. I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't peak. Professional Quidditch has done you well, Potter."

James blushed, embarrassed by the compliment, but he played it off by smirking. She thought he looked good. "What happened to 'it's hardly a date', hm?"

She rolled her eyes. "Call this as you may, don't pretend you don't like being complimented."

"Okay, it's a date, then. Even if it isn't, we'll pretend for the sake of my fourteen-year-old self's ego."

"So what were you saying about not having time to date? You were in the shirtless photoshoot part."

He chuckled. "Yes, I don't have time to date. So, after all of that, I can finally head home. Like I said, at around six or seven. Sometimes I might finish early if I'm lucky, but for the most part I don't. So I really only have time on the weekends. I've yet to meet a girl that wants to date someone who can only see her on the weekends."

"Wow, I'm not surprised Phoebe broke up with you." Lily muttered after a second of silence.

"What do you mean?" He asked, clearly offended. "I just told you why I couldn't date! Plus, who says she broke up with me?"

"Because of the way you talk about her, you're still hurt." She shrugged. "That's why I don't think you broke up with her. But that's beside the point," She waved a hand in dismissal as James was about to start protesting. "No, listen to me. You do have time to date. You just don't want to put in enough effort."

"Effort? I put in effort!" He huffed indignantly. "Who says I don't?"

"You did." She said simply, turning away from him for a second as the waitress approached them for their order. When they were done ordering their two warm spiked Butterbeers and some chips to share, she turned back towards him. "You said it yourself. You have an hour and a half for lunch. That's a lot longer than you even need. So instead of sitting there with your mates, you go visit your girlfriend at work, maybe try to see if she could go on break at the same time. Then when you get home, you go out with her. Or you make her dinner. Or you buy dinner and eat it with her. Or you watch a movie. You do something-"

"Oh come on!" James protested. "I'm exhausted after work. I am flying on the field for six hours every day. And then I do more work things after."

"You're twenty years old, Potter. You can manage." She said dryly. "Plus it doesn't have to be every day. Just enough so she feels like you're trying."

He fell silent, only speaking to mutter a quick 'thank you' to the waitress as she brought their Butterbeers and chips. He ran a hand through his messy black hair and sighed as he nodded. "Yeah… I guess you're right. Well, good thing I'm single then. I can go home and sleep, the only living things who need me to pay any attention to them are my cat and my owl."

"Ooh, you've got a cat? What's his name?"

"Algernon. He's my best friend, don't tell Sirius."

"Sirius Black, huh? You're still friends with him? I always knew the two of you were annoyingly inseparable."

He grinned, nodding. "Yeah, I'm still best friends with Sirius, and with Remus and Peter. Sirius is my adoptive brother now actually, he moved in with my family during fifth year."

Her eyebrow quipped up. "Because of his… questionable family, I'm assuming?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, but he's much happier now."

She bit her lip and smiled, as if trying not to laugh. "Do you remember when you lot used to call yourselves… what was it? The Musketeers?"

He scoffed, looking slightly offended. "Excuse me! We are the Marauders."

"You… you still call yourselves that?"

"Yes. Not publicly of course but still—"

Lily stifled a laugh and he threw her a slightly offended look in return.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just laugh at my—"

"I didn't laugh!"

"—friends and I, because that is just terribly rude." He said with a hint of a smile on his face. "Enough about me. Tell me what you have been up to."

Lily stayed silent for a second before letting out a long sigh. "Well," She started, twirling her finger absentmindedly on the rim of her mug, her eyes glued to it. "I left Hogwarts during my fourth year because both my parents died. Frankly, it started because I simply could not even get out of bed for months, so I needed to put my education on hold. And I never went back because I just… I didn't have money, to be completely honest. I needed a normal muggle job if I wanted to keep my parent's house in good condition, a place to live in when I wasn't at Hogwarts. Which in the end turned out to be all for nothing, because I ended up selling the house when I turned eighteen."

"Oh," He said softly, not really knowing what else to say, so he just added "I'm so sorry."

"S'alright. I did keep up with my education, though. Passed all my OWLS and NEWTS with flying colors. Went to Healer school for a bit and dropped out of that. I haven't really felt all that connected with the wizarding world after Hogwarts and it just felt off. However," For the first time in her long rant, she looked up at James and smiled slightly. "I have always enjoyed Quidditch. Kind of a far-away admiration of the Wizarding World that I don't necessarily have to be immersed in myself, I can just watch other people do it. I was very surprised when I heard you signed into the Arrows, they're a good team yeah, but I always reckoned you could do a lot better."

James sat there in a stunned silence for a second, just looking at her. "You…" He started when he finally spoke. "You knew I got signed? You kept up with my life?"

She rolled her eyes, laughing lightly. "If you want to put it that way. It was more like I kept up with Quidditch, and you just so happened to throw yourself at it."

He nodded, his heart skipping a beat. "Yeah, of course. I just never really knew what'd happened to you after you left Hogwarts. It's kind of shocking to hear all of this."

She shrugged, taking a sip off her drink. "I s'ppose it's a lot. I might've had a shit time for a bit, but hey," She looked up at him and grinned, giving him a light and playful kick under the table. "At least I don't call myself… what was it? Tongs?"

James groaned, "Prongs!" He whined as she burst into laughter.

Though he was mildly annoyed at her teasing, James didn't remember the last time he had felt this comfortable talking to someone.

Their conversation carried on for so long, switching between teasing, to small stories of the past few years, that when James finally bothered to notice anything other than Lily, he realized that The Leaky Cauldron was nearly empty. He glanced down at his watch and realized the place was about to close.

"We should go. They're going to kick us out soon if we don't."

"Let them!" She said, giggling as she stood up anyway, stumbling slightly. She wasn't smashed, but she'd definitely had one too many drinks.

James laughed and walked up to her, putting his arm around her shoulder to steady her. "Come on, I'll help you. You probably shouldn't have had that last half of my drink." He was tipsy too, but definitely a lot more stable than she was, though that might've been the fact that he was not the one wearing heels. Even with them on, he observed, she still was a bit shorter than him.

"No, I really shouldn't have." She giggled, putting an arm around his waist as the pair walked out the door. "Alright, my flat is right across the park, so bye. See you!" She said cheerfully, moving away from him.

James' eyebrows rose and he caught her arm as she tried to walk away. "Uh, you're not walking alone."

"What'd y'mean?" She said, pulling her arm away and crossing her arms over her chest. "I can walk alone! I do it all the time!"

"Okay, well, not today. You're drunk and it's dark and I don't see why I shouldn't walk you. So I am, end of discussion."

Lily glared at him, walking over and pointing at accusing finger at his chest. "I," She said, jabbing his chest with her finger. "Am not sleeping with you tonight, Potter."

James rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Maybe tomorrow?" He asked teasingly, grabbing her hand that was still pointing at his chest and gently putting it down. "I didn't try to imply that. I'm walking you and then going home, promise. Now, stop poking my chest or you'll hurt your hand on my rock-hard abs."

"Damn chivalry." She muttered, completely disregarding his last joke. "Fine, you may walk me home." She grinned, placing an arm around his waist as she took the lead and walked towards the park. "It's right across the park."

"Sounds good to me." He put his arm back around her shoulders as they walked and glanced down at her. "Random question, why did you have your hair black yesterday, anyway? That's why I thought you couldn't possibly be you. That, and the fact that you used to hate me."

Lily paused, frowning lightly and pouting her lips as she thought. "I just… I don't really like my red hair." She admitted, taking a strand of it and twirling it around her fingers with her free hand. "I used to get teased about it all the time. I was told it looked like my head was on fire. I don't know, I guess I was just over it. I only have it like this right now because I was going out with you, and you met me with my red hair."

"Well you can tell those wankers to fuck off." He said, shaking his head. "I like your hair. It suits you."

Her face flushed, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Thank you."

"It's pretty, like you. You're very pretty."

He looked at her and saw her go an even deeper shade of red shade of red. "Oh. Thank you." She said softly.

"Sorry I didn't mean to embarrass you or something—"

"No no, not at all." She stopped walking and looked at him, biting her lip lightly. "You just, you've changed a lot since Hogwarts." She said softly.

He shrugged, running his left hand, the one that wasn't around her shoulders, through his mop of black hair. "Are you surprised? I was fourteen the last time you saw me."

She sighed, and James was suddenly aware of how close she was. He could feel he breath against his neck, their height difference not as large with her wearing heels. He shivered. "I guess I sort of am." She admitted, looking up at him. He could feel her breath on his face now, their faces just a couple of inches away. He slipped his arm from around her shoulders down to be around her waist, his hand resting on the small of her back. "You're lovely. I really enjoyed spending time with you tonight."

He looked at her for a few seconds, then brought his left hand up to her face, brushing her hair from her face and leaving his palm to rest on her cheek. She instantly leaned against it. "Lily?"

"Hmmm?" She hummed.

I really want to kiss you. James thought, but he stopped himself from asking if he could kiss her as soon as he opened his mouth and sighed. She had definitely been flirting with him the whole night, but she was tipsier than he was and he didn't know if that changed things. For all he knew, she only liked him when there was alcohol involved. He didn't want to take things the wrong way and accidentally make her uncomfortable. "We, um, we should keep walking." He muttered, dropping the hand that was on her cheek and looking away.

She stayed silent for a second and let out a deep sigh before nodding slowly. "If you want, I suppose."

Before James could answer, he felt her pull away from him from one second to another.

At first, he thought she'd fallen. He whipped around quickly, looking down at first. "Lily!" He yelled as he turned.

But as he turned towards where she had been a mere second ago, he was greeted by the barrel of a Muggle gun.

It took him a second to take everything in. If there's anything Auror Academy had taught him, it was that while you had to act fast, it was best to take a second to realize what was going on instead of acting on impulse. So he did. One guy, not much older than him, was holding Lily with her arms behind her back, a knife close to her neck. Another one was pointing a gun at James. They were both big, and while they were both shorter than James, he knew it wouldn't be easy to take them both down anyway. Specially because his wand was in his pocket and he had a gun pointed at him.

The guy pointing the gun at James was the first one to speak, a malicious smirk on his face. "Don't even think about playing any games. You make a sudden movement, and your pretty little girlfriend is dead. I want your wallet, now."

James looked at him for a second before nodding slowly. He took his wallet out, which was full of wizard money, and carefully placed it on the ground in front of him. His mind raced with possibilities on what to do next. He couldn't get his wand out, that would put Lily in danger. Even if he managed to take it out, they could easily hurt her before he was able to save them both. Think. Think. Think.

"Let her go." He said firmly, surprised at how his voice didn't crack. He appeared calm, though he was definitely far from. "Take whatever you want, but let her go."

The guy holding Lily laughed, making her shut her eyes tightly. She looked like she was hyperventilating. "Now why would we do that? She's a pretty one. I think I want to keep her, at least for the night. What do you think, Rob?" He asked, dropping a wet kiss on Lily's cheek that made her whimper quietly. That made James inch forward to beat the shit out the guy, but a quick look from 'Rob' (doubtfully his real name) told him that it was not a good idea.

"Leave her the fuck alone." He hissed.

"No." Rob said simply. "Yeah, I reckon she'll provide us a little fun tonight." He didn't even wait for James to respond before he switched to point his gun at Lily. "Give her the zip ties." He ordered the other guy, who did as told and handed Lily a handful of zip ties, letting her go. "Don't even think of running. Tie your little protective boyfriend's hands, then his feet. He shouldn't bother us too much after that."

Lily took the zip ties with shaky hands, she could barely hold them. As she walked closer, James could see that she was shaking and that tears were rolling down her face. "I'm sorry." She whispered when they were close enough.

A light bulb went off in James' head. He put his hands together for her to tie. She struggled to her hold of a single zip tie because of how badly her hands were shaking. As soon as she touched him, he reached rapidly, grabbed her wrist tightly and turned.

He heard a loud BANG before his whole world went dark.