Voyeur

by scriibble

As his seventh year begins and the First Wizarding World grows outside Hogwarts' castle walls, James Potter has one goal in mind: to finally win over Lily Evans. The only problem? Accidentally seeing her with someone else, of course—but it's not like that will stop him. [L/OC to L/J; Marauders seventh year/intro to the First Wizarding War] [Winner of JilyAwards 2020 Fav Smut/NSFW]

24. Chapter 24

A/N: 600 reviews? (Reese T, you did claim that official spot!) Guys. I don't have the words. Thank you, as always. We're now twenty-four chapters in and I'm still floored by the quantity and quality of the reviews you all submit.

Also I laughed out loud at every compliment on my smut. Those are some of my favorite comments, because again, I'd never written it before this fic. Is there smut in this chapter? Of course. In the next one? Yes. In the final chapter? Yes. Does this feel a little ridiculous? Absolutely, but here we are. I mean, we got through eighteen chapters mostly without it. It's warranted at this point.

In other news, I made a Tumblr! You can find me at scriibble-fics. Come chat with me, read my unnecessary ramblings about which scenes were my favorites to write, how progress goes on the sequel, all that good stuff. Over there, you'll see that I've written that I've officially finished this fic (although I still have to edit). It's a truly wild feeling, and still feels a little (or a lot) unreal. It's such an accomplishment, and I don't think I would have gotten there without you all, so thank you so, so much.

Happy Friday!

Chapter Twenty-Four

With twenty-eight days left until their NEWTs, Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup.

Lily made good on her promise—and then some, in James' opinion.

He almost wondered if she would forget the offer so off-handedly made in the prefects' bathtub, although later he would question how he could have ever considered the possibility. She never forgot anything, he'd come to realize from her near-perfect recollection of all the stunts he'd pulled to try to get her attention over the years, quite a few of which he hadn't even remembered until she brought them up. Still, the prospect of shagging her in the locker room was almost too good for reality, but that didn't stop him from hoping, or hanging back after his euphoric, exhilarated, exhausted team had vacated the locker room after the match.

He waited, just in case.

She didn't forget, of course.

She showed up with cheeks pink and hair tousled from wind, although he didn't get a good look at her face until after she'd magically secured the door. It was a good thing, because his brain immediately allowed wanting her to win out over logic. Logically, he knew they needed to lock the door, but he didn't care in that moment and probably wouldn't have let her if she'd looked at him before she'd done it, because she looked at him in a new way, one he'd always hoped to see but as yet had not.

She looked proud of him, and that played every bit into his fantasy.

He kissed her before she could say anything, and her hands became immediately impatient against his clothes. She had him nearly undressed before he managed the same with her, and she stopped him for the first time when his hands went for the zipper of her short green skirt, one she'd worn around his parents' house over Easter that she knew he very much liked. She took his hand from the zipper and led it underneath the skirt instead, and he broke from her mouth to look at her when he found her without knickers and already wet.

She smiled.

To think of her in the stands, cheering him on and aroused and just waiting for the game to end—

Well, he'd never fantasized about that, because he'd never even considered it a possibility.

It was better than he could have imagined.

That feeling only increased later when he had her up against the wall of the shower, her legs around his waist and her fingers splayed across his back. "I was so fucking proud when I was watching you," she breathed against his ear as he sped his thrusts, her lips brushing the lightest of kisses.

It hit his ego exactly where he wanted it, further aided by the way she came shortly after she'd said it, as if that had pushed her there.

He asked her to say it again after that, and she took her face from his neck to look at him while she did. The look in her eyes nearly sent him, but when she went on, he steeled himself not to come for as long as he possibly could just to hear her keep talking.

She recounted the moves he'd made during the game that she had found most impressive—evading all three Hufflepuff chasers to score, but only after sending their keeper to the wrong hoop by feinting a throw; the three goals he'd scored in under a minute thanks to Hufflepuff's particularly shoddy quaffle handling and two incredibly well-timed bludgers from Sirius; how she'd watched him captain the team as they stood at the sidelines after Hufflepuff called a timeout to deal with a broken beater's bat—

"I'd never actually watched you act as captain," she said about the latter, her hands buried deep in the back of his hair and eyes on his face. "I wish I had, because—you looked so capable and in charge and I loved it. I couldn't wait to get in here with you, because I wanted you to be in charge of me, and I knew I'd do anything you asked—"

He came at that.

He couldn't stop kissing her afterwards, not to say a word or to set her down. When she made to drop her legs from around his waist, he tightened his grip and shifted his weight to hold her there regardless. She laughed against his mouth, but she gave in and slid her legs back around him, which felt like a small victory of its own.

Eventually, he gave talking a shot. "That was—" He stopped, unsure how to even go on. He never found the right words after sex, even though he almost always tried. "Thank you, I think? I feel like I should thank you."

He watched her tip her head back to laugh breathlessly. "How very polite. I guess you're welcome. Fucking hell, your face when I started telling you all the things you'd done—well, again, it's ego all day with you, isn't it?" She didn't sound as if she minded just then. "At least it's easy to know how to please you."

In his eyes, absolutely nothing she had ever done for him qualified as 'easy.' When he told her that, she looked particularly gratified in a way that definitely looked like it was ego all day for her too.

She also looked it later when the party in the common room passed midnight with no sign of abating, and he heard Sirius call his name from a few dozen feet away. Lily sat at his side, and they were both laughing. "Is that why you almost caused a mutiny?" Sirius yelled to him, and it took a single glance at Lily to know exactly what he meant. "Now I get it!"

James didn't bother to hide his grin. He didn't think he'd be able to if he tried.

xxx

The end of terms in James' prior six years at Hogwarts were really the only times he ever had to actually buckle down and study—or at least buckle down and study as much as he was able. He never did manage a ton.

Yet all those previous sessions spent cramming and writing and practicing were nothing compared to seventh year—maybe not even all of them combined, including OWLs. With Quidditch out of the way, the stress of it all smacked him in the face. Hard. All around him, seventh years clearly agreed, and they dropped like flies from stress and exhaustion and overwork.

Notably, Catherine Wadell, a Ravenclaw girl Lily knew passingly, ended up crying in the Hospital Wing near every other day. Madam Pomphrey could do but offer a calming draught and send her away.

Equally as noticeable, Norman Tiller, the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain, made the journey to the Hospital Wing as well. He'd come down with a bad case Scrofungulus that would leave him bedridden until right before their exams. Too much stress, not enough sleep, and a poor diet had weakened his system, Madam Pomphrey had tsked, although Sirius said more than once that he thought that losing the Quidditch cup was really what had done Tiller in. When he considered how he would have felt if Gryffindor had lost, James had to agree.

Wit-sharpening potions became so highly sought-after that a potioneer could demand almost any price; in turn, sleeping and calming draughts shot up in demand as well, both for anxiety-induced insomnia and to counteract and come down from the hyperfocus of wit-sharpening potions.

"You could make a killing right now," Peter pointed out to Lily one evening. "I imagine anything you brewed would get marked up even higher, because people know you're an ace at Potions."

She smiled because Peter almost always made her smile, but in that moment she smiled with exasperation. "I'm not about to condone all this nonsense. What's the point? Wit-sharpening potions help people study, but the crutch is gone the day of our exams, so it's worthless. They'll forget most of what they've learned, if not all. Besides, what kind of Head Girl would I be if I started engaging in this?"

"I'd fence potions for you," Sirius offered. Truthfully, he looked rather enthused by the idea. "That could be mad fun. I wish I'd thought of this sooner. We could get a whole operation going—you and Remus are the brains, obviously, I'm clearly the face, Hess is—"

Marlene threw down the essay she'd grappled with correcting for near two hours. She stood up abruptly and stalked away. Even over the din of the common room, James thought he could hear her dormitory door slam after she'd marched up the stairs.

"I think it's your turn," Hestia told Lily, rapidly turning pages in an oversize Herbology tome.

"Why is it always my turn?" Lily asked. Her smile had disappeared entirely.

"Because you're better at it than I am. How many times have you had to step in and fix something I've done that made things worse? It's smarter for you to just handle her."

"Sometimes I think you antagonize her on purpose so you can use that as an excuse to avoid her when she's like this."

Hestia smiled.

"Is she alright?" Remus asked uncertainly after Lily left to follow Marlene.

"Mar? No. Are any of us alright?" Hestia closed her book and pulled another toward her from the stack that towered next to her. "She's just not cut out for this kind of stress. None of us are, but she's especially not. She feels things really intensely. It's one of her better qualities, except when it isn't."

James doubted he'd ever heard Marlene described better.

"But she'll be fine," Hestia continued. "She has to be. What's the other option? Lily will make her laugh and put her to bed with Oliver and she'll wake up and act herself."

She sounded as if she knew.

Sure enough, she did. Marlene woke up as sharp and witty as ever, and didn't address her departure the night before. Yet those episodes continued, and James noticed them more and more.

"You don't have to fucking take care of me," Marlene snapped at Lily in the common room not three days later, although under what context, James didn't know. "You're not my mum, Lily. I don't need you to keep—"

"I'm glad I'm not your mum, because between you and Charlie, she has had a miserable life." Lily unwound the blanket from around her legs, wadded it into a ball, and threw it at Marlene with surprising force. "And if I don't take care of you, who will? Luke's in a book-induced coma, you've yelled at Hessie too many times for her to give it a shot, and no one else is going to willingly tolerate your arse. I'm all you've got at this point. Accept my friendship and shut up already."

James heard Peter suck in a deep breath which he then held, clearly waiting for the explosion.

Marlene laughed instead.

"Fair," she said, spreading Lily's blanket across her own lap. "That's all very fair. But the boys are going to have to pull me through Transfiguration, and you're going to have to drag my corpse through our Potions NEWT. My literal corpse."

Lily shrugged. "I already planned to do that."

"She's overextending herself," Hestia confided in James before they finally called it a night far too late. Her voice held a rare, truly honest quality, and she clearly counted every word carefully. "Lily, that is. She's trying to prop me and Mar up, and she doesn't have the energy for it. Marlene will self-implode, but Lily…I don't know. I've seen her stressed, but never quite like this. Just keep an eye on her with me, will you?"

James saw all of the things he presumed Hestia meant—the tight nature of Lily's smile that had become almost permanent; the constant tension in her shoulders; the increased output of work that put all of them to shame, which he could only assume she accomplished after everyone else went to sleep.

"It's nothing," she assured James when he asked once in their blissful post-shag moments, some of the only peaceful times of his last weeks at Hogwarts. He knew her defenses were lower after sex, and figured that if he could ever get her to confide in him, it would be then.

It felt almost predatory to plot in such a way, but it didn't stop him.

"The Slytherins have left me alone," she went on, and even though he hadn't asked, he had certainly wondered. "Save for Transfiguration, my handle on most of my subjects has improved, and I can't be mad about Transfiguration, because it's been my enemy since first year. I expected difficulty. You make me laugh and you make me come, and that's the best help anyone can offer me right now. Things are okay. Really. I'm focused on the light at the end of the tunnel."

That muggle saying made a little more sense than most.

Still, he watched, just in case.

And even though he watched, he missed her breaking point when it happened.

One evening at dinner, they realized that none of them had seen her in hours. When they returned to the common room, Hestia checked their dorm and returned to the common room with a note,written out in Lily's neat cursive.

Needed some time to myself. Don't worry. Nothing happened. I'm fine.

"Hess, have you ever told me you're fine and actually meant it?" Sirius asked, turning the scrap of parchment in his hands thoughtfully.

Hestia's look of concern only brought James' concern higher. "No."

It only took an hour and a half for James to crack and go up to his dorm to check the map.

Really, he impressed himself for waiting that long.

He didn't know what he expected to find. Her in the prefects' bathroom, maybe, because she could all but guarantee privacy there.

Unless, of course, she was hiding in part from him, because he knew the master password to get in there even with someone occupying it.

After over a tense minute of searching among the sea of black dots that moved throughout the castle, he located her in the Astronomy Tower.

Alone.

But had she always been alone?

She had given him no reason to suspect any misdeed, but his mind went there on habit alone, and once the thought had taken root…

Well, it plagued him for the rest of the night, and it would until he took one look at her face in the morning and realized the stupidity of his worries.

She didn't return to the common room before he went to bed. When he checked the map again, he saw her still in the Astronomy Tower—a single dot, all alone.

xxx

The next morning, she tried to take a page out of Marlene's book. She began by acting entirely normal, and didn't reference her absence.

In turn, no one else dared reference it either.

"Lily, love, chess tonight?" Sirius asked at breakfast.

The subtext of his question came through loud and clear despite his word. Are you okay? he obviously asked.

"I can't," she said. "I told Hagrid I would stop by and see him."

The subtext of her answer came through loud and clear despite her words. No.

Sirius surveyed her as he took a long drink. "Did you now?"

It clearly wasn't the question he wanted to ask.

"Yes."

It clearly wasn't the response he wanted her to give.

"When did he ask you?" Remus asked. He sounded entirely casual, as mild as ever, although his brown eyes looked sharper than usual.

"Yesterday." She had taken to shredding a piece of toast with her fingers, never a good sign. "I ran into him on the grounds. He invited me to come see him."

It was more of an answer than James expected her to give.

The post arrived in time for her to avoid anymore questions.

She took the commotion of the owls' screeching and beating of wings to lean across the table towards James. "I don't want you to worry," she said, her words short but her tone not unkind. "You and I are fine. Nothing has happened there. I just need some space from everything. It's not you."

It was again more of an answer than he expected her to give, even though it wasn't really an answer at all.

"You and I are fine," he repeated skeptically, and she nodded. "Are you fine?"

She didn't mince words, and dropped her attempts to barrel through things like Marlene, her careful veneer slipping. "No. I'm not. I'll tell you when I can. Tomorrow, I hope."

An owl dropped a scroll of parchment on her plate. James watched her unfurl and then read the words in about the same time as it took him to breathe.

"Tomorrow," she said with more conviction, and she pushed the letter across the table to him. She stood so suddenly that Peter, seated at her side, nearly upset his plate into his lap. "It's nothing that can't wait a day, and I need a day." She clearly directed the words to all of them, although he saw her eyes linger on Hestia the longest. She'd given up the pretense of normality entirely. "I'm skivving. I'll see you all later."

With that, she left.

Lily Evans, skivving off class with mere weeks left until their NEWTs.

Unbelievable.

Hestia immediately moved as if to follow her, but Sirius looped an arm around her shoulders and brought her back down almost before she'd left her seat. He'd clearly anticipated the action. "Let her be," he said, and he sounded quite serious, no hint of a joke to lighten the mood. Hestia shot him a caustic look in return. "I mean it, Hess. Let her be. If you follow her, she'll take it as pity, and that would just make whatever this is worse. Alright?"

Really, James reflected later, Sirius could very well have described himself just then.

Still, he wasn't wrong.

Hestia dressed him down in private for making her stay, Sirius would tell James later, his grin rueful. She firmly believed in keeping their disagreements quiet, although her stormy expression gave away the fact that a disagreement loomed. Apparently, she hadn't taken kindly to his words.

James unrolled the parchment Lily had left with him. He'd only seen the handwriting once before, but he recognized its neat, slanted characteristics as Dumbledore's immediately, even without a signature.

Tomorrow at 7:00. "Candyfloss."

After dinner that evening, after seeing not a glimpse of Lily all day, James had grown desperate enough to check the map again.

She wasn't in the Astronomy Tower, or in the prefects' bathroom. She wasn't in the library, or brewing in the dungeon.

The miniscule dot marked Lily Evans stood in the center of Greenhouse One. As he watched, the dot moved back and forth just a fraction of an inch, as if she paced, although it could have been his eyes playing tricks.

The only other dot in the greenhouse never moved. The name sent bile into James' throat.

Severus Snape.

xxx

"Don't know what to tell you," Sirius said grimly the next morning before the Marauders headed down for breakfast. The night before, James had bounded down the stairs, demanded Sirius follow him, and thrust the map under his nose the second they entered their dorm. He almost expected a lecture from Sirius on his use of the map to track Lily's movements, but it never came. Pure curiosity (and significant distaste, as Sirius felt about everything involving Snape) had trumped that, it seemed, and they had sat and watched the map for far longer than James wanted to admit, waiting to see the situation play out. "Said she'd talk to you tonight, didn't she? Leave off until then. If you see her, that is. She might avoid us all day again."

She didn't. She sat at breakfast placidly, attended their classes with her usual rapt attention and participation, and chatted so easily with everyone during dinner that it made James question just how often she lied to him.

After all, she had proven herself skilled enough that he'd never know.

Questions plagued him throughout the day.

What were you doing with Snape last night? he wanted to ask when he watched her take notes in Charms.

Why did you only mention going to Hagrid's when I watched you go there only after leaving the greenhouses? he wanted to ask as she chatted with Remus at lunch.

Why did Snape stay behind after you left, and for near on an hour? he wanted to ask during a particularly dull section in History of Magic.

And why does he look like he does today?

Snape looked more sallow and sour than usual, James had thought the moment he'd located him in the Great Hall that morning. He saw Snape snap at a trio of nearby first- or second-years at Slytherin's table, but he didn't engage with his dirtbag friends afterwards. He sat silent and still, like an angry, greasy statue.

That anger only increased when he caught James looking at him.

James never did know if Snape had somehow felt him staring, or if he had looked towards the Gryffindor table to catch a glimpse of Lily, although he suspected the latter. While Lily remained ostensibly oblivious to his attention, he and James locked eyes for several long, burning moments.

Snape hated him.

He'd always known it, ever since the first week of their first year. He'd always returned that feeling readily and without question.

But the way Snape glared at him in those seconds surpassed any sort of usual rage, or any rage James had ever seen from him, worse than when he and Snape had dueled infinite times, or when he'd caught him unaware with some jinx or hex or curse, or when he'd pranked him, or when he'd mocked him loudly for the whole of Hogwarts to see.

Oh, he hated James, and somehow more than ever, something James wouldn't have thought possible until that moment. He'd assumed Snape's hatred for him had already maxed out, but he'd been proven wrong.

James didn't have to ask why. He knew without question that it had everything to do with Lily.

It should have brought him nothing but vicious pride and victory to see Snape look at him with the clear knowledge that James had won, as it had when Snape had seen him patrolling with Lily over Christmas break. He'd won her affections in at least friendship. Beyond that, James knew that his continued clear romantic interest in her had to bother Snape, and the obvious way she suddenly publicly tolerated his advances had to sting more. Yet he knew that it didn't even need to go that far for Snape to hate him.

James had won even if he'd only secured Lily as his friend.

James had won because he sat just one person away from her, close enough to hear her laugh and to reach out and touch her if he wanted.

James had won because Lily's eyes flashed to him even while she spoke to anyone else, almost as if she couldn't help it, just as he couldn't help looking to her.

James had won because she smiled at him without reason, that pretty, dimpled smile that lit up the world.

Snape had none of that.

He had lost, and he clearly knew it.

That should have brought James joy.

Instead, it made him nervous.

xxx

"Severus Snape is a Death Eater," Lily said without preamble the moment she and James had taken up chairs in the Headmaster's office that evening. With her words, she pulled a thick stack of parchment from her bag and dropped the entirety on the gleaming surface of Dumbledore's desk.

James' stomach lurched.

He wasn't surprised, necessarily, but…

Well, the war suddenly felt uncomfortably close.

They only had eighteen more days before they were thrust right into it.

Dumbledore's expression hadn't changed at her words, although his eyes had gotten somehow brighter. "You're quite sure?" he asked calmly. He didn't look down at the parchment she'd left on his desk. Across the top, James could see a dense Arithmancy chart, probably one of the many he'd watched Lily pour over with his mum during break.

In the time of break After Lily, seeing them work together had always made his chest hum with happiness.

Suddenly, the charts brought him nothing but a heady sense of foreboding.

"Yes. They all are—him and Avery and Travers and Mulciber and Nott." She spit Nott's name out with particular venom, so much that James wondered if Dumbledore noticed the difference in her tone. He could only see her profile, because she stared resolutely at the headmaster, but he could see anger turning her cheek red, and assumed the other matched. Her collarbone had flushed as well. "I confronted him. He confirmed that they're all in it, and they'll join the ranks come June."

Fuck.

Unable to stop himself, James reached over and took her hand. She let him, but it almost looked like she didn't notice his touch.

"And the charts here?" Based on Dumbledore's voice, it sounded like he already knew, or at least had some idea.

"Hestia got hit by a spell during the Death Eater attack in March. She almost bled out, because Professor Sprout couldn't heal it, but I could."

"I remember. Professor Sprout gave you fifty house points for it. I thought it a paltry number when considering the value of Ms. Jones' life, but I think Pomona simply didn't know what else to do." Something shifted in Dumbledore's face that made him look more kindly than before. "What have you discovered?"

Lily didn't mince words.

"I worked backwards with the incantation I used. It took me ages. I finally cracked it two days ago." She took her hand out of James' so she could run both through her long hair. Her words came out more broken than before, as broken as James had ever heard them. "A bit of it hit me after Hestia went down, but I managed to mostly dodge it. It—Professor, it felt like magic I knew. I don't know how else to put it. I knew the spell was one of Sev's, but I wanted—I needed to prove it. These charts prove it. I watched him start working on a spell our third year—I helped him start it, but it wasn't—what happened to Hestia wasn't anything like what we had worked on together. It started as a lark, a way to trim parchment because he never managed to get the lines quite right, just a simple cutting spell, but he's clearly taken it in a different direction entirely. When it felt like his magic that hit me, I recognized the spell. The root of the spell had stayed the same, so I knew how to heal her, thank god, but—"

Sev.

James had never heard her call him that before. It sounded harsh against his ears, like a curse dirtier than any he knew.

He didn't need her to finish her thoughts to understand her sheer agony. She struggled to wipe the expression off her face several times before she finally gave up and let the feeling spread. She pressed a hand over her face immediately.

But if I hadn't helped him create it, none of this would have happened, her silence declared.

"Mr. Snape was in the castle at the time of the attack," Dumbledore said. "The heads of houses accounted for all students. He wasn't involved."

Lily didn't look up. "That doesn't matter. He was indirectly involved. He made the spell. He showed it to them last summer, when he and all the rest committed to Voldemort's cause. He told me."

Dumbledore stood up abruptly. After closing the short distance to a nearby cabinet, he began to make tea.

A long silence stretched across the room.

James took Lily's hand again. Her fingers shook under his, but just barely. She turned to look at him for the first time since they'd entered Dumbledore's office, and he saw her jaw set stubbornly.

"I couldn't tell you earlier," she said, almost as if she'd read his mind. He'd absolutely already sworn a bit in his head with a hot flash of irritation, angry she had kept that sort of information from him for forty-eight hours. "I waited because I can't go through this twice for my own good, and because I wanted Professor Dumbledore to agree with me that you can't ever tell Sirius. I think he would literally kill Snape if he found out he had anything to do with what happened to Hestia."

Oh.

Fuck.

He hadn't thought of that.

Fuck.

"He would," James admitted without a doubt, his heart pounding painfully in his throat. After all, Sirius had already tried to kill Snape by sacrificing him as a meal to one of their best mates, and Snape hadn't even done anything at that point other than exist and hurl curses and be Lily's friend. For James, the latter had mattered a lot in his dislike, and he knew his dislike had only aided in Sirius'. They were loyal to each other like that. "He really would. I'll never tell him."

"Do you swear?"

"Yes. I'm not about to lose him to Azkaban."

He didn't know if his words or his tone or his expression mollified her, but after a breath, she looked like she believed him.

"The origins of this particular spell will never leave this room," Dumbledore said. It wasn't a request. He levitated teacups on saucers to them both. James took it, although he doubted he'd take a single sip. "You confronted Mr. Snape?" Dumbledore asked Lily after he'd settled into his chair again, his own teacup between his wizened hands.

"I did."

"Without telling anyone." James couldn't help it. It came out as a question, not a statement, and he sounded more bitter than he would have liked. "Do you know what he—"

"Of course I know what he could have done," she snapped. Despite it all—the sick, dawning realization of the allegiance of the seventh-year Slytherins; Hestia's near brush with death coming indirectly from Snape's hands; Lily's reckless decision to see Snape alone—that tone still sent a little half-scared, half-excited jolt through his body. "But I knew he wouldn't. You can think that's stupid if you'd like, and I expect you will, but I knew he wouldn't do anything to me. I know him, there wasn't—"

"If you know him so well, did you see any of this coming? Not the Death Eater shit, because I'm hardly surprised the lot of them have thrown in that way, but the—"

Dumbledore set down his teacup, and just the tiniest clatter of china stopped James short. Later, he considered thanking the headmaster for intervening, because he'd forgotten he even sat there, too wrapped up in the anger in Lily's eyes that matched something dark and furious bubbling in his chest. Without the interruption, James didn't doubt that things between them would have burst into a full-on row then and there.

"Ms. Evans, please tell me about your conversation with Mr. Snape." Dumbledore's eyes had again gone sharply keen. "Spare no detail. I want to know everything you remember."

To James' total lack of surprise, Lily remembered a lot.

She had sent Snape a letter immediately after finally cracking her Arithmancy charts, writing only a few words. Herbology Greenhouse one, 8:00 tonight. She had left it unsigned, because she knew he wouldn't need to see her name for him to know her writing.

(That bothered James near as much as the moment before when she'd slipped and called him Sev, although nothing, truly, was worse than that.)

The second Snape had walked in the greenhouse, she had thrown an entire stack of parchment at him, a duplicate copy of the chart she'd placed on Dumbledore's desk. "You lied," she had yelled at him. She finally explained then that she'd confronted him about it all the day of the Death Eater attack, that row in the corridors that James had only heard vague tell of from his friends, who had heard it from hers.

Confronting her red-faced fury head-on, Snape had sworn to her that day that he hadn't been involved.

(Technically, James had to admit, it was kind of the truth.)

Before that she hadn't spoken to him in months, not since summer when he'd attempted to see her twice. The first, which took place somewhere near her parents' house, had made her simply Apparate away after telling him very tersely that she didn't intend to talk to him then or ever. The second, he had actually knocked on her door. Her father had sent him away without Lily even telling him to. Apparently Mr. Evans had gotten used to it, as Snape had tried to talk to her the summes before as well. She hadn't spoken more than a sentence or two to him since the end of fifth year, and had planned to keep it that way.

(Shame burrowed deep in James' gut. Did he imagine that she looked at Dumbledore more pointedly than before, refusing to so much as acknowledge him for his part in their falling out?)

In the greenhouse the evening before, Snape had picked up the sheaves of parchment wordlessly and set to silently looking them over.

"I wasn't part of that attack," he had told her eventually. "I would never do something like that to you—"

She had, in her words, "totally lost it at that."

Two years of vitriol came pouring out of her.

Suddenly, just as she couldn't look at James, she also couldn't look at Dumbledore. Propping her elbow up on the armrest of her chair, she put her face in her free hand, the one James didn't hold. She sat that way for the remainder of her recollection.

It didn't matter if he wouldn't do something like that to her, she had yelled. (James didn't doubt that she paraphrased by that point, because he would have bet his broomstick that she'd sworn a lot more than she was willing to repeat in front of Dumbledore.) It mattered that he would do that to anyone, because she was no different than any other mudblood he and his friends wanted to eradicate.

(James winced at the slur. Dumbledore didn't. He watched Lily impassively, never showing an ounce of emotion.)

And he clearly didn't care about her like he wanted her to believe, she had gone on, because he had stood by silently while his housemates and friends had done and said things to her for years. During their friendship, he had offered her private words of sympathy. After they'd fallen out, he hadn't even given her that.

He would get them to stop, he promised. They would leave her alone.

She had, in her words, "totally lost it even more."

"I started hurling potted plants at him," she admitted. What James could see of her face had flushed entirely. "I knew they weren't anything dangerous, and I fixed it all before I left, but I shouldn't have done it. Please don't tell Professor Sprout."

Of course she would worry about something like that even amidst her very clear pain.

Dumbledore acted as if he'd gone mysteriously deaf for only that admission. He gestured for her to continue.

She had gone in on Snape.

She had told him every last horrible, nasty thing his friends had put her through when he wasn't around. She didn't go into detail in her retelling, but she said that it had taken nearly twenty minutes for her to get through it all, and James believed her. After all, she had shown him that she rarely forgot a thing. He didn't doubt that she'd committed to memory everything any of the Slytherins had ever done to her—or maybe she simply couldn't forget.

She had also told Snape every last horrible, nasty thing his friends had done to other people she knew—some of which she knew he'd been involved in too. That had taken even longer.

By that time, she'd nearly shouted herself hoarse.

She had told him what she'd been through during the Hogsmeade attack, everything she'd felt and heard and seen. And while she hadn't told him about the curse in her leg, she had had added that she would deal with some effects of it all for the rest of her life. Even if he promised that he wasn't there, she had said, she would never look at him without again without assuming that he was.

Beyond that, she would never look at him again without thinking about his hand in her best friend almost dying in front of her eyes.

In truth, she had told him, she never wanted to look at him again.

He'd flinched at that.

She had run out of pots to throw.

So he had talked.

It had all came out almost incoherently, his apology mixed with attempts at justification, combined with excuses, and peppered with information throughout.

He'd had joined with Voldemort's followers late the prior summer. All of his friends had, and he had said that he could hardly stand as the only one out.

She'd very much regretted throwing all the pots at that moment, because she had really wanted to throw one then.

He'd shown some of the Death Eaters a few of his spells, but he hadn't thought much of it at the time, he swore. He had no way of knowing that it would affect her at all. How could he?

She'd wanted something to throw even more. It wasn't just about her, she had snapped, but he had gone on as if she hadn't spoken.

No matter what happened, he had promised, he would never hurt her. And he would do absolutely everything he could to keep anyone else from hurting her too. He knew the Dark Lord would understand. She was bright, she was talented, and everyone who'd ever seen her at Hogwarts knew it. Voldemort had made exceptions to blood status before. If he could talk to him—

She hadn't let him finish.

She was going to be an Auror, she had told him.

He'd looked stricken at that, and had opened his mouth as if to dissuade her.

She was going to be an Auror, she had repeated, and she knew what that meant.

It meant that they would end up seeing each other in some time and place where they stood on opposite sides.

It meant that his friends would stand beside him, and when they recognized her, they would treat her as she knew they had always wanted to, because fear of expulsion wouldn't hold them back.

"I repaired everything," she said. Her voice had gone toneless and flat. "And I said something like, 'And once we're out there, I won't hesitate either. You picked your path. I picked mine. I'll do what I have to do, even with you. I expect you to do the same with me. You always have, haven't you?' Then…I told him I'd never speak to him again, because he'd broken my heart for the last fucking time, and I left."

Silence fell over the room for a long while.

"I went to Hagrid's," she said eventually. Oddly, it sounded as if she almost smiled, although tremulously. "He took one look at me and made me tea that was basically all whiskey and let me sit with his dog until I'd gotten myself together. He'd seen me on the grounds the day before on my way back from the owlry, clearly upset, and he'd told me I should come help him feed a unicorn he'd been nursing back to health. He made it sound like I would be doing him a favor because unicorns prefer women, even though it was clearly an excuse. I was glad to have somewhere to go, and somewhere where I knew no one would ask me too many questions. He's so kind and really, truly lovely."

"Make sure that you tell him that," Dumbledore said. "He would very much like to hear it." He paused. "Ms. Evans, to my knowledge, there's little record of the seventh-year Slytherin men dueling anyone except Mr. Potter and his friends, although they do end up with all manner of mysterious odds and ailments and inconveniences, especially lately."

James tried not to squirm. It wasn't easy. A lump had risen in his throat, and it took everything he had to fight that down, which left very little energy to mask anything else.

"No, there wouldn't be," Lily said. "You figure out pretty quickly that it only makes things worse to say anything, and they make it difficult to say anything anyway because of the way they go about it. It's complicated, but there's an internal system that deals with things. It's not perfect, but it works."

Corridor justice.

Dumbledore nodded. He looked thoughtful.

James didn't know it then—how could he?—but things would change the next year. The harassment of muggleborn students would never go away entirely throughout the war, but it would get a little better.

Corridor justice would still have its place, of course. The next year, Mary Macdonald would lead the way, and when Lily would find out, she would look unendingly proud.

"I'm not sure what you want to do with all of this information," Lily said to Dumbledore. "I just thought you should know. There was a little more to it with Sev, but it was all personal. We argued about some issues in our past—our friendship before Hogwarts, some things with my sister, how things changed once we got here—and he had words about James and his friends, which didn't surprise me. But none of that it pertinent to all the rest. Like I said, it was all personal."

Sev.

Wait, what?

James opened and closed his mouth, unsure what he would even say.

That he bothered Snape enough for him to bring him up should have given him another shot of vicious victory, but again, it didn't.

How could it when she looked so fucking sad?

"I'm sorry, Ms. Evans." Dumbledore did look it. "But thank you, just the same. Knowing how to heal a curse like that—it's invaluable."

Normally, praise like that from Dumbledore would have sent the eager student in her into infectious excitement. Instead, she just nodded. "It's all there in the charts, both the curse and the counter-curse."

"I'm also sorry for what we've asked of you in the Order." Lily looked up at Dumbledore's words, although she didn't remove her hand from her face. Rather, she shifted it down to cover up her lower half, part of her nose and all of mouth and some of her jaw, so only her eyes peered over. "And I'm sorry for how you were asked. You'll deal with Alastor primarily on this, because you'll see him day-to-day, so I thought it best he sit you down, but…I realize that was a mistake. Alice Prewett made that very clear to me afterwards."

Although James couldn't see Lily's mouth, he thought she might have smiled.

"I'd like to reiterate what I hope Alastor made clear: this is of the utmost importance, and I know you are beyond capable. I wouldn't ask it of you otherwise."

It didn't matter that only half of Lily's face showed. James could see that she'd clearly forgiven him of any lingering ill-feelings.

Again, 'forgiving'perhaps topped the list of her attributes.

Later, James wouldn't know exactly why the pieces of his brain fit together just right in that exact moment. He would attribute it to his thoughts on Lily's forgiving nature, and how she'd forgiven him and his friends—primarily him and Sirius—with almost too much ease after years of harassment, combined with a certain sourness that filled his mouth at Dumbledore's use of the word 'capable.'

"Sirius."

The name left his mouth before he really thought about it.

Lily turned to look at him with her eyebrows high on her forehead.

In contrast, Dumbledore merely blinked.

James set his untouched tea onto Dumbledore's desk. "Sirius. Is it possible to get Sirius in at the Department of Transportation? He doesn't exactly have a plan for where to work after school, so it wouldn't disrupt anything in his life. And the Ministry has cars, don't they? Sirius is obsessed with cars. It's a logical fit. I reckon he knows more about them than most muggles. They must need—kept up, I don't know, whatever he goes on about with how they work. That would fall under Transportation's jurisdiction, wouldn't it? Is there any way to get him in there?"

Dumbledore set his tea down too.

James found himself unexpectedly on a roll.

"He's a pureblood. Mulciber would take to that, right? At least a little? It has to be enough to get him in the door, at least until Mulciber realizes Sirius doesn't get on with his family. Still, that might take a bit, after he's already hired, and then they'd see he's good at it all. It would work especially well if Slughorn recommended him, and he might, if Sirius asked him. No, if Lily asked him. He would definitely do it then."

He could almost see the wheels turn in Lily's head.

"Sirius would have to be with me if I asked, so it seemed offhanded, not planned," she said slowly, tapping her fingertips against her lips in thought. Her gaze looked suddenly far away. "It would look suspicious otherwise. Slughorn did talk about doing a final Slug Club dinner before the end of term. I could press him on that, and he'd certainly do it—he loves an excuse to entertain. I could tell him then that I saw Mulciber over break—I haven't said anything to him yet, because I didn't know if I should—and mention that I'd visited Transportation. If Sirius is there with me, he could throw in that he'd thought of applying there because of his passion for cars, and if I acted enthused about it and padded Slughorn's ego enough—well, he'd go for it."

James didn't doubt it.

He turned to look at Dumbledore.

Lily did too.

They waited.

"You're proposing we bring Mr. Black into the Order." It wasn't a question, and James did his best to meet Dumbledore's gaze. "Do you trust him?"

He didn't hesitate. "With my life."

"I do too." Dumbledore hadn't asked her, but Lily had answered anyway. James' eyes snapped back to her immediately, and he found her face resolute, with no problem looking back into Dumbledore's eyes. "Effie and Fleamont parent both of them; he and James are brothers. You would understand if you saw it. They're family, and the kind of family that can depend on each other. That's not always the case." She knew that very well herself, after all. "Of all of our friends—I would trust Sirius the most. Even more than Hestia or Marlene. He's that devoted to James."

Oh, Sirius was going to have a field day with that.

Assuming Hestia and Marlene let him live long enough to enjoy it, if they ever found out.

James' stared at her. His breath had caught in his throat and stuck there as she spoke. Her opinion had changed massively since the night Sirius had overheard him talking to his parents.

At the same time, for reasons he couldn't explain, it didn't surprise him.

Sirius and Lily just clicked.

"A ringing endorsement." Dumbledore didn't smile or laugh, so he clearly meant it, and genuinely. "You're certain he would agree to this? Not just attempting something in the Department of Transportation, but to the Order? To the fight? To whatever else he might be asked to do?"

James didn't hesitate again. "Yes. His family disowned him for hating the Dark Arts. You saw him after the Hogsmeade attack over Christmas break, Professor. He hates them for what they believe." A flicker of a memory flashed through his brain. "And he didn't mention anything about thinking he saw his cousin there that day, not on the official record, remember? He realized you didn't want him to, and he stopped talking about it immediately. I know he's reckless sometimes, but less so this year. He's observant, and he'd take your direction."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers. He gave James a swift, searching look somehow entirely different than the one Lily had given him so often, although it made James just as uncomfortable. "This wouldn't change anything for Ms. Evans. We couldn't simply replace her. Mr. Black would serve as an addition, and a helpful one at that. We would have eyes in the department at all times with him there. It's a truly merited suggestion. But Mulciber will respond better to Ms. Evans than a new, lowly hire, no matter his family."

That knocked some of the wind out of James' sails.

"He will underestimate her entirely," Dumbledore went on. "A young, muggleborn witch who he sees only as a romantic connection for an employee he favors? Auror training or not, he won't think of her as a potential threat if she doesn't act like one. Now, Mr. Black on the other hand? If he were to go about asking questions in the wrong way, that could raise suspicions. The second Mulciber realizes that Mr. Black's views don't align with his, he'll get suspicious anyway. Perhaps not overly so, but he will certainly question how and why Mr. Black has gone against his family. He'll watch him closely."

James didn't miss that Dumbledore had slipped into talking about Sirius and Mulciber's interactions as if he totally planned for them to take place.

"And Mulciber likes women," Lily added. She clearly controlled her face, because only a fraction of her distaste showed. "He would much rather show off to a woman than a man. It's very obvious. Professor—" She broke off for a moment, and her words, already carefully selected, came out even more intentionally. "I'm going to have to tell him that I know his son. It would look suspicious otherwise."

"What do you propose?"

For the first time, Lily looked a little flattered, like Dumbledore's blatant request for her opinion had finally hit her like James knew it should. She fiddled with her sleeve for a moment, perhaps basking in the feeling, before she looked up. Her words came out decisively. "I would play it like a joke," she said. "I'd say something about how I had classes with his son, and the younger Mulciber could never get past inter-house rivalries, which meant we hadn't gotten along. Of course the older Mulciber would know it wasn't about houses but blood status, but he'd probably like it if I didn't actually know that, so I'd act like I didn't. I expect he'd say something about how he would have happily set those differences aside for a pretty woman, so he couldn't understand his son's logic, or something like it. He seems the type to pull a bit like that. I wouldn't mention anything about how the younger Mulciber and I have…disagreed. If the older Mulciber asks, the younger will certainly have things to say about me, and none of them good. But I expect anything he'd say would just make the older Mulciber think of me as even less of a threat."

James could almost hear the words as she had spoken them, her tone all casual, pulled directly from Nott's mouth.

Mudblood slut.

Filthy cunt.

Fuck.

His head started to pound.

"Sirius could follow that up with saying something similar about Slytherin and Gryffindor," Lily added, almost an afterthought. "Because he'd have to admit it too. The younger Mulciber would certainly have a lot to say about Sirius too, and I think you're right, Professor. All that would make the older Mulciber more suspicious of Sirius than it would me. But…eyes on the ground, right? Mulciber and Greg might not talk to Sirius, but he would at least be there."

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Tell Mr. Black to come see me tomorrow evening," he said after a brief, almost tense pause. "Don't tell him why. I'd like to take the measure of him myself."

xxx

It took a surprising amount of effort for James to convince Lily to go to the prefects' bathroom with him after they bid Dumbledore farewell. Trying to coax and cajole her next to the ugly stone gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore's office, he realized she'd spoiled him of late.

He hadn't missed having to truly work to convince her to do something, and he felt almost out of practice.

Still, he felt as if he'd won when she capitulated and followed him there. With the fifth-floor corridor deserted, they ducked behind Boris the Bewildered together, unafraid of getting caught.

Yet once he had had her there, standing in the silence of the candlelit bathroom, James had no idea what he planned to do or say. He only knew that he should do or say something, because he couldn't imagine going back to the common room and performing for their friends without talking to her.

Lily went immediately for the bench and sat down. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, clearly beyond exhausted. Just seeing her there, even though fully clothed and immobile and obviously in the midst of turmoil, instantly reminded James of sex.

He almost hoped Marlene was right and the way he felt was a stage. Wanting Lily often felt like a full-time job.

"How are you?" he asked finally.

"A mess."

At least she admitted it. She didn't try to lie. That relaxed him just a little.

He went to sit next to her, although not as close as he might have under normal circumstances. He had no idea what she would do if he touched her, but the two words she'd offered had him convinced she had nearly hit that breaking point Hestia had talked about, and more fully and truly than in the days just passed.

He also didn't fully trust himself to touch her, because even just holding her hand ended up with him wanting to touch her more and more.

"I know that you're mad at me," she added. "You don't have to act like you aren't."

Whatever he'd expected, it hadn't been that.

"What?" He turned to stare at her, but she hadn't moved and her eyes had remained closed. "I'm not mad at you."

"Don't just answer reflexively like that. I saw your face in Dumbledore's office. You're mad. Actually thinkabout it for a second."

If she hadn't looked so near the end of her rope, he might have pushed back. But when she looked like she did just then—shoulders slumped, mouth pressed tight, eyes squeezed even tighter as if she couldn't stand the thought of seeing the world ever again—

Well, he was helpless against that. He always would be.

It felt unbearably stupid to sit there in silence, staring at her, wondering what on earth she talked about. What even was there to think about? What the hell did she expect him to see if he turned introspective?

One minute passed by, and then two and three, with the silence growing only more deafening with each one.

But then suddenly—

Oh.

She had it right, even if he had pushed it down underneath concern for her. He was mad.

Truly, anger towards her would simmer underneath the surface for months to come, only getting worse, never better, until it finally all came out. He would come to understand that he wasn't angry at her, but at the situation, as she had told him she felt before break had ended. Yet he found those two things nearly impossible to separate, and when choosing a target for that frustration, he had to pick between a real, living person and an abstract concept.

People were always easier to feel bitterly towards, even—perhaps especially—loved ones.

All of that had started to fester just a little bit already, but that wasn't what angered him just then. What angered him was her choice to keep Snape's involvement secret from him for two days; how she had pulled away so entirely without explanation over it, which left him spiraling; and her truly stupid, irresponsible, terrifying decision to meet Snape alone after everything she knew about him. Thinking of her vulnerability, and the things that could have happened—

Sev.

He suddenly felt nauseous.

"I'm mad," he admitted after it became clear that she wouldn't speak until he did. That only kicked up his irritation all the further. "You're right. I'm mad." She nodded silently, and he didn't need more prompting to go on. He heard his voice turn colder with each word, but couldn't stop himself. "You should have told me. We're supposed to be in all of this together, aren't we? We're not in this together if you don't trust me, even though you apparently trust him."

He knew a low blow when he heard one, let alone when he said one himself.

"Do you really not understand why I wouldn't talk to you about him?"

Had she avoided using Snape's name on purpose? He absolutely had.

"After everything, all you've put him through—all you've put each other through—you can't understand why I'd hesitate to tell you something like this?" If his voice had gone colder, hers had gotten more heated, although her expression hadn't shifted. Only her voice betrayed her emotions. "You're both irrational about each other. You always have been. I've watched you hex him just for fun. I've seen him send curses at you without reason. I know how you two are with each other. I trust you, but not when it comes to him. I don't trust him when it comes to you either."

"What did he say about me?" He couldn't resist, not that he really tried.

"Why, so you can go pick a fight with him?"

Honestly, kind of, but he wasn't about to admit that.

"You promised to let me deal with my interactions with the Slytherins myself unless I said otherwise," she reminded him. "That includes him. You gave me your word, and you don't get to go after him just for slagging you off. You've done the same to him, but in front of the entire school and repeatedly. I haven't forgotten."

She'd hit low too.

A hot flash of something—anger, certainly, but guilt as well—burned in his throat. "That was a long time ago. I haven't done that to him at all this year. I mean, we've dueled, and yeah, the lads and I have pranked him, but it's not like—"

"Is this because you're jealous?"

The question threw him entirely for a loop, so much so that he almost physically reeled.

"What?"

"Is this because you're jealous?" she repeated. She opened her eyes then, and he wished she'd close them, because he didn't trust his face not to give away every bit of how he felt.

"Should I be jealous? You two never—"

He couldn't finish the question.

"No."

James felt his stomach unclench with relief.

"But I loved him just the same."

It felt like a physical blow.

The floor dropped out from underneath him. His chest ached. Every part of him went uncontrollably tense.

"It was never romantic," she said, the words quicker than the careful way she spoke before and then after. "But I loved him like I love Hestia and Marlene, and—"

"It's romantic for him. You get that, right?"

For a second, Lily looked like she might disagree, and James couldn't help it.

Horrible feelings and all, he laughed.

"Are you joking me with that?" he asked. "You are, right? You could ask anyone and they'd tell you that he's obsessed with you. Hell, even Binns probably knows, and he doesn't even know that he's dead. Ask him in class. He'll set you straight."

"Stop." Unlike the way she usually said it, laughing or smiling and often smacking at him lightly, she sounded as if she meant it.

"If you think I wasn't subtle about liking you—do you have any idea how obvious he is? How obvious he's always been?Don't play dumb. It's not believable. You're too smart for that."

"So it's because you're jealous." She no longer phrased it as a question.

"That's not—"

"That's notit? That's not at least part of it?" She waited for a beat, as if to let him disagree, and she launched forward when he didn't immediately speak, her words speeding up with every moment. "You can act like you're mad that I waited two days to tell you something that fucking destroyedme emotionally because it was something I've dreaded happening for years. Fine. I'm sorry for giving myself the time to process what all of this meant, and that I didn't want to tell you once and then have to go through it with Dumbledore a second time. Even thinking about it makes me feel sick, let alone talking about it. I'm sorry. Is that better?"

No, not really, but he didn't tell her that. He might have, if she'd let him get a word in edgewise.

"And you can pretend I didn't tell you right away because I don't trust you, but I never had to tell you at all. I could have gone to Dumbledore by myself, and you never would have known. I thought about it, because are irrational about him and I didn't know if I should trust you not to fly off the handle or go straight to Sirius. But I included you, even though I didn't have to, because I do trust you. You can get mad that I waited to tell you, but you don't get to be mad at me because you're jealous that he was once my best friend. That's what so much of this is."

When she finished, he waited for her to get up and leave. He could clearly see her doing it—standing, throwing some parting shot over her shoulder, exiting with him convinced that she'd never talk to him again—because she had done it before, and in that same room. Hoping to head that off, he went to take her hand to hold her there if he had to. She threw him off immediately, but she didn't get up. She stared at him, waiting, challenge all over her face, and just recognizing the challenge in her expression reminded him of that last time she had looked at him in a way close to it while in that room. She had been on her knees in front of him on that very bench.

Yes, he absolutely hoped Marlene was right and wanting Lily so badly was a phase. How the hell was he supposed to function otherwise?

He forced himself to think.

She had made a fairly decent point, and he hated it.

He hit back with the only thing he could conjure. "You shouldn't have gone to see him by yourself."

"What, who would have gone with me? You? Yeah, that would have gone brilliantly." She scoffed. "Look, act like that's the only reason you're really mad about if you want. I don't care anymore. But you're right—I'm not dumb and I'm not playing it. You've always hated him more than the other Slytherins, and I saw that get much worse when you started openly fancying me. The correlation is obvious. If I'd met up with Mulciber or Avery or one of the others, you wouldn't have liked it, but you wouldn't have looked at me like I'd fucking betrayed you when I said I'd seen him. You still look a bit like that."

"He's in love with you."

"If you're right, that means I judged him correctly and he wouldn't turn his wand on me, doesn't it? So I was never in any danger."

James took off his glasses and tossed them down on the bench next to him. His eyes burned. His mind burned. "You're protecting him by not telling me what he said. It's obvious. Of course I don't like that."

"I'm protecting you. Do you not see that? With him, with Nott, with all the rest? You don't need to know specifics when knowing the general upsets you enough. The term is almost over. Fighting with them now won't do you any good, and you'll have plenty of chances to fight them the second we're out. That should make you happy enough to let it go for now."

In that moment it truly did make him happy, even as he heard how unhappy it made her.

"You're the most frustrating person I've ever met." He'd meant to think it, not say it, but the separation between brain and mouth always became blurrier with her around.

"Back at you."

He looked up from where he'd taken to cradling the bridge of his nose. "You don't—"

He cut himself off without even planning to. With absolutely no conscious thought at all, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and kissed her.

Later, he realized he should have figured out that he was going to crack and put it on her eventually, and felt stupid for not seeing it sooner. After all, he'd thought immediately of shagging her only seconds after they'd gotten there. Watching her get mad at him hadn't decreased that, but unsurprisingly had had the opposite effect. Really, it could hardly help that they fought specifically about Snape either. How many combined hours had she spent yelling at him for tormenting Snape? How many of those hours were the only times she would talk to him during those years—about anything at all, ever? How badly had he wanted her that entire time without the ability to do a thing about it?

He didn't know the answers to the first two questions, but he knew the answer to the third: desperately.

That was how he felt all over again, just desperate for her, in a wave that broke over him with alarming force and suddenness—and he could finally do something about it.

She pulled away almost immediately. Almost. He felt her graze his ear, as if she'd gone to bury her hand in his hair, but had remembered that he was the most frustrating person she'd ever met and stopped herself.

"We're fighting," she reminded him, using that hand to push firmly on his chest to get him away from her. She looked madder than before, but he didn't know if he'd angered her by kissing her, or she'd angered herself by wanting him to keep going.

The way her hand lingered on his chest for a moment, no doubt feeling every racing beat of his heart, had him very much assuming the latter.

"You don't get to kiss me so you don't have to talk to me anymore—" she went on, but he interrupted her.

"Why? You do it."

"Not in ages, you entitled prick, and even then, I—stop liking that I'm mad!" She'd snapped the last part, and threw off the hand that he hadn't removed from her neck. "You can't act like you're not mad at me, admit that you are, and then just—what? Where do you think you're taking this?"

"I started thinking about shagging you the second you sat down. I can't look at you anywhere in here and not think about it."

Her eyes narrowed. "You can fuck right off with that."

She wanted him despite her words, and he knew it, even though he didn't exactly know how he knew it. Her expression hadn't changed at all, except to look even lesspleased, and she acted it well. Yet if it came down to a bet, he would have staked everything he had on her wanting him just then. He would have bet his life on it. He just knew.

Sure enough, he kissed her again, and that time she let him.

Later, she would say that he had her up and against the wall before she even realized he'd moved, and he had no reason to doubt her recollection. Her memory trounced his at every turn, after all, and that went double for any moment spent too close to her, because then things came in flashes then more than any chronological timeline. But he wouldn't remember making the moves themselves, although he certainly remembered holding her there and pushing his leg between her thighs and kissing her so hard it almost hurt. The way she gripped his shoulders did hurt, even through the layers of his robes and shirt, but he hardly felt it, and what he did feel he liked. The pain melted into all the other pleasurable feelings that overwhelmed him, from her hair between his fingers to the way she shifted against his leg, first once, then another time, and finally with slow, repetitious rolls of her hips. He could feel the heat between her thighs increase the more she moved.

"Let me make you come," he said the second he could stop kissing her, and he took advantage of the moment to push her robes off of her shoulders. She let them drop. He untucked her shirt from her skirt and got precisely two and a half buttons undone before he gave up and wrenched the front of it apart. The second the buttons gave away, he wondered why he hadn't ever done it sooner. Everything, from the way the falling buttons pinged against the floor to the sudden access he had to her torso to the way her breath caught in her throat, had him wishing he could do it again. Really, if he'd wanted her even a fraction less, he would have considered going for his wand so he could fix her shirt and pull it apart again immediately. He brought his mouth to the spot under her ear, and he thought he could physically feel her burgeoning complaint at his treatment of her clothes die in her throat as he scraped his teeth there. "You can yell at me after. You can yell at me during, honestly. I'm not against that. Just—every time you used to get mad at me for years, I'd end up getting off to it that night. And every time—every time—I'd imagine turning that into you wanting me as much as you looked like you hated me, and—fuck, let me make that happen."

She exhaled a laugh that sounded amused at his expense, but he found he wasn't against that either. "Go ahead, make me come," she said as she pushed his robes off and then unbuttoned his shirt with much greater care than he had her own, the motions practiced and smooth. "I'm still going to row with you afterwards. I'm still mad."

"Good. I am too." He meant it, at least from what he could feel just then. Very little in his brain made it past the focus on the throbbing in his cock. He removed her bra, and immediately brought a hand to her breast even as he went for the zipper in her skirt with the other.

She stopped the hand on her skirt, and he froze, uncertain of her desire for the first time despite her words. She took the opportunity to remove his shirt entirely, and that uncertainty dissipated as she pulled him closer, her skin against his and her mouth pressing kisses underneath his collarbone.

"Just take my knickers off," she said, and while his skin felt hot, her mouth felt somehow hotter. "Leave my skirt on."

"Why?" He still obeyed even though he asked, and reached under her skirt to pull her knickers off her hips and down her thighs. When they dropped to the floor, she stepped out of them.

Her nails skimmed the back of his neck, raising goosebumps on his arms. "Because I know you're going to want to watch when you fuck me. You're going to want it even more than you usually do. I want you to see my skirt while you do it. I want you to think about fucking me every time you see me in my uniform for the rest of term, so you—"

He loved her words even as he hated them, the ache in his cock increasing as his desperation for her rose to newer heights. He'd spent four years dreaming about what she had under her skirt, his pulse racing every time it lifted even just a little past its normal length. Of course he'd thought about pushing it up and fucking her before, and often. So often.

Had he ever told her that? How else did she know exactly how it would hit him in that moment?

He cut her off with a kiss, and his hand disappeared under her skirt to slip between her thighs. He gave up any pretense at gentleness even before he even tried, and he touched her with coarse, rough movements, too worked up to build to that with something softer at first. She made a quiet noise against his mouth, and though almost inaudible, he knew it came from pleasure by the way she buried her hands in the back of his hair and tried to pull him even closer. She felt hot and wet and desperately good, so much so that he hardly knew what to do with himself, overwhelmed by even his fingers inside her. She felt so good that he couldn't imagine what his cock would feel like once he got it there, even though he'd spent several collective hours inside her by that point. Every time still shocked him from pleasure, and still felt incredible surreal.

"I need to get you close," he told her, and he used his free hand to push her skirt up impatiently so he could watch the movement of his fingers. She tipped her head back as he circled her clit with his thumb, and he took the time to slow down for that. "I need you close because the second I'm in you—I don't think I'll care how you feel. Fuck, I just want to come inside you. That's all I can even think about."

He could feel her contract around his fingers at that, and her hands went for his belt, but he stopped her. "James—" she began, and her voice felt like it hit his very soul, raw and desperate and throaty.

"You like that?" he asked incredulously. With all her obsession with reciprocity and shared pleasure, the idea made his head spin.

"I told you the last time we were here—I wanted you to get worked up and push me up against the wall and fuck me." She stared at him, eyes defiant and challenging. "I wanted to see what you'd do. So of course I like it right now. I've thought about it on some very long nights away from you."

His chest nearly ached from breathing so harshly. He found himself rocking against her hip, searching for any kind friction, and although he'd pushed her hands away before, he let her touch him then. She unbuckled his belt without looking, her mouth moving from his chest up towards is ear, and she had his trousers undone and her hand wrapped around his cock before she'd gotten halfway up his neck.

He leaned heavily up against the wall, one hand still between her legs, and the other arm pressed up against the stone wall for support. As he thought every time, it shouldn't have felt as good as it did. A hand was a hand. Other girls had touched his cock before. Hell, he touched his cock all the time, especially in recent days, because he'd gotten used to Lily getting him off at least twice a day over break, and then had had to adjust when he'd gone back to school where he might shag her a few times a week if lucky. All of those instances with other girls and with himself had been fine, some better than others, of course.

But she was Lily Evans. Just knowing that made her strokes and caresses better than anything anyone else had ever done—including himself, and he knew how to do it very well by then. Just as she had when going down on him, she had gone the academic route, and beginning during break had asked him questions many times over to figure out exactly how he liked it done. By that time she knew, and knew well.

Beyond that, she was just her, and that made things undeniably better.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts. He immediately stopped all movement—hell, stopped all breathing—to stare at her. "I'm sorry that I worried you. I don't want to row."

Watching the soft swell of her breasts rise and fall as she spoke, James felt something break inside him in a way he couldn't comprehend or explain.

"It's okay." His words came out rushed, hurried. He hoped that he meant it truly, and not just in the moment. "I'm sorry too. I—"

He'd started to say he loved her, the words dangling on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them just in time. The unspoken confession frustrated him more than anything, and he gave up and gave in.

She let him turn her around, and for a second he could only look at her. He admired the soft scatter of a few freckles upon her bare back; the way her hair swung between her shoulder blades; how her skirt covered up just enough, but looked somehow especially sinful with her torso so bare.

"Slow at first," she said as he fumbled with his trousers and pants. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her brilliantly green eyes meeting his. "Just for a bit. I want you to watch."

She sounded undeniably wicked, which made it even harder for him to comply with her order.

Pulling up her skirt to reveal the smooth, soft arc of her backside, he really only had one thought.

He was absolutely going to think about fucking her every time he saw her in her uniform.

He pushed into her slowly, watching himself sink in between her thighs, and just the sight of it all, let alone the feel, left his mouth dry.

He moved as slowly as he could, in and out of her in a careful, steady rhythm. Fuck it all if she wasn't right about how much he wanted to watch, because he did, maybe more than any other time in the past.

Later, he would understand why.

He was, indeed, jealous. Watching himself fuck her lessened some of that feeling.

Still, he couldn't stay slow for long.

Soon, his strokes became quicker, sharp and almost frantic. She made a quiet noise with each thrust, something almost drowned out by his own sounds, because he breathed more heavily than he did when running as Prongs on a full moon. He said her name in there too, voice thick and coming from somewhere so deep in his throat that it almost hurt.

He shifted her a couple times, pulling her so she bent more, and then doing the same a second time. With the second movement, everything came together in one sweet, glorious moment, as he felt her clench around his cock in the way she only did when he'd hit the right spot inside her.

"There," she said, her voice pleading. "There, James. Keep—"

Her words broke as he picked up speed. As it turned out, he did still care about her pleasure in that moment, but more to the extent that it brought him his own. Her body, her voice, all of her, promised that she would grow tighter and wetter when she came, and he wanted that desperately. That would make him come immediately, and with greater pleasure than if she didn't come at all.

It didn't escape the back of his mind that his pleasure had become inextricably linked to hers, even when he wasn't consciously focused on pleasing her.

It might have bothered him if it didn't feel so damn good.

"Come," he instructed harshly, mouth against the back of her neck. "I want you to come, Evans. Tell me how to get you there. I know you know."

She did know. She reached for the hand he held on her hip and brought it around to touch her clit, and the second he stroked her there, everything somehow came together even more. He swore into her hair as she tightened around him further with a soft, strangled noise, and her fingers curled against the wall, as if searching for something to grab onto. There was something ridiculously erotic about that, and it pushed him further, his thrusts rougher, his hand more insistent.

Before long, she came. He felt the pressure build and then break inside her, and that, along with the low, throaty fuck she gave, was enough to send him too. He swore louder, a muggle swear he'd stolen from her that sounded like Jesus fucking Christ, his face pressed into the back of her neck, sweet-smelling hair gently tickling his nose. The world itself exploded, and he gripped her as tightly as he could, one arm wrapped around her stomach to hold her to him. She felt like the only thing keeping him grounded.

"Stay for a second," she said after she'd caught some of her breath, although he still felt like he'd run several miles. She pressed her forehead against the stone wall. "Stay. I'm still—" She didn't need to finish, because he could feel her still pulsing around him in random intervals.

She was crazy if she thought he was going to pull out of her when she still felt like that.

Beyond that, she'd never asked him to stay inside her before. Usually he tried, and she pulled away.

It felt like a victory.

He kissed the very red skin at the junction of her neck and shoulder, and she made one of the noises he liked best from her, a sort of low, contented hum unique to the moments of bliss after sex. He almost always got her to make it when he stroked her back, although it wasn't guaranteed. To hear her make it when he'd done nothing but kiss her once—

Yeah, they were done rowing.

He just hoped he was done being mad.

"Will you take a bath with me?" she asked, and even though he had just come, and he was even still inside her, her request sent his stomach flipping from anticipation.

"Try and stop me."

They ended up exactly as they had the last time, him seated on the submerged bench and her settled across his lap facing him, his hands on her back and her face rested on his shoulder. She played with the bubbles on his other shoulder, fingers soft and stroking and mindless, and for a long time, James thought about absolutely nothing, his mind blessedly, entirely blank.

"Will you tell me everything once we're out of school?" he asked finally. The question had floated in his brain in and out of the aroused, angry thoughts that had tangled in his chest and occupied his mind since they'd entered the bathroom. "All the things they've said and done?"

She didn't need him to clarify who or what he meant. "If you'd like," she said, and he'd known he didn't plan to row with her anymore—he didn't have the energy even if he might have had the desire—but he still felt himself relax even when he hadn't thought his body tense. "I'd rather not, but I will if you'd like."

As easy as that, apparently.

"Was he terrible?" He felt like he pushed his luck when he'd just gotten so much of what he'd wanted—to work out fighting by shagging her as he'd fantasized about before, to turn her from anger to lust as he'd fantasized before, to get her to agree to tell him something (which he had undoubtedlyfantasized about many times before, given how hard it was to pry information out of her). Yet tired and contented or not, the desire to know still gnawed at him, and enough so that he didn't even want to say Snape's name.

"No. He didn't yell or lash out like I did. He rarely does." Her voice was quiet yet even. She obviously aimed to make it that way, and she succeeded. "He wasn't purposefully hurtful. It's his ignorance and the blindness to reality that really hurts. I don't know how he can differentiate me from every other mudblood out there, but he really seems like he can. He can't see why I'm no different. It's infuriating and also very sad."

Would he ever stop flinching when she said that word?

Even though he couldn't see her face, he could somehow feel her hesitancy as she went on. "He seems to think that my hanging around you and your friends has made things worse in terms of how his friends see me. Him too, I'd imagine, although he didn't say so. Since fifth year, I've very purposefully kept myself publicly unconnected from every bloke at Hogwarts. Now that I'm clearly friendly with you and your mates, it's apparently left the Slytherins talking about which one—or ones, plural—of you I'm shagging, and that's what's made them act as they have. That's what he said, anyway, when I told him about what Nott said before I threw him down the stairs. When I pointed out that Nott has been saying that sort of shit to me for years, not just this term, he really didn't know what to say or how to justify it. I think I kind of stunned him with the graphic nature of it all. I really don't think he knew."

She clearly wanted to believe he didn't know, anyway.

He lifted a hand to rub her neck, and she sighed, her breath soft against his skin. Unlike the last time, she didn't melt against him entirely. Even though she confided in him, she very clearly had to work very hard to do so. The muscles in her legs felt taut, as if her body meant to physically hold itself together to keep her words inside her.

That she'd pushed herself to try meant the world to him.

"Thank you for bringing me with you to see Dumbledore," he said, and he felt her relax a little, just a hair. "You're right. You didn't have to, and I know once that you wouldn't have. I'm glad you did."

She pulled back, lifting her head so she could look at him, the movement so sudden that it made him jump. Water sloshed around them. "This is what I do when I'm upset," she said. She spoke almost impersonally, and her face looked that way too, just mildly engaged at best, no other emotion present. "I need time and space to myself. I know you like to confront things head on, but I can't do that. I need time to process. It's how I've always been. I don't want that to ever worry you, but—I don't know how else to be. This is just who I am."

He'd never really thought about his conflict style before, but apparently she had, and she'd pegged him correctly. He'd rarely shied away from addressing an issue immediately—except, truly, with her. When Sirius had sent Snape under the Whomping Willow, he'd had an easier time absolutely tearing him a new one than he had when he'd taken Lily aside the previous fall and told her he'd seen her with Morton.

If only there was a potion or spell that could make him like her a little less, things would have been much easier.

Just a little less. That was all he wanted.

It would solve a lot.

He kissed her, just once and very gently. "We'll have to learn how to row, I guess, and not like we used to when you would just go in on me."

She nearly smiled. "I'm not being jokes."

"I know." And he did know, but he didn't know quite what to say, or what she wanted to hear from him. If he'd known that, he would have said it immediately, no matter what it was.

Really, his desire to please her was part of the problem, and he recognized that, but he couldn't help it.

He knew instinctively that that would end badly.

"Just tell me right away when you need space next time," he said. "That would help. When you just disappeared—" He paused, uncertain how to phrase it. "I thought maybe you'd gone off me," he finally settled on, because that summarized it, more or less.

She did smile at that. "No. No, you're not that fortunate. You've gotten too good at making me come for me to go off you. I'm afraid you're rather stuck."

Truly, nothing had ever sounded better.

The war had felt horribly close in Dumbledore's office, but watching her smile and smiling back, it felt suddenly very far away.