Pretty Mouth and Green Her Eyes

By: Nicole Jeanine

Disclaimer: The original characters and storyline are mine. I do not believe I am JK Rowling, or that I own Harry Potter in any way, shape, or form. I also do not believe I am JD Salinger and would like to thank him for the use of his title (I switched one word, though).

Summary: Five years after graduating, James Potter returns to Hogwarts as the defense professor. The residing Head Girl, Lily Evans, catches his attention and becomes irresistible yet seemingly unattainable.

Chapter Nine: Kiss on the Mouth

Outside the shop, the fighting had escalated to an extent far beyond James' understanding of the Hogsmeade microcosm the ministry and Deatheaters had created. Skilled wizards were obviously fighting, as only clouds of murky sand were visible rolling around the varied alleyways. He broke into a run up the cobbled street and began to vaporize when he felt Lily's small hand pull at the back of his jacket. At her touch, he realized he could not abandon her. With no luck whatsoever, though, once he stopped running and reached his hand toward hers, sand overtook him.

Shape shifting to match his competitor, he recognized the black mass as his former classmate Severus Snape, which James found particularly aggravating. They suddenly retook human form as they slammed into a wall, James absorbing most of the impact.

"Severus," James gritted through his teeth as he shoved his physically inferior opponent onto the muddy slush beneath their feet. "I see you still fail to think your plans through."

With a flick of his wand, James shielded himself from Snape's all-too-obvious hex and shot a random bone breaking curse straight into his adversary's arm.

Snape clutched his shoulder and rolled onto his stomach only to have James shove him onto his back again. Repeatedly he kicked Snape's ribcage with all the force he could muster until the wand fell from Snape's pallid hand. Snatching it, James snapped it in half and wrenched the fragments completely apart. Snape gasped and raised a hand in protest, but it was too late: he was defenseless. With a sigh, James looked to the squirming figure below him, dropped the pieces beside the fallen man, and out of pity, turned away.

"Go home, Severus," James called as he walked out of the alleyway. "You don't want this."

"Potter!" Snape called out in rage, though he sounded more in agony as the blood flowed freely from his mouth and colored the sludge he fought to stand in. "Potter!"

But James had already left in search of Lily. Turning onto the main alley where he left her, he saw no one. The street had been completely deserted.

His eyes scanned the scene again. And again. Empty, dark storefronts stared back at him, taunting him. Was she in one of them? He began sprinting toward the rubble. "Lily!"

No answer.

"Lily!" he shouted again, his voice beginning to tear from the mere desperation of his call.

An increasingly loud patter sounded from behind him. He whipped around and saw her running franticly toward him while glancing with terror over her shoulder.

"GO!" she screeched. "It's not what you think!—auh." She inhaled sharply as her shoe caught on between the rough bricks, causing her to tumble and, therein, to be a sitting target for what was about to come.

A red light pierced the dark street and hit Lily before James saw its sender, but now with the moon's illumination, Bellatrix Lestrange's outline became evident, as did the ten other cloaked figures who stepped onto the street behind her. Lily writhed, screaming in anguish under the Crucio spell's hold. It was clearly not her first time at the mercy of Bellatrix that night, seen through the monstrous witch's shrill cackle.

Classifying James as 'irate' would be an understatement. His hands shook violently, imagining Bellatrix's throat convulsing beneath them, and his eyes lost their capacity to see the scene unfolding before him—leaving only the blinding shade of vengeance in his sight.

Unharnessed magic rebounded through the air and compelled the bricks from the town's housings to fly arbitrarily into the street, many striking the Deatheaters who seemed in awe of the display around them. Glass shattered under the reverberation of James' sonar-like effect, forming jagged icicles that stabbed at Bellatrix's huddle like daggers. As James crawled on the ground that trembled in his wake, he felt blindly for Lily, staying low to avoid the gruesome spectacle overhead. Finally his hand found her shuddering shoulder, and James took hold of her.

Suddenly, all stopped. A meadow.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Breathing heavily, James found himself in an open field, facing the sky as the sun sunk entirely below the horizon. The air was cold, though, and pulled at his lungs.

Lily, sprawled across his chest, unwittingly elbowed him as she sat in an unnecessary panic. Upon noting their stance in the icy lakeside clearing, she momentarily exhaled in relief before taking on a confused expression. "A frozen lake? It's not that cold in Britain yet." She turned around and looked to James with narrowed eyes. "Where are we?"

"Would you be mad if I said Russia?"

"WHAT?"

James laughed at his own joke. "I'm only kidding. I've no idea where we are."

She rolled her eyes and spat sarcastically, "Oh yes, now I'm not mad."

"Your words say no, but your eyes say 'I hate James'."

"Well, that's a surprise. Tell me, what now will be 'fine'? A werewolf attack? A reenactment of the Titanic?"

James furrowed his brow. "The Titanic?"

She stood with a wince from her earlier injury returning. "Yes. I assume that ship is a prop. What? Not to your liking? Very well, I'll go find some more Deatheaters. You seem to like the thrill of the chase."

With a sigh, James spoke softly. "L—Miss Evans, I'm sorry I left you, but I had no choice. What happened to you anyway? Everyone just disappeared."

Lily continued pouting as she glared. "Bellatrix Lestrange rounded on me. She thought I was a civilian and wasn't really expecting me to curse her. Well, when I stunned her, her groupies realized I was a student and picked me up in that cloud-thing. They were all whispering about the 'Dark Lord', who apparently has just lost the support of the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. Dumbledore and the Aurors weren't letting them past Hogsmeade, and they wanted to use me as a bargaining chip. So then I took out the muffin, like you said to, and the one that had hold of my arms wasn't expecting that, I guess, so he dropped me. I fell and started to run when I ran into Bellatrix again. We dueled, and I was winning, so I thought I'd make a run back to where I saw you go, and then you apparated us to the highlands of God knows what country."

James doubled over in laughter.

"This was not funny."

"You—" he started before bursting into laughter again (A/N: I wrote "bursting into muffins" the first time I attempted this sentence... interesting image). "You gave him the muffin?!"

She looked indignantly to him. "Well, you told me to."

James shook his head, still spluttering laughter. "I was just trying to cheer you up. But you gave him the muffin!" Tears began running down his face.

"Stop that."

"Wait, wait. What did you say to him?"

Lily shrugged and looked away. "I don't know. 'Would you like a muffin?' or something."

James rolled on the frost coated ground visibly shaking with laughter, unable to stop the tears. "No! You didn't!"

"It was your idea! Look, just forget the muffin. Where are we now?"

"'Would you like a muffin?'" James repeated wiping his eyes. "Okay, okay. I'm okay. Alright, let's go." He stood up and began to walk toward the ship in the distance along the lake's bank.

"Go where?" Lily questioned, jogging to keep up with him.

"We need to catch that boat. Hate to disappoint, but it's not exactly camping weather. Thus, we shall 'stow away', I believe is the term you kids use. With any luck, our ship will head toward the UK," he explained before resuming his laughter. "You're going to be a legend: escaping Deatheaters armed only with a baked good. Just think of the press conference! 'Miss Evans, question: How significant was the role of frosting in this ordeal?' Ha!"

She crossed her arms defensively and muttered, "You told me to."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The pair crouched behind some shrubbery near the boat, which proved a decent size. Irish accents could be heard from the upper deck in a promising sign toward their destination, but James and Lily were not aiming for the upper deck. They needed to board the lower.

"Okay, so no magic if anything goes wrong. I don't want anything traceable," James reminded as they inconspicuously unloaded a spacious trunk, previously filled with, to Lily's dismay, muffin mix boxes, all of which were now buried in a hole behind their shrub. "The last thing we'd want to do is sink the 'Sara Lee', which is now the code name for the boat. Now, I'll go first," he declared, slipping into the crate.

Lily followed closely and secured the lid, which might have been a bit premature. Their arms and legs tangled in the darkness as James was repeatedly prodded in the face by knees and elbows, a few of which were his. After squirming for a while, Lily finally kneed him in the place where a man ought not to be kneed, and James' outburst caused the box to tumble sideways.

"Okay! This is fine. Let's just not move anymore," James said.

"But my feet are above my head. I'll lose circulation," she whined.

"You know what, better you lose blood flow than me be castrated."

Lily had no argument.

A half hour later, they were hoisted into the air and carried into the lower cabin. The crewmen left in a rush, and it seemed to be mere moments after they left, the boat embarked on its journey.

"Well," James said as he sprang out of the box, "we must have been the last of the load." He stepped into their cramped living space to find the room almost completely gridlocked with boxes. A low ceiling forced him to duck when standing, while the single, narrow aisle way confined his shoulders. Lily, of course, had none of these problems.

"I call the cot!" she exclaimed, hopping onto the single cot the space provided.

"No, no. I am the elder. Rule of age."

Lily reclined onto the flat mattress, flaunting her claim to the bed. "Ladies first. Code of Chivalry."

"Nope. Up you go. Come on," James said while making gestures for her relocation. "You can have this nice long box here, right across the aisle."

Lily looked to the long, desolate, rotting case that laid parallel to her cot and scoffed. "I think not. This is your doing. If you had just escorted me back to castle, I would have never been abandoned and then attacked. And now, there's a good fifty pounds of muffin mix buried in the Siberian forest near the loading dock of a Betty Crocker factory. We've stolen that merchandise, lest you forget."

"Not stolen, merely redistributed. And I told you we should have left an Easy Bake Oven, too. The raccoons have no chance now."

"Hopefully your jokes will keep you company on your box."

James sat on the box and laid back on it, kicking his feet up. "Fine, you'll just have to sit over there on your worn-out mattress and hear how awesome my box lid is."

Lily unfolded a blanket from the foot of the bed. "Hold on, let me just wrap myself in my blanket first. Wait... alright. You may proceed to speak of the 'awesomeness' of mold."

His jaw dropped at the sight of her blanket. "Okay, that's just mean."

She exhaled and curled up into the blanket, causing James to feel just a little bit better about letting her win the cot.

James watched her in silence for a few minutes as she attempted to fashion a joint pillow-blanket out of the thick fabric. Finally, he redirected his eyes to look through their port window in search of small talk. "The moonlight is nice, huh? It's always more calming than the sun."

"The funny thing about that is that all light is reflected light. Basically, the sun and stars have the light, and it reflects off of things—especially the moon. When you look at anything under the sunlight or moonlight, in theory, you see the sun."

He sighed. They were on this subject again. "So all I can see is the sun?"

Lily shrugged. "I think there is more... kind of. You see it without knowing it."

James grinned. "Well, you have my attention now. Elaborate."

She turned onto her side and eagerly explained, "Remember how I was saying all things outside the universe don't have location like we know it? Well, if we were outside, where there's no location and therefore no shape, I couldn't see you how I see you now."

"But you could still see me?"

"Maybe 'see' isn't the right word," she reconsidered. "I just think that if all light is 'reflected light,' it has to be reflected off of a surface. That surface, though, would fade away once you can't have shape, and inside there could be a different kind of light. A type light that's unimaginable... a new color spectrum. I'd like to think that on a subconscious level, my... 'inner' light can see your 'inner' light."

James scrunched his nose. "I don't know if that could work. If you're saying that our light exists in a place with no location, how can it be in a certain location now?"

"Because of the interference."

James chuckled a bit and began to speak.

"No, look," she cut in, moving to sit directly facing him. "Just close your eyes."

"It's dark already."

"Close them," she ordered.

James swung his legs off the box to face her and and shut his eyes. "Alright."

Without speaking, Lily sat watching him for a minute. "Can you tell I'm here? Even if I don't say anything?"

He raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Well, I know you're here."

"But can you see me? Or feel my presence, rather?"

James laughed to himself. "You're one of those flower children, aren't you? All of this 'feel my aura' talk."

"Come on," Lily giggled. "Is there something about me, something that you can just feel?"

James concentrated intensely on her, picturing her and trying to feel her with his mind. His senses heightened, and he noticed the air pass over his palms and then retract: her breath. He gulped and bit his lip. "There's something about you." He opened his eyes to find her sitting on her cot's edge, serenely cross-legged with her eyes shut tightly.

"There's something about you, too."

"No," he said resolutely, causing her to lift an eyelid and peer curiously at him. "There's something...wonderful about you."

Opening her other eye and resting her head in a hand, she thought briefly before responding with a smile, "I think you're nice, too."

James sighed and dropped his gaze to his hands while trying to smoothe his scuffed nails. She did not understand. "Okay. Well, thanks." After the moment passed, he glanced back to her and realized she still was staring, her head tilted slightly askew.

"You've been really tolerant," she spoke softly.

He scoffed jocularly. "You say that like it's out of character. Tolerance is my middle name. JTP. In the ghetto, you see, I go by JT. Or Jay-Tol, as some like to abbreviate it."

She giggled again. "You're crazy."

"I've been told this before."

Reaching her hands behind her back, she yawned. "I'm tired."

James nodded in agreement. "Long night."

"Very," she said, hesitantly pausing before beginning a soft stutter.

"If you're about to ask me to tuck you into your bed, save yourself the rejection. If you're about to come to your senses and let me have the cot, I shall forgive you for your earlier err," James proclaimed with sarcasm as he laid back onto his box, which had acquired a rather musty odor from his warmth intermixing with the cold water lodged within the box's wooden frame.

A small voice came from Lily's half of the cabin with the words "Do you want to share it?"

James looked to her, only to lose himself in her eyes, which seemed to enlarge whenever she cajoled him. "I..." he trailed off, shaking his head.

"Really, it's fine with me. You shouldn't sleep on a box," she pleaded, moving closer to the wall to give him space.

"Miss E—" he started before sighing and lowering his voice. "Lily, I can't."

"But... I'm still... nervous. Please, I won't say anything."

He surveyed her face and began to forget the reasoning behind his refusal. "I really, really can't."

"There's room for both of us."

James exhaled. Against his better judgment, he stood and reseated himself on her cot. Feeling an unexpected tension, he met her gaze. She looked different so close. In a friendly gesture, she extended part of the blanket to him, but he declined, allowing the thick wool to separate their bodies. They sat propped on their elbows, fearing to be forward first with the other, until she pushed his shoulder gently. Following her lead, he stiffly laid so that his back rested flat against the thin cot. In comparison, James realized, the box showed little difference.

She snuggled into his side, only distressing him more. This was wrong, and he knew it. Why could he not bring himself push her away? James turned his head toward her, but their eyes did not meet.

After the moments of adjustment calmed, Lily broke the silence with a whisper. "What if they find us?"

James repositioned himself so their eyes aligned. "They won't," he said confidently, trying to assuage her doubts.

She draped an arm over him to tug at his sleeve. Per her request, he placed his hand on her slender arm, which rested atop his stomach. He took a few deep breaths, watching her arm rise and fall with his respiration. "And if they ever do, I'll protect you."

Lily smiled slightly.

Already past the realm of better judgment, James furthered beyond average judgment and into denial as he moved his face toward hers, whispering in her ear, "I'll always, always protect you." And as he pulled his mouth from her ear, he lowered it onto her lips to place a very firm, very platonic kiss on her mouth.

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Author's Note: Happy Christmas! And in the spirit of said holiday, everyone should review!! Tell me if you think it's being rushed, because if it is, I will cut it and repost. It thought since so many people were wanting it to kick into gear, I'd make it a type of present. The light/color discussion made a reappearance for those of you who enjoyed Chapter 7... how did you like it? And the action sequence toward the beginning? Upgrade or downgrade? It's kind of like how magical children can't control their magic when they can't control their emotions...

I'm holding out for 119 reviews, so click the button! You know you want to.

Live well this holiday. Love to all, Nicole.