Eternal Summer

by missgryffin

James Potter just spent his sixth year trying to get over Lily Evans while, unbeknownst to him, Lily Evans just spent her sixth year trying not to fancy James Potter. Now, they just had a drunken near-kiss that neither one remembers, they've been named Head Boy and Girl, and they're both wondering how they'll survive their final year at Hogwarts in each others' presence.

11. Positive It Was Only Claws

A/N: Thank you for all the love on Chapter 10! I was honestly a little nervous about how both the empty classroom scene and the alley scene would be received — both of them are the types of scenes that push boundaries a little bit — and the feedback on them has been incredible! You are truly my kinda people :) Also, I cannot get enough of all the comments (often repeat comments) about falling in love with James. When I started writing this and was trying to figure out the characterization of a more "mature" James who had "deflated his head a bit," I kept coming back to the question, "If I were [strong/kind/intelligent/QUEEN] Lily, what would make a once-annoying boy so irresistibly hot that I actually developed feelings for him?" The James you've been reading is my ongoing answer to that question, and so if I have caused you to have a crush on a fictional character, I feel I have succeeded in what I set out to do! XD

On tumblr at: missgryffin

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TiffanyToms: Ah I'm so glad you appreciate the realness, I know you are all about that too in your writing! And Lily falling in deep is so fun to write! NINA: My jaw is on the floor. This is amazing. I LOVE that you love that empty classroom scene as much as I did! And that all of the character development I was going for came across! I also am SO WEAK for blushing/bashful James because it means Lily is getting beyond the cocky exterior and they are really connecting on a deeper emotional level. I can't tell you how affirming it is to hear that you can tell and appreciate the dynamic going on in this chapter, because you're right in that I planned that out and have spent a stupid amount of time on small details to build this up. My heart is swelling from this review! Lily Matos: I am here for realness! The idea to include it actually started when I was ~researching~ theories on wizarding birth control and found an awesome Buzzfeed piece listing all sorts of sexual-themed questions about Hogwarts, with periods on the list. And I was like, oh DUH! And hehe, Lily is getting thirstier by the chapter, I love it. MrsLilyPotters: I personally do not have patience for most slow burn fics, so there's no way I could write it, ha! It's also my head canon (obviously) that their attraction/sexual chemistry is just off the charts, especially since (trying to stick to as much canon as possible), we know they first went out 7th year, Lily introduced James to Petunia over Christmas, and then they got married at 18 (i.e., within the 6 months after graduating). I also selfishly want to give them as much time in love at Hogwarts as possible because I am a Jily sap of the highest order. Josie: DYING. I am dying. Also, be careful what you wish for? o_O I am also so so happy that you pointed out that gap in time from Saturday to Wednesday because I also love the sweetness in that. Jily existing "normally" is something I'm excited to write more of, especially as their relationship becomes more publicly known! banrayar: The Sirius/James friendship is so sacred to me, so I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear small details like that are coming across! And I really appreciate your comment about the equality of their sexual experiences because it's been an important goal of mine to keep it real and keep them balanced, especially with more vulnerable moments. It also means that much more coming from a guy, because I have definitely been nervous about getting something "wrong" from James's perspective and having a guy comment being like "Um, no…" - so this was nice confidence boost! It has now become my new mission to make sure you are always surprised, so consider yourself forewarned! hehehe Guest (who wrote about the tropes): This makes me so happy! I could not agree more. Fighting a bad trope with another bad trope doesn't fix why the trope was uncomfortable in the first place! Getting the number of prior partners to a place that feels organic was sort of tricky because they are young and there aren't that many people in Hogwarts, but at the same time by 7th year they feel more like college kids than high school kids to me (maybe because being at boarding school seems to compress the timeline of sexual/emotional maturity?). Where I came down was wanting to make sure that their prior sexual partners served their character arc/development, and I'm glad that comes across better now! Guest (who wrote about the drunk sex): You're welcome! This is too serious of a topic to ignore, so I wanted to make sure I set the record straight! 3 LottieBILlions: You're too kind! I love all the love on the Sirius scene, I was a little nervous about it to be honest. And affectionate Jily is my favorite Jily because I am such a SAP for them! chaserspirit: eeeek you are asking such good questions! And all will be answered in time :) Gah yes, we can discuss how James is such a softy ALL DAY! Doosri Pistole: Thank you! I'm glad you like the Dolohov twist, there was absolutely no way I could ever make Lily give Snape more than a friendly pat on the back, haha! And I love how you phrased that - "tapestry of Lily's haphazard sexual awakenings" - YES! You nailed it. With Lily, I wanted to show the experience (that I think a lot of girls go through) of initially going through the motions of sexual acts without experiencing much pleasure herself, and having it all be more for the benefit of the guy - and not for any "bad" reason but simply because they're all relatively young and the girl's needs aren't understood as well, by either party. It makes finding a partner she clicks with and that can give her what she needs that much more profound, and it sort of kicks off a re-discovery of everything she's experienced through a new lens, and takes it all to a deeper level. Clara: Haha, I laughed when I read your Chapter 9 comment because I knew I was going to throw you all for a loop with the Hogsmeade scene. This is one of the ways I wanted to show James's maturity - I think he is still very much inclined toward being jealous/territorial/arrogant in his head, but he's learned to control it better and to try to think it through before flying off the handle and doing something impulsive (well, most of the time; he's not perfect ;) ) And I think your questions about Dahlia may be answered a bit more in this chapter! Lunane: I always get the BIGGEST SMILE when your name pops up! Bahaha at *okay okay, taking a deep breath* — that is literally Lily every time she sees him now. LOL I will not forget about the AT bookmark! Ahh I can't wait for us to get there. Not that far away, I don't think. THANK YOU for giving some love to the Dru exchange, I know this is evil of me but I just find James shutting down Drucilla to be so hot. Also, I love the tension of passing notes! Better than texting, IMO. And omg the Tumblr anon requests are so fun, keep 'em coming, people! June: I may commence a chronological listen-a-thon of T-Swift albums, because I have gotten in a habit of listening only to an old playlist of "faves" and now feel like there are so many I've probably forgotten about. And ohh I will think about sharing that! It's honestly a hodgepodge right now, but there is much T-Swift. I'm so happy you like this James — my heart is also very warm for him! The James transformation has always intrigued me, mainly because we see just how far he has to go from 5th year, to knowing that by 7th year, Dumbledore picked him for Head Boy and Lily finally went out with him (and fell rather hard if she was marrying him a year later). I wanted to write a James that justified and explained these things happening, and I am so happy this is coming across and resonating with you! I also love the growth that the trophy room mention shows. James's ego isn't something that will ever go away, it's too much of who he is as a person, but I think his maturity/transformation takes it from being conceited (which he definitely was when he was younger) to more of a confidence/self-assurance that is respectable, even if he does have his occasional conceited/cocky moments (i.e., the dinner party). ALSO your comments re: "actively working at it rather than falling into great sex without any effort at all" - once again, you are reading my mind! I give James most of the credit for this, as this is an area I see his default arrogance/cocky personality working for him. Having to be the best at what he does + wanting to get the girl there like rising to any other challenge + being direct/bold enough to communicate when other people would shy away = a steamy combination. Add on his reverence for Lily, and it's game over!

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CHAPTER 11: Positive It Was Only Claws

CORRESPONDENCE

Thursday, Charms, scrap of spare parchment, desk of Remus Lupin and James Potter:

J: what word has that many letters?
R: play the damn game and find out
J: it's not a spell?
R: no
J: L
R: why am I not surprised…
J: damn. E
R: so f* predictable

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ E _ _ _

J: shut up. I

_ I _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _E _ _ _

J: Y
R: its obvs not her name if there's no L

_ I _ Y _ _ _ _ _ _ YE _ _ _

J: A

_ I _ Y _ _ _ _ A _ YE _ _ _

J: V
R: I told you, not her name
J: just checking. N

_ I _ Y _ _ _ _ A _ YE _N _

J: J
R: no
J: P
R: that's both arms
J: O

_ I _ YO _ _ _ A _ YE _NO

J: U

_ I _ YOU _ _ A _ YE _NO

J: moony. that's not one f* word.
R: dunno what you mean?
J: that's a f* y/n ?
R: play the f* game
J: S

_ I _ YOUS _ A _ YESNO

J: you bastard. D

DIDYOUS _ A _ YESNO

J: H

DIDYOUSHA _ YESNO

J: G

DIDYOUSHAGYESNO

R: well?
J: you're sworn to secrecy
R: Marauder's honor

DIDYOUSHAGYESNO

R: proud of you, prongs

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Mum,

So you were right, and her name is Lily, not Evans. I don't think I've shared the big news on that: we do sometimes call each other by our first names now, though she's mostly still Evans to me. But now that I've learned what her first name really is, I'll refer to her as L since that's quicker to write. -wink-

Anyway. L and I have been spending more time together outside of just Heads' stuff and actually having fun. Maybe when we're not busy hating each other, we're more alike than I thought? I'm feeling more confident about a date on the next Hogsmeade weekend. Will keep you posted.

Also, remember when I told you how Slughorn asked about the "rumor" he'd heard? Well, I overheard some Slytherins talking about that rumor today. Not really sure why they care, but assuming it came from Sluggy, unless word has gotten out more than I realized. Figured you'd want to know.

Off to hang with my new friend L,

James

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James, darling,

I'm so happy to hear you and "L" are getting along better. It sounds like a first date is exactly what you both need to take the next step, and I can't wait to hear about it. Also, thank you for letting me know. That blasted man does not know when to keep his bloody mouth shut. Not that it really matters, but anything that piques Slytherins' interests is generally not good these days. I'll keep Albus informed, he has also been especially curious about this whole thing.

Tell L hello from me,

Mum

LILY

In true Gryffindor fashion, Friday's common room party was a rager. Everyone seemed to be wound up from it being a beautiful fall day, the prospect of a Sunday spent studying was still far in the distant future, and the Marauders (as Lily could now refer to them in her head with a giggle) had plied them all with Butterbeer, Firewhisky, and bottled mead, which she now knew came from a combination of overzealous house-elves and the boys' covert Three Broomsticks run on James's tab. The common room had also been transformed. Sirius and James had put out most of the lights and charmed a multicolor flame to float in the center of the room like a flickering disco ball, half of the common room had been overtaken by a raunchy impromptu dance party with Kingsley DJ'ing from a charmed stereo, and the other half was being dominated by an intense goblets tournament.

And Lily was tipsy. Quite tipsy, actually. It wasn't often that she let her hair down—literally and figuratively—but it also wasn't often that her week included Slytherins tailing her every move and being sent on a scavenger hunt to find and then shag one James Potter. Who was just…perfect. Well, okay, he was still a bit cocky (though arrogance sort of suited him), and he was still mouthy (though she rather enjoyed their playful banter), and he was definitely needy for compliments (though she didn't mind stroking his ego when she knew he'd smile at her like that). But all of that aside, he was nothing she'd use to imagine he was. He wasn't just fun, he was funny. And he wasn't just charming, he was sweet. And perhaps, more than anything, the one distinctive quality that now set him apart from everything he'd ever been before: he was discreet.

He wasn't asking her out in the hallway. He wasn't shouting at her across the lawn. He wasn't pestering her or pressuring her or antagonizing her. He was leaving her notes. He was giving sneaky back touches as he passed by her in the hall. He was talking to her like a normal person at mealtimes, like she had always been his friend. Just the night before, he had sat by her and Remus while they did their usual Thursday routine of pulling their hair out over Arithmancy problems, and he had done all the work on their September Heads' report for Dumbledore and told her she wasn't allowed to worry about it because she had more important homework to do. And though Remus hadn't been able to hide his smile when James had slipped and said "Lil" in a normal sentence, Lily genuinely couldn't tell if James had told his friends about them, and, even more to her surprise, she found she didn't mind if he did. Because hadn't Remus kept her own secret when he'd walked in on her that time with Lane? And hadn't James told her that Remus would keep something even from Sirius if he asked? And, aside from a playful tease in their Potions notes, hadn't Sirius acted like his own walk-in hadn't happened? And hadn't she born witness to the depth of all of their respect and trust for each other? And hadn't she been welcomed, in their own way, into that?

It all left her feeling rather warm and fuzzy, and with all of that being on top of spending Wednesday night literally on top of James, she was positively besotted.

So homework be damned (she would regret it tomorrow), she had donned her favorite black skinny jeans and a slinky black sweater that draped off one shoulder, let Marlene give her hair big, tousled waves that would rival even Adelaide's bounce, and, for reasons she now fully admitted, picked out matching black knickers and strapless bra that she very much wanted James seeing.

She had been dancing with Mary and Marlene for awhile, but then, slightly winded and very thirsty, she had sunk down on the sofa for a rest just as James and Sirius dramatically lost at goblets to a pair of fifth years; Sirius had set off for more booze and the dance floor in a huff, and James had sunk down next to Lily, where they had stayed, finishing their drinks and then starting their next ones, as James told her stories about pranks they had done using the map.

She lay back against the sofa, shrunk down in the squishy cushions, a hand on her stomach as she laughed so hard tears were starting to leak out of her eyes. James sat next to her, gesturing wildly with the hand holding his own mead, as he sat with his body angled slightly over her, recounting the full story of a time when they had used the map to steal into Filch's quarters while he was showering, filch all of his trousers, and leave him a scavenger hunt of clues to find them again, which he had followed, setting off in just his dressing gown, legs bare from the knees down. The clues had led him to the Trophy Room, where an after-hours gathering of Slytherins was but his trousers were not. And so, getting two birds with one stone, as they say, James and his friends had managed to get the Slytherins in trouble while getting Filch to walk around the castle in just his dressing gown, and they had somehow avoided detention because, as McGonagall had told them, though no other students in the school could have managed such a feat, there was no evidence, either actual or circumstantial, that they had had any involvement.

"So what—" Lily gasped out the words, dabbing at her eyes with her free hand. "What happened—all the trousers—"

James was overcome with laughter, his shoulders shaking, as he slunk back down next to her in the cushions.

"Oh, fuck—" He dabbed his eyes, tried to start talking again. "We put—" He was overcome again, practically giggling like a little schoolgirl. "Put them back."

Lily momentarily calmed. "You—you just put them back?"

James was nodding, rolling in laughter.

"I don't—"

"Evans," James gasped out the words, out of breath from laughing so hard. "He got Slughorn—to deal with the Slytherins—and then McGonagall showed up—Filch took them both—back to his rooms—to show them that his trousers had been stolen."

Lily's jaw dropped. "And they were all there."

James' nose was scrunched, chest and shoulders shaking, tears trickling out of the corners of his eyes.

"We fucking watched 'em, we were all Disillusioned. I followed him the whole time. Slughorn had already—passed Filch—in the hall—saw his dressing gown—his face—"

Lily succumbed to her own wave of giggles, picturing Slughorn and McGonagall taking in the scene, watching Filch trying to explain that his trousers had all been gone not an hour before.

"Shit, Potter." Lily dabbed at her eyes again. "That's so mean, but—it's so fucking funny."

James turned his head toward her, that crinkle-eyed grin plastered on his face. "And here you used to denounce me for doing shit like that."

She swatted him—"Shut it, Potter"—before taking a drink of her mead.

"You would have had fun with us, Evans, if you would have given us a chance."

Lily now knew that this was one hundred percent accurate.

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe some of us like to follow the rules."

"Nah, it's not that, you've just been afraid of getting in trouble." James shrugged, adding bluntly, "I don't have anything to lose, really, so it was different for me. I think I'd have to actually murder someone to get kicked out of Hogwarts."

"Gee, lucky us."

He shoved her bare shoulder playfully. "Lucky me, having such a rule-following Head Girl to keep me in line."

Her skin felt branded where he had touched her, her insides all fluttery.

"What am I supposed to say to that, lucky me for having a rule-breaking Head Boy to keep in line?"

James grinned at her. "You could say you're lucky to have such a dashingly funny Marauder as your Head Boy."

Lily smirked. "I suppose one of us has to be the dashingly funny one."

"Cheers, Evans."

She winked at him.

James clinked his bottle with hers and took a deep drink of mead, and feeling like she might be flushing, Lily did the same.

Just then, there was a collective gasp and wild, cheering laughter from the dance floor, and Lily swung her head around to see Ludo and Adelaide wrapped in a tight embrace, snogging animatedly, a charmed rope, glowing bright red and emitting sparks, connecting their wrists.

Oh, bugger. Someone had started a game of Snare.

Like most party games, Snare was best played while utterly sloshed, when lowered inhibitions made participation rather easy and one was more likely to wake up the next day with the bliss of no recollection of having played. Because Snare was a kissing game, and not like any other kissing game Lily had ever heard of.

It had been created, as was Dare, by James and Sirius at the beginning of sixth year, and Mary had first explained it to her as "Snog Dare" meets "spin the bottle" meets "seven minutes in heaven without closets." The bewitched piece of rope would ensnare two victims, pulling them closer together and getting hotter and burning to the touch, and, like their Dare charm, only snogging would release the snare. But not just any snogging—passionate snogging. Only the heat of the kiss would hasten, and ultimately lead to, release of the snare.

Hence, why Ludo and Adelaide practically eating other's faces was now turning the snare back to a normal-looking rope as it unwound itself from their arms. The crowd on the dance floor cheered, and Lily turned panicked eyes to James. "What if—"

He grinned at her, something sly, and just said, "Then we play the game, Evans."

"Right." Suddenly feeling rather hot, Lily got up from the couch, muttered an excuse about needing another drink, and then went and got herself a new drink, thinking she might as well try to get closer to sloshed than she already was if playing Snare was an imminent possibility.

Which, two drinks later, it happened.

Just not with James.

Lily was talking to Mary about something or other when she felt the sparking heat of the snare work its way around her wrist.

"Ooh, Lil!" Mary's face had lit up with excitement, biting her lip as she and Lily followed the path of the snare with their eyes.

Mary reached the end first and said, so low Lily barely heard her, "Fuck."

A few paces away, standing next to James, looking at Lily like she was was Godric himself returned from the dead, and with the snare now working its way around his wrist, was Sirius.

For several moments, they just stared at each other. The snare started to crackle, small little sparks giving light zaps to her skin. They'd only get worse. People were starting to catcall, getting impatient by the participants' current lack of participation.

Sirius turned and said something to James. Lily couldn't read his expression, but the two seemed to share a complete conversation with very little words, because then Sirius was making his way over to Lily, a sheepish grin on his face, and the crowd was picking up their enthusiasm. Lily didn't notice Mary had slipped from her side until she saw Mary reappear by James and say something in his ear.

Lily swallowed hard, turning her attention to Sirius. Wordlessly, he put a hand at her waist and then bent to her ear and whispered, "We never figured how to get the snare off without playing."

Lily's responding hiss was immediate. "What?"

Sirius sighed and confessed, "We sort of…combined some charms on our own without really understanding what we did. And we never figured out how to…undo it."

"So what do we do?"

Sirius pulled his face right in front of hers, one side of his mouth quirking up in a smile, his gray eyes sparkling. "We play, Swish."

And before she could process that, Sirius kissed her. His lips were soft, his kiss gentle, and then almost as soon as it had started he was pulling back, so close she could still feel his lips move as he whispered, "You have to kiss me back for this to work, love."

Lily sighed. "I know, I just—"

Sirius tightened his hand on her waist and brought his other hand up to her neck. "If it's not him, he'd rather have this be me than someone else, yeah?"

The force of those words hit her like a punch to the gut. Is that what their little exchange had been about? Or did Sirius just know? And, as surely as if James had just said those words himself, Lily somehow knew they were true. She had seen too much of their friendship up close now to doubt it.

So with a final, "Yeah," she closed the gap and kissed him back.

It was strange, making out with someone she didn't have feelings for that way. Lily hadn't kissed a boy she didn't have some sort of feelings for since spin-the-bottle during the summer of sixth year, and now she was so used to kissing James that this was even more jarring. In some ways, they kissed the same. Sirius had just as much finesse, the same softness to his mouth. But in other ways, they were nothing alike. Where James tended to kiss slow, Sirius set a faster pace. And where James gave her plenty of tantalizing kisses even before using his tongue, Sirius skipped straight to it. Maybe it was just the game; the hotter it was, the faster it was over, after all.

With that thought in her mind, she clutched Sirius as he clutched her, with one hand wrapping around his side and the other sliding deep into his hair. It was soft like James's hair but thicker, longer, and Lily vaguely heard the wild cheering increase as she wound her fingers through those dark locks, holding them back from falling forward into his face. She met his tongue as their heads turned, and the cheer of the onlookers and the lessening temperature on her wrist told her they were making progress. Sirius pulled her tighter against him with the arm that was around her waist, careful to stay on top of her jumper, and Lily felt a gasp rise in her throat as she felt the press of his arousal in her stomach. His fingers tightened, like a silent I know, and Lily didn't break away like she wanted to, but kept playing, pressed her body back against him, kissed him deeper, and finally, finally, the weight of the rope slid away from her wrist and she broke away from his mouth.

Sirius immediately bent to her ear and whispered, "It's only because I'm a bloke and you have, objectively speaking, many nice, womanly features that were touching me."

Lily giggled, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, I know, Black."

Sirius quirked a brow. "My best friend is a lucky bloke."

Lily flushed, but took the compliment. "Yeah, he is."

Smiling, Sirius ruffled her hair and then turned to steer them towards their friends, but then they both froze. Because the snare was now on James, and the long rope had stretched across the room to snake around Dahlia.

Did it bloody know or something? Had they charmed it to be fucking sentient?

Lily barely noticed when Sirius removed his arm from Lily and turned his attention to Mary, who sidled up between them. Mary gave Lily a fleeting squeeze to Lily's arm, but Lily couldn't look at her, couldn't stand to see whatever concern or curiosity waited there.

She could only stare, transfixed, at the next couple the game had ensnared.

Dahlia walked up to James, an unreadable expression on her face—at least to Lily, anyway. James, for his part, didn't look particularly enthused, but also didn't look uncomfortable. There was at least a foot of height difference between them, and it was almost comical to watch as James bent his head down to Dahlia and they exchanged whispered words in each other's ears. But then there was nothing comical about how, having finished their private conversation, James picked Dahlia up, as easily as if she weighed no more than a child, and Dahlia's legs wrapped around him, arms looping around his neck. The intimacy—the familiarity—between them in that moment was unbearable to see, made all the worse because Lily had been there—had been held up in those arms, had had those hands under her, had had her own legs wrapped around that waist and her own arms looped around that neck. It was a visceral level of jealousy she'd never experienced before.

And then they kissed. They had to, because of the game, and they had to make it steamy, because of the game, but even so, nothing could have prepared Lily for the stab of pain and nausea that ripped through her at the sight of James and Dahlia making out. Lily had even seen them snog before, had watched that World Cup dare, but this was worse, a million times worse. Their rhythm was immediate, easy, like they were picking up right where they had left off without missing a beat, like none of their old chemistry from when they were together had dissipated. Her stomach churned as she watched them. Dahlia's petite frame molded perfectly against James's torso, and James shifted his arms so he was only supporting her with one, cradling her, bringing his other hand up to the back of her neck—to her hair. Dahlia's own hands wound in James's hair, sending another stab, twisting like a knife, through Lily's gut as she watched Dahlia's fingers wind and grasp and pull those jet-black locks Lily had daydreamed about so often she could practically feel them from memory.

The sensuality of their kiss looked too familiar; Lily recognized it. How many times now had he kissed her like that? Their heads tilted, switched sides, and Lily saw a flash of tongue—whose?—but then James's cheekbone popped and his mouth opened against Dahlia's and Lily got her answer. James. It was James's tongue. She thought she might be sick. But then it got worse: Dahlia's tongue answered back, and her legs tightened, and they lingered in a kiss that was somehow even steamier than any of the players' had been because it was so deliberately, deeply slow.

Within seconds, their charmed snare broke open, setting them free, and Dahlia raised her hand triumphant in the air, James laughing beneath her, and then he set her down gently, and he ruffled her hair as the snare slid away from them, set off for its next victims, and after all of that, after seeing him pick her up, kiss her, tongue her—seeing him ruffle her hair with that smile was the last straw, the thing that broke her, the thing that sent her slipping from where she stood by Mary and ducking behind the crowd and breaking into a run up the stairs as soon as she was out of sight of the common room and shutting herself behind her bed curtains and casting a silencing charm and pulling her knees into her chest and giving into the ugly tears that came—for James.

Lily's heart raced. Strangely, she thought that James might be the only boy she'd ever cried over before, when she cried after hearing him bash her to Adelaide last year. Well, she supposed there was Sev, but he didn't count in this kind of boy category. She'd never cried over any of the flings she'd had, even when she'd felt hurt or disappointed. And she hadn't even cried when her and Edgar had called things off, probably because she had been mulling it over herself for weeks before it actually happened, and had felt relief more than anything else at the time.

And now she was crying over James again. She had never felt like this before. So jealous she felt sick. So hurt she felt cut. And she knew, rationally, that she had no reason to feel hurt, because it's not like he was out there making out with Dahlia on purpose—it was a game. And one with no option of not playing, because its own creators didn't know a way out of it. And hadn't she just done the same thing with Sirius? Had that sliced James the same way?

It couldn't have. Her and Sirius were just starting to become friends. There was nothing there to be jealous of. James and Dahlia had been a couple as long as her and Edgar had. They had history, memories, inside jokes and habits and secrets. And with a jarring pain deep to her core, Lily understood, in a way she never had before, just how intimately James knew Dahlia—how intimately Dahlia knew him. Lily's mind raced with thoughts of how many times she'd already been intimate with James, how good she'd felt each time, and now she was thinking about how James had done that with Dahlia for more than six months, how Lily had seen that familiarity, that ease between them, just downstairs. And Lily knew, just from watching them, that their chemistry was still there, that it just existed between them, and that even if they didn't have romance, like Dahlia had said they didn't, Lily still knew that if James wanted, he could go have sex with Dahlia right now and still thoroughly enjoy it.

She wanted to throw up.

The light screech of a door opening, the soft pads of a few footsteps. "Lily?"

She closed her eyes, dropped her forehead to her knees.

There were a few more footsteps, and then when Dahlia spoke, it sounded like she was just on the other side of Lily's bed curtains. "Lily, I know I'm probably the last person you want to talk to right now. And I don't even know if you're listening, but in case you are, I'm going to talk for a minute. I—I know that was probably hard to watch. And I understand why you're upset. Especially after what I said last weekend. But Lily, I meant every word, and I still mean them all now. Having to make out for a game of Snare doesn't change anything. It doesn't change what James and I are, which is friends. And it doesn't change what James feels for you, which is…everything."

Dahlia hesitated, like maybe she was debating what to say, and then she continued, "He, um, told me a little bit. About you two. Just now. And I've always kept James's confidence, I know you know that because you heard all the gossip and pestering I got last year to spill sordid details after all Adelaide's bullshit, and you know I never did. And I'm going to keep his confidence now, but Lily, you should know that the way James feels about you is different than how he's felt for anyone else, including me. I've always known that. I think it's part of why James and I actually became so close as friends, because our feelings didn't get too messy."

Dahlia paused, sighed, and for a moment Lily thought she might be turning to leave. But then, her voice soft, Dahlia said, "Lily…I'm the girl that helped him grow up, but I'm not the girl he's meant to be with—and I'm not the girl he's in love with."

Lily's throat closed. Were those Dahlia's words? Or James's? She thought back to the other night, when she'd snuck out to meet him by the lake. Is that what he'd almost said? That he was in love with her? But they had just started all of…this. How could he feel that already? But then, didn't she also sort of…maybe…want him to be?

Dahlia let that sit for a few seconds, then said quietly, "He looked worried when he realized you'd left. He cares about you, Lily. He doesn't want to hurt you. And I don't either."

Lily waited until she heard the door close, and then she laid down against her pillow, curled in a ball, and tried to make sense of her racing thoughts, her racing heart—for James.

xxx

She slept in late on Saturday morning, missing breakfast, and by the time she headed down for lunch, none of the Marauders were anywhere to be found. So she packed up her books and headed to the Heads' Office, throwing herself into homework in an effort to distract herself from her still-racing mind yet also listening for the sound of the door opening at any moment. She took a quick break only for dinner, then returned. The Marauders weren't at dinner, either. And James never showed up.

Lily tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. Were him and Sirius off fighting? Was James upset with her? Was he avoiding her? Would things be awkward now? Would they be the same?

She managed to finish her beastly Transfiguration essay, and then, feeling rather pathetic at having spent her Saturday night doing homework, she slipped into the elf passages and made the trek back to Gryffindor Landing, feeling a new sense of appreciation for James having shown them to her, as they had proved bloody useful in shaking any Slytherin tail and in giving her peace of mind, since James had assured her Wemby wouldn't let them inside the passages even if they figured out how to ask.

Lily walked sleepily in the common room, her bag slung over her shoulder. Rubbing her eyes, she noticed the candles were burning low, the light in the room dim. It had to be very late, probably even early Sunday morning. As she made her way across the common room, she realized she wasn't alone: Mary was sprawled on the floor in front of the fire, pages of Herbology notes spread around her.

Mary looked up as Lily approached and smiled.

"Hey, Mac," Lily said, folding one leg under her to sit on the sofa. "You're studying on a Saturday night, too?"

"This Herbology essay is turning out to be a bitch," Mary muttered. "Plus all the boys have gone off somewhere today, and Marly and Dahl went to bed early." She rearranged her pages of notes, biting her lip. "I already feel like I'm behind on class, and we're only a month in."

Lily stifled a yawn. "Me, too, Mac."

Mary shook her head. "I truly don't know how you're doing it, Lil. I mean, I have Quidditch, but you have Head Girl, plus two more classes."

Lily's eyes were heavy, and she stared sleepily into the fire as she said, "It's basically this, every day."

A crash came from the portrait hole, making Lily jump as she heard Mary curse under her breath, and then the figures of James and Sirius came into view. Lily leapt to her feet, immediately sensing that something was horribly wrong. Sirius's arm was slung limply around James's shoulders, and James held Sirius securely around his waist, practically carrying him. James froze when he noticed Lily and Mary by the fire, panic written all over his face. There was blood oozing from a cut across his cheek, dirt smeared on his skin, a nasty bruise forming on one side of his face, blood splattered all over his clothes, rips in his shirt. Sirius was in an even worse state, the whole front of his zipped hoodie looking shredded and bloodied, his hair matted, more blood splattered around his arms and across his face.

"Help me," James gasped. Mary raced to Sirius, lifting his other arm over her shoulder, as Lily scooped Sirius' knees under her arms.

"What the fuck is going on?" Mary's voice was low, careful not to make too much noise and so draw attention.

"Later," James muttered, as they slowly carried Sirius.

"Sofa?"

"No, upstairs."

Somehow, miraculously, they managed to carry Sirius all the way up the spiral staircase; Lily knew James was bearing most of the load, saw sweat beading down his face and mingling with the blood splattered there, but he didn't say anything, just kept on towards the boys' dormitory. As they came up on the boys' landing, Mary managed to get her wand from her pocket and blast back the door, and the three of them shuffled in and laid Sirius onto his bed.

James immediately pointed his wand at the door, slamming it shut and locking it. Mary's fingers were at Sirius's throat, feeling his pulse. She let out a sigh of relief as she breathed, "Stable—just unconscious."

James slumped down on his trunk, his elbows on his knees, as he sucked in deep lungfuls of air.

"James," Mary said sternly. "Talk, now."

James shook his head, finally looking up at Lily and Mary. "I can't, I'm sorry." He pushed himself back to his feet. "But we need to check his wounds."

"His wounds?"

James strode over to Sirius and started unzipping his hoodie, gingerly peeling it back from Sirius's chest.

"This isn't my blood, Mac." James's voice was quiet, worried, and the fear in it made Lily's blood turn cold.

Mary set herself to work peeling off Sirius's clothes with James, and from her vantage point at the end of the bed, Lily saw the deep red stickiness of Sirius' shirt where it seemed to be sinking into his skin.

"I'll be right back," Lily said, and without waiting for a response out of either of them, she dashed through the door, down the boys' staircase, and back up the girls' staircase. Reaching the door to her dormitory, she took a deep breath, then opened the door as quietly as she could. Marlene and Dahlia were both sleeping behind the curtains of their four-posters, thank goodness. With the moonlight pouring through the windows to guide her, Lily went immediately to her pile of school things and grabbed her potions kit, which had some extra ingredients most students probably wouldn't have due to all her research with Slughorn, and another kit she kept of simple remedies, then made her way silently out of her dormitory and back to the boys' room.

James and Mary both jumped when she came in, and she started to say, "It's just m—" and then stopped, her back frozen against the door, as she saw Sirius. James and Mary had managed to remove his bloody hoodie and shirt, now in a pile of shredded fabric on the floor. Four long, thin gashes spread across Sirius' chest, starting near his shoulder and reaching down around his waist, and smaller scratches marked his arms. Drying blood was smeared around his chest and down his arms, and more blood still oozed from where the gashes deepened over his abdomen.

Mary was glaring at James over Sirius's mangled body, her face white with anger. "Wounds? His fucking wounds? James, this looks like the work of a fucking animal that was trying to rip him to pieces!"

Lily shoved past James, setting her kits down on Sirius's nightstand. Pushing the hair out of her face, she leaned over Sirius, inspecting the gashes across his chest closely. Her stomach plummeted as she registered what she was seeing. It was like an illustration straight out of their fifth-year Defense book; she'd had it memorized for O.W.L.s, hadn't thought about it in over a year, and now it was there, in the forefront of her brain.

"He needs Madame Pomfrey," she said.

"Already tried to tell him that," Mary muttered.

Lily whipped around to look at James.

He shook his head, and Lily noticed the gash under his eye was still bleeding, the bruise along the side of his face deepening to a dark purple. "We can't." He swallowed hard, his voice hoarse. "Please. Lily, you have to trust me."

He'd never sounded that way before. Pleading. Afraid.

For a fleeting moment, Lily faltered; she knew what she needed to ask him, but he looked so defeated, so broken, that she almost didn't have it in her.

Mary spoke behind her, an impatient note in her voice: "He's still bleeding, this one is deep, we need to staunch it."

Lily's stomach turned as she held out a hand over Sirius to still Mary, not taking her eyes off James.

"There are four slashes," she said slowly, focusing on keeping her voice steady, "parallel, shallow at the top and deep in the bottom—because they were made by claws, as they hooked into him."

Any remaining color drained from James's face as he looked at her.

"Werewolf claws, James."

"What?" Mary gasped.

Lily cut across her. "If I'm right, we can deal with the cuts with a salve, but if there is any chance that any of these marks are from teeth—"

"No," James said strongly. "I'm positive it was only claws."

Mary gaped at him.

Lily nodded and turned back to her potion kit. "I need a glass."

James wordlessly complied, fetching her a water glass from a nearby table. Digging deep into her potions kit, she pulled out a small jar of glimmering silver powder, unstoppered it, and shook a generous amount into the glass. Then, pulling out her bottle of the essence of dittany, she released several drops onto the powder, and using a small palette knife, she mixed the dittany into the powdered silver, adding a bit more of each until she had a thick paste.

"Hold him still, Mac." Mary set her hands on Sirius, ready to press him down as he reacted.

"Potter, silence the door."

"Done."

Scooping the paste out with her knife, she gingerly applied it to Sirius's wounds, starting with the shallow ones; Sirius stirred and whimpered at the touch of the paste, but didn't wake.

Lily moved lower, focusing on keeping her hands steady and applying the paste evenly. When she reached his abdomen, Mary helped her wipe away the blood that was still steadily leaking from the ends of the gashes, where the claws had sunk in deep.

"This is going to be the worst," Lily warned them, and as she slathered the paste over the wound, Sirius' eyes shot open as he screamed. Looking up briefly, Lily saw Mary pressing on his shoulders, restraining him, as James crouched over Sirius' pillow, holding his head and speaking to him in a low voice while he gave Sirius his arm to bite into.

Lily continued on steadily, wincing as she heard Sirius crying out in pain, but determined to make sure each cut was completely filled and sealed. Finally, when she was done, she turned and sat against the bed, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her arm, exhaling a deep sigh of relief. Sirius was barely awake, whimpering with the pain of the paste sealing his wounds.

Mary wrapped an arm around her, drawing Lily's head to her shoulder. "Maybe you should switch to healing, Lil."

Lily laughed despite herself. "Too late for that, Mac, I've skipped Herbology."

Turning, she surveyed Sirius. He was restless, sweat beading his brow.

"I don't suppose you have any sleeping draught in that potion kit of yours?" James asked.

Lily shook her head. "No, but if you have Firewhisky, that should do."

James smiled softly and went to the wardrobe near the lavatory, returning with a bottle that he tipped slowly into Sirius' mouth. After managing to get about a couple shots down him, Sirius seemed to settle against his pillows.

"He'll be alright," Lily said gently. "The paste will seal his wounds, but it'll probably take the rest of the night."

"I'll stay," Mary said, shifting Sirius to the side so that she could sidle in next to him. She gently dabbed Sirius' forehead with a damp towel she had retrieved, and then she gingerly began to wipe away the dried blood that seemed to have been painted all over his body. "Seriously," she said, looking up at James. "You look horrible, go take care of yourself and get some sleep." With a sheepish smile, she added, "I'll manage."

James nodded, and, seeing Mary draw the curtains closed around her and Sirius with her wand, Lily turned to him. Mary was right—he did look horrible.

"Come on," Lily said softly, taking his elbow and guiding him towards the lavatory, a bundle of supplies under her arm.

"Take off your glasses, that cut under your eye is looking gnarly."

James leaned against a sink and ran a hand through his hair, pulling off his glasses. Lily paused at how different he looked without them, how much more striking his hazel eyes seemed without the lenses in front of them, and then wrenched her eyes away, setting herself back to her task. Grabbing a towel and wetting it under the sink, Lily dabbed gingerly at the cut under his eye, wiping away dried and fresh blood.

"What is this from?" she asked.

"Tree branch, I think," he said quietly.

"Well, I'm not taking any chances," she muttered, scooping the last of the paste from the glass with her ring finger. Looking back up at him, she faltered as she saw his gaze on her and realized their closeness. They hadn't seen each other, hadn't spoken, since they'd watched each other make out with other people during the game of Snare. And now, standing in front of him in the boys' lavatory, her fingers stained pink from Sirius' blood, Lily was torn between feeling all of that jealousy and pain afresh, and feeling like the night before had happened in a different lifetime.

She slowly raised her hand toward his face, and he turned, giving her easier access to his cheek as he closed his eyes. Resting the side of her palm against the edge of his face, she gently dabbed the paste over the cut under his eye, feeling him inhale sharply as it met his raw skin, and then she smoothed it over like clay. She exhaled as she pulled away, and James turned back to look at her.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

Lily stared at him, searching his eyes. "For what?"

He chuckled softly, something that didn't meet his eyes. "Honestly, for inventing that game in the first place. Seemed like a riot last year when we did it."

His brow furrowed. "But also just for…I don't know. You having to watch?"

Lily turned slowly, rummaging in her kit for her simple bruise salve. "I'm sorry, too. I'm sure it wasn't…easy."

James reached out a hand to her arm, stopped her, and she turned back up to look at hm. He shook his head softly. "No, it wasn't. But if it couldn't be me, I'd want it to be him."

Lily heart twisted. Suddenly, she wanted to hear it from him. "Why?"

James just stared at her blankly, shrugged. "He's…more than my best friend. He's like my brother. I'd trust him with anything."

Lily arched a brow. "Anything?"

James chuckled in earnest that time. "Yeah, anything. He could"—James waved a hand absently—"I don't know, take my kid on his flying motorcycle, and I'd still trust him."

Lily's eyes narrowed. "Sirius has a flying motorcycle?"

"Yeah, he keeps it at my place."

"And you…gave yourself a child in this example, why?"

James shrugged again. "I dunno, the thought of Sirius with a baby on his bike was just the most…extreme thing that just popped in my head."

Lily suddenly started giggling and hastily clapped a hand over her mouth.

"What?"

She shook her head, only giggling harder as she looked at him. "Just—the thought—oh, Merlin—of you and—and Sirius—with a—baby."

Lily was fanning herself, wiping the tears trickling out of the corner of her eye.

"Have either of you ever even seen a baby? A real one?"

James opened his mouth, then closed it again, pursing his lips, and Lily could practically see his mind turning, searching through memories.

Lily wiped her nose on her sleeve, then turned back to rummaging for the bruise salve, muttering, "Oh, gods, I needed a good laugh."

James's hand was on her chin this time. Lily turned to look up at him, and when he spoke, his voice was almost like it had been earlier: strained, afraid.

"Are we—okay?"

Lily felt her heart twist again, suddenly awash in affection for him, the jealousy and pain from the past twenty-four hours now hovering to the side, no longer in the forefront.

"Yeah," she told him softly. "We're okay."

He didn't look convinced. "You left pretty fast. Dahl said you didn't talk to her."

Lily shook her head, ducking from his gaze. "I just—I couldn't. Seeing you with her—you guys were together for a long time—"

"Hey." He prodded her chin, brought her eyes back up. "You know you don't have to…worry about that."

Lily stared at him, biting her lip. After the rollercoaster of the past twenty-four hours, she was starting to feel dangerously close to being emotional, and she did not want to cry about this in front of James.

He must have taken her silence for disbelief, because he went on, "I care about Dahlia like I care about Mac. And Dahl and me…yeah, we put a label on it, but it wasn't…"

"Then why did you? Put a label on it?"

James dropped his hand from her chin, gripping the ledge of the sink behind him, as he took a deep breath. "The truth?"

Lily nodded.

"You remember the Ravenclaw match last fall?"

Lily nodded. "Yeah, you two got caught by McGonagall with your trousers down."

"They weren't down," James corrected automatically. Lily's eyebrows arched.

"They just weren't, er, buttoned. Anyway, what no one else knew about was that Dahlia was having issues what that ex of hers from Ravenclaw."

"Bertram?"

James nodded. "He went berserk when he heard the gossip. You remember how he and Dahl had been off and on for awhile? Well, he had taken Dahl breaking it off for good really badly, he had been sending her messages, following her, not leaving her alone, and then he found out through the grapevine about me, and he went mental."

Lily frowned. "That's horrible. Dahlia never said—"

James shook his head. "She didn't want anyone else to know. Didn't want the drama, the attention. She only told me because he tried to duel me."

Lily added it up in her mind, remembering the scene in the hall when James and Sirius's hexes combined to make Bertram's head swell to twice his normal size.

"That's why you hexed him."

James nodded. "Look, Dahlia and me started as a drunk night between friends. With Bertram acting like that, I kept by her to ward him off. We were already friends, and then we just started, you know, hooking up, and she was trying to get over everything that had gone on with him, and I was still trying to get over you, to be honest, and so we were like, why the hell not? Let's make it official, keep everyone else off our backs."

Lily stared at him, her jaw dropping slightly. "So you—you were in a fake relationship?"

"No! I mean…Well, no, not fake, just not…a normal one?"

Her eyes narrowed.

James took a deep breath, tried again. "Dahlia and I were more focused on not having any feelings. It was distraction. Honestly, a lot of sex, and then goofing off and partying with the rest of our friends, mostly Sirius and Mac. But we were already friends, and it was just…comfortable. And then we became even better friends. We got lucky like that, I guess."

Lily nodded, accepting his answer. "Dahlia said…she said she was the girl that—that helped you grow up."

James smiled. "That sounds like something Dahl would say."

Lily considered that. "She is quite philosophical."

"It's because she writes song lyrics."

"She does?" Lily knew she sang, but had never known that she wrote.

James nodded. "Yeah. It's basically poetry. She's good."

Lily swallowed, that old roiling feeling stirring in her stomach. He just…knew her. But didn't she know Edgar just as well? Hadn't she figured out how to read his moods, learned his interests?

James suddenly took Lily's face in his hands, and Lily didn't even care that they were full of dirt and dried blood, both Sirius's and his own. "And it's true, what she said. Lily, you don't have to be jealous of her—of anyone—"

"I know," Lily cut across him. "I know I don't, you've both told me that, but—that doesn't mean it was any easier to watchyou have your tongue in your ex-girlfriend's mouth—"

Lily thought she saw something like a flicker of anger pass his face, something that reminded her of how he looked when they rowed, and he said evenly, "I reckon about as easy as watching the girl I've been mad about since I was thirteen stick her tongue down my best friend's throat."

Her breath caught. "Th—thirteen?"

She knew he'd fancied her to a certain extent, with all the attention he paid her and all the times he'd asked her out during fourth and fifth year, but—actually liking her? Really liking her, like this? This whole time?

James nodded, tucking hair behind her ears, caressing the side of her face, and Lily thought his voice sounded a little thick as he said, "It's always been you, Evans."

Lily ran her fingertips lightly over his bruised face, his slashed cheek. She supposed it was now or never. If there was anything to come of the game of Snare the night before, it was that she was suddenly in very deep with her feelings for one James Potter.

"I think—I think it might be you for me, too."

His eyes were soft as he smiled at her, the first happy look of the whole night passing over his face. "You're staying, yeah?"

Lily nodded, smiling back up at him. "Yeah, of course."

"Then I'm going to clean up." He nodded down at the bruise salve on the edge of the sink. "I'll put that on after. T-shirts are in the middle drawer. I think that one I charmed last time is still charmed."

Lily squeezed his arm, then went back into the bedroom, shutting the lavatory door behind her, hearing the hiss of the shower a moment later. The bed curtains around Sirius's bed were still shut; Lily wasn't sure if Mary had cast a silencing charm, or if they were just quiet. She tiptoed to James's wardrobe, found the t-shirt she'd worn the last time she'd slept there, then changed, charmed away the blood stains from her arms and fingers, and left her clothes in a pile on the floor by James's bed before crawling under the covers to wait for him.

He slid in next to her several minutes later, smelling like that mixture of pine and mint, and Lily let him wrap her up in his arms, nuzzled into his chest, stroked his back aimlessly. Something was deeply, horribly wrong—she could sense it. She'd never seen James this rattled.

She murmured, "Are you okay?"

James didn't respond for several moments, but then Lily felt him take a deep, shuddering breath, and say quietly back, "I will be."

xxx

Lily floated toward consciousness, aware of the soft pillow beneath her cheek and a warm heaviness at her back. One of James' arms had threaded through the space between her neck and her pillow, the other draped over her, his hand resting near hers. She felt the press of his body against her back, his chest softly rising and falling.

Memories from the night before drifted to the forefront of her mind, reminded her why she was there. Tentatively, she turned to look over her shoulder. He looked peaceful as he slept. Feeling her eyes on him, his eyelids fluttered, but he couldn't hold them open. He stirred, pulling her flush against him, and Lily sighed as she was enveloped in his warmth, his arms strong around her. She instinctively snuggled back into him, smiling to herself as she felt him pressing firmly against her backside.

How was it that now, she suddenly always wanted him? It hardly mattered where they were or whether she was actually touching him; she just craved him, all the time. But as she arched softly against him, she vaguely realized they'd never actually hooked up in a bed. Wasn't that how it was supposed to go? Sneak up to a dormitory and do things in the progression you were supposed to do them?

Well, she supposed it was rather fitting that her and James had done it all rather topsy-turvy and slightly backwards. Here they were, gone from not-quite-enemies-but-definitely-not-friends to not-dating-lovers-who-were-getting-closer-to-dating. At least, Lily thought they were. Getting closer to dating. And the thought made her rather fluttery.

At the time of The Conversation, she had barely been able to wrap her mind around the idea that she'd just had sex with James, and the idea of going on a date with him had been beyond her comprehension. But now, over a week later, Lily could see that The Plan was working. She already felt more used to him. More comfortable being around him during the day. In fact, it wasn't even just that she was comfortable—it was that he brought her comfort. He made her laugh. He helped her relax. He just had this presence that somehow radiated calm and melted away the anxiety that left her wound and worrying at the end of the day. And he didn't even have to touch her to do it. She just wanted to be around him, and now she wanted to be there for him, even if it didn't involve anything physical at all.

Though, she wouldn't exactly say no to anything physical happening, either.

James's arms were solid around her, his body heat deliciously warm, and she could feel the whole length of him pressed against her as he held her tight to him. He pressed his lips lightly to the back of her neck, setting her insides fluttering, and another sigh escaped her.

His voice was barely more than whisper: "Evans?"

She knew his question, and she didn't even think, just rolled over to face him, their noses almost touching.

His hands slid under the t-shirt that she had borrowed from him, gripping her waist and running over her back as he kissed her softly. Lily's head swam as she brought her hands up to his neck, feeling him hard against her stomach as she pressed herself closer to him. He ducked around her face, kissing her throat as he leaned over her, cupped one breast in his hand. She shivered at the touch of his fingertips on her bare skin, reached under his own hemline, heard his soft groan when she curled her fingers against his abdomen. He pulled his head up to look at her, his breath ragged as his eyes flitted between her own.

Just then, Lily heard the door to the dormitory unlock and creak open slowly. They froze as they were, staring at each other as they both strained to listen to tentative footsteps enter the room.

"James?"

It was Dahlia. James exhaled in relief and rolled away from Lily, falling back against his pillow.

"Yeah, in here, Dahl."

She drew back the curtains, making James and Lily both cower under their arms at the sudden assault of sunlight, and when Lily's eyes finally adjusted, she saw Dahlia standing slack-jawed over them, her eyes glittering with excitement.

"So this is why you both missed breakfast." She crossed her arms playfully and cocked an eyebrow at them.

"It's, er, not entirely what it looks like," James said.

Dahlia gave him a pointed look. "Isn't it?"

Lily shifted uncomfortably, finding Dahlia catching her in James' bed extremely awkward, though it seemed that neither James nor Dahlia did.

James pointed toward Sirius's bed, and Dahlia drifted towards it. Lily saw her expression turn from suspicion to horror as she pulled back a curtain to reveal Sirius and Mary sound asleep, Sirius having thrown the covers off, his paste-filled wounds on full display.

Dahlia turned back toward James. "What is that?" she whispered.

James pulled himself up to a seated position, his elbows resting on his knees. "Dahl, you can't tell Marly. We need your help with cover."

Dahlia sat on James' bed in front of him, resting a hand on his arm.

"James, your eye—your face."

Lily thought he looked nearly brand new compared to the night before, but Dahlia wouldn't have known that. The paste had melted completely into James' skin and his cut already looked partially healed, though it was still clear where he had been slashed. His bruising had also gone down from where it had been, now a faint green instead of a deep purple, but it still stretched across his cheek and down toward his jaw.

"I'm fine. Please, Dahl."

Dahlia looked from James to Lily and back to James, and Lily found herself observing Dahlia, noting the care etched in her face, unable to miss the familiarity with which Dahlia approached him, touched him, said his name.

"What happened?"

James ran a hand through his hair. "I was…bringing Sirius, er, back last night and these two were in the common room, so they helped me. That's all I can say, really, but please—I'm begging you, Dahlia, do not say a word to Marly. Not of any of this—not Sirius being hurt, not Lily and Mac being here, nothing."

Dahlia's brow furrowed. "You know I won't tell, but it might be tricky, James. She noticed Lily and Mac didn't sleep in the dorm last night, it's practically lunch and we haven't seen any of you."

Realization seemed to dawn on Dahlia as she turned slowly. "James," she said, her voice a pitch higher, "where are Peter and Remus?"

Lily's breath caught in her throat; in all the commotion of the night before, plus being so distracted by James, Lily hadn't questioned that Remus and Peter were missing.

Dahlia looked at James, alarm in her eyes. "Remus is supposed to be here. He's not feeling well, Marly said."

James reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "He's fine. Trust me. Please."

Dahlia frowned and James continued, choosing his words carefully, "He can't actually stay in here when he's, you know, ill. But he doesn't want people to know that, which is why Marly can't know you three have been in here and seen him gone."

Lily's stomach twisted, wheels turning and thoughts clicking in her mind. They all knew Remus never went to the hospital wing when he had his bouts of his illness; they had always been told he stayed in the boys' dormitory, and Remus was notoriously strict about not wanting anyone to see him in that weakened, sickly state, not even Marlene, who had long grudgingly accepted Remus's wishes that she not visit him when he was ill.

"But why—"

James shook his head, cutting her off. "It's what he wants."

Dahlia considered him a moment, then nodded as she got up from the edge of the bed and said to Lily, "I'll go grab you girls a change of clothes."

As Dahlia whipped around the door, closing it behind her, James dragged his hand through his hair, elbows still on his knees, but didn't say anything. Lily's eyes went back to Mary, who was stirring, and Sirius beside her, his gashes already knitting over. And she knew, then, that Severus had been right in what he'd tried to tell her countless times.

Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

xxx

She couldn't think about anything else.

On Sunday, once she was assured that Sirius was out of the woods, as it were (as evidenced not only by the gashes knitting over but by his glee at learning Lily had stayed for another "sleepover"), Lily had left them the powdered silver and dittany for the paste, as well as the bruise salve (for which James needed another generous dose), and then snuck back to the girls' dorm with Dahlia, which resulted in Lily realizing that her heart was still reeling from all of the jealousy of Snare and everything James had told her.

And to her surprise, as she got ready, she initiated a heart-to-heart with Dahlia, in which she told Dahlia everything James had said about them and to which Dahlia had agreed fervently, telling Lily more about how naively serious she had been with Bertram, how she'd had a crush on him when she was fourteen and then started dating him when she was fifteen and then was jolted out of her fantasies of their future when he cheated on her when they were sixteen. He had been her first love, and then her first heartbreak, most of which Lily had already known, but then he had continued to break her heart, over and over, in how they strung things along afterwards, how he acted when Dahlia put her foot down for the last time, which Lily had never realized because Dahlia had kept that part so stoically private. And she couldn't tell if her heart was swelling or breaking as she understood just then the comfort, the poignancy, of James and Dahlia finding their way to each other, growing up with each other, when they'd really all been a bunch of sixth-year messes.

And it struck her, for the first time, that her and Edgar had rather been the same. Maybe not from his perspective, but from hers. Hadn't she been reeling from all sorts of confusing hurt over seeing James with Adelaide? Hadn't she been angry at herself for doing something as out of character as having a fling with Chuck Davies? Hadn't she been feeling a little lost, disconnected from her Gryffindors, because of her new inability to stay very long in the same room as James Potter? Hadn't she been wanting a distraction, something better than school, to take her mind off it all? And hadn't Edgar seemed like the answer to her prayer, the universe sending her a sign, when he smiled that boyish smile and was nice, overwhelmingly nice, and took her on dates in that traditional way and left her with sweet kisses at the portrait hole and held her bag in the hall? Hadn't he helped her find herself again? Hadn't he showed her, reminded her, that there was still romance out there, still boys who were kind and thoughtful and sweet? And if she had to kiss Edgar in a game of Snare right that instant, couldn't she do it, and do it well, and still know, without a moments' hesitation, that he wasn't the right boy for her?

That roiling feeling subsided, replaced by something rather fluttery. Because there was only one boy that felt inexplicably, startlingly, right. And now the meaning, the force, of the words they'd said the night before caught up to her in earnest, because now she understood that he felt this rightness too. And for the first time, she thought she might be more exhilarated than afraid.

But she couldn't dwell on all that very long, because she had lycanthropy to research. So she posted up in the library, frantically finishing her homework so she turn to a surreptitiously grabbed volume on werewolves and dwell on all of those things Severus had told her before and which she'd always discarded. And even as her heart sunk, her stomach knotted, there was a thought nagging at her, something just out of reach. Hadn't she read…something…about werewolves lately? Something relevant? What was it? Where did she read it?

Monday morning, she began her observation of Remus: peaked, eyes swollen, almost like he'd been crying on top of not getting enough sleep. In Potions that morning, Sirius moved gingerly, trying not to wince, and Lily was sure he had replaced his usual cardigan with a heavier winter knit to hide the fact that he was wrapped in bandages.

While they chopped and measured and stirred, Lily asked quietly, "How are they?" and Sirius answered immediately, "Healing—because of you, Swish."

Lily smiled at him. Sirius went on, "It's mostly that deep one, it's just taking longer. The top one's completely gone."

She nodded. "Do you need more paste?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "Could probably use more powdered silver."

"I'll get some tonight," she whispered back; she had access to Slughorn's private stores, and it wouldn't be difficult for her to refill her kit. "I need to check on my potion with Slugho—"

Potion. Her research with Slughorn. That was where she'd seen it, that word: wolf.

Monday night she found it, after hours of rifling through the stack of books and journals she'd already notated and written citations for. An article in a recent edition of New Potioneering that had ended up on the bottom of the pile because it had been one of the first items she'd read. An article about a new groundbreaking potion by Damocles Belby, a former Slug Club member; Slughorn had been beside himself when he'd realized.

"Always knew he had chop!" He'd exclaimed as he'd handed Lily the publication. "Potion like that, had to have taken blasted hard work, miracle he survived it, really. Aconite. Dastardly dangerous substance."

Lily hadn't paid much attention then, but she was paying attention now. Because there, at the top of the page, the words she remembered reading: Wolfsbane Potion.

Tuesday brought about more observation of Remus Lupin: less peaked, less puffy, slightly more himself. He cracked a joke and held hands with Marlene and she thought he seemed a bit tense around Sirius, but she didn't think anyone would notice, except Sirius, who seemed to be going out of his way to be more boisterous and happy than normal. James caught her eye in Charms, and she smiled at him, trying to tell him she wasn't avoiding him, and when he had Quidditch practice that night and Marlene and Dahlia were downstairs in the common room, Lily paced her dorm, talking occasionally to Pan, and thought about what she should do.

Wednesday they had a prefects' meeting, as it was now suddenly the first Wednesday of October. Right as Lily was about to start talking, James stuck a lollipop in his mouth, responding to Lily's blatant side-eye with a sheepish grin as he said thickly, "What?" and then pulled it out of his mouth to add, "This is your meeting, Evans, I'm just decoration," to which everyone laughed. Lily rolled her eyes at him and carried on leading the meeting, but she couldn't look at him after that, the sight of the lollipop shifting in his cheek while he stood in his casual-lean-against-the-desk pose stirring reactions in her body that were far too inappropriate. There wasn't much to go over except general reminders about taking patrol seriously and not throwing parties while being on duty (she was careful not to look directly at Drucilla and Regulus, though she saw them both scowling after), and then she handed out copies of the schedule that would carry them through the next meeting.

It all passed in a blur, and then the prefects were disbanding and Remus was hanging back to walk with her and James back to Gryffindor Tower, and as they approached the stairs that would take them to Gryffindor Landing, Lily asked casually, "So, how do I call a Marauder's meeting?"

James and Remus both stopped walking and looked at her with surprise.

Remus spoke first. "You just did. Now?"

Lily nodded. "Your dorm?"

James said, "Yeah, I'll grab the others."

And within minutes, just like that, Lily found herself in the boys' dorm, standing in a circle in the center of the room, with the four of them looking at her expectantly. For a fleeting second, she almost backed out. But no—this was important. She was confident she had gotten it right, and confident they all knew. They called him Moony, for Merlin's sake. They all disappeared around the full moon. They were in on it. And now, so was she.

Her palms suddenly sweaty, hands suddenly shaking, Lily pulled the folded piece of parchment from her bag, then set her bag at her feet, turned toward Remus, and handed him the parchment.

His brow furrowed as he took it and started to unfold it, dropping his eyes to read as he said, "What is th—"

His face suddenly blanched and he went very still, then slowly looked back up at Lily, panic written all over his face.

Lily reached out a hand, grasped his shoulder. "Sev tried to tell me before, and I always blew him off, told him he was making stuff up. But then I was here on Saturday night, Reme. I saw Sirius—

His eyes welled with tears, his voice breaking as he said, "Lily—"

Sirius put a hand on Remus's other shoulder.

"—and I realized Sev was right, and I added it all up myself—"

Remus shook his head. "I'm sor—"

Lily spoke over him, her own voice sounding thick. "I think I've found a way to help you."

Sirius reached for the parchment, forgotten in Remus's hands. "What is this?"

Lily turned to him, looking between him and James. "It's called the Wolfsbane Potion. It was just recently published, I remembered seeing it when I was doing research for Slughorn." She looked back to Remus, squeezed where she still held his shoulder. "It allows a werewolf to turn without pain, and to stay conscious while you're turned."

Remus swallowed thickly, and Lily turned to see expressions of shock on the other boys' faces. But they didn't correct her, didn't try to dissuade her, didn't push her away.

"Blimey," Peter said quietly. "Well, what do we need?"

Lily grimaced. "Well, that's sort of the tricky part. I can't lie, it's a really complex potion, and some of the ingredients are…rare."

James spoke up softly. "Money's no object."

Remus's voice sounded strained. "James—"

"Remus."

Lily watched James and Remus share a steady look, like this was a continuation of an old conversation. She pressed on. "It will take…time. We'll have to collect all the ingredients, and then the potion itself takes a couple weeks to brew, and then you have to drink it daily for a week leading up to the full moon for it to be effective. So I think, depending on how it goes with getting everything, it might be a couple months until we're ready."

She spoke like it was already decided that that's what they were going to do, because it was. She wasn't going to take no for an answer, and she'd known, before she'd even gone in there, that once she spoke news of the potion aloud, his friends wouldn't take no for an answer either. And maybe Remus knew that, could tell that's why she had approached him this way, surrounded by his friends and leading with the potion, and maybe that was why the tears in his eyes suddenly spilled over, and he pulled Lily into a hug, murmuring a quiet, "Thank you for still being my friend," that broke her heart and sent her own hot tears trickling down her cheeks as she clutched him—this brave, resilient, battered boy—and silently vowed to do whatever she could, whatever was needed, to help him.

xxx

The next evening, Thursday, Lily finished her Arithmancy problems with Remus faster than she ever had before, and then she told James, eyebrows raised, that they needed to go work on that report for Dumbledore, and she could tell from Remus's face that he thought it was a ruse just to get James alone, which he courteously accepted by wandering over to join in on chess with Sirius and Peter, and then Lily all but pulled James out of the portrait hole, because she was a woman on a mission.

"What—"

"The library," she told him.

James quickened his pace to keep up with her. "I thought you were done for the night?"

"With school." She gave him a pointed look. "We still have a new extracurricular project to work on, and I can't exactly ask the girls for help, and I feel like Remus is still adjusting to me knowing, and he can't hang out too long in the library with me without Marly joining in and you said she still doesn't know, and Sirius doesn't have the attention span for research, and Peter would honestly only be useful as a shelf, and so that leaves you, and I could use the help."

She had said this all very fast, and James looked at her strangely for a moment before his face cracked into a grin. "I'm more useful than a shelf, eh?"

Lily gave him an appraising look. "I can at least snog you when you're holding my books."

James laughed and fell into step with her. "Yes you can, Evans."

He turned out to be a rather helpful researcher, as she knew he would. For all the effort he had put into hiding it when he was younger, he was really incredibly intelligent, and they were able to cover much more ground than Lily would have been able to do by herself. They had culled a few volumes on lycanthropy, as Lily wanted to know everything she could about the condition before brewing a whole potion about it, and then had focused most of their attention on aconite, the main ingredient, which was a highly poisonous substance and was the only part of this whole thing that truly gave her pause.

They had gotten to the library late, and Lily had completely lost track of time as they'd worked, but as she looked around from her spot in the stacks, rubbing her neck where it had started to feel permanently tilted to one side as she read spine after spine, she thought it seemed even more hushed, even slightly darker, than normal—both signs of impending closure.

Lily sensed James behind her before she heard him, her whole spine prickling with anticipation. It was like heatwaves radiated from his presence, her nerves lighting up just from his closeness.

"Hey," he said quietly, his breath was hot on her neck, hands firm at her waist. Lily leaned back against him, let her eyes flutter closed, as she murmured back, "Hey, Potter."

"I've missed you," he murmured.

She smiled as she tilted her head up toward his. "You see me every day."

"Yeah, in class." He nuzzled her ear. "You know what I mean."

She did. She'd last kissed him Sunday morning, after they'd woken up, and before then she hadn't been with him, kissed him, touched him, since their secret date by the lake. It all felt like rather a long time ago, what with the game of Snare and then intervening events with Remus happening in a blur in-between, and now that she was close to him like this, she realized just how much she had missed him too.

Lily reached a hand up to his neck, melted against him, felt his lips brush her forehead.

"You're such a melt, Potter."

He smiled against her hair. "Only for you, Evans."

Well, fuck if that didn't send her stomach all aflutter. He wasn't even doing anything—his hands were at her waist, his body still behind hers—and yet she was suddenly beyond aroused. She arched slightly, pushing her bum back into his pelvis, her head nuzzling against his neck.

James's whisper was hot on her ear. "Does that mean you've missed me?"

She breathed back a simple, "Yes."

His fingertips lightly trailed up her leg, under her skirt, and Lily gasped as he cupped the cheek of her bum, gave her a gentle squeeze. James rested his lips against the back of her neck, and Lily held her breath, not trusting herself to move, not daring to think about the crazy level of desire surging through her right then.

But then his voice, deliciously low, murmured, "Let me make you come."

Lily turned her head, hissed over her shoulder, "What? We're in the library."

But his hand was leaving her bum, his fingers reaching underneath her, and Lily felt her leg step slightly wider for him like it was reflexive, like her body was just acting of its own accord in wanting him, and then he slowly, tantalizingly, stroked the outside of her knickers from behind her.

A heated, whispered, "Fuck," escaped her just then, and James chuckled into her neck, shushing her softly as his other hand wrapped more securely around her middle.

He brought his lips to directly over her ear, and did that stroke again while he whispered, "I believe this was on your list of things you haven't done, Evans." He swirled his fingers around the outside of her knickers. "And it feels like you want me to."

Lily gasped softly. "James, we're—"

"Alone," he whispered back, dotting kisses on her cheek, down her neck. "It's late. There's no one else here. Let me see how fast I can get you."

And with his body so solid behind her and his arm so securely around her and his lips in her ear and his fingers hovering where she suddenly always wanted him, all the time, she was helpless, defenseless, to that glorious offer, and she relaxed her head back against his shoulder, the word, "Please," escaping her in a breathless sigh.

Holding her against him with one arm, his mouth back over her ear, James pushed her knickers aside and stroked her, purring dirty whispers that made her have to bite back whimpers. The sensation of his fingers on her was familiar but also entirely different from this direction, and Lily felt herself building fast as James focused on her most sensitive spot with swirling fingertips. He was thrusting softly against her as he fingered her, his arousal grinding against her bum with each little roll of his hips, and then he took it one step further, whispering a constant stream of, "Fuck, I want to be in you, Evans. Yeah, I know you can feel me. Imagine me, right now, inside you from behind like this. Oh fuck yes, Lil, I felt that. Come for me. Fuck—Lily—oh, you're close. Yeah, right here?"

A small cry escaped her then, echoed fleetingly in the silence around them, and James's hand at her stomach immediately flew up to clamp over her mouth.

"Shh, it's okay. Focus on me. That's it, come on. It's just you and me, Lil."

His chest was solid behind hers, his weight somehow reassuring, comforting, on some visceral level Lily didn't understand, and Lily let her eyes close again as his fingers stroked her right where she needed it, and then he was increasing his speed, his pressure, and she was squirming over him, so desperately, agonizingly close, and she knew he could tell because he whispered, "I got you, baby, come on, right there, just break, just—"

And she did, faster than she expected, like she had been built up for days just waiting for him (which, admittedly, she probably had been)—she broke, she shattered, she twitched and bucked over his hand, her face scrunched, her mouth pressing as hard as she could press it into his palm, and his whisper was still tickling her ear, purring, "Fuck I love making you come. Gods, Lily."

She reached her arm around behind her, hearing him hiss as her fingers found him even though he had charmed his trousers not to show, but then he was holding her tight against him, shushing her as he whispered, "Not here."

Lily let go and leaned back into his chest, tilting her face toward his. "Why not?"

He chuckled. "Because going up your skirt is a lot different than getting my dick out."

She turned to face him, giving him an appraising look. "How many times have you had sex in the library, again?"

He held onto her waist, pulled her close as he bent to whisper, "We'll do that sometime. Just after hours, yeah?"

Lily nodded and leaned up to kiss him, still dazed and weak from her climax, before she asked, "If not here, where?"

He smiled down at her. "What an eager Head Girl you are."

She smirked back up at him, pushing up his hair affectionately. "Just trying to take care of my attentive Head Boy."

James looped an arm around her, pulling her in by the crook of his elbow, and whispered, "Sleep over tonight?"

Lily gave him a Look. "I have early class on Fridays, Potter."

He smirked. "We could just stay up all night, and then you'd be ready to go."

She swatted his chest. "No, Potter. No sleepovers on school nights."

"So…sleepovers on weekends?"

Lily flushed and bit her lip, but then she nodded, finding she rather liked the idea.

James grinned and steered her back toward their table of books. "C'mon, let's call it a night."

In the end, they stopped down to their office before heading back up to Gryffindor Tower, as Lily needed to drop off her library books anyway, not particularly wanting to keep a pile of titles involving werewolves and poisons in her dorm right next to Marlene's bed. And like the desperate girl she was, she reached for James's belt as soon as she had dropped all of her books next to her desk chair, and he must have been just as desperate because he kissed her, cradling her face, while she worked, and then when she was working on unbuttoning his shirt, he reached up her skirt and pulled her knickers down, and Lily stepped out of them before making to hop back up onto her desk, but then James stopped her with a hand on her hip.

"Can I—" He bit his lip, his eyes searching hers.

Lily returned his gaze, her hands stalling at his shirt. "Can you what?"

"Can I…turn you around?"

Oh. She hadn't expected that.

A moment passed in silence, and then James said quietly, "You can say no, Evans. That's okay."

She jolted out of her thoughts, shook her head slightly. "No—I mean, not no, that's—I just—"

James was looking at her curiously. "You haven't done it that way before?"

Lily's pulse was suddenly fluttering rather fast. "Once," she told him. "Chuck."

Comprehension dawned across his face, a flash of anger flickering over him before he rearranged his expression to concern. "Are you—were you—"

Lily hastily said, "I was okay. He wasn't…violent. He just wasn't…gentle."

It had all felt wrong. Chuck had been everything that she'd always said she'd hated about James. He had been charming in a conceited way, fully aware of how attractive and athletic he was, and he had been known as even more of a playboy than James, who had only been involved with two girls all of sixth year, ever had been. Truly, to this day, Lily had no idea how or why she'd been into Chuck Davies; it was something beyond a lapse in judgment, like she had straight up lost herself for a moment. And it had landed her in the Prefects Bathroom, her front pressed against the side, gripping the ledge as he pounded into her from the back with no finesse or attempt at caring about how uncomfortable it all felt for her. Her only saving grace was that it hadn't lasted long, as she'd managed to get him sufficiently worked up from teasing him before, but that experience had soured that position for her, and thankfully Edgar had never tried to initiate it.

But now James was. And it was James. The only boy who'd ever made her feel like this. Pleasured. Cared for. Alive.

Lily reached out and took his hand. "But you are. And I trust you."

James stared at her, his expression one of pleasant surprise, though whether it was from agreeing to try it with him or from what she said, Lily couldn't be sure. He shrugged his shirt from his shoulders, tossing it to the floor, and took a step closer to her, bending down to give her a heady kiss as his hands roamed everywhere, pulling her close against him before pushing her jumper up over her chest and pulling it off her arms, letting it fall inside-out over his shirt.

His mouth was hot, his fingers like matches across her skin, and then he raised one hand to wrap in her hair while his other hand slipped up her skirt, fingers going straight inside. Lily gasped and bucked reflexively against his hand, squeezing his sides, pressing lips to his chest.

"James—gods, James."

He cradled her against him, hand still deep in her hair, his voice was raspy as he told her, "I need you close, Lil. Fuck, I've been wanting you all day. And the library was fucking torture."

Lily chuckled. "I did offer."

She felt him smile against her hair. "Hence why we're here."

Lily moaned against his chest as he sped up his fingers, stroking her pleasure point in a quick little movement. "Fuck, James. Fuck, that's so good."

He pulled his hand away right as he murmured, "Fuck, I need you, Lily," and she turned, sweeping her hair over her shoulder before turning to look back at him. He was looking down, sliding hands up her hips underneath her skirt, positioning himself underneath her. She felt the gentle touch of his tip at her opening, let out an involuntary gasp, and his eyes flicked up to hers.

"Talk to me, yeah?"

Lily nodded, breathless. "Yeah."

In one slow thrust, James slid inside, then hugged her snugly around her middle, his mouth coming to her ear. "Okay, Evans?"

Lily let herself adjust to him, the sensation of this angle entirely different than everything else they'd done, and then she squirmed against him, breathed another soft, "Yeah."

James dotted kisses on her neck as he started to slowly grind into her, not pulling out very far before he slowly thrust back inside. Lily moaned, the pressure delicious in an entirely new way as he slid in and out of her, like he was hitting places inside he hadn't hit before, edges she hadn't known existed.

His lips ghosted the back of her neck.

"Fuck, Evans. You're so fucking wet."

Lily smiled, leaned back into him. "I've been wanting you all day. Classwas torture."

James chuckled. "You just like seeing me cuddle cats."

She couldn't deny that. They were currently working on human transfiguration involving small but more complex mammals, and James had, per usual, been the only one to successfully transfigure Sirius into a petulant-looking black cat that had given Lily quite a dirty look as James had held him and scratched his ears. It had taken everything she had not to grab James's face and kiss him on the spot.

"Yes," she sighed. "If you ever want in my knickers, just conjure an animal to cuddle, and—"

But he had just given her an especially sensual thrust that sent waves of pleasure through her body, and she let out a small cry. "Fuck, James."

He groaned into her neck, kept up his same rhythm. "You're so fucking perfect."

Lily's stomach flooded with fluttery heat. "James—"

"No, I mean it—Evans—you're everything—"

Lily swallowed hard. "James—"

His fingers slid up her leg, reached around to her front, found that sensitive spot with soft circles of his fingertips.

"You're the only girl—the only girl, Evans—that's ever made me feel like this."

Her heart flew up to her throat; she wasn't sure she'd be able to breathe. "Like—what?"

He held her tighter, bringing the arm that had been around her waist up over her breasts, hand pressed against her chest, fingers splayed over her collarbone, and at the same time, those other fingers inside her switched to that quick little stroke she liked. Lily let out a sharp, whimpering cry, her pressure suddenly doubled in an instant.

James's voice was still low, raspy near her neck. "Like I'd do anything for you. Like I want to make you happy. Like I want to just…be with you. Do everything with you."

Her heart was bursting, her brain breaking. He was saying this now? When all she could do was whimper incoherent sounds and squirm, utterly helpless and consumed?

"Fuck, Lily. I know you're close."

It was close like she'd never been. The combination of his thick length sliding inside her and those fast little strokes, like quick little whispers, made her want to scream.

"J, yes!"

She could tell he liked when she called him that, and sure enough, his voice was suddenly deeper, lower, like a purr in her ear. "Right there, babe, come on."

Her pressure was almost unbearable, those zips of electricity from his fingers almost painful, and her whole torso was tightening, her eyes scrunching, and she reached up her hands to grasp onto his where it still pressed against her chest, and James was still thrusting inside her with those long, sensual slides, and she was so close—

"Fuck, more—J, I'm—"

But he had heard more and heeded her request, giving her more pressure, more speed, on those little strokes she liked, and she was exploding, convulsing, stars bursting behind her eyes and cries bursting from her lips and for several seconds she didn't comprehend anything at all, just hung suspended in a daze, not even feeling like she was holding herself up, just feeling like she was somehow floating yet anchored to the body behind her, and now she registered how fast her heart was pounding, those fingers splayed against her chest holding it in like a cage, and that thick length inside her was still moving, and then a voice, hot on her neck: "Do you trust me?"

She didn't even have to think. "Yes."

His hands slid from her front, pressed gently on her back, and Lily understood, let her body lean forward, braced herself on the desk, and then his hands found her hips, fingertips sinking into her skin as he squeezed, and he gave her a few tentative thrusts, pulling her slightly each time to shift her back, adjust their angle, and then all of a sudden he found it and it just clicked and before Lily had time to think he was shagging her, pounding her, and a guttural cry escaped her at the intensity of it and then she heard him let out his own groan and her mind was catching up, finally recovering, and—and gods, this felt good. More than good. Amazing. Her body was throbbing for him, the angle and speed giving her an aching, pulsing sensation she'd never experienced having sex any other way, and she wanted more, and without even thinking about it, she started giving it back to him.

"Fuck." James's cry was sharp, ringing. "Lily."

Lily twisted her neck over her shoulder, caught his eye. "Get it, James."

He lost it. She thought he might. He was swearing, a string of curse words so creative she barely comprehended them all, and pounding her even harder, even faster, if that was even possible at that point, and then he was tensing, and she could sense it, his tautness radiating through his whole body, down to the fingers still digging into her hips—

"Yes, James, come on. I need to feel you co—"

She broke off, smiling, feeling the heat of his release inside her as she heard him groan, something deep and heavy.

"Fuck." James rested his forehead against her back, rocked into her gently through the waves of his climax. "Fuck, fuck."

Lily reached a hand behind her, found the top of his leg, just under his hip, and she left her hand there, vaguely realizing she'd never actually touched him there, that they hadn't even been properly naked together before, but wanting to be an anchor for him, like he had been for her. He reached a hand up to her shoulder, holding onto her, and let his weight fall against her as he collected himself through ragged breaths.

They stood like for several moments, maybe several minutes, Lily couldn't tell, and then James eventually pressed his lips to her back and pulled himself off of her. She heard the rustle and clink of his belt telling her he was redoing his trousers, and she reached for her wand, then flashed him a smile as she began the awkward post-sex task of vanishing the release spilling back down her legs. James came up to her, holding her hair back from her face and kissing her head, and when she was done, Lily looked up at him, circling her arms around his waist.

"I feel like I should thank you again."

James chuckled. "You shouldn't." He played with her hair, tucking it behind her ear. "Did you…like it?"

Lily bit her lip, trying to hold back her grin. "What do you think, Potter?"

He smiled, leaning down to kiss her, something quick and sweet. "I think you're sexy as fuck, Evans."

Laughter bubbled out of her lips; she had definitely not expected him to say that. Flashing him a sly smile, Lily pushed his hair back, letting her fingers linger in the soft strands.

"So are you, Potter."

He smiled, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses, and he bent to pick up her jumper and his shirt from the floor.

"And I want to shag you like this every fucking day."

Lily giggled, turning her jumper right-side out and then pulling it over her head. "You sure are getting sappy tonight, Potter."

He smiled, and Lily thought she saw a faint blush creep around his neck as he buttoned his shirt. "I've already told you, Evans. Completely mad. Nothing I can do."

He met her gaze as he tucked in his shirt, and Lily wondered, not for the first time, why the act of tucking in his shirt was so damn sexy.

She walked up to him, set her hands at his waist as she tilted her head up to him with a smirk. "Good thing you're so cute when you're sappy."

James grinned, that blush lingering, and after they had traded a few more kisses, he swung her bag over his shoulder, kept one hand on the back of her neck, and steered her out of their office, up the elf passage, and toward the common room. And as he handed her bag back and gave her a quick kiss on the lips before heading through the portrait hole, Lily found herself wondering how much longer he was going to wait to ask her on their date.

xxx

The next afternoon, her Friday classes done, Lily left Remus on their normal walk back from Arithmancy and headed down to the Transfiguration department, finding James already leaning against the wall outside McGonagall's office.

He looked up as he heard her approach. "You get a note too?"

"Yeah. You don't suppose something's happened?"

James shrugged. "Guess we'll find out in a minute."

He was gazing over her shoulder, and Lily turned to see Professor McGonagall approaching, holding a stack of books and notes from her last class.

"Mr. Potter, Miss Evans." Her voice seemed slightly brusquer than normal, and Lily stepped aside to let her unlock her office and open the door. "Take a seat, both of you."

McGonagall shut the door behind them and proceeded to set down and arrange her materials, not looking at them. James quirked his brow at Lily, and they both sank into the chairs in front of McGonagall's desk.

Taking her own seat, McGonagall leaned back in her chair, hands folded in her lap. Her expression was unreadable, but Lily thought she seemed cross; McGonagall was normally much chattier with the both of them. After looking back and forth between the two of them for a moment, McGonagall finally spoke.

"Imagine my incredulity when I showed up to the staff room this morning and heard a report of how Irma saw two students performing a sex act in the library."

Lily's stomach dropped through the floor, probably all the way to the bottom of the lake.

"And then imagine my disappointment when Irma informed me they were students in my house."

Lily closed her eyes, not able to bear McGonagall's gaze.

"And then imagine my embarrassment when I learned that the Gryffindors performing said public sex act were none other than the Head Boy and Girl of Hogwarts."

She wanted to die.

"Professor," James started, "It's my—"

McGonagall rounded on him, the tone of her voice jolting Lily's eyes back open. "Don't you dare say it's your fault, Potter, unless you mean that you did not have Miss Evans' consent, in which case you will be expelled this moment."

Lily thought he looked a shade paler than normal, and he clamped his mouth shut, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

McGonagall turned her sharp eyes on Lily.

"Miss Evans? Am I expelling Mr. Potter today?"

Her face burned. "No, Professor, it was—consensual. Completely consensual."

McGonagall looked between them again, her nostrils flaring, then sighed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her desk. "Yes, I know it was. I just needed to verify that for procedure."

Lily looked at McGonagall with wide eyes.

McGonagall gave her a pointed look. "Please, Miss Evans. Irma saw enough to convey that you looked like you were thoroughly enjoying yourself. I trust you understand what I mean?"

Lily could only nod, her face flushing, if it was possible, even more.

"I expected far better out of the both of you. Miss Evans, I especially expected better out of you. I never would have expected you to do something like this."

Tears stung the back of her eyes.

"Now, you're both of age, and you can obviously engage in adult behavior as you see fit—privately. You are the leaders of the entire student body, for Merlin's sake. You're lucky it was only Irma who saw you and not another student who would immediately spread it around the school—"

James cut across her. "So no one else…knows?"

McGonagall looked at him icily. "As of this morning, the only people in the staff room conversing about it were myself, Irma, Horace, and Caradoc. I already informed Albus and told him I would address it with you. I don't think I need to explain to you how humiliating that was. But to your question, if this catches among the students, it will not have come from me."

James nodded his understanding; Lily was still hung up on how her teachers—Dumbledore—knew about what had transpired between her and James in the library.

McGonagall added, "And you will write your mother, Potter. Unless you would rather I do that?"

James shook his head. "No, Professor. I'll write her."

"Good. You can convey that 25 points were taken from each of you, and that you've been given detention."

Lily gasped. "What?"

McGonagall turned her icy gaze on Lily. "Need I impress upon you further the level of indecency and inappropriateness of your public behavior?"

Lily swallowed hard, faltering beneath McGonagall's anger, which had never been turned on her before. She couldn't bear it. "No, Professor. I'm sorry—I'm so sorry. We shouldn't have—not in the library—we weren't thinking—"

"Well, that much is clear."

James interjected. "I was the one the initiated it, I should be the one—"

"And we've already established that Miss Evans was a willing participant, have we not?"

"Yes, but—"

"No, Potter." To Lily's amazement, McGonagall's face softened as she said to him, "I know you would like to take the fall for Miss Evans, and it is most gallant of you to try, but the fact of the matter is that this is a choice the both of you made, and so you'll both deal with the consequences."

James nodded, setting his jaw again.

"You'll do your detention tonight with Hagrid. He needs assistance with something in the Forest. You should meet him at his hut at eight o'clock sharp."

McGonagall turned her softened look on Lily. "Miss Evans, I know this is your first detention, so let me just tell you that as far as detentions go, those with Hagrid are the best to have. I'm sure Mr. Potter can vouch for that."

Lily looked at her in surprise. "Erm, thank you?"

She thought a hint of a smile played at McGonagall's mouth. "It's the least I can do, Miss Evans. I cannot let this incident go unpunished, but Merlin knows students do far worse things in this school every day than have sex."

Lily flushed, though she assumed she had just reached a permanent shade of red by that point.

McGonagall looked between her and James again. "I assume you're being responsible."

Nope, she was definitely capable of getting redder. "Er—yes," she managed to choke out.

"And I expect you both will not let your relationship interfere with acting professionally with respect to your head duties."

Lily looked over at James and met his eye for the first time since they'd sat down.

He spoke first, saying, "Yes, but—we're not—I mean—"

McGonagall raised her eyebrows as she surveyed him. "I do not need to know how you define the parameters of your relationship, Mr. Potter. That's between you and Miss Evans. But regardless of how you define it, there is obviously a sexual component, and so I repeat my expectation that you will not allow that to interfere with your head duties. Have I made myself clear?"

Lily nodded, and she looked over to see James do the same.

McGonagall let a smile twitch at her mouth then. "Very well then. I must admit I'm not surprised."

Lily gaped at her. "You—you're not?"

"No, Miss Evans. I've sensed you've both liked each other for ages. I'm glad you're finally doing something about it, though I admonish you to do so privately from now on, yes?"

And with that, she turned her attention to the papers at her desk, waving a hand dismissively. "Hagrid's tonight at eight o'clock sharp. He'll be reporting to me when your detention is completed. And Potter, I'll know if you don't write."

Lily pushed herself shakily to her feet and followed James out of McGonagall's office in a daze.

"Tell me that was all a nightmare."

He chuckled softly and put a hand on her back, guiding her down the corridor.

"No can do, Evans. Besides, I think that went great, all things considered."

Lily looked up at him sharply and hissed, "Are you out of your mind? We lost fifty points and have to do detention tonight!"

He grinned down at her. "Yeah, and McGonagall all but gave us her blessing."

Lily rolled her eyes. "That would be all you took from that conversation."

James scratched her back affectionately before pulling his hand away right as they rounded the corner to the main hall. "I'm going to run up to the owlry and get this letter over with. See you at dinner, yeah?"

Lily nodded, watching him go. She should have been furious with herself, with the both of them, but instead she could only stare after him, taking in that loping grace, that hand ruffling his hair, that skip in his step as he went down the front stairs before disappearing from her view.

And if she hadn't known it before, she really knew it then, as she reflected that she was rather looking forward to doing her first detention and found herself wondering if they'd manage to sneak some time to themselves under cover of the Forbidden Forest.

She was a goner. She was in so much trouble. And she loved it.

CORRESPONDENCE

Mum,

This is an awkward letter to write. But it was either me or McG, and I figure you'd rather hear it from me, and I'd rather McG just forget the whole thing. L and I have detention with Hagrid tonight, and McG docked 25 points each.

I can explain. We were in the library late last night, and one thing sort of led to another. I promise all clothes remained on and fastened, but I may have had my hand up L's skirt, and I may have been so focused on L that I forgot to keep a lookout, and Pince may have seen L while she was—well, you know.

McG was livid. I've already been lectured on the indecency of performing "public sex acts" so you don't need to do that. Though, I will add that once McG got past the punishment part, she did say she'd sensed L and I have liked each other "for ages" and she was glad we were finally "doing something about it." So, I'm taking that as a win.

Assuming you're not really mad,

James

---

James,

Minerva is quite right to send you to detention and dock points. Consider this karma for all of the times you've been caught around the house and all the instances of public indecency you've surely gotten away with at school already.

…Now that that's out of the way, your father and I are enjoying a raucous laugh at your expense. We were nearly caught in the library on several occasions, but as we were apparently smarter than you, we had the invisibility cloak and successfully evaded capture. Though, credit for that is probably due to your father's habit of simply carrying the cloak with him at all times, which he began doing in case of spontaneous passion once it became evident we were prone to finding any spare alcove we could. Something to consider if you and Lily have reached the point of being unable to keep your hands out of her skirt even whilst in public places.

I assume this means that, contrary to my initial assumption, your prior letters about things "progressing" with Lily and the two of you "spending more time together" and "having fun" were not merely describing being friendly or even striking up a courtship, but were actually in reference to having sex all over the castle? I also assume you're being responsible, and that includes being responsible about your heart, as well as hers. I would hate for you to move too fast and muck it up before it's even started. Though, your father said the sexual tension between you two at the World Cup could have been cut with a knife, so he's not surprised in the least.

Not really mad, and actually rather happy,

Mum

---

Mum,

I'm assuming you're at the Macdonalds' if you managed to get a letter back to me this fast, so I'm glad my embarrassing capture can provide your dinner entertainment.

I have just attempted to Scourgify my mind and the cloak in order to erase the unnecessary visual of you and dad. That being said, your advice is well-taken, and only complicated by the fact that I share the cloak with Sirius, who I suspect is also frequently meeting up with a girl.

Yes, you assume correctly (though "all over the castle" is a bit of an exaggeration at the moment), and yes, L takes her potion every month. (Very strictly, I might add—you know how school/career-focused she is.)

The other bit you wrote reminded me: I'm going to ask L to Hogsmeade soon. I'm sort of waiting for the right moment at this point. I know it's a bit backwards, but everything about us sort of is. Honestly, asking her to Hogsmeade feels on par with proposing at this point.

Heading to detention with my dream girl (cloak packed),

James