Author's Note: Lirians. I know you love The Office. I know you love Jim and Pam. (I know you don't love Michael HAHA). THEREFORE I PRESENT, JILY JAM. Happy so-belated-I-think-we're-closer-to-this-year's birthday!

"James, come here."

James Potter - tall, dark, handsome and in possession of only one flaw: full knowledge of that fact - strolled on over to Lockhart at his request.

Lockhart was gesturing to a video on his phone.

Snow Patrol blared from the speakers as his face filled the screen.

Oh. Did James neglect to mention that his stunning good looks were in fact a marketable commodity, as he was also an actor, going into the third season of a hit TV show called The Office?

With a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a weekly viewership of 8 million people and a little smirk to the camera that he had practically trademarked, James Potter was doing pretty well fresh out of drama school.

Not that he was bragging or anything.

The whole premise of their show was a mockumentary - a pretend documentary where a crew followed around "ordinary workers" at a paper company, capturing the good, the bad and the ugly. James's character (Jim, funnily enough - a nickname he NEVER went by if he could help it) was a salesman whose rivalry with Dwight Schrute (played by real life best bud and royal pain in the ass Sirius Black) was a defining feature of the show. Their pranks on each other sometimes consumed the whole office, drawing into the affray Toby from HR (played by Remus Lupin - who was fast joining the ranks as Cool People on the Cast) and the temp (played by Peter Pettigrew - whose character and personality both seemed to trail after the rest of the boys. His defining characteristic was perhaps that he Eagerly Wanted To Be Part of the Cool People Group is how Sirius would put it. But honestly, James thought the bloke was alright).

But the show was not a sausage fest. Oh no. Rounding out the ensemble cast was the accounting department, staffed by one Angela Martin - a blonde diminutive woman whose character had always reminded James of those little handbag dogs who barked at everything and judged the world from their vantage point in some rich lady's purse. Angela was played by Marlene McKinnon, who was in person the exact opposite of her acting counterpart by way of being a verifiable ray of sunshine. She was so sweet, and her attempts at hitting on Sirius (much to his buddy's chagrin) left James with endless entertainment. Heading the accounting department was Olivia Martinez, played by Dorcas Meadowes. Openly out, relatively sensible and just a tad judgemental made her great friends with Angela. Her counterpart was similarly sensible and lecturely, though there was a softness to her center that hadn't made its debut in her show's character.

And completing the cast was the one, the only: Lily Evans. She played Pamela Beesley, the shy receptionist.

Oh, what James could say about Lily Evans could fill an encyclopedia.

Gorgeous? Of course.

Witty? Like you wouldn't believe it.

Kind? Almost to a fault.

Perhaps her only flaw was baggage that came in the form of her high school boyfriend, now turned corporate lawyer who was less than supportive of her decision to drop out of law school three years ago and take on the acting job. The guy's name was Lionel Lee. James never could trust a guy with an alliterating name. It'd taken him *this* long to get over Pete's.

And this Lionel character? Ugh! Nevermind her raging success, or check per episode that James was SURE was more than the idiot took home in a year. He was all:

"You're not using your brain, Lily."

"What are you going to do when you're not young and pretty anymore?"

"Education lasts forever, fame lasts but a season."

Those were unfortunately all verbatim quotes from Lily's own mouth (to Marlene - James would never get involved in a couple's relationship drama. Though that's not to say that he wouldn't get… invested.)

Well, was it his fault that anybody could see that she could do so much better?! For example, she could choose someone who cleared the very low bar of actually caring about her and supported her in her career choices and autonomy.

What did she even see in him anyway?

Cursory social media stalking revealed the blandest guy he'd ever (virtually) met. He had two uniforms: a navy suit with grey tie (just like Barack Obama the caption said when showcasing his monotonous wardrobe), or a white t-shirt jeans combo. No in between. No variation. James may not be ready to hit the runway with his wardrobe, but even he felt offended by the dude's consistent lack of effort.

"Ahem." Lockhart cleared his throat, and James looked down to find the video still playing, the Snow Patrol song now reaching its chorus.

Tell me that you'll open your eyes.

On screen was James (as Jim) looking at Lily (as Pam) in the elevator, and then looking away - just as she decided to look up at him from under her eyelashes. James didn't recall directorial instruction during that scene. The scene cut and then showed a camera zooming in on Lily, who actually and off-script fell asleep during shooting. In her chair, her head bobbed once, twice and then nodded off to the side to land comfortably on… James's shoulder. This might not have been so bad but the camera missed NOTHING. It focused on his face, the glasses sliding down his nose as he looked down at her sleeping figure. Her hair spilled across his business shirt, her cheek rested on his suit shoulder and then, as he watched his on-screen self take in her close proximity, most damning of all: he smiled.

And here's the truth about acting. It looked best when it wasn't acting at all.

The video ended and Lockhart cleared his throat until James looked up at him expectantly.

"We're going to write in a kiss scene after casino night. THIS is what the show needs! More romance! Your chemistry is perfect!" Lockhart mimed a bomb exploding with his hands on the word "perfect" and James tried to refrain from quirking an eyebrow. Mostly because he couldn't do it properly. This was a shortcoming he felt keenly because Lily's eyebrows had a NATURAL arch. Of course they would, she was perfect. But he also felt it was in his best interest to avoid his eyebrow exercises because Lockhart was a bit of a sensitive showrunner and didn't take kindly to criticism upfront.

"Lily!" Lockhart called out just as the angel herself walked by the room. She spun around, her red hair flicking out behind her, frizzy as her character's hair is in the show.

"Yes, Gilderoy?"

"Come here."

The video played up again.

But instead of watching the video, which he had already seen (most of, anyway), James figured a better use of his time would be watching how the sunlight streaming through the window caught on Lily's hair, setting it aglow with a dozen shades of red. Auburn. Maroon. Ruby. Scarlet. Wine. Cerise. Copper. Russet.

"YES!" Gilderoy jumped up, interrupting James's revision of his truly encyclopedic knowledge of the many varieties of the color red. "Can you all see that? THIS! THIS is the chemistry that we want! Look at how he looks at her so longingly."

Sirius chose this exact moment to roll by, timing impeccable as per usual. "Yes," the sly cad agreed easily, and then opened his mouth again and with a sixth sense developed after years of pranking together James could already tell that he would not like where the rest of this sentence would go. "James is a terrific actor. It comes through practice." James's eyes narrowed with suspicion, but Sirius's smugness only intensified. "He's pretty much mastered the unrequited love thing with Lily."

"I have not." That sentence didn't sound as powerful as it did in his head, so he narrowed his eyes into slits behind his glasses for added measure.

But his best friend could not be deterred. "Lily?" Sirius turned to face her, his facial expression set into the image of perfect surprise. "I didn't expect to see you there." Mockingly, Sirius messed up the back of his hair, sticking his elbow out in the process.

James felt very cut that his admission to Peter about his hair messing tendencies had found its way to Sirius.

"Wanna hang out after work sometime?" Sirius was all pretend nonchalance. "If Roy - I mean if Lionel doesn't already have plans for you."

A not very subtle shake of his head to stop was apparently too subtle to get him to stop.

"I think I'd like to kiss you."

James grimaced at that. That one was his own fault. If he armed Sirius with his innermost thoughts, it could only be expected that he would be the casualty.

Lily's reaction was a bit more proactive. "Shut up, Sirius. He doesn't view me like that. We're just friends."

This whole segue went over Lockhart's head who just nodded distractedly from his phone. "That's perfect!" he went in for a high five which James caught only through sheer reflexes honed by years of ducking Sirius's projectiles.

Lily was not so lucky as she caught Lockhart's second blind high five in the face.

"Agh!"

"Evans! Are you alright?"

"Yes! Just peachy," she grumbled. She promptly left the room.

"Wait Lily! SORRY!" Lockhart ran after her.

With the step of someone who enjoyed his best friend's embarrassment a little too much, Sirius came by to slap an arm onto his back.

"You'll get her one day Jimbo."

James pointedly shrugged out of Sirius's grip. "Not with your help, I won't."

This only encouraged Sirius further, who let out a belly laugh like he was proud of it. After a while, James found himself cracking a smile too.

Well, it sort of was funny. His real life crush on his co-star was leaking into his work. And, thanks to PBnJ4ever, the YouTube account who pieced together three minutes of seemingly INNOCUOUS footage of side glances, soft smiles and sighs over three seasons, now his producer wanted to capitalize on it.

He seriously secretly suspected Sirius of that account.

On the one hand, this directorial direction meant free rein to gaze longingly at Lily Evans.

On the other hand, this also meant it was sure going to be a lot harder to move on from her when she was dating that idiot high school boyfriend she hadn't quite yet managed to upgrade from.

That (always unpleasant) thought tangent was interrupted by her head appearing back around the corner.

"Lockhart just told me that he's adding a kiss scene after casino night. Let's work on our chemistry?"

He couldn't work out for the life of him whether she was excited by the prospect or not. Was this purely a professional proposition? Were the warm undertones to her face due to her question or due to the winter gear they were wearing to pretend to be in Pennsylvania even though they were shooting in sunny California?

So he did what he did best. He deflected all of his confusing feelings with a joke.

"Sure thing, beet cheeks."

Her cheeks indeed darkened at his comment. Sirius thudded him on the back in appreciation of the beet reference. But, he ignored his best mate and grinned at her.

"Shall we start now?"

"I just don't see Pam cheating on Roy! I think she has more integrity than that."

"It's not about integrity, Evans. It's about art."

"Don't bring her art into this. It's not Roy's fault that he doesn't support her artistic passions."

"Nobody said anything about Pam's lacklustre fiance. I'm talking about the art of the show. The pining. The emotion. The drama."

"Basic decency is always the first thing to go to make way for increased viewership."

"Don't feel bad, Evans. No lady can resist me - OW!"

James rubbed at his arm. Lily Evans packed an unassuming punch.

"Sorry." She batted her eyelids. "I couldn't resist."

"S'pose I deserved that," he muttered under his breath, but then perked up. "Look at it like this. Pam's biggest character flaw is her lack of courage and honesty with herself. It keeps her from pursuing a career she's actually interested in. It keeps her from getting Roy to actually commit to her even though she's unhappy with the way things are. It keeps her from opening her eyes and seeing that Roy is a no good son of a-"

"Hey!" Lily interjected. "No trash talking about my onscreen romance. We worked really hard to build chemistry."

A pointed look from James. "It isn't working."

Huffing in response, she crossed her arms in front of her.

"Jim, on the other hand" James gestured towards himself. "He's a hunk." (He did not miss how she rolled her eyes.) "He's a risk. He's going to show some clear interest in her, and force her to confront her image of herself, as well as what she wants for herself. Why settle for someone who doesn't even treat you right when you can have someone who actually loves you?"

"Woah, you think Jim loves Pam?

Looking at her, her vivid emerald eyes brightened by the discussion, her freckles popping on her face from the summer just gone by, her lips pursed together in a barely concealed smile, it really wasn't very hard for James to reply, "Yes. I think he does."

Was it a sensible idea to conflate his character's feelings for her character with his own feelings for the person who played her?

PROBABLY NOT.

But sensible ideas were overrated.

So he continued on with the topic. "He loves her. Don't say he doesn't know her because he does. He knows that her favourite yoghurt flavour is strawberry and that her preferred style of toast is so dark it's worryingly carcinogenic."

Her mouth opened to protest but then shut it as he went on.

"He's known her for … what? Two years now? Almost three. He's not had a serious girlfriend since he met her. Glancing up and catching her smile at him from across the office is the highlight of his day."

He was graced with a real smile from her there.

"Not to mention all the little in-jokes. Teaming up for pranks. Air high fives. Morning texts."

"Uh, James, Jim doesn't text Pam every morning. You text me."

"Shh!" he brought a finger up to her mouth to shush her. Because that was an appropriate way to touch her lips and well, he'd been thinking about it for a while. "It's all in the art." He smiled, slowly removing his finger.

"You're a shameless flirt," was her retort.

"It's called chemistry. Look it up, Evans." His smile was threatening to erupt out of the corners of his mouth and become a fully-fledged grin. God. This girl. "It's right next to charisma." He grinned while she muttered under her breath about the many words in between cha- and che- in the dictionary.

At that exact moment, Lockhart spoke up from across the room.

"YES! THAT'S THE CHEMISTRY WE WANT! KEEP ON GOING!"

James had the decency to feel a little bit embarrassed that his flirting was in the public eye (ugh and approved of by his overenthusiastic and overinvolved boss no less), but Lily went a stunning shade of red.

That could actually bode well for him.

Maybe Lionel Lee could be pushed out of the picture after all.

Look, satin hadn't been in fashion since his mom went to prom, James was dead certain about that. But something about seeing Lily in a satin dress with spaghetti straps the color of lilac - would that be considered lilac? His knowledge of the color wheel really only specialized in the red zone - for the Casino Night episode was doing something for him.

And with her hair in soft waves, cascading down her bare shoulders.

Yeah.

It was doing something for him.

They were wrapping up the scene where Lily (i.e. Pam) was wishing her no good boyfriend/fiance goodnight, because of course he was leaving the party and was completely unappreciative of the fact that Lily (er.. Pam) had dressed up so nicely tonight.

Lockhart yelled cut and James ambled his way over to her.

"Do you reckon any of the poker sets back there are actually complete? Cos I'm feeling kind of lucky tonight!" Lily declared to James as he approached, her arms swinging and her mouth opening into a wide grin.

"You've won my fake money, you're after my real money now too? Ouch, Evans." He gestured at his heart. Which was beating an unsteady pattern unrelated to his acting skills as she stepped up even closer to him.

"We could skip the foreplay and you could hand me the money right here."

His eyebrow arched ever so slightly, and his mind turned to Roy - no, he meant, Lionel who was probably working somewhere at his East Coast law firm at this ridiculously late hour.

"But foreplay is the best part." James said in the huskiest tone he could muster.

Lily burst into laughter, which wasn't exactly the effect he intended to have around her, but hey, laughter was a positive thing - always.

His tongue darted over his lips subconsciously. "Stop flirting with me, Evans. You're practically engaged."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Six years together doesn't make you practically engaged. A proposal makes you practically engaged. And a wedding date."

"So 2 out of 3." He smiled.

"1 out of 3." She corrected him.

"Those are terrible odds."

"Right?" She laughed again.

"But," and here James thought that he was clever, bringing attention back to the important things. "I notice you didn't deny it."

"Deny what?"

"That you're flirting with me." He winked at her.

"Please." She gestured with a hand. "If I was flirting with you, you'd know." She winked back.

And the force of the gesture hit him like a cement-filled truck.

"Lily," he began. Her first name in his mouth before he could think twice about it. "You know I…" and this is where he should have told her that he might be leaving the show. Because he'd read the script and saw that they planned to transfer him to another office. And Lockhart was very tight-lipped about what that might mean for James's character. This is what he should've said. "I might be leaving." "I'll miss you." But James's brain had this awful habit of not cooperating in moments of dire need. So instead, when his traitor of a brain teamed up with his backstabbing mouth, what he said was, "I'm in love with you."

What he wanted to hear was in response was: "I'm in love with you too."

And you know what, he would've even accepted a cheeky, "I know."

But Lily did neither of those things.

She blinked, suddenly, and he watched the mirth drain from her face with the one word she uttered.

"What?"

"I'm really sorry if that's weird for you to hear. But I need you to," James suddenly found the shoes wardrobe had chosen for him to wear on Casino Night very interesting, "hear it." He continued, "It's probably not good timing. I know that - I just. I needed you to hear it. Once."

He found the courage to look up again, only to find out that her eyes were already searching his.

"Are you serious?"

"Well, no, I'm James."

Aha. There was that good old humour deflection.

But Lily was having none of it.

"Quit it, James. Are you?"

He gulped. Summoned all the courage that Jim the character was supposed to have for Casino Night and channelled it into his body.

"Yes."

And then she stepped closer to him.

And suddenly there was no space between them.

"Lily," his voice was pained. "Don't step so close."

"Why?"

"Because you know I want to kiss you."

The way she quirked her eyebrow let him know that she was also laughing at him.

"But James, why would that be such a bad thing?"

He was still picking up his mouth from the floor when she answered her own question.

She kissed him.

On the mouth.

This was better than a daydream.

This was better than the awkward ways he imagined her falling in love with him when they practiced "chemistry" scenes.

When fake kisses turned to real kisses which blurred the lines for his already bleeding heart.

No, this was real.

And as he deepened the kiss, he wondered only how life could get any more perfect.

And then the sound that he least wanted to hear in all of his daydreams of make-out sessions with Lily Evans echoed with a resounding rudeness.

"CUT!" hollered Lockhart.

James immediately sprung from Lily, his eyes glancing down at her swollen lips and back up to her flushed face. He felt embarrassment, coming in hot and fast, undercut only by a layer of betrayal.

"You - I…" he sputtered, then threw his hand in his hair helplessly.

"I - no - what?!" Lily was only slightly more articulate than him.

Lockhart rolled on by towards them, waving around the director's clapper like it was some kind of magic wand. "Okay, loved what you did there, folks. The kiss was PERFECT. We'll have to recreate it shot by shot. And the dialogue improvisation? GENIUS! I mean, it didn't entirely make sense - but we'll work on it." Lockhart was speaking fast, caught up in the frenzy of directing. "There's just one big issue." He paused, seemingly for dramatic effect. "You guys SAID"— he clapped the sticks together for emphasis — "THE"— another clap — "WRONG"— he was really having too much fun with this director clapper thing— "NAMES. And you call yourself actors, pah." And then he trailed off into a "back in my day when I was an A-list actor" story that absolutely everybody tuned out. When he was done, he called out to the set, "WE'LL SHOOT AGAIN!"

Meanwhile, James and Lily only looked at each other, sudden realization dawning in their eyes.

"Can we take 5?" Lily spoke first.

"I need to… refresh my makeup." James improvised.

Lockhart looked at them critically. "Fine go."

James hurried off, Lily close behind.

"Did you know they were filming?" she muttered under her breath.

"NO!" declared James emphatically. "Did you?" he asked, just to be sure.

"Of course not!" her reply was more indignant.

"Wanna go on a date then?" He grinned. "Wait, I'll give you a minute to break it up with Loser Lionel."

She rolled her eyes. "We broke up weeks ago. I knew he wasn't right for me. It took me long enough."

"Oh." James's eyes lit up with delight. "Then what do you propose we spend our five minute break doing?"

"How about working on our chemistry, back at my trailer?" Lily raised an eyebrow again, and her accompanying smile suggested something even more fun than laughter.

"LOCKHART!" James bellowed. "We'll need 10!"

"We'll need a lot longer than that." Lily giggled, as she took him by the hand and led him away.

"Sirius, have you seen Lily and James? They were supposed to be back in 10. It's been forty-five minutes."

Sirius inspected his perfectly manicured nails as he responded. "I wouldn't check Lily's trailer. I also definitely wouldn't bring the camera crew."

A few minutes later… Lockhart opened Lily's trailer and for a split second saw somebody's unmentionables before a sheet was thrown towards the door and they were all cast out.

"OH MY GOD!" yelped Lockhart at the slammed door. "THIS ISN'T AN HBO SHOW!"

James's dulcet tones were heard beyond the closed trailer door. "SIRIUS!"