A/N: Hello! Can't quite explain how the length of these chapters continues to increase, but this fic (as I'm sure you've noticed) is about to be maybe double the length of Summer Girl! I am tempted to take this story through graduation and then commence on a third about life post Hogwarts pre-you-know-what? That's not a solid for sure thing but I'm very much thinking of it. Trilogy has a nice ring to it! Anyway. Sorry for the long note. Grateful for everyone reading/reviewing. I'm awful at responding, but I promise I read every single one and smile stupidly while doing so.

PS: I think I'm going to start posting re:updates on my tumblr ( myfinestworkyet) if you have any inclination to follow me there.

10

Let winter break
Let it burn 'til I see you again
I will be here with you
Just like I told you I would

—London Grammar, "Rooting For You"

Lily

"Reckon I'm gonna get an ear pierced." Sirius announces, gathering his black hair into a sort of knot at the back of his head, securing the tangle of strands with a leather band from his wrist.

"I pierced Mary's ears, third year," I say whilst stirring a spoonful of cream into my coffee. "You get me an apple slice and a needle, and I can make that happen for you."

"Right on, Evans," he grins. His chin is dappled in scrappy half-beard, something denser than his usual careless stubble. It's possible he's trying to grow a mustache, as well, the hair a bit more concentrated over his upper lip. "Surprisingly positive response."

"And if you really want to lean into the punk rock, you could smudge a little eyeliner, just so, under the eye, and at the corners." I indicate where I mean with a finger near my own eye. I squint at him, slightly. "I think you'd look good with that, actually."

"Brilliant, leaning in, yes," he nods vehemently. "Because I've got, I can't stress enough, a load of scuffed-up engineer boots."

"Are you two flirting? I'm not paying close enough attention."

James isn't paying attention at all, really, having set in intently on a tall stack of syruped-buttermilk cakes. The three of us are convened at a booth in Ravens, the diner pleasantly frothed up for the holidays, decked in garlands and crisscrossing strands of multicolored lights, green wreaths with red ribbons tacked along the walls. We'd arrived in Dedham the day before for the two-week winter holidays, Sirius being the Potter's guest of honor through Christmas day, when he'd become a problem for the Lupins till the new year.

Sirius answers, "We're full-on about to kiss, mate."

Tess slinks up to our table with two plates of sausage and biscuit and eggs, sliding one down for Sirius, one for me. Her perky blonde hair is tied off with a flippy candy-cane ribbon. She spares me an electrifying smile, prattling, "Dunno where you're collecting all these cheeky lads, Lilypad, but I'll be needing the longitude and latitude of the locale, if you're keen to provide."

"Actually," Sirius chimes in, pointing at her with his fork. "Exact coordinates are famously unknown."

Tess says, "alright, then, love," eyes sparkling mercilessly at him even as she wiggles away.

"Lilypad?" James asks, grinning at me sideways.

I shake my head. "No, thanks. We can just slide right over that one."

"On the contrary, I think we ought to turn that one over, and sort of needle through it—"

"Can I have just a little bite of those?" I interrupt, indicating his hotcakes. "Just a corner."

He fork-and-knives me off a corner; I kiss his cheek and squeeze his upper thigh in thanks.

"I'm sorry you have to drag me along on your holiday date, mom and dad."

I stab a sausage through with my fork. "If you'll one day let me pierce your ear, I'm well on my way to forgiving you."

"Smashing." Sirius chews through his food thoughtfully for a moment, flicking his eyes between James and me carefully, as if to suss something out. "Say, when you two—"

James interrupts, preemptively. "Going to finish that sentence?"

I start buttering a biscuit, smoothing my face into an expression of mildness; look up, meet Sirius' eyes, boldly. Blink slowly. He raises his eyebrows at me, then looks back to James. "Nah, never mind, I've good faith Evans will tell me later."

"Fucking hell," James mutters into his coffee.

Sirius waves his own forked sausage in my direction. "There's a joke here. You can have it, free of charge."

"Hardly satisfying if you're giving it to me for free," I respond. "Besides, I'm not seeking satisfaction. From you, anyway."

James shoots a distressed look between Sirius and me. "Is this flirting, still, even now?"

I squeeze his upper thigh again, ignore his question, blow onward. "Hey, I've got to nip into a shop, after this, if that's alright. Need something for Petunia that reads as a gift but actually just inconveniences her."

Sirius asks, "Sister?" and I correct, "Piece of work."

James winces. "She's home for Christmas?"

"Well, not staying with us, thankfully, but she and Vernon are around Christmas Eve and day of. It'll be miserable. Frankly, I'd rather spend quality time with Peeves."

"Vernon's her—?" Sirius asks.

"Boyfriend," I sigh. "Well—wait, fiancé."

James' eyebrows shoot up. "They got engaged?"

"Gods, yes. In October. I cannot imagine the travesty that wedding—that marriage will be. He's horrid. I mean—she's horrid. I don't know. Maybe they're meant to be." I groan and sink back into the booth, bury my face in my hands. "Gods, tomorrow she's just going to flash around her stupid ring and say what a shame it is I won't have a nice normal life like her."

"Nice normal life?" Sirius sounds perplexed.

"She thinks I'm deranged, you know, because I'm a witch, and magic is 'a rather unnatural stain,'" I emerge from my fingers, laughing. Sirius looks to James, unsure how to react to this. James looks to me, slips his hand under mine where it lays on the seat. "Oh, come on, it's okay, she's been like this since I was little." They're both still looking at me like I'm about to burst into tears. "Really, it's fine. Doesn't affect me anymore. It's just noise that sounds like my sister, is all."

"Since I'm the only of-age among us, I can slip a devilishly small curse into her holiday pudding," Sirius says. "Just a tiny one, to make her ill in a way she can't quite place."

"Exceedingly kind of you to offer." I laugh, smiling over at him, genuinely. "I'll consider it."

When our late-morning breakfast is all put away, we bang out onto bustling High Street, ramshackle cobblestones pinched with crowds. As we bluster toward the antique shop I've in mind, I see myriad familiar faces, friends of my mum's from charity work, neighbors, kids I went to muggle primary school with. Dedham's a rather small town, and I'm rarely want for a face I recognize, especially during holiday rush. James points out Bodsworth's, across the street, to Sirius, and Sirius makes some comment about working men being so attractive to him, in particular "men who aren't foolishly emasculated by flowers," and there's a bit of ridiculous tussling and then we've come to Artine & All, the dowdy shopfront of which does not in any way bespeak the interior.

We duck in from the cold huff of street to find the long, low-ceilinged room is unusually high trafficked, ten or so customers tucked in along the narrow dips and shelves and cases of old treasured things. We're greeted immediately by the impatient tail of Ria, Artine's old and opinionated cat—personally, my favorite shopkeep. Sirius bends to run his fingers along her exquisitely orange fur and she offers him an arched back, a long, contented meow.

"Am I only now regaining vision? Have I been blind all my life? Is this the red-haired daughter of my dreams?"

Our trio shifts sideways from the darkwood lip of the interior to behold the owner of the svelte voice: Artine. A curiously ageless woman; cheekbones high and cutting, eyes a rare, deep violet. Her lips, as I've always remembered them, since I was a young girl, are curved into a smile that feels as delicious as it feels dangerous. "Artine," I smile, overcome, as always by her presence, its inexplicably magnetic aura. She folds my fingers through hers and pins me with her eyes.

"A catastrophic change in your chemistry since we've last met."

It's a statement, not a question—not even an observation. A truth culled from one look. She's a penchant for reading others. Her eyes, cat-like, bold, scan from my face to the two beside me, and I feel her unspoken observation of James and Sirius, their sturdy, tall statures, their reckless hair and effortless smiles. Boys born for something better.

"A heart tugged," she continues, and her penetrating stare lands on James. "Toward an indolent flame. Light begets light." She releases my hands, offers one to James.

"Er, hi," James takes the hand, uneasily, shakes it awkwardly. "James Potter."

"Certainly, you are," Artine does him a solid once-over, her eyes arching back toward me. "Indolent flames, Lily Evans, often burn forever."

"Noted. And this is Sirius. He's—you'll know his family, the Blacks."

Artine's eyes widen almost undetectably, the flare of her mouth pursing into something like surprise. "Sirius Black," she chews on his name as one would a challenging caramel. Her long velvet tunic is pale green that screams spectacularly against her dark skin; her fingers spangled in silver rings. "I am intolerably familiar with your family."

"In which ways?"

Artine's eyes flash. "It is not a happy story."

"I am always unhappy," Sirius responds. "What's one more story?"

Some veil falls over the two of them, a pulsing net of hard black stars. I blink through it. Artine asks me, "May I steal him?"

"He's not mine to keep," I shrug. "I'm here for something beautiful but useless, for Petunia."

Artine flutters a hand back toward the shop. "As you are." Then she offers an arm to Sirius, and he spares a what's happening? sort of look back to James and me before taking her arm and being escorted back into the dark dusty store; a green knight on the arm of a sorceress.

"Okay, who is that?" James breathes, unraveling his brown wool scarf from his neck. "I feel like I've got little tiny spiders dancing all over my skin." He spreads back a sleeve of his coat, as if to check for tiny spiders.

"Profoundly unsettlingly, isn't she? Dear woman. Was ever so kind to me when I learned of my affliction."

I take his hand and lead him toward the far left of the shop, where a doorway and two short steps lead to a narrow hallway, which leads, in turn, through an arched cut in the wall to another room—in here, tall bookshelves swollen in delectable rows of old books, intercut by shelves and cases of tiny knickknacks and trinkets; glass bowls and vintage gems and brass bird figurines. James gravitates toward a freestanding bookshelf, choked in multicolored glass jars. "She's a witch?"

"What gave it away?"

"So, are any of these things—?"

"Some of them, surely," I murmur, reaching to gently retrieve a tiny jeweled magnifying glass, so small it could fit comfortably in the hand of a child. I peek through its circular glass and find the room dancing in a kaleidoscope of jagged lines, aglitter, moving without motion. I extend the magnifying glass to James, who looks through and experiences the phenomenon of light.

"Subtle magic," I offer.

"Could be mistaken for a trick of the light."

We walk the room quietly. As with any place of old and rare things, respectful silence becomes it. Dust motes float through tired pangs of light tipping in from warped glass windows set high up against the walls, between bookshelves. James beckons me to look at an engraved music box, which, when opened, sends out a spark of blue dust from which a tiny gold ballerina emerges, twirls on her mechanical post. I show him an enormous green book, silver script declaring The Earth, The Sky, and Wonders of Astronomy. The galaxy sprawled across the cover rotates, oh-so-subtly, in a miniature rotation.

I find an appropriately useless present for Petunia on a far back shelf: A white-and-blue-flowered vase, intricately hand-painted, gleaming even in dull light. She'll not be able to refuse its beauty, but will also abhor its use—never one for flowers, Petunia, despite her namesake. She'll probably say, through gritted teeth, "what a loathsome, thin-necked bowl," and I'll say, "it's from the 1900s" and she'll say, "you shouldn't have" and then we'll glare at one another in perfect love.

I retrieve the vase with careful hands and find, in its absence from the shelf, a small, propped-open jewelry box, and on its nightdark surface, a pair of exquisite earrings. From delicate silver posts tumble two thread-thin silver chains, speckled in five shimmering stars. A spill of cosmos. I lose breath in my lungs and touch a lone finger to the box. I spin the small price tag out from under the box and almost laugh, but then, James' voice, from behind, interrupts my hypnosis: "Come have look at this."

I turn and join him, vase in hand. He steps back from a glass case and motions inside, toward a painting in an opulent ivory frame. It's a scene of long, diagonal stone cloisters, a blurry hall, a figure at one end, dictated in slashed lines of heavy oil paint.

"Looks painfully like the Transfiguration corridor, doesn't it?"

"Sure does." I lean in to see if I can make out the scrawl of the artist's signature, though it's hopeless—the writing is more a tangled line than any name. "And look at this one," I say, eyes wandering to a much smaller painting nearby, the scene clearer in its rendering: Sprawling autumnal lake, a shadow visible underneath blue, sloping surface; in the far distance, the silhouette of a many-armed tree that speaks very much of the Whomping Willow.

"Strange to see art of it," I muse, finding it suddenly hard to imagine I've walked in these places at all. "Easy to forget it's not just a school, but a piece of history. And that probably thousands of students have walked through it, before us, and, probably, after us."

"Makes you feel smaller."

I turn, and for a brief moment see his eyes as he says this, looking in something like reverence at a place we know so well—but, really, so little of. Then he looks back at me, and his eyes change, and he says, "Hi."

"Hi." I feel an ache in the back of my throat. It's the feeling of being in a place of old things, in a den of memory and time gone by, a place where every breath breathed is just another molecule added to the complication of others. I lean forward, kiss this feeling over; and when he opens his eyes and breathes, I think I understand a part of him must live in a place like this, unburdened by linear time.

I want to bottle that part and swallow it down—feel it fester in my lungs.

"I miss you already," he whispers, as if we're in a museum.

"It's not so many days, barely two." I kiss the corner of his mouth. "I promise to think of you while I fall asleep." He spreads his fingers over my cheek and strokes a slow thumb over my jaw.

"There you godamn are!" Sirius is banging into the room now, shattering the glasslike quiet. "This place is extremely labyrinthine. Are we ready? Are we snogging? What the hell are we doing back here?"

I hold up the vase. "I just need to purchase this, if you don't mind."

"That's for Petunia?"

"She hates flowers."

"Of course she does."

"She hates anything that appears joyful without help, really. She'd eat Peter alive."

The three of us walk back through the narrow hall to the front of the shop, where I buy the vase and Artine slips a secret piece of paper into my palm and drags a mysterious finger down the back of my hand.

"Lily, I think that woman put an enchantment on me," Sirius says, low, as we leave the shop and rejoin the madness of High Street.

"What makes you say that?"

He laughs suddenly, a huge, booming thing that seems to fill the air around us with warmth. "I think I'm in love with her!"

"She didn't actually put a move on you, did she? She's quite keen on younger men."

"No, no, no," he shakes his head. "But she did say some awful things about my family and it just makes my heart pound." He whips around on the sidewalk, walking backward for a second, pointing between James and I. "Do you two need me to 'run an errand' so you can swap spit in peace?"

"I'm wondering if you've ever had your facial features rearranged by a girl, before, Sirius Black." I say looping my hand through James' arm, catching his bright smile. "And if not, any interest in experiencing it?"

Later, at home, when I'm taking off my jacket, I remember the piece of paper from Artine:

The end of one world is so tedious. Imagine, instead, the beginning of a world: All the light, the light, the light.

L,

In the miserable two hours since I saw you last, Mum somehow already coerced me into helping cook a meal, despite both of us knowing it never ends well—and lo and behold, I am now permanently banned from the kitchen for the rest of the holiday.

When accosted and demanded to explain "what is wrong with me," apparently, saying, "I am but a scrap of a man, heart gone somewhere else" is not a good or acceptable answer.

I am now banished to my room and it's snowing and somewhere down the road (I assume) you're staring longingly out the window thinking of me, as well.

Did I ever tell you that during holiday break, fourth year, I drew you from memory? Downright creepy, yes, obviously, I know, I know. But I'll enclose said portrait.

Please don't sack me over this.

-J

J,

I'm quite on your mum's side, in the matter, unfortunately. You tend, in your misery, to be insufferable.

To have caused this misery I am sorry. I've tucked the portrait between the pages of the book I'm reading—Shirley Jackson, The Sundial, you would like it—and smile every time I see it.

(My nose, however, is bit off, if I had but one critique.)

Petunia and Vernon are due in an hour or so and I am strongly considering walking out into the cold and not stopping until I'm a part of the landscape myself.

I miss you.

-L

L,

I realize I'm intensely biased, but if you died of hypothermia somewhere in the outskirts of Dedham the world would stop spinning and Christmas would be canceled. And I get to see you on Christmas!

I beg you politely to withstand the evening. Maybe think of the time in July when we swam in the pool at night. That always keeps me warm.

Sirius is flirting with mum far less than normal, which I find profoundly unsettling. He is sitting next to me now, three drinks in—keeps asking who I'm writing to, and if it's Remus, if I'll say hi from him, and to tell him he got a small cut on his hand but it's not bleeding anymore.

Well, okay, now he's rifling around looking for a bow to tie onto his prick. This is more the usual chap.

I miss you, too.

-J

James,

Funny you should bring up that night in the pool, because, as I recall, someone had a bit of a temper tantrum over a handjob.

I'm hiding in my room. Petunia, as predicted, is being dreadful. Vernon is wearing a sweater she clearly dislikes, and she won't shut up about it, and he just talks louder and over her whenever she brings it up, and I can't believe these two people are romantically involved let alone marrying one another.

Petunia has yet to say one thing directly to me, and Mum is working overtime to appease the two of us, individually. I don't make it very easy on her, but I can't help it, not when it's Petunia. I refused to be bullied on Christmas Eve!

I wish you were here. If you'll forgive me the melodrama: I miss holding your hand. And your mouth. And handjob-tantrum aside, I miss that night in the pool. It was warm.

-L

Lily,

I'm up early and every heathen in this home—Sirius included, and especially—is missing the magic of the Christmas morning snowfall.

(Notice I'm ignoring your quip about the handjob? Sue me for being polite, Lily Evans. You can take my manners to court.)

It's the grueling parade of Dad's side of the family, now. Long boring lunch and lots of wondering if I am to inherit the business and run the business and I expect Uncle Ackley will listen for roughly one minute to any talk of the Order/uprising before going perfectly red in the face and spluttering out something about the undying strength of the Ministry and repouring everyone's already full wine glass.

Anyway. We'll be home by 7, I imagine. Come anytime after. Mum and dad will be off to the Clover soiree, and Sirius off to the Lupins. Maybe you want to stay over? Maybe you want to hold my hand, still?

Happy Christmas! I think this year's miracle is you're dating me of your own volition. It's of your own volition, right? I'm shit at Amortentia, so if it's an enchantment, it's not on me.

-J

J,

Happy Christmas, idiot. I watched that magical snowfall, too.

No, you cannot sue over handjobs or politeness. And no, you didn't ignore it—indeed, you mentioned it explicitly.

Uncle Ackley sounds lovely. Maybe he and Vernon should be introduced? Start a "Men Talented For Going Red in the Face When Proven Wrong" sort of club.

Of course I'll stay over. Have I not mentioned, often, that I miss you?

And yes, it's completely—if not unfortunately—of my own volition.

See you soon,

L

Lily

The Potter's evergreen-crowned oak door swings open to a vision so debonair I think, for a moment, that I've certainly got the wrong place—but then I blink, and it's simply a tuxedoed Fleamont Potter, gesturing me inside, wildly, booming, "Come in, come in, Lily, happy Christmas, Merlin's coal, the cold!"

I quash an immediate feeling of being very underdressed and oblige, ducking in through the flurry of snowfall into where it is warm and smells of pine and cinnamon and fresh-baked pastries; and feel, for the first time the whole long day, that I can breathe free of anxiety.

"I'll take your coat, dear, come—you look bone-chilled, that walk must be longer than I remember."

"I wandered a bit slowly, I'll admit," I say while shrugging off my coat and placing it, appreciatively, in his offered arms. "It's a beautiful evening. Starry."

"Yes, oh, nothing quite like it, starry winter nights in the country—and no lovely air pollution, like in London, eh? Could see a planet up in that cold expanse, if it came to that." His eyes sparkle in such a James-like way that it's almost unnerving—but, of course, the rest of his face is the precise original from which James' was copied; these strong lines and easy smile and hair that can be tamed, but only briefly.

"Love, is that Lily, now?"

A brazen clicking of heels precedes Euphemia Potter—who, when she emerges from the kitchen down the hall and sees me, explodes in an electric, bracing smile. She is a portrait of glamour herself, black velvet sheath dress and shiny stilettos and hair clipped up in a sophisticated coil. "Lily," she croons, lushly, reaching to fold me in a tight embrace. "Honey, it's so good to see you."

She pulls back, holds my hands, squeezes them, smile so wide and so warm and so welcoming that I can only return it, saying, "Mrs. Potter, you look so glitzy, and wonderful—and happy Christmas."

"Euphemia, darling, really," she releases my hands, waves away my compliment. She begins rummaging through a small table near the sitting room couch, exclaiming triumphantly and fishing out a small silvery clutch, and then, from its interior, a shiny black tube of lipstick. "The elusive summer rose!" She turns toward the stairway to shout, "James! Sirius! Won't you come down?"

Fleamont approaches, two cloaks in hand, sparing a glance at his watch, a glance at his wife. "Love, the—we're on the dot, here."

"Yes, yes, I know," Euphemia nods dismissively. "Oh, but first, would you—in the study, on the side, with the—the little box? Blue bow?"

With a snap and smile, Fleamont nods. "Yes, good, be right on with it," and is throwing the cloaks onto the curve of the stairs before disappearing down the hall.

"Oh, I've a—" I recall, suddenly, the gift bag in my hand, and its contents. "From my mum and dad for, just a holiday, er, thing."

"Now, they shouldn't have," Euphemia tsks with her tongue, pulling the champagne—one my mum worried over for a good half a day—from the bag. "Such dears. I'm bursting. You'll tell them we're counting on a dinner, here, while the two of you are home, won't you?"

"Oh—lovely, yes, of course."

She looks up at me and smiles, this time quietly. "You're quite welcome here, Lily, I hope you know that. We're very—happy to have you, anytime."

"You're too—you're very kind," I respond, gently, feeling red flush through my cheeks.

Fleamont remerges from the hall once again, a tiny blue-bowed box in hand. "For our favorite neighbor," he says, grinning, bestowing the box upon me with a flourish. "Also, the girlfriend of our son, who has decidedly disappeared?"

"It's that stupid game, up there," Euphemia scowls, shaking her head. Then she turns back and nods at me, says, "Go on, then, love."

I look at the two of them in surprise. "This is for me?"

"Yes," Euphemia laughs. "A little something. You'll not think us too obnoxious, I hope."

"Oh, no, never," I assure her, untying the blue bow and delicately sliding a thumb under the pretty blue paper. A long rectangular box emerges. I open it, find, inside, a thin gold chain bracelet; in its center, a tiny, square-cut blue gem. Stunning.

"Oh," I swallow, overcome. "Oh my, it's gorgeous."

"It was my great-grandmother's," Euphemia tells me. "I thought it might become you."

I stare intently at the bracelet, for a second, then look back up at Mr. and Mrs. Potter, both beaming at me. I'm positively overwhelmed by them, by this extravagant and unnecessary gift. It seems a shared trait among Potters: A brave and unapologetic generosity for those they care for.

"I don't know what to say. Thank you. This is—this is too much."

"No, no," Fleamont waves a hand. "Most welcome." He checks his watch, touches Euphemia's shoulder. "Really, it's now—we must be off."

A cry erupts from somewhere upstairs, possibly James' room, the closest to the stairs, followed by a bout of boisterous laughter. A second later, the door bursts open and Sirius flies out to the landing, exclaiming, "I beat him! I beat him! I finally beat—Evans? When the hell did you get here?"

He's bounding down the stairs now, just as James emerges in his bedroom door, pauses a moment, finds me below; a smile stretches over him, and my heart goes stupid for it.

There's a commotion as Sirius lands in the sitting room and seizes me up in some dramatic hug. I laugh, quite involuntarily, clutching at his shoulders, saying, "Happy Christmas, then, Black."

"I beat him!" he exclaims, setting me down, wild with the joy of whatever the hell this means.

"Sirius, love, you'll behave at the Lupins?" Euphemia is asking, desperately.

"Cross my heart," Sirius returns, placing a well-meaning palm to his chest, accepting Euphemia's kiss to the cheek. "And thank you, for the hospitality, as always, my favorite pair of parents."

I take the distracted moment to close the jewelry box in my hands, place it gently on a nearby credenza. James has descended the stairs and is hugging his father, who whispers something in his ear that makes him laugh. I catch the sparkle of the laugh right in the crook of my elbow; am cut by him, as if by glass, even from across the room.

"Okay, and, yes, I've got my purse and my—" Euphemia's brow is creased in concentration as she looks to Fleamont. "Card for the Clovers?"

"Jacket pocket, sweetheart," Fleamont shoulders an outer cloak and plaid wool scarf, offering a long swooping something to Euphemia. She clutches James' face in her hands. "We'll see you tomorrow. Oh, look at you!"

"Go on now, Mum, enjoy."

"Oof, tall order," she says, kissing his forehead affectionately. She dons her own cloak—rich black velvet, very witch-chic—and turns toward Sirius and I. "Happy Christmas, everyone. Do keep safe? I can't stand I have to leave. It's such a dowdy affair, the Clovers."

"And such sour company," Fleamont grumbles, offering her an arm.

She pats his cheek and takes the arm. "Alright. We're off, Mr. Potter."

With a wild snap and a whoosh of manufactured wind, the Potters, Mr. and Mrs., are dissaparated out of the sitting room, tossed somewhere into the cold and glamorous night.

Sirius claps his hands together. "Okay, I'm on my way, too, Lupin's going to get all testy if I'm not home before dark."

"Dark out, already, I hate to tell you."

I receive a decidedly unfestive middle finger for this comment as Sirius hops back the stairs.

James is left looking at me in a way that feels a bit like the odd weeks of limbo between my night in the infirmary and the night he came back to the quarters with a bloody cheek. Distant longing. Clear, unashamed.

I grin, unwilling to disguise my elation. "Happy Christmas, James."

Then he's crossed the room to me and the almost inconceivable shortness of two days suddenly feels very long, painfully so, as if I've forgotten the nervous excited rush of my breath when he's near, how easy it is to spread my fingers over his and feel the skin of his palms, warm.

He kisses me painstakingly, like this is his first and only chance. I want to spill him down the back of my throat. I want to kiss from the back of his knee to his ankle. I want to lay next to him, without touching, just looking.

I have to suck in a breath, like I've sprinted, and won. He murmurs, "Happy Christmas, Lils."

Unfortunately for Sirius, who is tromping back down the stairs with a suitcase, we're a bit drowned in each other's eyes. "Blimey, I'm gone for two bloody seconds and you're practically making love."

The temptation to ignore him is strong, but the temptation to glare is much stronger.

"Oh, and now I'm being given this look? Alright, Evans, cool your godamn jets, I'm leaving, and then you can have him all to yourself, ho, ho, ho. Chrissakes."

James spreads his fingers along my lower back and I brighten to his touch; reach to cover that hand with my own.

Sirius looks ganged-up on. "I'm hurt."

"You'll send Remus my love?" James asks. "You've got the present?"

"I will tell him you said to tell him 'hi,' but that's all," Sirius intones, picking a piece of lint off his thick black sweater.

I ask, "Going to apparate, Mr. Of-Age?"

"No," Sirius grumbles. "I'm rather talented only at splinching, in that regard. I've a portkey, actually, somewhere around here—"

"Credenza."

Sirius mock-salutes and beelines for said credenza. "Okay, listen." He pinches between his brow with fingers. He emerges and looks at me. "I yelled, I'm sorry."

"Not sure why you think I'm kicking you out, I'd love to chat, like, all night, with you—"

"Okay, apology effectively rescinded!" He cries, looking frantically to James. "I hope you're happy with your choices, Potter!"

"Oh, I can assure you I am," James murmurs, gives a little wave. "Owl when you're there, safe, will you?"

"I will consider it very angrily!" Sirius says, grabbing onto his suitcase, and reaching for what seems to be a pear laying on the small table; the second his fingers make contact with the portkey, he's sucked into an odd and bright spiral that seems to cut right through the fabric of reality. The next instant, he, and the pear: vanished.

I wobble on my heels, slightly. Apparation and portkey travel are such odd sensations to witness, and so soon after one another. James' fingers brush off my back. I turn. "He's not actually angry, is he?"

"No," James answers, laughing. "He's bitter, is all. Can't imagine he's all too upset to be spending a confusing week with Moony."

"Confusing?"

He shrugs. "I don't know what will happen. Doubt he does, either. And I don't want Remus to get hurt but—" he shakes his head. "I wouldn't want him to lose a chance at being happy."

I pull at the edge of my sweater. "And Sirius? You're not afraid he'll be hurt?"

"Only by himself."

We stare. I reach for the long rectangular box.

James sees the box, and looks alarmed. The light of his surprise tumbles over his rather pureblood Christmas Day get-up: Crisp, respectfully buttoned white shirt, neat brown pants, shiny shoes, gold watch. I'm struck, suddenly, by the immensity of wealth he's grown up around; the kind of wealth that doesn't need to brag.

"It's lovely, but—"

"But?"

"It's so much."

"She, I told her—" he sighs frustratedly. "I told her you would think so, and she means well, and I think it's just her way of being—" he props a helpless hand on his hip. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, gods, no, don't be sorry," I shake my head, uncertain even in my own reaction. "Really, it's a very kind gift, I'm just—it's very much your great-great-grandmother's bracelet and it just feels like something that should go to someone who's, um...just feels a bit like something that should go to a family member."

"And you're shocked Euphemia wants you to be a member of the family?"

"I'm—" I look at him incredulously, now. "Well, a bit, yes, given we've only been dating for a fairly small amount of time."

"You can't begrudge her liking you, Lils, most people find it hard not to."

"That's not—you're being unfair. It's—I just feel—very swept up, as if I haven't had a second to stop and think about it, that's all. And it's not about your mum, or this bracelet, really."

A beat of silence. I find he looks worried, now. "It's about me, then?"

I groan. "No, it's about us."

"Is everything okay?"

"Of course," I say, exasperated. "I am just having an emotional breakdown over a bracelet, is all."

He laughs now, but clamps a hand over his mouth, quells the sound.

"Will you just tell me one, honest thing?"

"Eagerly."

I shift my weight from one leg to the other. "Do you see yourself dating me long-term?"

His eyes widen slightly. "Yes," he answers, straightaway.

"Okay, good."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good."

"I'm—" I fiddle with a sweater sleeve. "I'm sorry if we've just had a row."

"Oh, gods."

"Did we? I'm sorry."

"If you don't quit apologizing, we are going to row, guaranteed."

"It's a pretty bracelet, really, it's spectacular."

"Let me put it on you."

I offer him the box, and he steps up to me and takes the delicate chain from its box and clasps it around my wrist. I will myself to forget the whole conversation about Euphemia wanting me to be a member of the family. The bracelet is thin and cool against my skin. James' fingers weave around it.

"Can we fool around now?"

I laugh and pull him to me and feel his breath heat my neck. I hold him for a second; he feels good in my arms. I kiss the skin between his open collar. "Oh boy," I murmur.

"Oh boy is right."

The pulsing gambit of mutual attraction. I flee and find his face. Try and map his desire. I want his hands to wrap around my thighs. I brush my lips on his. He seizes my tongue. I am all of a sudden moaning. "Oh, merry Christmas," he laughs, pulling me flush against him, and this is so rude of him, to make fun, so I yank him by the neck to have a word with my lips and teeth and tongue—and he dissolves, quickly, into his own moaning.

I ask, "Are we going to be naked in the sitting room?"

He shakes his head and vacates the curve of me and tugs me toward the stairs. I follow like a kid on—well, Christmas night.

James

In my room, I say, "I have to hang up these clothes nicely, or Mum'll have my neck."

Lily turns on her heels, grins. "Allow me."

I am unconscionably needy for her. If I am looking to justify, I might blame it on being a teen; on her being my very first crush; on the fact that we've not had a moment to ourselves for at least a week; on the steady pink flush climbing up the side of her neck; on the only light in the room falling in from the bright snowfall; on my irresponsible thinking of her, the previous night. Perhaps, the jerking off did nothing to solve the problem. Perhaps, it created a worse problem.

But now—her in my bedroom, a mirage no more. I am all beating heart stupid boy.

"Have a sit," she beckons me toward the low bench sort in front of my bed. I have a sit. Reach out to edge a finger along the hem of her wooly sweater. She steps out of her low-heeled boots, places them neatly away. She craves organization. I crave her organization. She's wearing a pair of pants that slip all up her waist in some ridiculously well-fit cinch; bright emerald green. I slip my hands around the swell of her thighs. "Do you know what I thought about last night?"

Her eyes flicker through something. She begins on my shirt buttons, maintains a quiet concentration. "Tell me."

"I thought about you above me," I run the backs of my hands down the lovely meeting of waist and leg. "Smothering me with these."

I watch the ripple of her throat. She's finished with the buttons. I shrug off the shirt. She asks, "Hanger?" and I nod in the direction of my bureau.

She leaves me. There's a complicated twist of hair at the nape of her neck. Sometimes, I think I see the same red somewhere; but then I blink, and find, after all, it's a color you only know once.

Shirt hung, rebuttoned, she is back with her long legs. In the corners of her eyes, something bright, a little blue, that makes the green inside something to behold. Now she's kneeling. "Smothered," she says, palms on my thighs, creeping up.

The unbearable current of her nearness; fingers slipping to the button of my pants, sliding it open. Arguably, I am a useless conductor of energy without her spark. She unzips. Darts fingers under the waistband, shimmies the fabric down from my hips and I lift myself to aid the descent of pants down legs, off legs. She pauses in her work to stare down the tract of bare skin. Traces twin fingers down the sides of my thighs, fingers flaring scratchy leg hair. She kisses one knee.

"Smothered," she repeats. I watch her stand and leave again; slides my pants onto a clipped hanger; sets them alongside my shirt.

"Sometime," she wonders, returning, "would you let me watch?"

There are two thin slashes of black at the crest of her eyelids. I follow the lines as she blinks. "Watch?"

Her fingers touch my throat; a tremor alights my neck. "You touch yourself."

I turn my face to hers and see her unsmiling mouth, see she's dead serious. "You'd want to watch that?"

"What, you get to tell me you're thinking of me while you do it but won't let me watch you do it?" She spreads her hand around my neck now, toeing at my feet so I'll let her between my knees. "I'd let you watch me."

An image of Lily touching herself takes forceful hold: Her fingers slipping down through sheets, legs parting. Head thrown back against the pillow.

She kisses me, now, softly. "What are you thinking?"

I tilt my chin to the side, kiss the spread of her fingers. "How lucky this hand is."

"Then don't forget this one." Her other hand falls to my mouth and I kiss those fingers, too, one by one. Her breath hitches. I run my hands along her hips, stomach, up under the wooly sweater, till I find something flimsy, gossamer. I barely scrape a finger over the surface before I encounter the hard cut of nipple.

I look up and she is breathless, pulling the sweater up and over her head.

The breasts of my constant fixation are ensconced in barely more than a breath of white satin, ruffled in its low-dipping edges. In the very center, a tiny pink rosebud. I kiss the skin just above the rosebud; move slowly along the outlying swells, the waves of her breath pushing the ill-covered skin up against my lips, breasts straining at torturously sheer fabric. My tongue smothers one peak; adoring mouth brutishly wetting the silk.

I find her eyes as I meander from one breast to the other, swirling tongue and teeth over fragile protection. She is absolutely pink-cheeked, mouth parted but for long, shaky breaths. Contrary to her usual impatience with my breast-related neurosis, she curves a hand to my neck and keeps me centralized; even breathes, mid-whine, "Feels, ooh, mhm, deliriously nice, love."

My eager tongue sweeps under the dismal satin barrier, and Lily's fingernails dig into the back of my head as my mouth closes around a now-bared nipple, tongue roaming relentlessly. I test her desire for a rougher tug; she gasps. I grin. Kiss the underside of the breast at hand.

Now my fingers slip along the loosened waist of her pants, find its button to release. She does a funny little hip-wiggle and the pants are yesterday's news. I find, in their absence, another curious slip of underthing, hugging tightly to hips, barely covering her bum. I trace a finger down one exposed curve and she shivers, hands falling down to my shoulders.

My eyes sweep the length of her, the miniscule knickers, half-askew bra, gauzy and white and rose-budded. I look up, find her biting her lip. She asks—as if she doesn't already know the answer—"Do you like them?"

My fingers touch the curl of skin where hip meets thigh. "You're something out of a myth." I lean my forehead into her stomach, turn my cheek to the soft curve, fingers slinking under soft knickers, clutching the swells of her arse.

"You—"

"Are you real? Have I wandered into a portrait?"

Now she's climbing over me abruptly and the sudden contact of skins is like a shot of adrenaline; I groan right down the barrel of the gun. She kisses down my throat and neck and slides a lethal tongue along my earlobe; sucks. Her hips crash down on my lower half and the hard and the soft and the "oh, wow" and then she grins from above, holding my face in her hands. Kisses me luxuriously slow. Rotates against me. Aggravates me. "Lily," I groan, though she's got my tongue between her teeth. "I'm already halfway undone, here, what do you want?"

"Want to feel this," an emphasizing push of the hips, "inside."

I rope my arms around her and lift, do an unsteady, unpracticed, ungraceful turning maneuver that riles a breathy laugh from her as we fall, clumsy, to the bed. I kneel, awkwardly, lowering her gently down—and when she looks up at me, I am struck through by the living memory of a long-ago July day, a bike ride somewhere on the outskirts of Dedham, a long uphill ledge. Lily wearing a blue tank top, one of the straps fallen, off her shoulder—me kissing the bare shoulder, righting the strap, and her looking at me like this, like a brutal sheet of rain could wash us both down the side of the hill and when we reached the bottom, battered and soaked, she'd still have some quiet adoration to spare.

Perhaps she senses the shift in me; she lays a loving hand along my face. Our lips meet. My heavy breath; I swallow hard. She curls a hand to my arm and pulls me down, over her. She blinks, rapidly, fingers tightening on my arm. Her voice is just breath. "You love me so well."

I am not sure if she means love or if she means love but maybe the line between the two is thin and thinner every day; I allow myself only a second of staring before I slide fingers over her silky underwear and her legs part and she moans, returning the gesture, hand curling around the outline my cock. Her back curves into a desperate arch; she whines, "please," and I usurp frothy fabric till wetness pools my fingers, warm. She writhes into my palm. "Yes."

I am urgent; I think it's her look, her spilling breasts, the rain and the hill and the thinning of lines. I do away with my underwear, hers. Body relaxes gently overhead; Lily reaches to cull her hand to my cock, bring it to her wanting heat, rub it over; I watch her eyes close, lips part. Kiss along her neck. Let her guide me how she wants me. Hips settle over hips. The sweet feeling of her; I am open-mouthed in her throat.

I go slow. Fill and retract as a stream through stones, water curving steadily toward source. My lips retrace the wettened silky bra and she threads her fingers sweetly in my hair. Eventually, in the middle, she rolls onto her side and readjusts me from behind; a hand reaching back to grip my arm. I lengthen my strides and lavish her shoulder with my tongue and meet her lips when she cranes around for me; slowing tongues.

I'm unsure if it's the holiday or the time apart or the simple fact of her body under mine but the steady ease of pleasure expires much quicker for me then for her; after I've already shuddered through an electrical shock, she guides my fingers between her legs and asks for long, hard strokes from behind. She teeters on the edge, breathless, spasming; I duck into her shoulder, squeeze my eyes shut. Feel the moment she elapses like a hotline to my own body; irradiating. She reaches back, stills me, hand on hip. "Ooh," she breathes, hoarsely. "Stay here, a minute." Neck twisting, she finds me chin-first, lip-first. Sighs against my mouth.

I am a hollow thing. And I find I ache for her as if I am alone, even now.

Lily

I wake the morning after Christmas day blanketed in James. Chalky morning light pours in through the windows. One of my legs is quite caught under his; no moving without waking him. So I look, and I smile down into his arm, thrown over me, and kiss it, selfishly.

After our uncommonly vulnerable coupling, we'd crept downstairs for hot cocoa adorned with tiny marshmallows, and James told me all about seeing the unendurable Uncle Ackley, and cousin Finn, who asked after me relentlessly, and his favorite, Aunt Sophia, youngest sibling on his dad's side, who slipped him some covert information on the Order, and expressed desperation to meet me, and soon. I complained about Petunia only briefly, taking only one heavy moment with my face dipped to his shoulder to exhale about what I miss about her; what I miss about having a sister who cared, who loved, without judgment. I told him the happier parts, too, the wool socks mum gifts us all each year, this year a speckled navy pattern, as well as the scintillating stack of new books dad gave me. And then I'd admitted, rather embarrassingly, that I'd completely forgot to get him anything and his eyes went wide and he said he'd also forgot to get me something and we had a laugh that carved all the air from our lungs and dissolved, eventually, into copious couch-necking; cathartic, centering, good. When we finally went back upstairs to sleep, we brushed our teeth and I washed the makeup off my face and borrowed a flannel pajama top and when James said good night, I think he meant I love you.

Looking at him, now, peacefully asleep, my roving mind focuses, stubbornly, on how his leg is not the only heaviness stuck against mine, and, unexpectedly, I'm stirred by the feeling of him, laden—and after a pathetically small second of deliberation, I find no harm in a discreet hand slipping down between my own legs, tooling about, aimlessly. I focus on the gorgeous line of his shoulders, rising and falling with sleep; the flush of eyelash, turmoil of hair. It's impossible not to think of him saying my name; coming inside of me. Underneath my borrowed pajama top, I feel my nipples harden, provoked. The situation becomes slightly more serious when his fingers twitch, just briefly, at my stomach. I will not make a sound. I dip a finger between my folds. I am stupidly dewed. I add another finger; the rubbing becomes oddly serious, a messy friction. I wet my lips with my tongue, bite the inside of my cheek.

Against my better judgment, I think about his cock, hard; moving deep inside.

This does it. I'm sunk. I whine, foolishly, a hip jutting at an odd angle to quell the sparkle of want that bursts through, blinding.

James' hand twitches, again. I freeze. His breath lengthens. Eyelashes flutter. His leg—heavy, and the other—shifts, which is wildly detrimental to my cause of staying deadly still. The movement aggravates my own hand, stilled, and I exhale much more audibly than I intended.

Sleepy eyes blink over. "Lils? Oh, shit—" he becomes aware of his precarious leg-and-cock pinning me down situation, and immediately rolls to his side, and my own leg, released in such a hurry from confinement, tingles with release. "You're—" James peers at me, and I'm grateful, briefly he's not wearing glasses, maybe can't see that I'm—"what's the matter?"

"Nothing the matter," I murmur, attempting to smooth my voice into a regular, even tone, and failing miserably; sounding, instead, very much like a person with something to hide.

James rolls all the way onto his back to retrieve his glasses and when he returns, he reaches to fold the blankets back and I reach out, grab his wrist, stop the motion. "Don't," I squeeze my eyes shut. "Do that."

"Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"Not," I am miserable, "yet."

James folds the cover, over, infinitesimally, finds my hand trapped between my legs—and looks back up to me, eyebrows shot to the skies.

"I'm—it's—I wasn't trying for any—it was just...your leg was all, on mine and your—"

"Lily, please," he interrupts, lowly. "Don't stop on my account."

He spreads himself sideways down the bed, head propped up in an elbow. He looks elaborately awake, now.

I swallow. My legs unclench, slightly. I reach with my free hand, rest fingers along the plane of his neck. I undo the buttons of the flannel shirt. He watches the fingers as they part the fabric open; slip back down to the pulse, untouched. My hand, at his neck, curls downward to press his sternum. I watch his throat move.

The other hand returns to the insistent place. I bend one knee; lungs fill sweetly with air. A burn of shy heat floods my neck. He stares. He stares. I hardly slide a finger an inch before I am shot through with that shiver, temper a reedy whine; look down to his moving throat. Hollow me out, dig me a grave. I plummet another finger and hips bolt briefly. His chest expands and I plant so firmly in in the dip of his sternum that I feel the bone beneath, unyielding. His pupils dilate till his eyes are lakes of ink. The slip of my need is now intolerant; fingers move quicker, tug the undertow.

I stare at his throat. "Tell me how it feels," he whispers.

It feels like knowing he's been here, differently; knowing he's watching me, now, closely; knowing the brush of his fingers against my hand at his chest. Every coil in the clock of my body wound unimaginably tight, straining.

"Exasperating," I say, in some slant of wind. "Unbearably good."

My fingers curve upward and find a hollow inside. His mouth opens and seems to emit a moan that belongs then to me; like a string hooked through his lip, tied through my throat, tilting me open. Cut through the bright center. My hips like undulant waves; blind hand, gripping the delicate hairs of his chest, distracted. The strain of my back dispels the burdensome garment, bare swells revealed inadvertently; the force of the touch compels me to my side, rolling over the friction, hurting for more, gasping.

My palm on his chest is so wild and tugging I fear I'll tear a part of him away; a sheath of my own hair tumbles along my hot cheek and he reaches to skim it away and that simple brush of fingers over skin is the cruelest thing he's ever done—I reel, bite at his wrist; cunt screaming out.

"Fuck," I whine along the translucent blue veins of his forearm; lifelines. "Give me your mouth."

He gives me an inclined neck and I grapple for the chin and my thighs spasm violently up against the blistering palm when he catches my cry with his teeth, tongue. I am unconstrained and propelled, groaning madly into his mouth. "Look at me," he pleads, and I can see a flash of my chaotic reflection in the rounds of his glasses. "Look at me."

I gasp a strangled unfamiliar sound; fingers fly out from under and seize the heated slipping outside with a final, insolent, glittering throb; his eyes hold me still and steady. Gold-black. I am half-sobbing along his lips, thighs clenched around my hand in trembling relief, heart yammering dumbly, overflowing. He kisses with all the order I lack; for all my turmoil, his tenderness. My face aflame, this hollowed-out fire in my throat.

I touch the back of my hand to his smile. Who is he? He kisses the back of the hand. "Is that generally how that goes?"

"Are you kidding me? Are you joking?" I devour him; I want to invoke a war. "I'm shaking, feel me," I yank his hand to my hip, and he squeezes and this is too much for the hand between; I am moaning, again, already, a useless human girl, living only for a seventeen-year-old Quidditch player with shitty vision. I push him till he lets me fall over him, legs parting too easily over his hips, hand messy with evidence dragged up by curious fingers; tasted by curious mouth.

"Holy gods are you hard." I palm his cock, frantically, unable to pull myself together, even for a single second.

His hands run the length of my back; lips split in two. "Have I ever told you you're the prettiest girl I've ever seen?"

"Will you stop."

"Evans."

I look at him. His hand on my lower back urges me forward, right up over his length. It's a test in sensitivity, in the slow slip of desire. In his eyes, a version of him I don't often see: A cheeky James, a show-me-who's-boss-James, a half-smiling-looking-awfully-like-he-wants-to-be-fucked James.

I am floored by this longing. He maneuvers my hips onward; agonizing friction. I fold close enough to ask, delicately, for a kiss. Open eyes. He delivers, but is holding back, as if I am not bright, and brightening.

"Don't be afraid," he whispers around my lips. "To take full advantage of me."

Between our bodies, the slant of my lean and his shifting thighs and my bold hand allow a slow, new meeting, one long, stiff ache; stretching. Relief. I stare at his throat as he swallows. His hands whisper up my back. The cavern of self filling, overwhelmed, with unfettered cosmos.