A/N: I COME BEARING CHAPTER TWELVE! And profuse apologies. I meant to have this up a few days ago, but… wow, let me just say: never, ever, ever will I ever write a First Date chapter ever again. I really hope – REALLY hope – this was worth your wait and my stress and the long days that I just wanted to bang my head against the wall. (FanFic is SRS BSNS.) I've been working on other stuff while editing this, but I finally made myself sit down and get to work. (Basically because Realmer scares me.) Oh, man, guys. I do hope you enjoy. Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews and alerts and favorites, it means a ton that you're sticking with me. Please let me know how it goes!
Tremendous, never-ending thanks goes to my amazing, astounding, wonderful, life saving (etc. into infinity) beta Zayz. Go heap worship and praise upon her, because seriously, she kept me from giving up. Mega hearts to you, chica!
TWELVE: TALLULAH
It was strange, walking by his side down the London sidewalk. Strange in that dream-like, surreal kind of way. Up until this summer, I had never seen him outside of Hogwarts or a busy wizarding area. Now that we were in London, surrounded by muggles and people who had no idea who we were, who had no knowledge of our pasts or our rows or what exactly we were to one another, the anonymity was nice. Outside of Hogwarts, I could just be Lily and he could just be James, and we could just be two normal teenagers who may or may not have had huge, repressed attractions to one another.
"I never thanked you for the flower," I said as we walked.
He ducked his head with a chuckle. "I had some help with that, actually. I talked about it with Remus a lot, and then Shiv came up with the idea and Sirius wouldn't let me sleep until I sent it, so… team effort, that was."
I wanted to feel embarrassed that so many people were in on this silly little relationship, but I had Dorcas and Siobhan carrying me around, too, so I couldn't blame him if he needed some support. "She's a dirty little sneak, playing on both sides."
He grinned. "It worked, didn't it?"
"I'm here, aren't I?" I said, and then immediately turned my blush away from his gaze. I sincerely hoped that I wouldn't be doing that all day.
"Yeah. I still think I'm hallucinating. That, or you've completely lost it, but either way, I'm not going to jinx it."
"Stuff it," I laughed, and motioned for him to follow me across the street.
"You look nice, by the way," he said as we made it across the intersection. He tugged on the loose cotton of my sleeve. "It's good to see you in something normal."
"Just nice?"
He laughed, shaking his head. "Any other time, Evans, you would've threatened me with castration should I have dared call you beautiful."
"Yes, well. You dare do so today."
I couldn't believe the words came out of my mouth, but it was far too late to drag them back inside the little cage in my mind that they came out of. Perhaps my feel, don't think policy was not the most wise idea. I didn't have the courage to watch his reaction, so I focused on the crowd around us, the steadily declining overcast clouds, the inflection of his voice and his solid walk beside me.
"Shall I try again, then? You look beautiful today, Lily," he said.
There was a smirk on his face when I looked up. "Thank you. You look nice as well."
"Just nice?"
"Now you're trying your luck," I said.
He laughed, asking me a few questions about my parents, my sister; we talked about Sirius and his Mum and Dad for a while, and I told him about Vernon, about Dorcas and Siobhan, and he told me about Remus. Throughout our calm small-talk, when he'd pause to make gestures with his hands or struggle for a description of his house elves or let my laughter subside so he could speak again, I found myself enjoying his company and the way he felt so at ease, the way it affected me, too. And I found myself stepping just a little closer to him, my hands swinging at my sides now, every once and a while brushing against the back of his.
Grade-school behavior, sure, but it was like relearning this whole dating thing all over again.
"So," he said as we crossed another street, as if he didn't notice me nearly hyperventilating right next to him. "Where are you dragging me?"
"It's right over here," I managed, crossing my arms over my chest.
The small coffee shop I was leading him to was tightly sandwiched between two larger buildings, one an insurance agency and the other a photography office. My mother and I had stumbled upon it in my first summer home from Hogwarts, when Petunia had stopped talking to me and Mum wanted to spend some mother-daughter time away from the house. It was called Tallulah's and was very homey inside.
James hesitated as we reached the door. "This looks, ah… it reminds me of Puddifoot's."
"You can't be serious."
"I'm quite serious. Bad experiences." He shuddered. "If only you knew."
I sighed.. "Of all the dates that you've been on at Puddifoot's –"
"Evans, really. There were all of," he paused. "Four. Five, if you count Marcella, but she was batty. And Puddifoot's isn't the manliest place, if you haven't noticed. I don't do well with pink and frilly."
"Is it only your masculinity that you're worried about?" I asked, tapping my foot on the pavement. "Because this, if you haven't noticed, is Tallulah's. And I'm Lily Evans. And we're on a date."
He narrowed his eyes. "Are you trying to use leverage?"
"Is it working?"
Standoff! I thought as he crossed his arms over his chest. The silence lasted all of seven seconds before James' willpower melted and he rolled his eyes, crossing the few feet between us and pulling the door open.
"You're lucky," he grumbled, placing his hand on the small of my back as I stepped in before him.
I didn't give myself time to think about the heat of his hand through my shirt. It was nice, it was natural, and it wouldn't be normal to lean back into it, so I kept moving forward, claiming a small table in the corner.
After we ordered our drinks – a strong cappuccino for me, a more-chocolate-than-coffee mocha for him – and settled in, I was really able to let this sink in. I was on a date. With James. Who was sitting across from me, sipping at his drink, watching me watch him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
It was different.
James was different. I'd grown so accustomed to Potter the Gryffindor, the Captain, the Marauder. At Hogwarts, he was arrogant and devil-may-care, sauntering and proud, the first person you'd expect to start a row just for the hell of it, flaunting his wand and word play shamelessly, with no doubt or regret afterwards. That James was the one I'd been loathe to date; that James was the one that irritated and goaded me to drastic, dramatic measures, that made me want to tear my hair out, jump off the Astronomy tower, curse him to oblivion and beyond.
This James? Good lord.
He had opened the door for me. He had put his hand on the small of my back when I led us to our table. He had held out my chair. His smile was charming and sweet and not at all mischievous, not at all smug. This James… not expected. I hadn't prepared myself for this side of him, and it was off-putting, the way he calmly sipped at his coffee and tactfully hid the aversion on his face. It took me a few minutes to readjust my defenses and reorder my thoughts.
Because this was different in a completely new way: hating James Potter? Easy.
Liking him past the point of any bit of logic I could ever manage to scrounge up? Dangerous.
Very dangerous.
- QS -
Thankfully my inherent yet slowly dwindling barriers were still in place, allowing me to sit across the table from him and quietly get myself together. It was just so damn bizarre, having him here in a place where I spent so much time as a child. It was another one of those merging things, I supposed: slowly bringing him into my life one little piece at a time. So instead of looking around at things I already knew, I looked up and stared at him, at the little nuances of his face, trying to relearn his expressions.
I watched his smile as his eyes moved across the few people sitting around, sipping at their drinks; his amusement at the old, flowery wallpaper, the countless cat clocks lining one full wall, the gypsy curtains over the windows; his frown as he smelled the odd scent of Siobhan's favorite brand of ginger incense mixed with the overwhelming smell of coffee; his gentleness as he caught my gaze, held it, took another pained sip of his weak mocha.
"Is it good?" I asked, hiding my smirk behind my cup.
Even though I knew he didn't like coffee when I asked him here, I didn't want him to know that I'd ever paid him that much attention. Because, regardless of your level of affection a person, after six years of enduring their forced company, you really get to know him, whether or not you intended it to turn out that way.
(I hadn't. At all.)
He choked down a swallow, trying to get the mouthful down his throat. "Y-yeah. Wonderful."
"Really," I said. I leaned back in my chair and took a bite of my scone, watching him carefully, deciding to have a little bit of fun with him. "It looks like you're enjoying it, Potter."
"Are you enjoying this torture? Because it's not fun," he said. He put his cup down and glared, althoughhis smile rendered the gesture fairly useless. "In fact, since we're being honest, I'm going to have to say that it tastes like old, moldy Polyjuice that's been sitting under Sirius' bed, in his Sock Box, for years. Years, Evans. That's…"
He trailed off with a shiver. I laughed.
"His Sock Box?" My eyebrows were raised, and I could feel the telltale dimples in my cheeks that whispered my reluctant amusement – at both his expression and, well, the situation in general. James Potter, genuinely entertaining me? I still couldn't get over it.
"You don't want to know, Evans. I don't even want to talk about it." He reached for my scone,almost like it was a surrender. "Give me a bite of that, would you? I need to get this taste out of my mouth."
"No!" I exclaimed, nearly vaulting across the table to snatch it out of his hands before it got to his waiting raised a slow eyebrow at me as I sat back down, attempting to compose myself in my embarrassment but narrowing my eyes at him all the same.
"You can't have any," I said feebly.
"Are we eleven years old again?" he asked, perfectly serious, but his eyes, again, gave him away. They had a curious habit of doing so, and, because I had never really noticed before, I wondered if he was able to do that intentionally.
Probably. How else would he get his way so much?
I rolled my eyes at both him and that thought and let the tight muscles of my mouth relax a little bit. "Do you want to suffocate yourself? Have your throat swell up and cut off all your air? There are peaches in this. Peach scone," I reminded him, pointing to it. "You were standing right there when I ordered it. Or were you staring at me too long to notice?"
He looked at me for a moment, a bit too still for my liking, a little blank. I fidgeted in my chair. Maybe that was a bit too knowing, too forward, for his liking. Maybe he had only mentioned in passing that he was allergic to peaches, had never expected me to take too much stock in those letters he sent me. Maybe I was supposed to keep to polite, detached conversations and not little banter-fests that would probably end up, inevitably, in a row.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Frustrated, I wrapped my hands around my cappuccino and forced my eyes to bore into the swirled brown and white patterns staring back at me from the foam. Stupid Lily.
"You remembered that?" he finally asked.
I looked up at the surprise in his voice. "Of course I remembered."
Then, to counteract the absolute girlish softness of that silly little sentence: "Know thy enemy, Potter. My plans to kill you need to have backups, you know. A through H are sitting in a locked box in my trunk, if we're being honest."
"Really," he said. Mischief shone the most delightful light in his eyes and he leaned forward, his forearms resting against the tabletop and his hands folded, like mine, around his coffee. His eyes flashed now with the tempting challenge. He could definitely do that on purpose.
"Well, if we're being honest, then do you care to tell me what those murder tactics consist of? It could be a fun game if you'd let it, Evans. Just think: you trying to kill me, me intercepting you. Cat and mouse. Assassin versus assassin. Whatever you want to call it."
"I can't do that," I said. I shook my head and felt my expression mold into my best poker face. (Siobhan always called my bluff; you be the judge.) He smirked – dangerous, Lily; he is not handsome right now – and tingles pricked at the very tips of my fingers and toes, traveling with pleasant heat through my body. I hoped that my voice was as smooth as his when I said, "You'll just have to keep on your toes. I'm a bit trickier than you think I am."
And then, out of nowhere, Siobhan's voice came floating right to me: Flirting? With Potter? Me-ow, Lily.
"Ah, that you are," he agreed. He paused, his eyes still gleaming as he surveyed me carefully over his coffee cup. Then: "Hmm. If we're being honest…"
Debating over his next words, I presumed, he took my cappuccino out of my hands and tried to down some of it, as though I would think his sharing it would be impressive. I was going to warn him of just how much espresso I had asked the barrista to dump into my cup (honestly, I was – we were being very honest today, apparently), but I was a wicked, wicked person. If he thought his weak, heavily-chocolated mocha was bad…
His eyes grew wide as the large mouthful he had managed to swig registered with his taste buds. I watched with a satisfied grin as his eyes bugged and he had just enough composure to keep himself from throwing the cup across the room. "Jesus, Evans! How can you drink that?"
Half of the occupants of Tallulah's turned to stare at him. He gave an indulgent smile and a wave, for their bewildered sakes, before promptly turning to stare at me. "You are an odd woman, Lily Evans," he said, shaking his head. "How you can drink acidic dirt is far beyond me."
I grabbed my cup back and tried to remember where his lips had been so that I could steadfastly avoid that side of the rim. "Oh, go get a water, pansy," I said lightly, giving him a little kick underneath the table.
He got up from his seat with a huff. I couldn't help but watch him as he walked away. It was unavoidable – sad though it was to think.
Insanity, my name is Lily.
But, really, I shouldn't have been so surprised at myself. I'd sunk to this pathetic level before, what felt like months ago now, when I had realized, reluctantly, that I did fancy him; and then again when I'd read his letters over and over, and again when I'd stared at that charm-preserved tulip for far longer than necessary…
And he wasn't an "unfortunate specimen of male," as Siobhan would say, not in the slightest. He kind of oozed that smarmy charm when he wanted to get his way, like he was doing to the poor cashier right now. I could imagine the way he would be looking at her through his glasses, his lips lifted, his eyebrows unevenly raised. He was built and tan and lean and his shoulders were unfairly nice and he kind of swaggered when he walked – which was irritating, but I guess when you're James Potter you get that right – and God, his forearms were just –
"Staring, Evans?"
Somehow, in the short time that I'd been staring at him and losing myself in my stupid, stupid thoughts, he was back, and he was now staring at me as he took his seat. The receipt in his hand informed me that whatever manipulating he'd done to the cashier had been successfully achieved.
He was waiting for me to say something, though, so I felt the color rise in my cheeks as I said, "Not on your life, Potter."
"I've got some barmy witch after my life anyway," he said. Then, being the naturally fidgety human being he was, he proceeded in tossing a spare coin on the table. And, being the naturally alert human being that I was, I allowed myself to watch it spin, spin, spin on the gauzy tablecloth.
"So, we're being honest, yeah?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered, wary at this abrupt turn of tone.
Honest was a good thing, by all means. But I didn't know how honest he would want me to be; how honest I would let myself be.
Then again, this was James Potter… There seemed to be no rules where he was concerned, not now, not anymore, not when I had broken all of my previous ones when I'd asked him on a date; and whatever rules there actually were, whatever rules we were playing by right now, appeared to be coming about spontaneously as we continued with our avoidant, yet revealing, conversation. My rules had abandoned me; it looked like I was on my own. With James. On a date.
He drank some of his new vanilla milkshake for a few long seconds before sitting back in his chair. "Have you thought any more about what we spoke about? In Diagon Alley?"
Ah. I'd seen this coming, and for once, I was somewhat ready for it: the conversation we had left unfinished, the conversation that he was bringing up calmly, examining me calmly with his hands resting calmly on the table. The only things anxious about him were his eyes, and I made myself look at them with my own, not so calm, gaze.
That, at least, he deserved.
"What this means to me…" I said, stalling slightly.
He nodded, letting me make my faces and play with my thumbs in his infinite patience. "Yes. Remember, we're striving for honesty here, Evans."
I picked up his straw wrapper and chucked it at him in a pathetic attempt to lighten the heavy mood that was pressing me into my chair. "Sod off."
"No, okay, look," he said, holding his hands up. "I'll be quiet, I promise. Go on."
With a restless sigh, I sat back in my chair and fiddled with the coin on the table. How was I to put these difficult thoughts into words? To actually tell him how I felt? It was a novel idea, something I had feared doing from the very beginning, but we were here, and we were talking about it – finally – so I opened my mouth. "Well…like I said, I do fancy you…"
Now it was Dorcas' voice, scolding, upbraiding me as I made myself think too much: You fancy James, and now, when James might still fancy you, you shut down because you don't know what to do about it… Stop that. This is good.
It was bolstering, and with a small smile, I continued. "Well, more than I thought I would, anyway. More than I probably should. It's just that, last year, when we were… well, when we were friends, you were just…different, but in a good way. I got to see you for who you were, you know? You gave me time… let me think – or obsess – about all of this – "
I swallowed hard, my eyes averted from his unbearably kind face. "And then when we got in that fight – "
He shook his head. "I'm sorry for what I said – "
"Don't be," I interrupted, attempting a convincing smile. He looked like he was about to reach across the table to unwrap my tight fingers from my coffee cup, so I pulled them back and laid my hands in my lap. That was the last thing that would help at the moment.
"I needed to hear it," I said finally, my voice a little softer than it should've been. "Sometimes, like you, I've got a big head when it matters. I, ah, tend to think about things far too much than is healthy."
Another swallow. God, this was harder than I thought it would be. It wasn't exactly the conversation I wanted to have at this delicate first-date-after-years-of-hate phase; weren't things supposed to be awkward, yet light-hearted? A kind of "get to know you" day?
Ah, right. We've had six years of "get to know you" days.
"But when we got in that fight, I heard a lot of stuff that maybe I didn't want to hear," I pushed forward, taking a small sip of coffee to satiate my ridiculously dry throat. "And you…you made me listen."
Silence.
"Lily."
My heart just about jumped into my throat when he reached across the table, with unanticipated tenderness, to cup my face in one of his hands. I think I shivered. No, I definitely shivered. Lily, not Evans; and somehow, though different, through strange, it was right.
Unthinkingly, I held my breath and closed my eyes, relaxing into his palm, enjoying the sensation of his thumb running across the soft stretch of skinunderneath my eye. I opened both of them to watch the delight in his eyes as he surveyed me.
"I do apologize," he said softly, "Some of the things I said were harsh, I know, but if they got you here, with me, how can I regret them?"
I missed the heat of his hand on my face when he pulled away, but hid it with a smile. This desire to be touched by him was scary and new and dangerous. Something in me constricted at this wonderment, this floundering uncertainty, but something else in me calmed at the same time; he had an undeniable knack for making me contradict myself, but for once, I was going to let go, to give in, to feel and not think.
"It's nice being here," I commented after a moment of not thinking under his gaze. "When you're not all… being a prat…oh, don't look at me like that, you know you deserve it." I threw him a minor glare for the gape he was sending my way, but my tone was gentle once I said, almost thinking aloud, "But it's still a bit… I mean, it's still a bit odd, you know?"
"You mean odd in that completely fantastic, unreal way? Because then yeah, I know what you mean," he said. He stole the forgotten coin from my fingers and flipped it between his palms as I contemplated his tone – so casual, yet so meaningful, so full.
Because I wasn't thinking, and feeling was getting me nowhere, I could only makea little tssk sound between my teeth and steal the coin back. "I guess so," I said eventually. "Who would've thought I'd ever actually agree to go on a date with the infallible James Potter?"
His grin was wide and roguish. "Who would've thought you would actually ask me? Oh, how the mighty have fallen."
Glaring playfully, I tossed the coin at his forehead. He caught it deftly before it got anywhere near his face – of course he did –and handed it back to me with pursed lips.
"You can laugh at my lack of your legendary aim if you'd like, you know," I said, smirking. "Not everyone can be such an incredible Chaser like you."
"I don't want to laugh at you," he said, chuckling anyway. "Not now, anyway. I just – I really don't know why you'd bother throwing things at me when you know they won't find their mark."
I grimaced, but rested my cheek on my own palm, rather than snatching his back up as I wanted to. "Arrogant bastard," I muttered out of habit. I caught myself when he raised an eyebrow, and amended, "Sorry. What I meant to say, sir, was that you are an amazing, talented, handsome, wonderful arrogant bastard."
He laughed again. "Slightly better. Just remind me not to take you out anywhere that involves darts or something of the like next time we go out, yeah?"
I felt my face flame. "What?"
His expression was unreadable – curious – as he said, "Well, Evans, we're going to be dating now, aren't we?"
"Wait, who said anything about dating?" I asked, my tone more demanding, more surprised than I'd intended. His outstretched hand, and the coin lying on his palm, hovered above the table.
Dating? How had I not… how had I not thought of that beforehand?
If I was honest with myself, if I let myself think, I would admit to myself now that, yes,I'd been considering it in recent days (or the past few unusually pleasant hours). I had actually allowed myself to think beyond this date, to the weeks of long, summer days that stretched out further than these few little hours in Tallulah's.
Would it be so horrible to spend them relearning this relationship, redrawing lines that I thought I had set in stone, rethinking things I had never thought about before, like what it would be like to hold his hand or have it pressed against my face? What it would be like to let him hug me again, his heartbeat against my forehead, every line of him perfectly molded against mine?
After this date, after we separated in one or two or three hours, what then? We'd be "dating," right?
Would I then consider him my – dare I think it? – boyfriend?
That had taken me the longest time to get used to, in the days between the time he'd asked me what this all meant and now. James Potter, my boyfriend. I had imagined saying it to Mum and Dad, to Petunia, to Mr. and Mrs. Blanchett next door:
Everyone, meet James Potter, my boyfriend.
I would have to force myself to get past all those years of hating him and to let myself be the girl that fancied him, that wanted to hold his hand and smile at him. The term could be well off, really, and it sounded so… trite, but if I was getting involved with him now, if I let this date evolve into several dates, then "dating," that's what he'd eventually be, right?
Boyfriend.
The out-of-placecaution on his face (because when has James Potter ever been cautious?) made me feel more playful than I should've been with this whole situation. He was so used to my vehement refusals that he hadn't let himself think positively about the possibility of my acceptance – it was depressing, in this enormously humorous way, at least to me. At once, my playfulness turned to guilt, and I reached out, taking the silly pound coin we'd been fooling with from his hand.
"Next time we won't go out for coffee, I guess," I said, giving him what I hoped was an encouraging look, an I'm sorry, a little smile that read yes.
"You bloody tease," he said, exhaling. "And you do know that I mean this. Relationship-wise. Like, we're talking dating. Being nice to one another. You might even have to talk to me every once and a while, Evans. Are you sure you can handle that?"
I laughed. "I hate you."
"Not anymore," he said, shaking his head and looking to the heavens, his eyes a million miles away after everything we'd just said and done, the millions of miles we had just covered in the short time we'd been sitting here.
For a moment, I thought he was going to say something deep, something poetic, something Dorcas would consider swoon-worthy, while still coming across with that sweet charm that I'd just discovered in him, but the hope was in vain: he only checked his watch and leaned over to glance outside.
"Hey, it's almost three; you want to get going before it starts raining? It looks like it's going to come down hard, and," he said, glancing brieflyat my white shirt, "I definitely wouldn't want you getting stuck out there."
"Oh, definitely not, Potter," I said, rolling my eyes with a chuckle. "Why would you ever want me to get stuck outside, in the rain, in my white shirt? That'd be disastrous."
"You act like I'm some sort of skeevy perv." He stood, pocketed the coin, took a last draw at his milkshake, and searched for a trash can. Unconsciously he snaked a hand through his hair.
Why did I find that attractive now?
Feeling a bit light-headed and inexplicably happy, I pointed to the exit with a suppressed grin, where a small receptacle sat next to an umbrella stand and a coat rack. "Perhaps I've confused you with Sirius, then, because I've always known you to be a skeevy perv," I said as we weaved through tables and chairs and customers and shopping bags together.
"Only on Tuesday's," he explained to me. "There is just something about Tuesday that turns me on. It's like…"
I couldn't focus on what he was saying anymore, because just as we made it to the front door, it swung open, revealing a small brunette with an impressive number of parcels in one hand and an as yet unnecessary umbrella in the other. I watched through the glass as she struggled with closing the umbrella, one foot holding the door open, and as she got it closed with a relieved sigh, she pivoted, nearly running us over.
My face fell when I saw who it was. Heather Toumey: previous fifth year Slytherin that had sent tough-as-nails Siobhan to the Hospital Wing.
There goes our anonymity, I thought with a silent groan.
"Potter! Evans!" Heather exclaimed, staring between my pained face and James' exasperated, irritated expression. I guess she didn't notice – or perhaps I was just too adept at reading him; when did that happen? – because she planted herself right in front of us, her perfectly smooth, tan forehead wrinkling in the middle.
"What are you…" she trailed off.
I knew. There were so many things that could follow that beginning: What are you two doing together? What are you thinking? What did you do to her? Essentially, it didn't matter what she started to say because any way she chose to say it would turn out the same.
There were so many other places that I should be, so many other people I should be with; the possibilities – all the other things that should have been but, because I was here, with James, in the middle of London, weren't – were endless and stretched out in front of my eyes, doubting me and this choice, this moment that I had already been second-guessing since the moment I'd left Siobhan's flat.
So before I could drown in the what ifs and the whys, before I could really contemplate the bloody irony of standing in a doorway and the choice that was before me, before I could turn and run far, far away, I jumped.
His hand was warm when I slipped mine into his.
Heather's jaw snapped shut along with my breath. I stared at my hand – our hands; my pale fingers cupped around his long, summer-tanned ones – for a prolonged moment as if it weren't a part of my body but a part of an experiment, something intangible or just plain bizarre that you couldn't quite manage to take your eyes off of. Time smacked me on the back of the head at the same moment an unfamiliar tickling of heat gripped the edges of my heart, and I slowly looked up to meet his gaze.
His answering smile was brilliant and so very worth it.
"Well, there you have it," he said to Heather, grinning.
Before she could form a response, he tugged on my hand – my hand! – and led me into the muggy, warm air, the gray clouds darkening above us. We stood on the sidewalk for a moment while James reoriented himself, finally deciding on a direction and tugging me into a lazy stride, swinging our hands between us.
It was several minutes before I could speak. "This is strange," I said, my eyes on the sidewalk.
I felt stupid for being so worked up over this after everything we'd just talked about. We were only holding hands, but if I let myself really look at it, it was such an affectionate gesture, like him putting his hand on my face; such a large step to have taken from our familiar principle of never a touch, never a kind word, never a smile. As if my hatred had never existed, I had reached out to him and he had taken my hand. Easy. I just had to get myself used to it.
We're dating now, after all...
As always, he picked up on my mood – or maybe just the tension in my hand – and, God help me, laced his fingers through mine. The urge to combust, the very same that tempted me when he cheated and came back to hug me at the Leaky Cauldron, flooded my brain. The warmth of his hand was the only thing keeping me from pulling away. That, and, well… it was nice.
"You know she's going to go spouting off at the mouth to everyone she knows, don't you? Everyone's going to know. Everyone." I squeezed his hand in my panic. "And they'll think I've lost my mind. They'll think I've absolutely lost my mind. I mean, it's Heather, and she's graduated, but she still knows people – "
"Evans – "
"And oh my God, she's going to tell Alice, and I haven't spoken to her since she left for Australia, and all those – "
James stopped walking. "Do you honestly care that much? Because people are going to talk about this," he said, dropping my hand to motion between us before crossing them over his chest, "Whether you like it or not."
It was hard to find an answer with him staring at me like that, but it came eventually. "No… Not really."
"Then let it go, yeah?"
I nodded. He grabbed my hand this time, and we kept walking, him gently pulling me along. He was right. Of course he was right. I was on a date and that meant I was supposed to be having a good time.
Let it go. Feel, don't think. Dating now.
"You're making far too big a deal of this, Lily," he said, smirking.
"There is no way you will ever stop being a prat, is there?" I snapped, glaring up at him.
His laugh lessened my annoyance, but only a little. "Nope. Besides: this?" he said, lifting our hands between us, "Completely okay with me. No complaints. You're very good at this hand-holding thing."
"I'm glad I meet your approval," I growled.
He squeezed my hand with a smile.
We walked another block, the foot traffic around us dwindling, each of us silent, before James spoke. "Well, that was an experience. Something for the books. Lily Evans Does Not Kill James Potter on First Date. 'It was remarkable,' says one eyewitness. 'Amazing chemistry. Simply astounding.'"
"Our first date," I murmured, avoiding his face.
"It wasn't so terrible, was it?" he goaded. "It only took six years and, oh, countless invitations. I stopped keeping track in fourth year; too many pieces of parchment under my bed. I would cry myself to sleep every night before Remus told me to stop counting, you know. 'Waste of time, Prongs,' he would say. 'O, ye of little faith!' I would say. 'I shall have the lily maiden yet!' And here we are."
"I don't know what I see in you," I chuckled. "You are absolutely absurd."
"Ah, yet here you stand. Or walk. Semantics."
I nodded, a pleasant blush in my cheeks. "Here I walk."
"Beside me," he grinned, pulling our hands up to place a kiss on the back of my hand. His lips were gone far too quickly – God, how I wished he hadn't done that; those lips that launched a thousand new, dangerous thoughts in this crazy brain of mine – wiped clean by the humid air, and I gripped his hand tighter, scared to bring him any closer than the half a foot already separating us.
"Where I always knew we'd –"
He froze.
It wasn't a surprised stillness, like when you see two of your supposed rival classmates together outside of school or when you catch your soon-to-be brother-in-law and sister snogging in her bedroom, but a stillness caused by a spell to the back. The instant he stopped walking, the very second his hand went rigid in mine and I looked up to see the confusion, the controlled alarm in his eyes, I stopped breathing. He teetered into me and I caught him around the waist with one arm, pressing my shoulder against his chest to keep him upright.
"James?" I whispered. "James, oh, no."
Whipping my head around, I struggled to pull my wand from the waistband of my jeans. There weren't many people around, and luckily there weren't any businesses or crowded flat buildings in this part of town, and if I could just get my blasted wand out of my pants in time to unfreeze James, hopefully we wouldn't be outnumbered with whatever was going on, so if this came down to a duel… God, this was not the time. Why now?
"Potter… Evans."
I gripped James' inert arm, careful to keep him standing, as I slowly turned to a horribly lit alleyway about five paces behind us. I couldn't see him there, but did I ever know his voice.
"What the hell are you doing, Severus?"