Then and Now

Prompt: Then and now

Setting: Canon, Hogwarts 7th year; post Hogwarts

810 Words

Their seventh and final year at Hogwarts had brought a tentative truce between Lily Evans and James Potter, the newly appointed Head Girl and the Head Boy.

Given their tumultuous history, no one was more surprised than Lily that over those two peaceful months she had started to consider James Potter as a friend.

But tentative truces rarely lasted, and the Head Girl appointment had not charmed away Lily's temper.

So perhaps it was inevitable that one evening in late October Lily Evans and James Potter found each other at odds.

They were heading back to the Gryffindor tower, after an evening patrol that had not quite gone to plan.

James was walking ahead of her, his angry strides swallowing up the quiet corridor in the sleepy castle.

Lily followed, seething in silence until the words burst out again, unable to be contained any longer.

"I can't believe you," Lily hissed at James' broad back.

"So you've told me," James bit back, his voice tight with irritation.

"I thought you had grown up!" she accused him. Because that, really, was what infuriated her the most. She thought he had changed, but here he was, back to his old asinine tricks. "I thought you deserved to be the Head Boy! But here you are, hexing Snape just like you were at fifteen!"

James whirled around, his robes billowing with the sudden movement. His hazel eyes were dark with anger.

"And here you are, defending him once again," he spat.

Lily's spine stiffened and she strode forward, prodded hard at James' chest with her finger.

"How dare you. Snape or whoever, you can't go around hexing people as a Head Boy!"

"What do you suggest I do then? What peaceful solution is there at times like these, Evans?"

Lily's anger deflated a little. There was a ring of truth to what James was saying, much as it hurt her to admit it.

"I don't know," she said, crossing her arms, looking down at the stone floor of the corridor.

"For the record, he was aiming at you," James said.

Those words hurt even more because Lily knew James wouldn't lie to her, not about something like this… And though she had cut ties with Snape long ago she couldn't help remembering the boy he'd once been, couldn't help mourning and resenting him for the path he had chosen.

James paced the corridor now, absentmindedly mussing up his hair. "It is hard enough to just grin and bear it when he or his Death Eater buddies are coming after me."

He stopped, shook his head. "But you can't expect me to just stand and watch and not to fight back when they're aiming at the people I love."

Lily's breath caught in her throat. Her gaze locked with James'.

"The people you… what?" she asked him, her voice barely above a whisper.

James shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

And as if at a flick of a switch, all that anger from earlier changed; turned into something even more powerful, more consuming.

Lily walked over to him, pressed against him, wound her arms around his neck in one fluid movement.

Then they were kissing and Lily wasn't sure if it had been James who'd first claimed her lips with a surprising ferocity or if she herself had staked her claim first and in the end did it really matter?

He was warm and solid against her, his arms banded around her in a hold that was tight and just perfect.

Lily had been kissed before, by other boys; slow kisses, sweet kisses, shy kisses, insistent kisses.

But none had been like this one.

None that carried such all-consuming urgency, none that threatened to make her weak in the knees, that stirred her until she feared her heart might burst.

James' kiss was so much more than anything she'd ever felt before. Lily sank into it, equal and willing, and let her heart lead.

He stood beside her, formal and unbearably handsome in his dress robes, his dark hair still wild despite his mother's best efforts to tame it.

She stood beside him, in her white dress, a wreath of flowers on her head and sunlight in her hair.

They were holding hands, sneaking glances at one another, sharing small, secret smiles throughout the ceremony.

And when they were pronounced man and wife, those smiles grew wide and wonderful.

James kissed her bride and Lily kissed him back. It was soft and sweet and overflowing with the love that filled them both.

The day was bright and full of hope and happiness.

And when Lily walked down the aisle in step with James, her hand in the crook of her husband's arm, surrounded by the friends and family looking on them with the same joy that fluttered in her own chest, all was well.