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]

25. Chapter 25

A/N: Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! I'm thankful to everyone who has taken the time to review.

Again, come join me on Tumblr at scriibble-fics! I've been getting some really excellent prompt suggestions over there, including one that I've written up as my first one-shot in the Voyeur universe that I'll probably drop in a couple days. It's Lily's POV on those days when she first realized she fancied James and all that came after it, and I had a blast writing it. I'm also happy to answer any questions you all might have over there! I've gotten some truly good ones.

One chapter left. It still feels surreal. I may drop the final chapter a bit sooner than usual due to external obligations that take up next Friday, so keep an eye out.

Chapter Twenty-Five

When Sirius returned to the common room the next evening, his face looked strangely ashy. He held his hands deep in the pockets of his robes, and looking at him, James wondered if they clutched his wand or clenched into fists. It had to be one or the other.

"Ran into Reg on my way back from McGonagall," he explained shortly. "We had words."

Terseness and all, the story sounded entirely plausible, although James knew it only held lies from start to finish. He had whispered Dumbledore's instructions for a meeting to Sirius that morning after Transfiguration, and felt a certain sense of satisfaction as Sirius' eyes nearly dropped out of his head. It usually took a lot to floor him. "I can't explain," James had added. "Just go. And don't tell anyone where or why. Not Hestia. Not Moony or Wormtail. Okay?"

A mandatory meeting with McGonagall over his lack of care towards his NEWT preparation sounded both plausible and was unprovable to boot, and Sirius had adopted the cover easily.

"You feel like listening to me have a go at Reg?" Sirius asked, eyes on Lily. "I promise not to bitch the whole time. I'll let you get in exactly two words edgewise, so you can commiserate with me about your shit sister."

Lily looked as if she genuinely hesitated. She sat up to her elbows in Charms revisions, as she had for the past hour, and she so seldom took breaks that a lack of hesitancy would have stood out strangely. "Yeah, alright," she agreed after a beat, shutting her textbook. As she got to her feet, James suddenly wondered exactly how much of her reluctance she feigned. Maybe she really didn't want to talk to Sirius and face whatever had gone on between him and Dumbledore. He wouldn't have blamed her. "Should we go for a walk? At least then I can physically leave you somewhere if you go off too long."

Sirius slung an arm around her shoulders. "That hurts," he said as they started for the portrait hole. "I listened—actually listened, didn't even pretend—to you talk through all that boring Potions nonsense yesterday, and for what? A time limit on your friendship? That's shit, and it really—" His voice faded into the cacophony of the common room.

"How long until they leave you two for each other?" Marlene asked, her voice as bright and taunting as her eyes. She laughed when Hestia rolled her eyes, clearly unbothered. "What? It's either that or he actually does become her best friend, and you know we'll have to get rid of him then, Hessie. I know you like him, but you can't like him enough for that to stand."

Although Hestia only shrugged, James kind of thought Marlene had a point.

It hadn't escaped his attention just how easily Lily and Sirius could leave the common room together, no need for staggered exits. She'd even left tucked under his arm, something James could never do to her in public. Sirius' relationship with Hestia offered him the coverage needed to act that way with Lily, especially since they did so with no attempt to hide it from Hestia or the Gryffindor common room at large. All of Hogwarts knew Hestia and Sirius were together, regardless of the way Hestia defined whatever it was that they were. For Sirius to treat Lily with such familiarity in front of Hestia clearly showed that nothing that passed between them bothered her. It gave them much more room to express affection.

James knew all that logically.

Still, all logic aside, it still annoyed him something fierce.

"We could take off together and leave them first," he told Hestia. "You know, beat them to the punch."

She returned his smile with one of her own. "That's the kindest offer I've had in a while," she said, and even though he knew she teased him, she somehow made her words sound like the most genuine of compliments. "If I fail all my NEWTs, I may take you up on that. Where would you want to run off to? Somewhere with a beach sounds lovely right now."

To his surprise, Hestia set aside her Herbology work to joke with him for a while, and their banter as they planned an alternative life together never faltered. Conversation with her had gotten so much easier in such a natural way that he'd hardly noticed that it had happened.

He'd long resumed slogging through his own Charms revision by the time Lily and Sirius returned. Sirius looked entirely himself again, his handsome face full of laughter and his color normal. He touched Hestia's hair fondly when he reached their cluster of friends, and she smiled up at him.

"Were you spotted on your lovers' tryst?" Marlene asked as Lily returned to her usual spot and reopened her book. "I hope not. It's past curfew, Head Girl, and you're breaking rules with this cad?"

"Sadly, she wouldn't actually walk with me. She didn't want anyone to see her with me and risk soiling her sterling reputation." Sirius flashed Lily a smile she returned without pause. "And no one saw us entering or exiting the Astronomy Tower either, so she's lucky there. Talk about an end to your rep, love." He paused, and James found Sirius' gray eyes on him, gleaming with customary good humor. "Have to say, mate, I'm kind of proud that I got her there before you did. Kind of really proud. You'll hear about this forever."

James didn't doubt it.

"James and Hestia are running off together before you two take off first," Peter said with a grin, and Sirius laughed, clearly delighted. "They planned it all out very precisely."

"I mean, I get it, Hess." Sirius' fingers ran absently through the dark strands of Hestia's hair. "We all take pity on James sooner or later and throw him a bone. Even Lily finally did. Although on—"

"Any sort of bone joke is low-hanging fruit, and you're cleverer than that," Lily said, not lifting her eyes from her book.

"I'm really not, but I appreciate the vote of confidence. James, can we—" Sirius nodded towards the dormitory staircase, not bothering to finish his question. "Figure I ought to privately curse you for going after my bird. Wouldn't want a big show in public. You know I hate attention near as much as you do."

Sirius' perfect act of good cheer dropped the second they entered their dorm together. He didn't look ashy, not like he had when he'd first returned from Dumbledore's office, but worry clouded his face abruptly and totally. He went and sat heavily on his bed, and James watched as he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing them roughly.

"Fuck, Prongs."

There really wasn't much else to say.

James went, sat on his own bed, and waited.

"She ended up comforting me," Sirius said after several long, silent moments. "Not the way I saw it going. I didn't see it going any way, really, because I didn't know what I meant to say to her, but I didn't plan on her making me feel better about it all. I didn't even realize that's what she set out to do until she had me laughing. She's mad good."

"She is," James agreed.

Another silence fell.

"He's a dickhead," Sirius offered finally. "Mulciber. Dear old Mum was friends with his wife. Well, I don't know if they're still married or not. Shouldn't be if they are, because I overheard the wife telling Walburga some really nasty stuff more than once. They both came around a couple of times, so I met him when we were younger. And he's…" He hesitated, clearly struggling—or perhaps just reluctant—to put his thoughts into words. "Well, he's like his git of a son. Thinks he's real slick, but just a look at him tells you he's fucking rotten. He's obviously a Death Eater. There's no doubt. But Gimble, Prongs—" He broke off for another long pause. "It's fucked. The whole thing is fucked."

"Are you going to do it if they can get you an interview?"

Sirius looked at him sharply. "'Course I am. Did you really think I wouldn't?"

"No. I knew you would. Never doubted it."

Despite it all, the whole fucked up situation, when James met Sirius' eyes, the world righted itself a little.

He had Lily at his side.

He had Sirius at his side.

They would face it all together.

The tension in his shoulders melted away a little.

"Who knew old Sluggy would end up being so important. Can you imagine how much he'd love that if he knew?" Sirius attempted a smile. "Guess Lily had the right idea all along, making nice with him. She really seems to think she'll manage to get him to put me up for a job. She's good, but I don't know if she's that good. He knows I'm a fuck up."

"She can do it." Love aside, James just knew it to be true.

"Yeah, maybe." Sirius opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "She's going to crush this. You know that, right? All this stuff with Gimble and Mulciber and the rest? I don't think I'm even needed, because she'll crush it whether I get in there or not. She's a pretty talented witch, but only because she works really hard at it. She's really good with working people, and it comes naturally, not like magic. She got Wormtail to start a duel over her. She got Moony to admit his furry little problem, and you know he never meant to tell another person about it. You—well, you're a lost cause. She's always gotten to you, even when she didn't try. And…fuck, mate. I used a fight with Reg as a cover to get her away, but if that had actually happened, if I had seen him and we'd gotten into it, she's still who I would have pulled. It would have felt normal, since we've talked about him before. What the fuck. How? How does she do that?"

He sounded genuinely bewildered by it all, which resonated with James a little too much. She still confounded him too.

As if summoned by Sirius' almost-angry praise, a knock came at the door. When bidden to enter, Lily slipped inside the door immediately. Oliver snaked around her ankles and ran inside the room, his long, fluffy tail dancing.

"Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt you, but I thought of something." Her eyes darted towards the door, and she sent a quick silencing spell at it. "Just in case," she explained, and after pocketing her wand, she took to fiddling with the red potion vial in her hands, twisting it between her slender fingers. "Sirius, we need to make sure that your interest in Transportation makes sense to Hestia. Obviously you won't say anything to her until after we've ambushed Slughorn, because I want it to seem offhanded when I suggest it to him, but after that, we need to make sure it's at least passingly believable that you'd go that route. You're so…loudly opposed to authority, after all, and the Ministry is the biggest authority in our world. It's not pressing yet, but we need to really think on how to manage it. You know her. You know how naturally suspicious she is of everything."

Sirius clearly did. His mouth became a firm line. "Right. You're right." He sighed. "Especially since I'd interview with Mulciber if this goes to plan, and we all know his worthless son. She's not about to believe that I'd want to have anything to do with that fucking family, and she'd be right. I wouldn't want anything to do with them. I don't want anything to do with them, but I'll do it."

Absurdly, Lily looked apologetic, as if she felt bad for Sirius' plight. She looked rather like she did when she set to comforting James about the whole situation—like she felt worse for him than she did for herself. "Thank you." Somehow, the two words sounded heavily significant.

Sirius met the intensity of her gaze. "'Course," he said, just as he had to James, and that sounded significant too.

Watching them, it struck James rather suddenly.

Sirius hated the Dark Arts and the beliefs that his family and Voldemort's followers espoused, but he hadn't agreed to Dumbledore's plan in order to push back against any of that.

He'd agreed because of Lily.

More than that, he'd agreed because of James. James saw that in the briefest of glances that Sirius shot his way. His expression held nothing but bottomless concern, the sort of care that clearly stretched to the depths of his soul.

Really, James had to amend a prior thought.

Sirius would kill for him, without a doubt. But he'd do it without asking, just like Marlene would for Lily.

He'd attached that level of loyalty to Lily by extension, certainly because he liked her, but mostly just based on the way that James loved her, and that knowledge sent a painful lump into his throat.

"Here." Lily tossed the potion vial to Sirius, who caught it between both hands. "I told them all that I intended to bring you a calming potion because you were still an angry mess even though you were acting relatively normal, so now you're set if you want to dose yourself. Or someone else. I suggest Mar."

Sirius grinned. "Thanks, love. Maybe I'll slip it to Remus the next time he gets mad at us for doing something stupid." He stood and stretched. "I'm going to go shower," he announced grandly, and he went to do just that, shutting the bathroom door firmly behind him.

James knew that Sirius had exited so pointedly just to leave them alone, and from Lily's smile, he knew she knew it too.

It hit him all at once.

He'd never had her in his dorm before, and suddenly they were alone.

"Come here?" he asked, holding out a hand, and she crossed the room to fit into his waiting arm, which he circled around her back. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, honestly," she added when she could tell he didn't believe her. She didn't join him on the bed. Rather, she remained standing in between his legs, and the way she touched his shoulder looked almost hesitant, her fingers light. "I'm not sure if he is though. Fucking hell, he feels terrible."

Yes, she clearly worried more about Sirius than she did herself.

James pulled her into his lap at that, and he wondered if his ability to do so would ever get old, or if he'd always find it thrilling. She pushed her face into his neck, the tip of her nose cold against his skin, and her hair tickled his face in the familiar, annoying way he'd come to rather like.

"He's hasn't had enough to worry about lately, so it's about time he feels terrible with us," James he told her, and her quiet laughter into his neck, and the hand she brought up to bury her fingers in the back of his hair, broke the tension. It sounded like he'd chased away some of her worry. "He'll be okay. If this all works out, I think he'll kind of enjoy himself even though it's such shit. You know him. He likes drama and intrigue. This is the definition of that."

"He likes it better when you're happy, and he's not going to see a lot of that pretty soon. Your unhappiness is going to make it hard for him to find any joy in this."

Well, that knocked any of the levity out of the situation again.

He never thought he'd wish she'd act jokes to avoid a tough situation, but in that moment, he found that he kind of did. He didn't have the words to comfort or reassure her, because he was pretty sure they didn't exist, and reality suddenly felt too hard to manage.

"Are you glad he's doing this?" he asked finally.

She tipped her head back to look at him. "Of course I am. Even if I didn't think that it made sense, I'd be glad just because it means you'll have him to talk to about all this. You can always talk to me, but…it'll be easier to talk to him sometimes. I understand that. Sometimes it's easier for me to talk to Hestia too. So I'm glad you'll have him."

He had Sirius, but she didn't have Hestia.

Fuck, that clearly wasn't fair.

"I'll share him with you if you want," he offered, and she smiled a little at that. "I don't think I have a choice at this point. You two are best friends now, aren't you?"

"Absolutely."

"There you go." He paused for a second, uncertain if he should even voice his thoughts when she'd finally perked up just a little, but he pressed on, his voice all hesitancy. "I'm sorry you can't tell Marlene or Hestia."

She looked away from him immediately, which didn't surprise him a bit, because the single glance he'd gotten at her eyes showed a sudden sense of vulnerability past their conversation thus far. "Yeah. Me too." Her voice was quiet, and he heard her throat click when she swallowed. It took her one false start before she finally put words to her next thought, and only then with clear reluctance. "I have no idea how I'm going to explain to them why I'm hanging around Greg again. I'll get to pass it off as seeing Alice at first, although neither of them will like that either, since Alice and I drifted apart after Greg and I broke up and they both that that was wrong of her. I never blamed her for it—I always knew he'd get custody of her if we broke up, because she and Frank and all the rest were his friends before they were mine—but Hestia and Mar really disliked her for it. That was part of Hessie's whole issue with her over break, and seeing her react to Alice like that after two years…yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to make sense of this to them, but her especially. That's kept me up at night even more than worrying if I can manage human-to-animal transfiguration for our NEWTs, if you can believe it."

He could believe it. He could believe all of it, but especially her understanding and forgiveness towards Alice without a second thought—an understanding and forgiveness she'd apparently extended before she and Alice had drifted apart.

"If it helps…they'll probably put things together eventually. Once you start seeing Gimble a lot—" The idea itself left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, enough so that he couldn't finish his sentence. "They're going to get it, aren't they? That he's the reason we can't be together? Remus will, and probably pretty quick."

"That keeps me up too."

Of course it did. If he'd thought of it, he didn't doubt that she'd already obsessed over it.

"It depends on how much I spread my attention around, doesn't it?" she continued, and she shook her head a little. "Am I focused just on Greg? Do I flirt with other blokes too? That'll change the way people see things, including our friends, but also the way he sees things, and—" She sighed and rubbed her forehead as if she sought to remove the line of worry that had grown there. "There's just a lot to consider."

"We'll figure it out," he said. He had no idea then just how often he'd say it in coming months, but had a feeling it would become a constant refrain.

He was right. They would say it to each other with increasing frequency the more and more as the war would become more and more difficult. He would never tell her, but he found the most solace just from using the word 'we,' the two of them a united front.

"I know," she said, and she sounded like she meant it, which warmed him considerably. She nuzzled back into his neck and pressed a kiss near his throat, something light and soft and almost mindless.

That combined with her vulnerability combined with having her alone in his dorm for the first time ever? He was pretty much helpless against that.

"I really want to shag you in this bed before we graduate," he told her, and her back relaxed a little under his hand as she laughed, clearly just as taken aback as she was happy to see the tough parts of the day pass. He felt the same. "I'm serious. See, if I don't, I'm going to break a streak I plan to create and keep where I shag you in every bed that's mine. My bedroom at home, here, the bed I get when I move out in June—"

He heard the smile in her voice. "Am I supposed to be proud of you for having at least one goal in life?"

"It'd be nice if you were, yeah." He took her face from his neck to kiss her, a series of kisses that he found he couldn't stop once he started, although he didn't try terribly hard. "Thank you for taking care of Sirius," he heard himself say, even though he hadn't planned to say it, or even really questioned how that had added to his considerable warmth towards her. Yet once he'd said it, he realized that that got to the heart of the matter exactly. The change between Sirius when he'd walked into the common room alone, and Sirius when he'd walked back into the common room later with Lily by his side—well, they almost looked like two different people. She had made him himself again.

She let him shift her to lay on his bed without complaint, and he took a long, careful moment just to look at her there, her hair spread across his pillow and her expression increasingly bashful the longer he stared. "I'd rather you kiss me," she said pointedly after a few seconds, and he could see the flush of her chest where her collar gaped. "You probably only have another five or ten minutes before Sirius is done, so if you plan to try to convince me to come back up here with you before we graduate, you should really—"

He kissed her, and he found himself entangled with her almost immediately, his legs with hers and his hand in her hair and his body nearly covering her. She felt warm and soft and smelled entirely like her, and, fuck, it felt like having her in his bed at home all over again, only better. So much of what made it better had everything to do with wanting to show her he cared in the way that she responded to best—and the way he couldn't muck up quite as bad as he could if he tried to talk his way through how much he appreciated her.

He also just really wanted her, of course, because he always wanted her.

"You have no idea how often I thought about you when I was lying here," he told her, kissing from her lips to her neck. The words came out in a rush, spilled forth from the depths of his brain without even thinking. "It was constant. It still is, but—it's different. I wanted you so fucking bad for years. I dreamt about you all the time, Lily, and then I'd wake up and have to see you in the Great Hall and think about how I'd imagined your mouth on my cock or your legs around my waist or the way your arse looked while bending you over. I really annoyed you after those dreams, because I couldn't look at you without wanting to grab you and show you everything I'd dreamt about. I can't believe I can do that now, and that it's better than I ever even thought."

"Christ, James." She sounded almost pained, but in the way he liked, not as she'd sounded pained moments before. Pride blossomed in his chest to know that he'd managed that shift in her in the blink of an eye. "Fuck, that's not fair—"

She'd bent the leg furthest from him at the knee, which sent her skirt pooling higher. He knew she led him there even as he slid his hand up the smooth length of her outer thigh. He felt the muscle there he so loved, flexing with the tension present in the rest of her body, and that tension only increased when he traced along the line of her knickers. Her skin felt like fire under his fingertips.

Wasn't fair, she'd said.

What wasn't fair, truly, was that her showing even the littlest bit of emotional vulnerability apparently went entirely to his cock.

What wasn't fair, truly, was that he finally had her in his bed like he'd wanted for years and couldn't do a damn thing about it, because Sirius could reappear at any moment.

What wasn't fair, truly, was he wanted to tear her knickers off and give her what it sounded like she wanted, but he couldn't.

What wasn't fair, truly, was how she somehow skillfully managed to get her mouth to his neck, and by the way she kissed around his ear while making the softest noise of pleasure, he could tell she very clearly sought to flip the tables and turn him desperate instead of her.

"If you're going to talk like that, I want to hear what you'd want to do to me here," she said. Her fingers, quick and skillful, trailed from his hair down to the straining crotch of his trousers. She stroked him there, her movements slow and almost coy, and he could hear her smile at the impatient noise he made. "How do you get me here?"

"I've thought about it every way." His voice came out more strained than before, mind entirely occupied by the frustrating way she touched him. "Taking you up here during the day when no one is around, you sneaking in at night, just fucking grabbing you in the middle of the common room and dragging you up here—"

"Touch me." It wasn't a request.

He pushed her knickers aside and slid two fingers into her, his thumb immediately on her clit. She lifted herself off the bed just slightly, enough to press into his hand, and then a noise came from her throat, one soft and nearly pleading, that made him groan.

"Ask me to fuck you here."

His mouth went dry. "Fuck, Lily—"

"Ask me."

He swallowed hard several times, forcing himself to remember that Sirius was a door away instead of thinking about his fingers inside her or the way she sounded against his ear, her breaths soft and short and shallow and interspersed with almost inaudible moans. "Will you?"

She pulled back to look at him, her cheeks flushed. "Will I what?"

"If I ask you that and you say yes—" He stopped because he honestly didn't know where he meant to take that sentence. He just very much knew that it wasn't going to end with anything Sirius wanted to walk in on.

"Okay." She pulled back from him, her hand from his trousers and her body from his entirely. Before he realized it, she had his hand away from her and her knickers righted, and she stood up. "Don't look like that," she said, smoothing her skirt down and double-checking the tuck of her shirt. "I'm not trying to punish you, honestly. But I want you, and I'm not—"

"Come back."

She smiled. "No. No, I like you too much to keep pushing you, and I respect when you don't want to do something." Tucking her hair behind her ears, she made for the door. "I'd kiss you goodbye, but I don't trust myself right now," she said, pulling her wand out of her robes and putting her hand on the doorknob. "I'll see you in the morning if you're not down soon. I don't know if I'll—"

Dumbstruck, he stared at the neat tucks of her hair and her skirt positioned just so, all prim and proper Head Girl, not at all the woman who had just ridden his hand so enthusiastically that his fingers were still wet. "Evans—" He hardly caught that he called her by her surname, at least not consciously.

But unconsciously?

He had to assume that his words and actions afterwards came in large part due to how bloody unattainable she looked just then, no longer wanton and demanding, but completely in control of herself and outside his grasp, as she'd looked for years.

"I don't think you understand what I'm going to do to you the next time I have you alone for longer than five minutes," he told her, voice strained. She laughed, soft and low, the teasing laugh that came with the dangerous smile he liked, even though the way she glanced at the door revealed her very clear intention to leave.

"Tell me," she said, her hand still on the doorknob, expression torn. She bit her lower lip just briefly, but for long enough that it reminded him entirely of the way she'd looked when he'd opened the door to his bedroom over break and found her standing there. "Tell me so I can think about it when I finish what you started. I don't think it will take much, honestly. The way you look right now—"

James cracked.

She hoped he would. He saw that all over her face when he got up and crossed the room to shove her up against the door. Her back collided with more force than he intended, but he didn't care, and if she did, that ended the second he pushed his hand back inside her knickers. He hadn't even really thought at that point, or made a conscious decision, the rational part of his brain completely taken over by fierce, pounding desire.

If his earlier words appeared from somewhere deep and dark in his brain, he couldn't even fathom where all the rest came from.

"I'm going to wreck you." He watched her careful veneer flicker and then shatter totally with his fingers and those words, and then she wore his favorite expression, something longing and eager and so aroused that her eyes went almost hazy from it.

He valued each smile and laugh that he pulled from her, and each admission of feelings as well, but fuck if his ego didn't especially like making her look that way. He was already painfully hard, but just the sight of her somehow pushed him even further. He'd broken her out of that tough Evans shell, and it was more satisfying than he could have hoped.

"I'm going to make you come hard enough for every year I wanted you," he said savagely, and he felt her nails on the back of his neck as she buried her hands in his hair. She went to tip her head back in pleasure as he could feel the effects his words had on her, but he brought her chin back to look at his face. "Look at me. Don't you want to see how much you've gotten to me? Isn't that why you're doing this when you know I can't do anything about it?"

"Yes," she agreed without hesitation, and she no longer looked like she felt badly over it. Her voice shook slightly from uneven breaths. "I love your face right now. When you look like that—"

He cut her off. "I'm not going to ask you to tell me you're going to fuck me up here. I'm telling you that it's happening, one way or another. I'm fucking you here, in my bed, and I'm going to torment you before I let you come, like you tormented me for years."

"Holy fucking hell." The way she clenched around his fingers had started to feel almost constant, and she contracted again then. Almost as good was the fact that he'd never heard that particular turn of phrase from her before. Fucking hell had never been holy, so far as he could remember, and he was pleased to have made it that way. "Will you—"

He cut her off again. "Tell me you want me."

Despite it all, she nearly laughed. Clearly she also hadn't forgotten her identical demand she'd made on her knees in the prefects' bathroom.

Truly, he couldn't forget it either, because he'd thought about it daily since, but he didn't plan to admit that just then.

"Fuck, you're the worst," she said, and he slowed his hand just enough for her humor to fade. "I want you," she amended quickly, and fierce pride burned in his chest. Still, he doubted he would have had it in him to hold off too long if she hadn't given him what he wanted. "Jesus Christ, of course I want you—you have me fucking dripping, James—"

Really, he reflected later, it might have been smarter to continue to not let her talk. She got to him a little too easily.

"I want you to fuck me," she said, after her hips had lifted and he'd driven his fingers back into her with such force that he heard the door behind her rattle. Lucid thought may have mostly fled, but he still had the presence of mind to move her up against the wall to stop further noise. She took the opportunity to rub him again through his trousers, and when he made a strangled sound in response, her fingers lingered at his belt. "Please. I'll come for you if you—"

The 'for you' got him.

He had the rationality to listen for the familiar sound of the shower over the pounding in his ears, and he could still hear it hissing faintly in the background. That was all it took for him to pull back from her to unbuckle his belt and pull his pants and trousers down enough that she could try to touch him. He batted her hand away rather harder than he meant to, but he heard her breathless laugh when he bent to wrench her knickers down. The laughter stopped the second he lifted her up and thrust into her hard enough that he heard the muffled thud as her back collided with the wall. She tried to push her face into his neck, a moan trapped low in the back of her throat, but he pushed her back by her shoulder, and he heard that thud too. He watched her face, and he saw there what she'd clearly sought to hide—raw desperation and a significant amount of pleasure, but mainly victory, because she had won.

At least her wins felt like his wins too.

He'd had her twenty-four hours earlier, and much in the same frantic, angry way, so it shouldn't have felt as good as it did. It shouldn't have felt as good as it did every time, really, but somehow he hadn't gotten used to getting lost in her, and every time somehow felt as good as the last, whether he'd already had her twice that day or if he'd gone days away from her. He thought he might have said something like that to her, because the victory on her face sharpened in some sort of indescribable way. Even though he wanted to watch that victory, it was suddenly too much, seeing her and feeling her and touching her and all of it. His thrusts hard, almost frenzied, he went for her neck, and she tipped her head to the side to give him better access. When his teeth closed around the spot below her ear that she liked, she whimpered, if he thought her capable of such a noise. Brash, bold Lily Evans could hardly whimper, so far as he was concerned.

"I love when you're like this," she said, and he felt a surge of primal pleasure at the way her voice had shifted until she sounded almost unrecognizable, lower and throaty and a tone entirely unique to sex. He loved knowing only he heard that tone. "I know you can tell, but—fuck, James."

He could tell, from all of the ways she had tightened—her grip on his shoulders, her legs around his waist, her muscles around his cock. Still, that didn't mean he didn't love hearing it.

"Why?" he asked. He could feel the tension in her thigh where he gripped her, his fingers almost painfully deep in her skin. He didn't doubt that she'd bruise.

"Because it's never been this good with anyone else."

Well, that got him.

"Fuck." He snapped his head back to look at her, and saw the flush of victory still on her face, but he knew his own victory overshadowed hers by far. "Say that again."

She did him one better.

"It's never been this good with anyone else," she said again, slower, and he didn't bother to hide exactly how that made him feel. He didn't have him in him to even try. He heard himself swear again, something hot and almost vicious, and she cupped his face. Her forehead had broken into that look of pained-pleasure that he so liked, but her fingers were gentle. "You're a fucking idiot," she said, her panting breaths mingling with his, and it didn't surprise him at all that he kind of liked hearing her call him that. "You're a fucking idiot if you don't realize that you keep topping yourself at giving me best sex I've ever had."

Despite the lack of function in his brain, that message came through loud and clear.

In the days and weeks and months and years to come, he would ask her to tell him that over and over again. Sometimes she would do so eagerly, other times she would roll her eyes, but she always said it when he asked, and it never got old.

In the moment, he did his best not to let it go directly to his cock—at least not until she came.

"Tell me you'll fuck me in my bed," he said instead, and she gave another one of those breathless laughs that turned into an equally breathless moan. He could feel her starting to tense around him, and he wanted to hear it before she came.

"James." She said his name in the silky, promising way that always made his stomach swoop. There was something truly mischievous in her eyes. "Of course I'll fuck you in your bed. I would fuck you anywhere you asked."

That did it.

"Come." His voice sounded harsh and guttural. "Every time I thought or dreamt about you, I always wanted to make you come. I always wanted to make you fucking come apart, Lily, so you'd want me even half as much as I want you. Come and let me watch you, don't fucking put your face in my neck or tip your head back like you—"

She came, and when her eyes met his—

Well, he'd tell her later that it felt like when his wand had chosen him at Ollivanders. He'd seen her face when she came before, of course, but usually glimpses. He'd never seen her so close, never when she'd actually looked him in the eye, and it felt like that first wave of his wand, all warmth and tingling and purpose, and it blew his fucking mind.

Hypocrisy of all hypocrisies, he pressed his face into her hair to reach his own end. He knew he'd be there soon and he could hardly handle it all, the look in her eyes and the sensitivity in his cock and the way she pulsed around him. He came with a dozen erratic thrusts, and he heard himself speaking to her in those final moments, even though he hadn't planned the words he meant to say.

He felt her fingers on the back of his neck after he could think again, soft and soothing. It made him think strangely of playing a harp, because she stroked him that way, all delicate repetition. She kept at it even after she dropped her legs from his waist, and he kissed her as he set her down gently, suddenly unwilling to move her as roughly as he had without thinking just seconds before.

Start to finish, he doubted it had taken ten minutes. The shower ran on.

He owed Sirius several very long, grateful speeches.

"I really did come up here just to talk to you two," she said as he did up his trousers and she bent to pick up her wand from where she'd dropped it. She smiled as she spoke. "I would just like that clear for the record. You took me to your bed and started it. You should know better."

He snorted. "If you're looking for an apology, I'm not sorry. I love talking to you, but I can talk to you any time. I don't have you up here ever. I stand by my use of time. But, remember, you're coming back. You said."

She tugged her knickers back on and set to checking her outfit over as she had done before she went to leave the room the first time. "Are we holding everything we say to each other in the moment as fact?"

"If it means you'll come back and shag me in my bed and tell me again that I'm the best you've ever had? Yes."

"Okay," she agreed simply.

Later, he should have realized that she'd agreed too easily, no banter in return to his cocky smile. But he felt too good just then, as gentle and tender towards her as he usually did after sex, and that enveloped his brain with thoughts that made critical thinking rather difficult.

She looked again all prim and proper Head Girl, although it no longer bothered him. "So should I assume you mean it if you tell me you love me when you're inside me or when I have your cock in my mouth?"

He froze midway through tucking her hair behind her ear, his hand against her face.

His heart leapt into his throat.

His stomach dropped fifty feet into the ground.

His breath stopped completely.

In return, she looked up at him with all manner of patience, waiting.

"Have I been saying that?" he asked after his throat unstuck and he'd forced oxygen into his lungs. He felt faintly sick.

How could one question change his mood so completely?

"Yes."

He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't, of course. She made him press further.

"Since when? How often?"

"You've said it off and on basically the whole time we've been shagging. It's a pretty regular occurrence, but it's not every time. Like, you said it yesterday too, but you didn't the time before."

She sounded so reasonable, so entirely neutral and calm. It almost made him mad, because in comparison, he felt like a fucking mess.

Heat had flooded up the back of his neck, into his ears, and into his face. He took off his glasses to rub his eyes, just for want of anything better to do. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Her voice sounded as if she had no answer. "I don't know. I never knew how to. Besides, you say a lot of things I assume you don't mean. When I made you beg in the prefects' bathroom, you told me you hated me. More than once, too."

Through several layers of horror and embarrassment, James heard the shower kick off.

"I meant it. I mean it."

"You actually hate me?"

"Don't act jokes right now." He heard the bitter sharpness in his own voice, but he couldn't do anything to combat it. He settled his glasses back into place and looked at her again, although he immediately wished that he hadn't. She had pulled the corner of her lip between her teeth, any attempt at banter or humor vanished. "Sorry." He reached for her, and she let him draw her close to kiss her. Better still, he felt her lift onto her toes to do so, that simple motion he had always found ridiculously cute, and that relaxed him more than anything.

At least she hadn't bolted.

Fuck, at least she hadn't bolted the first time he'd said it.

There seemed no way around it anymore.

"I love you," he said, and he watched her eyes lock on his face in a swift, searching look.

He swore the earth stood still.

The bathroom door swung open.

"Ignore me, I'm just getting clothes. Have your snog." Sirius sounded all chipper good-humor, but he stopped talking abruptly, apparently picking up the thick tension in the room. James didn't turn to look at him, and after a brief rustling, he heard the bathroom door click shut again.

"James—"

He didn't need her to say anything else to know where she planned to take things. He could see it all over her face, and hear it in the single use of his name.

She meant to argue with him.

He hadn't wanted her to know he loved her, but worse than that? Worse was her thinking he'd said it meaninglessly however many countless times.

"I do love you. You can't talk me out of saying that I mean it. You're convincing as hell, but you're not that convincing. I know how I feel." When she opened her mouth, he saw just from the furrow of her brow that his words hadn't made a difference. "This is how I feel, Lily," he said, frustration mounting. "I'm sorry if you don't want me to feel this way, but I do. I'm sorry that I've been saying it, but I didn't know I was. Honestly. Things just kind of—things get away from me when I'm with you. I don't think about anything I'm going to say. It just happens. I'm lucky if I remember it later. But that doesn't mean I don't mean it."

"But over Easter was so early," she insisted, finally breaking in. "We hadn't even—"

"The night I talked to my parents and told them everything, right before you came home and came to my room, I told them I loved you. Sirius heard me. You can ask him."

She sighed. "Don't—"

But he had a point to prove, and hardheaded Gryffindor he was, he never backed down from proving a point, even when he probably should.

"Sirius!"

After he opened the bathroom door, it took one glance at Sirius' face for James to recognize that Sirius knew he was stepping into something he'd rather not get caught up in. For someone who so frequently sought out gossip and drama, he looked entirely reluctant to even exist in that moment, like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

"Yeah, mate?" Even his voice sounded unwilling.

"Did you hear me tell my parents that I love her?"

Whatever Sirius had expected, it hadn't been that.

His mouth literally dropped open, and his eyes flew from James to Lily, where they rested. "Did you just fucking tell her that?"

"Did you hear me say it?"

Sirius looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or not, as if the absurdity of the situation bubbled just below the surface of his shock. "Yes."

James swept a triumphant hand towards Sirius, and saw that Lily had turned faintly pink. She looked rather lost for words.

Looking at her, he wondered, undoubtedly belatedly, if he had triumphed at all. Maybe he shouldn't have proved it to her. Maybe that was worse.

"Did he just fucking tell you that?" Sirius repeated, but addressing the question to Lily. Yes, he absolutely fought a grin. James could see it just around the corners of his mouth.

"Yes." Lily pushed her hands through her hair. "For months, he's been telling me he loves me when we shag, and now he's trying to prove that he means it."

The room went silent.

Sirius began to positively howl with laughter.

He laughed so hard that tears sprang to his eyes. He laughed so hard he had to reach for the poster of Remus' bed to keep himself upright. He laughed so hard that James thought for a moment that he might make himself sick.

James might have gotten mad if Lily hadn't taken to smiling at the sight, her eyes warm and fond.

Just like that, the tension broke.

Sirius would never, ever let him live it all down, James knew immediately, but it felt like a small price to pay to keep everything from going tits up. It looked like Sirius had unknowingly done just that without even trying.

Yeah, he owed Sirius a ridiculous amount of gratitude.

"I'm sorry—" Sirius began, laughter still choking each syllable.

"No, you're not," James said.

"No," Sirius agreed. "No, I'm not. You never told me you told her!"

"I didn't know I said it." James caught Sirius' incredulous look even through his continued glee. It very much imparted, how the fuck can you not know that? "I don't know. I guess it just…happened. A lot."

Sirius plucked up the hem of his t-shirt to dab his eyes. "Oh, fuck, I needed this today. Thanks, James, truly. What the hell is she doing to you? You don't know what you're saying when you shag her? How—do you see? Magic snatch or love potion, and thinking back on it, it can't be a love potion unless she's been dosing you for years while also hating you, so—wait, did you just say it right now? Did you seriously just shag while I showered? Fucking hell, I figured you'd snog a little, maybe get under her shirt, but she seriously just shagged you good enough that you told her you love her and didn't know you said it? Jesus Christ, Lily—"

She laughed at the last three words, the amusement clearly drawn from his use of her muggle swear. "Stop stealing my lines," she said, still a bit pink. "You've been around me too much. We need to stop hanging out." James found her hand suddenly against his cheek, and when he turned to look at her, he saw that the desire to argue the point had entirely fled her face. "Okay. I believe you."

He stared. "You believe me because you believe me, or you believe me because you believe Sirius?"

For a second, she paused. "I mean, it can be both."

James didn't even have to look at Sirius to know he looked smug at that.

Why did she always make it so fucking easy for him?

She swung her hair around as she laughed, and the sight of it made some of the tension leave his shoulders. "Stop. Kiss me and tell me goodnight. I really didn't mean to derail your conversation—although, wow, I'm almost proud of how much I derailed it. Go big or go home, I guess. Oliver looks pretty happy on Peter's bed. Let him out when he starts howling."

"That's it?" He'd just told her he loved her—hell, he just found out he'd told her he loved her for months—and she just planned to laugh and leave?

"Yes. What, do you want me to cause a big scene? I can storm out if you'd prefer. I haven't done that in a while."

"No." His face felt almost numb. "No, that's alright. We're good without that."

"Okay." She lifted herself onto her toes to kiss him, and she stroked the back of his neck as she did so, the continuation of those gentle, soothing moments from before. "Like I tried to say earlier, I don't know how long I'll stay in the common room, so goodnight if I don't see you." She paused before unlocking the door, her wand at the ready and her eyes on James. "I believe you. I'm sorry. I truly didn't know that you meant it. We can talk about this more, if you like, when you're less…absolutely stunned. But we're good, as far as I'm concerned. We're great. Unless you want to talk this through now? We can, if you'd like."

He was absolutely stunned indeed.

How the hell had she taken it all so reasonably?

Yeah, he needed a minute away from her just to fucking think.

"That's okay," he replied, unsure of what else to say. "We can talk later, as long as we're okay."

"We are. Of course we are." Her face stayed serious when she looked at Sirius. "You can't say anything to Hestia about this. Or to the others, but I know you and Hessie like to take the piss out of people together, and I don't want her to know."

"Wait, hold on." Sirius watched her with an even sharper interest. "James has been telling you he loves you for months while you're shagging, and you never said a word to Hess? Or Marlene?" He scoffed when she shook her head. "Come off it. You three tell each other everything about shagging. I'd bet you know everything Hess and I do before we even do it. It's like that."

"I tell them everything complimentary or good," she corrected."I'm not about to tell them anything even potentially embarrassing, because I like James passingly well." The latter part came out as a joke, although her next words didn't. "So don't say anything to Hestia. She'd say something to Mar, and then Mar would turn into an absolute nightmare. I can't deal with that."

After he gave his reluctant agreement, she lifted the locking charm. As James watched, she pressed the tip of her wand precisely to the center of the spot below her ear, which his teeth had turned quite red. She didn't even need a mirror to locate it. The color vanished immediately, and after it did, she vanished too.

Sirius began to laugh again.

"Prongs," he said, almost breathless. "Prongs, you romantic, braindead wanker. I can't wait for you two to have kids so I can tell them this story when they grow up. 'How did your mom and dad fall in love? Let me tell you how he first said it to her. He was balls deep inside her, and she had—'"

"Fuck off, Padfoot." James couldn't summon the energy to get mad. He still truly felt stunned. "I can't—did that really just happen?"

"Yes. Yes, mate, it did, and she took it better than she probably should have. Well, at least I know going into all of this with Mulciber is worth it. You've been telling her that for months and she didn't immediately sack you off as some creepy, obsessive stalker? It sounds like she's in it."

"In what?"

Sirius shrugged. "I don't know. Into your weird coupling where you spend every waking minute either laughing or shagging. Reckon she likes you more than passingly well if she purposefully didn't tell Hess or Marlene so Marlene wouldn't get after you for it. Me? I'm going to roast you both for years."

James didn't doubt that.

"We should sneak out tonight." James hadn't entirely meant the change in topic to get Sirius off his back, but it helped that it worked. "Me and you. We won't tell the lads until tomorrow, and we'll say we both just couldn't sleep or something. Wormtail will buy it, and Moony won't, but he won't complain."

Sirius had already looked delighted by the entire situation between Lily and James, but he somehow looked even more pleased. Nothing got him quite as excited as rule-breaking, and outside of the (considerable) vengeance on Slytherin house, they'd done very little of it in recent weeks. "What are you thinking?" he asked, clearly keen.

Truly, James was thinking that the prospect of breaking curfew would cheer Sirius up past the gray color of his face when he'd first returned to the common room after talking with Dumbledore. That mood seemed to have passed, but the prospect of a relapse worried James nonetheless. If Sirius got too far inside his own head—into a Black Mood, as Euphemia called it, the term fairly well-known around their house after the summer Sirius had run away from his parents—James didn't doubt that he could get worked up and worried all over again.

It didn't happen often, but when it did? It could take ages to pull him back to himself.

"I don't know," he said, going to sit on his bed. He tried to push all thoughts of Lily away, determined to set her aside as much as possible, and kept his gaze firmly away from where she'd laid stretched out, her head on his pillow. "When did we last get Filch?"

In the end, they timed suits of armor on each floor to explode at random intervals the next day; filled several sinks with Dr. Fillibuster's fireworks that they'd charmed invisible, so they would go off the first time anyone washed their hands; and jinxed random patches of floor in the Entrance and Great Halls—and all around the Slytherin table entirely—to shock any passerby that stepped there.

"I feel like we'll just end up getting ourselves too, but that's kind of the fun, innit?" Sirius asked as he and James shared the invisibility cloak, his grin brilliant even in the dark.

The next day, Lily gave James several long, knowing looks every time someone reported a strange explosion or shock or series of fireworks. She knew, clearly, and he knew that she knew.

"No one got hurt," he pointed out when she'd given him the last of those looks, clearly waiting for him to say something. "We had some really nasty ideas, but I talked Sirius down."

"How many of those nasty ideas did you come up with before you talked him down?"

He paused, obviously caught out. "A few."

Most, in truth.

She sighed, but she smiled as she did so, exasperated and fond all at once. "Don't hurt anyone," she said sharply. When she left him outside the Charms classroom to head to Arithmancy, he heard her mutter something that sounded very much like, "Boys."

xxx

The full moon arrived not a week later.

The weather during those last weeks at Hogwarts was some of the finest James had ever known. The days were warm but not hot with the sky unbearably blue; the nights were so still and temperate that it somehow left him melancholy every night that he opened the windows in their dorm, hit with a sadness he couldn't quite explain. Despite the chaos and stress of NEWTs and the looming fear of whatever would meet them in the real world, each day that passed felt somehow both wonderfully perfect and horribly final.

Even before Christmas, he had fretted over the fact that soon his time at Hogwarts would end.

In those final days, that feeling only grew stronger and stronger.

It finally hit him the hardest at the Marauders' typical post-full moon breakfast in the kitchens. Exhausted and a bit battered and bruised, they all sat in otherwise incredibly good spirits. Just after Peter had said something so disarmingly funny that Sirius had choked on a mouthful of bacon and Remus had stopped laughing just enough to pound him on the back, the scene suddenly felt sad.

They'd take their NEWTs in just over a week, and then they were done at Hogwarts.

Forever.

No more Quidditch matches.

No more chasing each other during the full moon.

No more nights spent prowling the corridors to cause mischief.

No more admiring Lily from across a classroom or in the pandemonium of the Great Hall or close up or at length in the common room, as he had for years.

No more shagging her in every private area of the castle he or she could think of.

No more studying for NEWTs, which he'd almost enjoyed despite its stress that had finally sent Marlene to the Hospital Wing, because he'd like that the seven of them had done it all together.

The future held a lot of very good promises: a place with his mates, bedrooms to hole Lily up in once they both found places to live, Auror training that he'd desired for years, a chance to actually make a difference somewhere. But those things were so different and unknown, and the present felt so incredibly good, that it scared him.

Something of it must have shown on his face, because Remus caught at least a piece of it. He grinned at James over Sirius' over-the-top reaction to Peter's joke, in better spirits than even perhaps the rest of them thanks to Lily's continued help with his transformation, and then did a double-take at whatever he saw in his expession. His kind eyes went immediately sympathetic—no, empathetic, because James knew he had to feel exactly as he did. Remus had entered Hogwarts with a dark secret he thought would ostracize him from any chance of real friendship. He left with three brothers who had broken the law to help him. Really, Hogwarts might have meant the most to him.

Then again, Peter had started first year with his own baggage, so nervous and quiet and insecure that he'd clearly thought he could never fit in or keep up with rest of them. James could hardly miss that he still felt that way sometimes, but his confidence had grown enormously, his eleven-year-old self unrecognizable in the eighteen-year-old who had turned pink with pleasure at nearly choking Sirius to death with a joke. The addition of three brothers in his life had to mean that Hogwarts meant everything to him.

Sirius, too, had started his time at Hogwarts already feeling like an outsider, yet within his own family. He left broken from them totally, but happier than he had been when he'd sat enmeshed in their pureblood, Dark Arts fanaticism. He'd found his chosen family: Euphemia and Fleamont as parents, and the other three Marauders as brothers. How could Hogwarts not hold the dearest of places in his heart?

In comparison, James felt unendingly lucky, and more than a little guilty.

He'd entered Hogwarts with loving parents who gave him the world. He left with them loving and supporting him just the same.

He'd grown up a little lonely as an only child, certainly, but never overwhelmingly so. He loved his friends and the brotherhood they'd created, but he'd never felt he didn't fit in somewhere beforehand, as he knew they all had, even if none of them had ever said it.

He'd excelled at classes without really trying. He'd become stupidly popular for his ridiculous antics, those cruel and those harmless alike. He'd achieved his dream of Quidditch captain, and won the cup all three years. He'd become Head Boy, a position he still didn't fully understand, even though most of the prefects had grown to treat him like he did well at it. He'd gotten accepted in his dream career. He'd gotten the girl he'd coveted for years.

Compared to his friends—hell, compared to everyone he knew—he was too lucky and spoiled by half.

Before that year, he'd never questioned if he'd deserved something. He'd always gotten what he wanted with little struggle at all—except for Lily, of course. The rest had all but fallen into his lap, even the things he'd worked hard at—his Animagus status, which shouldn't have worked out so flawlessly despite the hours upon hours upon hours they'd put into it; the same for the Marauders map; the same for his early acceptance into the Auror Department.

Suddenly, he didn't know how much he deserved any of it.

Blessed, spoiled, fortunate—he'd spent eighteen years that way.

How much longer could that last?

The first step to finding that out was leaving Hogwarts, and the prospect suddenly terrified him.

"We're all in to get a place together, yeah?" he asked, averting his eyes from Remus' gaze.

They'd already agreed, but he wanted to hear it again. Keeping them together had never felt more important.

"You're the only one who actually has a job lined up," Remus pointed out, ever practical. "Wormtail and I still have to figure that out. Padfoot will fall into something on accident, I imagine. Things have a way of working out for him, don't they?"

Just like Sirius would fall into a job in Transportation if Dumbledore could swing it, although Remus had no way of knowing.

And it was the truth, after all. Perhaps it was Sirius' innate charm, but he continuously managed to work his way through anything.

James felt the same way about himself, and even stronger than he thought it about Sirius. Why Remus didn't call him out for it too?

"You've always worked hard," Remus would tell him months later, when he would finally pluck up the courage to ask. "Always, even when you didn't see it yourself."

James would appreciate the sentiment, but never would know if he fully believed him.

Sirius gulped down his pumpkin juice, face still red from coughing. "Wormtail, I appreciate you trying to kill me before NEWTs so I don't have to take them. Really. I could go out worse ways than laughing." He shot Remus an unbothered, easy smile at his accusation, one that sat easily on his aristocratic face. "You're not wrong, Moony, although I'm offended you think I don't work at it. I don't just accidentally fuck up all the time, which is needed as the first step before things can go right. That kind of fuckery takes effort."

"We'll get a place and you all can help pay for it once you find jobs." James hoped he made it sound like a demand rather than a request, because he meant it as one. "Stuff it, Moony," he added when Remus opened his mouth to argue, apparently the only one willing to push back. "It's what I want."

Sirius snorted. "'It's what I want,'" he repeated. "What, does that reasoning work on Lily? Is that why you're not even trying to work to convince us? Has she turned you that lazy?"

Sirius clearly meant it as a joke, but the question actually gave James pause. "Honestly? Maybe." Aside from the Slytherin debacles, things with her flowed ridiculously easily, even after their row in the prefects' bathroom and the revelation of his declarations of love. It hardly made sense that things remained as effortlessly good as they did, all things considered.

"I'll tell her to start giving you more shit. Can't have you losing your edge, after all. Where would we be then?"

Well, at least he was needed.

"We're getting a place," James said again. "Or I'm getting a place with three other bedrooms, and you lot can either move in immediately or eventually, but it'll sit empty until you do." He paused briefly, although not long enough to give Remus more time to interject. "I'd like a place near some woods. It's always been nice to run at Mum and Dad's."

It would also be great to have somewhere close by for Remus to transform, but he wasn't about to paint the picture quite in that way.

"I suppose something secluded means that we won't alert any nearby muggles when you and Padfoot end up jinxing everything Wormtail and I own." Dry tone or not, Remus looked torn somewhere between guilt and gratitude, although he clearly tried to show neither. Still, just from his words, James knew he was in even before he confirmed it a second later. "Thanks, Prongs. We'll find work—"

"You'll find work," James corrected, unable to hide his grin. Relief washed over him. Not only did he love getting his way, but it meant things wouldn't change too much after they graduated. He'd still have his mates. "You're the smartest of us all. Besides, didn't Wormtail and Padfoot swear to never become career men?"

"Yeah, I reckon it's a life of crime for me," Sirius said, starting on his food again. "You can join me, Wormtail, if you promise not to make me laugh until I choke to death."

Of them all, Peter looked perhaps the most thrilled of all. James felt a pang of understanding. If they fell apart as a group, he didn't doubt that Peter would have the worst time of it. Of course he looked the most excited that they would continue living together. "I can't promise that, but I can promise to try."

On promises kept, Lily followed through with one of hers the next night. James woke up in the middle of the night to her sliding in next to him in his four-poster bed. He had just enough time to see the smile on her face, delightfully devilish in the moonlight, before she closed the bed hangings with a flick of her wand, cast a silencing charm on them with another flick, and kissed him.

"Was it what you had dreamt of?" she asked afterwards. The narrow confines of his bed left her with little choice but to curl up into his side, an arm draped across his chest, although she hadn't complained when she'd settled there.

If it guaranteed that she would cuddle him more, James would absolutely have to get a smaller bed once he moved out onto his own.

"It was better." He heard her soft laugh against his chest from where her head rested near his shoulder, and knew why it struck her as funny. He'd never answered that question any other way. "Did I wreck you?"

He thought he already knew, based on the nail marks he knew she'd left in his shoulders, but he still wanted to hear her say it.

"Mmm." He could hear her smile even in the single sound. "I don't know if it added up to how much you keep telling me you wanted to shag me for four yars, but—"

"Are you saying that so I'll try again?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Done." The world felt wonderfully still and calm as he closed his eyes. "You know I love looking at you, but it's never been pitch black before, and…well, I never considered what that would feel like, since I always want to see everything."

Without the wonderful, all-consuming distraction of the sight of her, all he had to focus on was the way she sounded and the way it all felt, and that—

He didn't have words for that.

He enjoyed the feel of her more than usual even then, just the smooth length of her body against his side and the silkiness of her hair between his fingers. It also probably helped that things felt far, far less terrifying when he couldn't see her, which meant he could say and ask things he might normally not.

"Did I say it?" he asked, and even though he mercifully couldn't see her reaction, he still felt anxiety twinge at the back of his neck.

She didn't have to ask what he meant. She knew he meant 'I love you.'

"No." The fingers she moved around his chest had never faltered in painting gentle patterns, as if she had expected him to ask. The question certainly hadn't surprised her. "I told you, it's not every time. I don't think there's a rhyme or reason to when you say it or when you don't."

He chewed on that for a moment, and felt his anxiety dissipate little by little. Before it could leave totally, he forced himself to ask the other question that had plagued him for a while, although only in the late days of May and early days of June had he start to wonder it to a point where he found himself pondering it almost unceasingly.

"How many blokes have you slept with?"

After all, if he was the best Lily had ever had—and he reminded himself of that hourly, still intensely smug over it—he wanted to know exactly how many blokes he'd beaten out for his top spot.

He didn't plan to admit that reasoning, of course. He didn't doubt that she would chide him for his competitive nature, even though they both knew her to be just as competitive as him.

Her fingers still didn't falter. "Besides you? Three. Why?"

His hand froze while running though her hair.

How the hell had he beaten her in sheer numbers?

"Did you expect more?" she asked when he didn't respond immediately, and that threw him even further from knowing what to say. It felt like he walked dangerous, jinxed ground, no matter how reasonable she sounded.

"Honestly? Yes. From the way it all sounds, your summers and all—" He didn't finish his thought. He didn't have to. "And you didn't tell me when I told you."

"I would have. You didn't ask, so I thought you probably didn't want to know."

He let out a disbelieving scoff that he didn't intend to make.

Had it somehow become unclear to her that he wanted to know everything about her?

"What? I'm not going to offer that up unless it's explicitly asked for. It's not something everyone wants to hear." Her reasoning sounded so bloody believable that he did believe that she had thought along those lines, even though he found such reasoning clearly contrary to everything about them. "I know it sounds like we've been wild over the summers, and we have been, without a doubt. I managed to do just about every stupid thing you can imagine at least once, if not more. But I'm not really into the whole random thing, at least not with shagging. I don't see the point. It's only really good with someone once you figure out what the other person likes and how you work together. I don't get the point in a one off where you can't know any of that. There's no way that's worth the effort."

With all of her lectures on reciprocity and her seemingly endless desire to fulfill his fantasies, he could very well see that.

Besides, what had she said to him over break? That he was the sort of lad who she'd avoid, because he was good-looking enough that she doubted he cared if a girl had a good time? If she assumed that of most blokes, her internal logic made complete sense. Of course she'd want to extensively vet anyone before she actually let them attempt to give her a good time.

Her internal logic confounded him, of course, but it usually did.

"Now snogging," she added after a beat. "That's different. I've snogged a lot of blokes. It's half the fun, and it's a lot easier for that to go right than anything that follows. That's not to say that I wasn't still absolutely ridiculous with lads. I was, but I was just a tease. You know me—that's much of what I like anyway. I enjoyed it even when it went nowhere. More, maybe."

He could absolutely imagine that, without a doubt.

"Who was the third one?"

He knew he had no right to ask. After all, he'd admitted to sleeping with someone she hadn't known about, and she'd never asked for another detail. It blew his mind that things like that just didn't bother her, either fully secure in herself and what they had, or managing a good job at faking it.

"A muggle friend. We went to primary school together—that's early school for muggles, until eleven—and he's part of my muggle group of friends back home. It was just something we did on and off the past couple of summers to pass the time, but we really are just mates." She paused for a second. "And before you say that a bloke can't shag me and want nothing more—he and I would check out other people together. I snogged blokes in front of him, and he did the same with girls. But when we were bored, it worked out to have each other around. Still, when Mar inevitably says things she shouldn't about something I've done—it was all with one bloke, we are very much only friends, and it was truly because there was nothing else to do around Guildford and I was bored."

Was it better or worse that she'd slept with less blokes than he had girls, but had clearly spent a lot more time with each person than he had?

What would have bothered him more—if she'd outnumbered him, even by a lot, or that she kept up consistent sexual relationships with one bloke over long periods of time?

He truly didn't know.

He also had a very strong suspicion that Morton had known nothing about her summers—although he doubted that that came from any sort of malice on her part. With her internal logic, he could see her justifying the situation easily, considering it okay to spend summer with her muggle friend and spend school years with Morton, considering she and Morton were never together. Really, she wasn't wrong in that justification. He just very much assumed that Morton would have been not okay with it, had he known. James also knew she probably wouldn't have expected Morton to care in the least when it had gone on, even though it looked obvious to his eye that he would have cared, and probably a lot.

He did his best to push past those musings and latched onto her last word. Really, he'd latched onto it even past his thoughts about Morton.

"Bored." The word felt strange on his tongue, at least in the context she offered it. It didn't matter that that more or less explained how things had gone for him with Annette. When she phrased it that way, it just sounded weird. "If you had told me you were looking to shag someone because you were bored over the summers, do you know how fast I would have gotten to Surrey?"

She laughed again against his chest, the sound soft and somehow warm. "I would have hexed you for even suggesting it, Statute of Secrecy be damned," she said, and she sounded fonder about hexing him than he ever could have dreamed a year before. "I'm not looking to hide any of that from you," she added, voice more serious. "All you have to do is ask me."

Again, he marveled at her internal logic.

How was he supposed to know that when she purposefully hid things from him, even when he did ask?

Thoughts of Nott and Snape and Gimble and all that secrecy still annoyed him, no matter her good intentions. Good intentions didn't make something right, even if he didn't begrudge her those privacies.

(Well, even if he didn't begrudge her those privacies much.)

He'd never told her how he and his friends got through the full moon with Remus, after all, but then again, she'd never asked. She'd respected that privacy of his own. He just didn't have that kind of patience.

"You're the first bloke I've let hold me in years." He thought he heard a hint of sadness in her voice, although a smile too. "The only other people I've cuddled with have been Hestia and Mar, and that's a bit different. Just a bit."

She wanted to lighten the mood again, as if her admission had made things too serious. He wanted to give that to her, but a part of him couldn't.

"You're the only girl I've ever held." Besides Annette, he'd shagged every other girl at Hogwarts, which left very few opportunities for cuddling even if he'd desired it. And with Annette, they'd worried about getting caught by his parents or her mum to the point that they'd jumped up out of bed almost as soon as they'd finished.

Really, though, she was also the only girl he'd ever wanted to hold.

He tried very hard not to think about what her words had implied: clearly the last bloke who had held her was Gimble.

"Poor you. It's not like I give you an easy time at holding me, even still." She sounded as if she meant it, but she shifted in the next moment, sliding a leg across his waist, closer to him as if to make up for all that. He immediately shifted a hand to stroke her leg. "Will you do me a favor?"

Ah.

That explained the cuddling.

It didn't matter. He still knew he'd give in.

"Have I ever said no to anything you've wanted?"

"No. No, you're sweet that way. I'm spoiled. I know that." Her hand came up to stroke his hair, and he knew she did that because he especially liked it too. "I found Luke today and went in on him. Not terribly—I could have been much worse, although I could have been nicer, just the same. I'm pretty sure he's going to sit at our table for breakfast tomorrow. I didn't invite him, but I put the idea in his mind. I said two or three times that it's absolute shit that Marlene has to make inroads at his table with his friends, but he doesn't have to try with hers—which includes you and your friends. I asked if she only had to do it because she's the woman, and if he plans to not compromise at all for her, because if so, he should pack it in now—and, well, he's smart. He'll put it together."

When she paused, he waited for the other shoe to drop. "Okay?"

"Will you be nice to him?"

He continued to wait.

Apparently she did too.

He began to laugh. "That's it?"

"Yes. What did you expect?"

"I don't know, but not that. Something difficult or something I really didn't want to do, I guess." He found her face with his hand in the dark, and drew her up to kiss her, still laughing as he did. "You've asked me to do way worse things before without using your feminine wiles, so it seemed—"

"Those were not my feminine wiles. You'll know when I usemy feminine wiles." She smiled as she spoke, and he brushed his thumb against one of her dimples, certain exactly where to locate it even without sight. "I know it's not like I'm asking you to give up Quidditch or something, but—well, he is Alex's friend and he does treat me strangely now that he knows what happened with me and him, so that's bound to feel weird for you. But if you're even indifferent towards him, Sirius will immediately act ten times worse, and Peter will join in, and it'll become a whole mess. If you're nice, everyone else will follow, and Mar will be happy that Luke's trying. People follow your lead, you know. It's not just your friends, although they are the worst about it."

He'd always kind of known that, and he'd definitely exploited it, but he'd never expected her to say it like it was a positive.

Beyond that—

Had she always called Morton by his last name just because he had, save for those few times she had slipped up, or of late, after the threat of him had disappeared entirely?

So far as he could tell, yes, she had, even before she'd so much as liked him even a little.

Why was there something achingly sweet about that?

Still—

"Rooney's not about to bring all his mates, is he?" he asked. "Because that's the line."

"Oh, no. No, they dislike you all enough that they'll just laugh at him while watching from their table. They're also nowhere near as good of friends as Hessie and me. We went over there because we put in work to our friendships."

"I will be the perfect picture of nice." He kissed her again, and he heard her give that soft hum that she only made in moments of relaxed contentment. That alone made tolerating Rooney worth it. He also didn't really dislike Rooney, per say. He just had never really cared he existed, beyond as an annoyance for his connections to Morton. "Why did you go in on him? Is he a shit boyfriend? Does Sirius need to give him a talk about boyfriend duties?"

Every laugh from her still felt incredible.

"Can you imagine?" She sounded almost wistful. "Oh, I'd pay to see that, although Mar would lose it. And she's already lost it." There she just sounded sad. "She's such a wreck. She doesn't handle stress well. Hestia thinks it's because she's never really struggled in her life or had anything bad happen to her, at least not until the Death Eater attack here, and you saw what that did to her. It's really strained things between them, because Hestia doesn't have the patience for it. She feels badly about it too, but she just…she ends up thinking about how Marlene has no right to get so upset over something like NEWTs, when it's nowhere near as bad as when she lost her mum, and she made it through that without breaking down. I get that, at least as much as I can. Her mum dying really aged Hestia, gave her this perspective that Mar and I both can't fully grasp, and it's changed the way things are between her and Mar. It has for a while, but especially lately. I think Hestia also resents Mar for having such an ideal life when hers has been such shit since sixth year, even though she'd never admit it. So there's that going on, and Mar of course isn't handling that tension with Hestia well either."

"She's overextending herself," Hestia had told him of Lily. "She's trying to prop me and Mar up, and she doesn't have the energy for it."

He could imagine that more easily than ever, just from the sound of her voice.

"And I can't fix it."

And the way she said that?

That revealed the heart of the matter entirely, even though James wondered both then and later if she realized it herself.

After all, for someone so good at reading other people, she really was shit at reading herself.

"But I can fix things with Luke," she went on, and that alone told him that she didn't see that her attempts to try to fix things sat at the core of her problem. She clearly just wanted to help so bloody badly that she didn't realize how detrimental it was to herself—or to consider that maybe people might not want her help. "He's been so wrapped up in NEWTs for a while that he's just checked out with Mar, and, well, you've met her. She needs attention to live. He's so worried about making it to Healer training that he just kind of takes for granted that she'll be there when NEWTs are done. He got real offended when I accused him of that, but it's true, and, again, he's smart. He'll see that I'm right once he's done being mad at me, and I expect he already is, because he's reasonable. I'm sure he'll feel bad about it all before tomorrow morning—for getting snippy with me today, but also for treating her like he has. I told him she's spiraling further past worrying about NEWTs because she doesn't know where their future stands, since he acts like she doesn't exist most of the time, and he looked pretty stunned and horrified at that. He's not cruel; he's just thick. He understands books better than women."

He spent five solid seconds fervently wishing that she could articulate her own feelings half as well as she could those of others before he even tried to respond. "He's got a leg up on Sirius and Pete both, because at least he understands something. What do they have?"

"A bad friend who chats shit about them?"

"That's a rude thing to say about Remus."

It felt good, too good, stupidly good, to roll towards her and pull her in flush against him while she laughed and went wonderfully soft and supple in his arms. He didn't have to see her to feel her happiness, and he knew it was also her happiness also radiating around them, not just his own overpowering everything else. Her face found its way into his neck and her mouth to his pulse point, her lips soft.

"I have another favor."

"Are these feminine wiles?" he asked, because it felt like it. Along with her mouth on his neck, she'd taken to running her nails up and down his back in a way that always made him shiver with pleasure.

"No, but it's closer." She kissed up his neck, along his jaw, and to his mouth. "Take me to Hogsmeade."

Again, he hadn't known what he expected, but it wasn't that.

"When I asked you to show me how to get there during Christmas break, you said you would if you could," she said, and it jogged the memory in his brain that he hadn't exactly forgotten, but that had gotten buried under so many more recent, incredible memories of her. She had asked him just after McGonagall had given them permission to go to Hogsmeade on Christmas Eve—what a bad idea that had been, although of course they hadn't known it at the time. She had touched his arm twice afterwards, and that alone had done his head in a little.

He hadn't exactly gotten less soppy and lovestruck as time had gone on, although in recent days it typically took more than a simple arm touch from her to send him reeling.

"I can maybe do that. I can probably do that," he amended, and she hadn't had to employ a single feminine wile to get him to correct himself.

He didn't feel too bad for wanting to give her everything he could. After all, besides those parts of her she kept hidden—those deep, painful parts she didn't show anyone—what had she ever denied him? And those things—well, those things he could understand, or at least try to understand for as long as possible.

"I need to ask the lads." He hoped that explained enough—and hoped that his friends would think logically about it all. They'd never taken girls with them when they had snuck out of the castle before, something Sirius had made that a very clear point over Christmas. James remembered the look he gave him when he'd said it, dark and suspicious, clearly correctly identifying the weak link among them even then.

But what did that matter with less than a week left of school? The castle's secrets would leave with them, and he saw no harm in showing Lily another one. After all, he'd shown her many, many more in his quest to snog her, and then later shag her, in every internal passage he could. His friends had never showed those to girls either, and they hadn't complained that he had. He hadn't even asked their permission, he realized.

Fuck, he was too lucky and spoiled by half.

What else did his friends let him get away with?

"Thank you." She kissed him gently, and it felt like a reward just for offering to try. "I just want out of here. Just for a little bit. We don't even have to do anything in town. I just don't want to be here anymore."

Yeah, he'd give her that, no matter how he had to work to convince his friends.

In return, she didn't leave even after she said she should, and even after that, when they both knew she should. She let him convince her to stay, and she actually slept, even though she had almost never fallen asleep in his arms over Easter break.

Again, it really made him reconsider wanting a sizable bed of his own.

He fell asleep too, but woke up pressed up against her and hard and unable to fall back asleep. She even let him convince her to stay after that, after he woke her up by kissing her neck and she murmured that she needed to leave. Still, she pulled him closer as she'd said it, so he didn't feel too badly about detaining her for just a little bit longer.

She finally snuck away just before dawn, and he hadn't liked letting her go even then. He knew they needed to be more careful, and clearly she knew it too, but it felt too fucking good to worry too much when he watched her smile at him before she slipped out the door.

xxx

James watched Rooney approach their table the next morning, his face an open map of uneasy nerves.

"Is it alright if I join you all?" he asked with all the customary politeness James expected from him. He'd touched Marlene's back as he said it, and the way she looked up at him, with such open pleasure—

Would Lily ever misread a situation?

Yes. More than once. She had in the past, sometimes with little consequence but sometimes disastrously, although not in any way that James had ever seen. She would in the future too, and he'd see the evidence then.

Marlene's expression had gone gentle, softer than James was used to seeing it, although he so rarely saw her around Rooney that he wasn't surprised that he'd missed it before. She'd started looking more composed in recent days. Madam Pomphrey had sent her off from the Hospital Wing with several doses of a stronger calming potion than what Lily had given her in the past. James didn't doubt that Madam Pomphrey had started giving that same potion out to other students as well. It was apparently all too easy to build a tolerance to calming draughts.

"Yeah, have a seat." James caught the way Marlene looked at him, as if surprised by his enthusiasm and friendliness, but he studiously focused on Rooney. "It's nice to see you over here, especially if it keeps the girls here. You know, Sirius said something more than once about you and your mates taking off with our women—"

"It started right before we played you in Quidditch," Sirius said. True to Lily's prediction, he sounded perfectly amiable, and James knew she'd called it correctly when she said that he acted that way in large part because James did. "Those are mental tactics if I've ever seen them."

Rooney laughed. He'd taken up the spot next to Marlene, and his hand had never left her back. Watching the scene, James couldn't help but recall what Lily had once told him: she had realized she'd fancied him for the first time when she watched him laugh their sixth year. To his eye, Rooney looked like a perfectly average bloke when he laughed, and neither Hestia or Lily looked particularly moved by the sight either. But Marlene?

Marlene looked at him like the world started and stopped with him alone.

"I'd ask Anthony if that was a tactic just so you could know one way or the other, but he doesn't joke about Quidditch," Rooney said. "He wouldn't find it funny." When he glanced at Marlene, he looked at her just as she did him.

James immediately saw what Marlene had meant when she complained over his and Lily's antics. She and Rooney looked at each other so sweetly that it almost made his teeth ache. Sirius and Hestia bothered him far, far less—but, then again, he was much, much more used to them.

"I don't think he jokes much at all," Hestia said in her typical kind tone, but James saw the corner of her mouth quirk when he caught her eye.

One day, he planned to sit her down and make her tell him all the mocking things she apparently thought about people. He wanted to witness it firsthand.

"Not lately, at least," Rooney agreed. His voice had the sort of mild, easy-going quality that James liked about Remus, like he was too smart to get upset over much. "We're all kind of driving each other mad with NEWTs. I might be over here a bit more, if it's alright."

"So long as we don't just talk about NEWTs," Peter agreed. He grinned. "Marlene says you have different Quidditch teams. Let's hear this, then. Fight it out."

James didn't need to even look at Lily to feel her happiness.

He also didn't need to see her pleasure to feel good about his friends' acceptance of Rooney at their table.

Strangely, the quiet contentment on Marlene's face was reward enough.