october 28th, 1977

and nothing matters when we're dancing
in tat or tatters you're entrancing
be we in paris or in lansing
nothing matters when we're dancing

nothing matters when we're dancing - the magnetic fields


Lily Evans, stop acting like a bloody wanker.

She bites her lip thoughtfully as she takes a look outside her bedroom. The Heads Dorm common room appears to be empty, and she sighs in relief at the prospect of not having to bump into a half-naked James Potter returning from his morning shower or striking up a conversation with him as they both get ready for breakfast. She has grown quite used to chatting with him, mind you — in fact, she feels as though she could talk to him forever, but that's beside the point — but she feels like she needs to spend a little time away from him to get her mind settled on . . . certain matters that have been making her act like a hormonal fourteen-year-old when she's nearly eighteen.

The truth is, to put it simply, that Lily Evans has found herself falling for James Potter. She doesn't really know how it began — when she came back to school after her mother's funeral, the boy had offered to lend her his notes on the classes she had missed and to help her catch up, and they wound up realizing that they made a fairly decent study team, so what was intended to last for only a couple of days stretched onto the rest of the school year, and as the weeks flew by Lily began to realize that there was much, much more to James Potter than she had ever thought. Her aloofness became warmness, her scolds became light jokes and friendly slaps on his arm when he got too cheeky, and the gaping hole that had been left in her heart by Severus's absence was soon filled with a friendship that, in addition, made her feel a strange twinge in her stomach whenever he leaned against her in the Gryffindor common room, half asleep, or when he returned one of the book she had begun to lend him and asked for her opinion on it; she loved how his eyebrows knitted in attention, as though she and her unprofessional thoughts on her favourite books were the only thing that mattered at that very moment. He wrote to her over the summer, and she replied as soon as possible, and whenever she was feeling upset about the bleak atmosphere that surrounded her house she would just read one of his quirky anecdotes about his father's latest hobby and chuckle herself to sleep. Which, she discovered, felt way better than crying.

And then they had been appointed Head Boy and Girl, and they began to spend nearly every hour of the day together, between classes, patrolling and studying in their private common room, and that was all it took for Lily to realize that she was completely and utterly smitten with James Potter.

She doesn't really have anything planned for today. Saturdays are usually quiet days around the school lately — nearly everyone stays inside, obediently doing their homework and peering through the window every now and then, morbidly imagining what would happen if a group of Death Eaters were to Apparate at the school's entrance. Most of her friends try to go about their day as they usually would, but it breaks her heart to see that some first-year students walk around the castle with frightened expressions — she remembers her first year at Hogwarts, full of thrills and wonderful discoveries, and she feels terrible for all those Muggle-born children who seem to wish they had never learned about the Wizarding world in the first place.

As for James and her, they usually just sleep in and have breakfast in their common room — kindly supplied by James's frequent visits to the kitchen, where the house elves seem to find his charms irresistible and therefore always have plenty of teabags and shortbread fingers for him to take back to their dormitory — and eventually bump into each other. Lily is usually the first one to get to work; she has always been a morning person, whereas he never reaches his full potential until the sun goes down. They usually just spend the morning there, working on their schoolwork, reading or chatting, and then go downstairs for lunch with their friends. Saturday mornings have become sort of their private thing, and in a way, Lily loves it.

"Morning, Evans."

Bloody hell.

Lily offers James a smile as the boy makes his way to the common room, still in his pyjamas and with his glasses in his hand, rubbing his left eye sleepily. Early morning James is definitely her favourite James: she is able to take a few moments to admire him before he fully comes to his senses and helps himself to some breakfast, and there is something undoubtedly attractive about seeing him in that old Puddlemere United t-shirt and slacks. Plus, she thinks with a faint blush to her cheeks, there is something tremendously sexy about the way he runs his fingers through his hair and smiles at her before placing his specks on top of his nose.

"You gotten any breakfast yet, Lils?" he asks, muffling a yawn with the back of his hand as he helps himself to some tea and biscuits. The boy has taken a liking to calling her by that nickname, and Lily feels like there certainly is something endearing about it.

"Yeah, I ate the remains of what I bought at Honeydukes the other weekend," she confesses, a naughty smile on her face.

James, feigning disappointment, shakes his head as he dips his teabag in his mug, after having charmed the water in it into a perfect boiling point. He's always complaining about how the school's tea is absolutely horrid, but he still lives off it anyway. Lily's always been more of a coffee girl, but she still finds it amusing to listen to him go on about all the types of tea that his family keeps in their kitchen. He takes a seat on the couch and places his mug on the table next to it, where a small, worn book was left the previous night. Emma, Lily notes with a smile. She lent it to him a couple of weeks ago and, in spite of the vast amounts of homework they've been having to keep up with, she's delighted to see that he's nearly done with it. James places it on his lap and takes a sip from his mug before cracking the book open. Lily, half-amused, half-engrossed in trying to memorize every single line in his face, takes a seat next to him, a book on her own lap too.

"Got any plans for today?" James muses as he adjusts his glasses and searches for the last page he had read the previous night; Lily loves how seriously he takes every single book that she lends him.

"No, not really," she shrugs, leaning against his shoulder ever so lightly. "I might spend the evening with the girls. Would you mind if they came over for a bit? The Gryffindor common room can get a little overcrowded on weekends."

"Sure, no problem," he nods absentmindedly, because he's already half-engrossed in the paragraph he's reading. "I'll be off with the lads anyway."

"I'll be off with the lads. Merlin, James, you're beginning to sound like my Dad." The girl chuckles absentmindedly, to which James simply replies with an amused shrug. And with that, they fall into a very comfortable silence that Lily has also grown used to over the past few months. She glances at James every time he grumbles, chuckles or nods in agreement with Emma's quirks and Knightley's reprimands. A good half hour goes by before neither of them speaks again.

"Ah, so this is your style," James takes another sip from his mug, and Lily feels a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Lifelong friends, endless pining for each other without ever acknowledging their feelings . . . I must admit, Evans, I never thought there'd be such a sappy side to you."

"Sod off, Potter," she mumbles, but she can't help but look amused at the boy's remark. She bites her lip and glances down at her own book, her mother's copy of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Her father and sister aren't massive readers, so she guesses they won't mind that she's taken quite a few of her mother's books to school with her. She has always carried around her favourites, but she's now growing attached to all those that she had never gotten to read and that her mother always spoke very fondly of. And Dickens was one of her favourite authors, so he had been at the very top of her to-read least since the school year began. "I for one would spend the rest of my days pining for someone as gallant and wonderful as Mr. Knightley."

"Oh, yeah?" he asks, an amused tone in his voice. "You've nothing in common with this Emma girl, though — aside for your obvious flair for the dramatic."

"Wanker," she snaps, elbowing him with a half-smile. "Are you sure you're not talking about Sirius? He does have quite a flair for the dramatic, let me tell you."

"Yeah, he sort of does," James nods knowingly. "But alas, nobody's perfect. Not even me."

Lily's eyebrows rise in surprise. "Merlin! Has Mr. James Potter, the most self-confident student within the walls of this castle, just described himself as flawed? I can't believe my ears! I must be dreaming!"

"Oh, shut up, Evans," he chuckles, although he eventually closes his book and places it on his lap, with a more thoughtful expression. "But yeah, I do have my flaws, I guess."

"What do you mean?" Lily frowns at the change in his tone, and she leans forward with a questioning look on her face. "Well, yes, we all have flaws. That's what makes us human, James."

The boy ducks his head, not quite knowing what to say. He rubs his knuckles with his thumbs and adjusts his glasses — Lily has detected that he always does the same two things when he's nervous — then eyes her carefully. "I mean, all these years — you did have a point, I acted like a prick half of the time. I swear on Merlin's grave, I didn't do it on purpose, but . . . "

Lily feels startled by James's sudden outburst of sincerity. She places a hand on his knee and squeezes it gently. "James, come on, that was ages ago. I should have cut you and Sirius some slack too, to be honest."

"I don't know, Lils," he shrugs, and then lets out a quiet sigh. "I don't know. I've always felt superior to all those Slytherin gits and their blood elitism and all that rubbish — but I've had it so easy, and I've done nothing other than strut around this castle with my friends and complain about how dull half of our subjects were. I've always taken a lot of things for granted, and now, with the way everything's going in the Wizarding world — " His voice falters for a second, and Lily feels the urge to run her fingers through his black hair, but manages to refrain herself from doing so. "I don't know, I just feel like I should be doing something. Fuck N.E.W.T.'s, fuck getting a steady job. We need to do something about what's going on — and I've tried to avoid thinking about it for quite a long time, but there's this voice in my head that won't stop telling me that I need to help. I don't want to mourn more premature deaths, I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to keep worrying about Muggle-born first years because some of their classmates might bully them just because of their blood status when they're only fucking eleven." He purses his lips and, in a tender gesture, places his hand atop of hers. "And I don't want to lose you, either."

Lily holds her breath after that last bit. Her throat tightens, and she can only manage a faint whisper, "Me?"

James offers her a sad smile and rubs his thumb against the back of her hand. "I've been telling you since we were eleven, Lils. I've always cared for you, I — I daydreamed about being your friend when we were little, and all I wanted to do was to make you feel impressed about, I don't know, my Quidditch skills or my school grades. Then I wished I had taken you to the Yuletide Ball in our fifth year, then I hoped you'd eventually agree to come with me to Hogsmeade someday, and then — " He shrugs. "Well, here we are. It might not have gone the way I'd planned a couple of years ago, but I'm sure my eleven-year-old self would feel ecstatic if he ever learned I've gotten to hang out with you so much over the past year."

He smiles faintly, and Lily feels like she could live in this moment forever.

"James," she says quietly; tentatively, she places one hand on his cheek and rubs her thumb against it. "You've made what was meant to be the worst year ever into one of the brightest periods of my life. Because you're light, and everything about you made me feel better about what has been going on over the past year. Chatting about Quidditch, my favourite books or how messed up the school's grading system is with you makes me feel safe, and the funniest thing about it is that I don't even know why." She bites her lower lip and, after a pause, she adds, "No, scratch that, I do know why. It's because you've become home to me when my real home was shattered to pieces. And I'll always feel grateful for that."

His hazel eyes meet hers, bright green, and when the boy offers her a half-crooked grin Lily takes it as her cue to kiss him, her fingers threading into his black hair — oh, the times she has daydreamed about finally getting to touch it — and her thumb still rubbing his cheek lovingly.

After a few seconds, she whispers against his lips, "You're a wonderful, brave, intelligent human being, and the most loyal of friends. Don't beat yourself up for things that happened years ago."

"All right, Lils," he breathes. His nose rubs against hers, and he finds himself chuckling before adding, "I'm gonna do that again, if you don't mind."

Lily grins. "I can't see why not, Potter. It was about damn time, you know."

"Oi, Evans," he snorts, placing a strong arm around her. "If it'd been up to me, this would have happened ages ago."

"Just shut up and kiss me, you wanker."

James, of course, happily obliges.


uhhh yeah i'm a ridiculously sappy writer but whatever i grew up reading nineteenth-century novels SO WHAT'S A GIRL GOTTA DO, HUH. anyway, writing this was so much fun! idk if the result is worth it, but i definitely spent a jolly good amount of time thinking about how they should, say, confess their feelings for each other. and since i do have a flair for the dramatic (sorry sirius, ilyt) i settled on writing the angsty-ish scene that you've just finished reading. so yes! hope you liked it, please let me feel validated via review. the following chapter should be up soon!

-cluelessclown.