They never let Remus cook the night after full moon. Exhausted, they collect Peter from his mother's house and go to the local chippy. It's a cold night; in the summer, they might sit on a bench and eat, but tonight they carry the packages back to the flat and eat in comfort and warmth. Afterwards, Remus slumps on one of the sofas, face pale; the others continue their conversation in undertones. Tonight, the topic is Lily. James pretends not to be pleased, though he'd happily spend days talking about her.

"I am thinking of asking her out," he admits. "Soon."

"You normally ask a girl out as soon as you like her," Peter says. "It's been about three months with this one, why -?"

"I don't want to rush things," James mutters, sucking vinegar off his fingers. "I like getting to know her."

"Yes, a really good job you're doing there," says Sirius, who knows all the details of Lily and James' non-relationship; he knows about the kiss ("a kiss on the cheek! In public?") and about the way James' heart leaps whenever he sees her. "Three months you've 'known' her, and you still don't know how old she is, or what house she was in at school …"

"It's rude to ask a lady's age," says Peter unexpectedly. James and Sirius stare at him, and he flushes pink. "That's what my mum says …"

"Well, then," says James. "I can't ask her how old she is. But she can't be more than a few years older than us. And she's definitely not a Slytherin, I know that for sure."

"You don't."

"Yes, I do. She's nice, all right? That proves it."

Sirius takes a swig of beer, then says, "your parents wouldn't be happy to know that you're getting off with a witch you know nothing about."

"I'm not getting off with her," James says. Yet. "And my parents don't need to know anything."

A loud bang suddenly echoes from somewhere outside; Remus jerks awake. Hurrying to the window, James sees an explosion of bright, sparkling colour high above the buildings, sprinkles of light bursting high in the sky and falling back to earth.

"Fireworks," Remus murmurs, his eyes closing again. "It's Bonfire Night."

James stares out at the sky at the fireworks and thinks that somewhere, Lily might be watching them too.

-

James is a Gryffindor. He is brave, and confident, and always does exactly what he sets out to do.

But asking out Lily is something that doesn't come easy to him. He spends hours lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering why, and eventually he realises that it is fear; it's fear that she won't feel the same way, that he'll lose her friendship, and he doesn't think he could bear that. He has the best of friends in Sirius, Remus and Peter, and he would never exchange that for anything – but his relationship with Lily is different. They are friends, they make each other laugh and smile, they seek each other out every time their eyes move from their desks …

James knows he is attracted to her, knows he would love to be with her, to hold her against him, feel her mouth on his, but he also knows that he would go forever without telling her if telling her meant that they could not be friends. This way, he still gets to look at her and laugh with her. It doesn't matter that time not spent with her is time constructing simple fantasies in which they are together; all that matters is that she is there.

So he waits. He waits and every day, as their friendship grows stronger, so do his feelings, but he hides it as well as he can, and she never seems to notice, or mind, the lingering looks and rushes of blood to the head when hand meets hand.

He learns little things about her, precious things; she loves cats and crumpets, she's never been abroad, she was top of her class in Potions. He doesn't know the big things, still – her age and her house and her family – and every night Sirius and Remus say that he really ought to know these things, that he is being naïve, too trusting. He finds he doesn't care.

-

"Nearly Christmas," Lily comments. "I love London at Christmas, don't you? All the lights …"

"I don't get how they work, though. Muggles have the strangest ways of doing things … they are nice, but I think you can get much nicer effects with charmwork."

This is a moment, if an engineered one; Lily caught the flu last week and is now behind on her filing. James, always a gentleman, offers to help, and so they are side by side, passing files back and forth, fingers brushing all the while.

"Well, yes, you're right," Lily says. "Oh, that reminds me, did I tell you about this one time in Charms? This lad who had a terrible crush on one of the girls decided to enchant some mistletoe to follow her around for the whole hour. She was so angry by the end of the lesson that she hexed him on the spot – he didn't kiss anyone for a while!" Lily shakes her head in disbelief as James laughs. "Can you imagine anyone acting like that?"

"Not at all," James says, and then it suddenly occurs to him that this is the perfect opportunity to get Sirius and Remus off his back. "Hey, you know – I don't recognise you from Hogwarts."

"Well, no, you wouldn't," says Lily drily, turning a file sideways to examine the label, "with me being Muggleb-"

She claps a hand to her mouth, the file slipping to the floor, eyes wide with horror. James stares at her, feeling as if he has just taken a Bludger to the head.

"You're Muggleborn?"

"Shush! Oh no, oh bollocks – in here! Quickly!"

Before James can quite register what is happening, Lily has grabbed him by the front of his robes and dragged him into the supply cupboard; he watches in open-mouthed confusion as she locks the door with a tap of her wand and performs a Silencing Charm.

With a great struggle, James finds his voice again. "You're Muggleborn?" he repeats hoarsely. "Muggleborn!"

"Oh, God, don't!" Lily cries, face white, hands gripping at her hair. "How could I be so stupid? James, oh James please, please don't tell anyone! I'll be killed!"

"I would never," James says, before he even thinks the words. "D'you really think I would let you -? Lily, what the heck are you doing here? Surely you weren't that desperate to work here …"

"Of course not," she says with some of her old tenacity, letting her trembling hands drop to her lap. "It's – it's a long story. I shouldn't tell you. I shouldn't! But … I suppose I couldn't really have kept it from you forever."

In that instant, in that tiny hint that she thinks they might have a forever, James is at once extremely aware of where they are, and suddenly the fear and uncertainty vanish, because he and Lily are in a tiny, dark, enclosed space, so close he can feel her warm body move against him as she breathes; before his eyes a vision appears, in which he grabs her and presses her against the wall, his hands everywhere, her hands everywhere -

"I'll tell you."

"W-what?" James stutters, snapping back to reality, and oh, how real it is.

"I'll tell you," Lily repeats, though she might just as well have said I trust you, such is the intensity with which she meets James' eyes. "But not here."

-

The waitress in the café (their café, James thinks) nods in recognition as she takes their orders. Two coffees, extra strong, because they both bloody well need it.

The light is horribly harsh after the intimate depth of the dark cupboard, and everything seems too bright, too loud, or perhaps that's just the bizarre nature of the situation – Lily! Lily is a Muggleborn!

"Before I tell you anything," she begins, nails tap-tapping at her chipped coffee cup, "I want to know that … that you don't think … that a Muggleborn is …"

"I always thought Muggleborns were just people, too, same as purebloods, same as half-bloods," James says fiercely, slightly hurt by the implication that he might think any other way. "Knowing that you're one doesn't change anything, I still – I still –"

Lily rescues him, saying "thanks," quietly, and then sighs deeply. "I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe I was so stupid, but you just make me feel so at ease that it seemed quite ridiculous that you wouldn't know this huge thing about me, do you know what I mean?"

James does. He sits back in his seat and gestures for her to continue, wondering what possible explanation there can be for this.

"I know how dangerous it is for me to be at the Ministry, but I'm doing it for a reason. The truth is … the truth is, I'm undercover. I'm working for a secret organisation called the Order of the Phoenix, which is working to take down, um - You-Know-Who. We've got someone in every department of the Ministry, so that we can know who is with him and who isn't – and so we can pick up information about his plans." She laughs wryly. "I'm the only Muggleborn, though."

James opens his mouth to speak, then realises he doesn't know what to say and closes it again. This girl, this beautiful, funny, wonderful girl, is also risking her life to try and bring down the most dangerous Dark wizard for a hundred years and oh shit he's in love with her. He knows right there and then that he'll never feel like this about another person, ever, because how could he? How could anything match this? And if that isn't being in love, then he doesn't know what is, because surely only love, that thing his mother talks about when she looks at his father, could have such a tight grasp on his heart.

"James?" Lily says tentatively. "James … are you all right?"

"No," James says honestly. "I'm in shock."

She laughs again.

"I mean," he continues, "I knew you were amazing, but to be so – so brave, and to risk your life like that … I know you didn't go to Hogwarts – well, now I know – but you would have been in Gryffindor, I know it."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Lily says, looking slightly bemused, but pleased all the same. "God, you don't know how good it feels to have someone else know. Especially you. I mean … especially you."

A thousand unsaid things pass between them, and James, unthinkingly, reaches across the table and takes Lily's hand.

"This wasn't in my job description," Lily murmurs, moving her thumb slowly, softly, over James' palm. "Either job."

"What, spill all your secrets to the junior budget analyst?" James asks, his voice trembling a little; each movement she makes sends tiny jolts through his body.

Lily seems to hesitate for a moment before speaking. "Something like that."

-

For the first time ever, James has a secret from Sirius. He feels so guilty that he tells him that he and Lily went to the café again and he took her hand and she didn't recoil, or screech, or slap him, and that he thinks he just might, slightly, possibly, be very much in love with her.

"I can't believe you haven't snogged her yet," Sirius says in disgust.

-

The next day, James arrives at the office early, earlier than Lily. He barely glances up when she comes in, but he still watches, out of the corner of his eye, as she approaches her desk and sees the note he slipped there half an hour earlier.

I want to join.