Author's Notes: Finally adding a bunch of these because I've been super slow about it. Hopefully I haven't overlapped? Oh well.
Goblin Gin
One night when they are fifteen and putting off revising for mid-term exams, James Potter teaches her how to play Goblin Gin and Lily thinks about kissing him for the first time.
It's January and bloody freezing seemingly everywhere except right in front of the common room fire. She isn't quite certain how it happens, but the fifth years have managed to claim the coveted spot for the evening. There are eight of them cocooned together, giddy with warmth and a heady sense of victory. They have two brutal exams approaching—Transfiguration and Potions, an awful combination—but it's too cold to study and Sirius Black has somehow gotten hold of a bottle of Ogden's, so now they are lazy and also slightly tipsy. It's the first time Lily tastes the bitter brew, and it burns going down. Personally, she prefers gin.
It's this declaration that begins the whole thing. "I think I prefer gin," is quickly followed by "GIN. YES, GIN," because James Potter has apparently had a few sips more than the rest of them and suddenly is next to her with cards in his hands. Until that moment, Lily had not been aware there was a Wizarding version of gin. Potter is aghast—aghast—at this.
"I WILL TEACH YOU," he shouts (she's certain he doesn't realise he's shouting, but he fails to do anything otherwise for most of the night).
His hands are a magic all their own, flipping and flopping and shuffling the cards with a grace anyone would envy. They move so quickly, her eyes cannot keep up. She focuses on his fingers instead, long and lean and curving at the most interesting angles. He's talking—blah, blah, rules, blah blah, Goblins—but Lily reckons she would much rather watch him shuffle than play some rubbish card game.
"ARE YOU LISTENING" he wails (does she have a choice?), and she's somehow playing anyway.
Goblin Gin has nothing to do with Regular Gin. It has nothing to do with Goblins either, as far as Lily can tell, but when she mentions this to Potter, he merely sighs in disappointment, as if she's missed the grand scheme of things. She's never seen him exasperated before. Five years in the same castle, the same lessons, the same living quarters, and this is the first time. It's strangely endearing, this vague annoyance, if only because his face gets a break from smirking. He should give his face a break from smirking more often, she decides, and gleefully brings up the bit about the Goblins (or lack thereof) a few dozen times more.
(He does not appreciate this.)
Lily is quite good at Goblin Gin. She doesn't know how, as she's still not quite sure of half the rules, but each time she presents her cards to James with a questioning flourish at the end of the round, he blinks and goggles and mutters (yells), "BEGINNER'S LUCK" before shuffling again.
She has "beginner's luck" eight hands in a row.
James Potter is a giant sore loser, and Lily finds it hilarious.
On hand number nine, Lily is dealt some truly rotten cards. Even not knowing the rules, she knows they are rotten. As it turns out, she may be a pretty large sore loser, as well. She plays the round with nothing short of defeated disappointment. When the draw pile is gone and it's time to present her cards, she does so with a large sigh, slumped shoulders, and a face of mutiny. For a moment, she sees the spark of triumph in James's eyes and the smirk is back. He's won. Of course he's won. He opens his mouth to deal the crushing blow of loss…
…then closes it.
One second. Two.
His cards curl against his chest.
"DAMN IT." Without tipping his own hand, he gathers up his cards, then hers, and shuffles them together so quickly she nearly flinches from the unexpected movement. "YOU WIN AGAIN."
Except she hadn't done. Couldn't have done. She knows that.
James Potter has thin lips, she notices then, eyeing them speculatively. Thin lips, but long. Long and somehow mesmerizing. When he smiles, there's a dimple on one side of his mouth and it quirks up slightly higher than the other side. It's there that she'd kiss first, she decides. On the dimple. Then drag her lips over until they cover his, seeing what long and lean could do. She might bite at his lower lip, just to see how he'd react. She can't even predict it, and she finds she's quite keen on that. Quite, quite keen.
"EVANS. YOUR CARDS."
Interesting, she thinks, and picks up her next hand.