Short and sappier than I've ever done, but I still like it.
I thought that if I ever landed Lily Evans I'd be shouting it from the rooftop. I thought I'd fly my broom with a banner attached. I thought I'd want the world to know. The truth was, I wanted Lily Evans all to myself. I'd bide my time and wait to see if she's let it slip first. She did nothing but throw heated glances in my direction, her breath heaving and her lids heavy. She did nothing but press into me before, during, and after patrols. There was never a soul to be found, but I'm sure if someone were to pop in, it wouldn't stop her. It wasn't shame; it was pure, hungry, selfishness.
My conversations with the lads were half-hearted at best; our runs with Remus were a poor distraction for there was only one place I wanted to be. I looked forward to the hurt and the scratches because I knew who would be waiting with murtlap in the common room. She never smiled then. She wiped my arms and torso with a rag and healed me as best she could. Any scar she left I wore with pride. She didn't question why I'd not been more careful, she didn't scold me anymore. She pushed my hair away from my forehead with cold fingers and took off my glasses and kissed my eyes and whispered that goddamn it she was relieved that I was all right. It was the only time we said "I love you", and it was the only time we didn't need to.
I remember that her hair was as red as ever, and that she never once wore it straight again.
"My mum had curly hair," she'd told me once. I hadn't asked, but she'd caught me staring. I didn't ask what she'd meant by "had" either. We both knew she wouldn't say the words and I didn't have it in me to push her even if that might have been what she needed.
It, we, came out one day when Sirius, always reliable, Sirius cornered Lily, and I swear if I had been there, I'd have socked him but right good. He blamed her for my short attention span, for being so just, not there, so tuned out. Truthfully, there was no one to blame. It was inevitable that we would consume the other.
That night, we'd not seen much of each other and I was looking forward to clearing out the common room for just the two of us. I walked in to find it bustling with all of Gryffindor house, and myself at a loss for how to get rid of them all. I didn't see Lily at first in the mess and that was all that mattered. If I'd been obsessed before, well, I didn't know what to call the aftermath of having her.
I walked up the stairs to the dorm, on my way to find the map and then she called out. She was wedged between Sirius and Marlene; Sirius looked slightly angry and Marlene looked as if she were holding him back. Lily, my Lily, had a look on that I'd not seen in a long while. She looked defiant, as if she were taking on a dare.
"Oi, Potter!" she called out. The common room stopped. Sirius hitched a breath and Marlene's eyes were shinning. Alice and Frank looked up curiously from their newly minted corner on the love seat. The memory will be blue ocean water clear until the day I die.
"Yeah Evans?" I answered. She bit her lip and smiled. My heart stopped and she knew it.
She had turned around and got up on her knees, the firelight casting a shadow along the wall that obscured everything else.
"Go out with me?" she called across the common room.
The common room went from riot-level noise to dead silent at the sudden breach in protocol. Girls did not ask boys out. Lily Evans did not give James Potter the time of day. Until now.
When I didn't answer, she jumped over the couch and ran up the boy's stairs to where I was standing. She took my hand in her strangely cold ones and said, "I mean it, go out with me. Hogsmead or not."
The world had shrunk as it often does in moments like those. We were two alone on a stair case without a room of children staring and wondering when, why, and how their reality got turned on its head.
"I'll think on it shall I?" I answered, my smile growing more crooked, the way I knew she liked.
"Horse shit," she said. And then she kissed me. Her hair came undone from its knot as I grabbed her head and the room erupted in cheers. Or so we heard later.
Sirius had been slack-jawed and speechless, Marlene was leading the cheer and Frank and Alice joined in shortly there after. Our friends, they were all there and we didn't even spare them a glance. Anything outside of us was no more than a triviality.
"I can't believe you sodding did that," I told her later on that night. Everyone had gone up to bed, ushered away by more responsible prefects.
She looked up from the floor where she was tinkering with some muggle piece of machinery.
"Can't you? One of us had to eventually, and Sirius was beginning to piss me right off with the bloody inquisition he waged because you wouldn't pay him attention. So I did it. Just like you used to, only with better results." She winked at turned back to her machine.
"What in the bloody hell is that?" I asked.
"It's a typewriter. Muggles use it to write."
"Write what?" I asked.
"Anything really, although mainly letters and books. Or school projects I suppose, I'm not really sure. This was one of my dad's; he loved it so."
She ran her hands lovingly over the keys marked with letters and numbers, and went to that place in her mind I couldn't follow her to.
"This one is older, from the 1940's, much older than the models they use now. I suppose you could call it a family heirloom."
"It's beautiful. Makes me wish I'd paid more attention in muggle studies."
She laughed and pulled out a bright white sheet that I knew couldn't be parchment; it was flattened out and much too thin.
"It works like this," she said as she put the sheet through the machine.
"You put the paper into this slot and then turn the dial. Then you press down on the keys to form the words, just as if you were writing by hand."
It took patience but not a lot of time to figure out. Personally, I didn't see the appeal but it was something that she did with such love and attention that I couldn't help being absolutely captivated.
"I don't even recognize you," Sirius said. We were on our way to the willow with Pete in tow.
"He's in love, like you" Pete interjected.
"Excuse me? I do not remember ever saying such a thing," replied Sirius.
"Oh bollocks!" Peter and I shouted together.
"I'm sorry I've been neglecting you lot. I don't mean to. I honestly didn't think I would but—"
"Its sodding Lily Evans and we didn't expect any less. Sirius will get over it and eventually you will come down off your cloud," Peter interjected.
"Precisely, thank you Pete," I said.
We'd reached the willow and Peter transformed to hit the knot.
"You'd sodding well better you go," Sirius said. "You come down soon or Marley and I will drag you both back."
"Oh so it's Marley now, is it?" I asked as we went through.
"Shut it wanker," he replied.
"There you see? We're back to normal already."