Chapter Ten
Week Three (cont):
The White Wyvern was far posher than James had expected, given the general atmosphere of Knockturn Alley at night. Then again, it shouldn't have surprised him at all. He'd seen the way that chaos and luxury somehow sat side-by-side in the district, almost as if they fed off each other. The White Wyvern nearly made him forget about all of the gruesome chaos and vice that he'd seen in the streets. Decked out with rich, wooden furniture and plush booths in dim lighting, the interior gave off that atmosphere of class he'd noted when passing by the district's nicer restaurants. It felt like an oasis, a lavish retreat not only from Knockturn Alley, but from the world.
He hated that he felt that way about it, of course, and immediately resolved to find every little thing wrong with the place.
The most glaring issue sat to one side of the bar, where a long table held people he really, really didn't want to even look at, let alone talk to.
Almost worse than that? They looked at him like they had no qualms about talking to him, which told him everything he needed to know about the way his name had traveled in their group.
Well, they all looked at him that way except for Regulus Black, who stared at James with a significant amount of distrust that was undeniably warranted. James hadn't seen him in four years, although he'd assumed he'd run into him at some gathering or another, and he looked so undeniably like Sirius that James did a bit of a double-take. At twenty to Sirius' twenty-two, Regulus could have passed as a fraternal twin brother, all patrician cheekbones and grey eyes and dark hair, although Regulus looked like he laughed far less. That didn't surprise James a bit. None of Thomas' friends greeted him especially warmly, but Regulus undoubtedly did the coldest of all, which also didn't surprise James in the least.
What did surprise him, despite Thomas' assurances, was that any of them looked anything less than murderous at the sight of him. Arwell Nott even shook his hand with two hands, and Thornfinn Rowle actually managed a smile across his wide, brick-like face—although James wasn't entirely sure that that wasn't meant to scare him. He looked scarier with the smile than without.
And, with that, James got to introduce Lily to a bunch of people she already knew who had hated her for years.
Lucinda Talkalot, the old Slytherin Quidditch captain the year above them, smiled coolly as she kissed Lily-as-Diana's cheek in greeting, the smile the warmest expression James had ever seen her wear. He knew without needing a scrap of confirmation that, while Lily expressed pleasure at meeting her, she thought of the time Lucinda had spit in her face at Hogwarts. She and Lily had come to words over something, probably some slur or treatment of muggleborns. Lily had fought an endless, often reckless crusade against those sorts of things at Hogwarts, and in the midst of an especially brutal altercation their sixth year, Lucinda had come at her physically, all magic aside. "Bit muggle of you, isn't it?" Lily had asked after sending a trip jinx square into Lucinda's chest, and when Lucinda had scrambled to her feet, she had spit directly into Lily's face, the action far louder than words or magic.
Lucinda had spent much of that fall in detention, if James' memory served.
Emma Vanity, who had held captainship of the Slytherin team before Lucinda, also spoke to Lily with an almost friendly, if formal, tone. She'd been three years ahead of them at Hogwarts, and James couldn't recall if she and Lily had ever butted heads, but he did remember Lucinda's penchant for silencing younger students and using sticking charms to affix them towards the very top of Hogwarts' high, high ceilings, so they would have to wait hours for someone to notice them and get them down. She'd done so in joy or celebration, but losing at Quidditch had especially triggered those assaults.
Weirdly, although James had beaten them at Quidditch every time he'd faced Slytherin under either's captainship, both women seemed rather beyond that when they greeted him. On top of those Quidditch matches, he and the other Marauders had pranked basically everyone at the table several times over—some more than others, certainly, but no one in Slytherin had gotten a pass.
What sort of alternate dimension bullshit had he walked into, where apparently none of that mattered?
It was a dimension where Lily could look Arian Mulciber in the face and act like he hadn't tried out the Imperius Curse on Mary Macdonald their fifth year, which he'd cast with his mates just as a laugh. Of everyone there, James knew she hated Arian the most, and yet she managed to smile at him just the same. Even so, she still wore her cloak. He knew she held her wand in her fist, and no doubt even tighter than she had in the street. It wouldn't have surprised him at all to hear it snap in half under her fingers, just from the strength of her grip.
Thomas Avery, Arian Mulciber, Stuart Wilkes, Evan Rosier—they'd formed a horrific quartet at Hogwarts, only completed as a quintet by the addition of Severus Snape. James knew Lily held the four of them in special contempt for that as well, because she never could see past blaming them as negative influences who had nudged Snape past interest and into obsession with the Dark Arts. (She and James had often argued that point around and around, the exact causes for what made a person go as Snape had, because she'd always let Snape off far too easily, in his opinion. Those arguments seemed like so long ago, and so petty in nature, that he felt for a moment like they'd happened between two different people.) In turn, Thomas, Arian, and Stuart, and Evan had never managed to get past Snape's clear devotion to Lily, and she'd caught significantly more heat for being his friend at Hogwarts than eventually ending up his enemy, something that still didn't make sense to James.
Still, it was honestly very telling that the four sat together at a posh bar, purebloods to the last, with half-blood Snape nowhere in sight. It might have been a coincidence, but somehow, James thought not.
Really, with a few exceptions, James didn't doubt that Lily had had at least one negative interaction with every person that she 'met,' all based around her blood status and ranging from bad to worse.
Despite it all, she took her cloak off as if she had every intention of staying a while, and like she didn't mind the idea. "Let me go get drinks," she said to James, draping her cloak across one arm, and James didn't even want to look at her, worried that doing so would confirm that she looked every bit as good as he remembered. He hadn't charmed her hair a different color for her attention since third year, but he had the unexpected, intense urge to do something—anything—to make her look a little less attractive, like turning her hair an ugly puce. Why hadn't she altered her appearance to something closer to a hag and less on par with the way she normally looked, which was ridiculously attractive? "Pearl never forgets a face, and she overcharges anyone she doesn't recognize."
Even when Evan Rosier smiled, his eyes still looked cold and empty. "Caught on, did you?" he asked. "Not everyone does."
"I've spent a good bit of time talking to her," Lily said. "She never outright admitted it to me, but it's obvious if you sit at the bar long enough, and it's pretty entertaining to watch. I'll be back."
That left James with little else to do but take up an empty seat next to Evan and resist the very strong urge to scoot his chair as far away from him as possible. And without anything to do besides that, he couldn't stop the pull of his eyes towards Lily, who looked far more charming than anyone had a right to when standing at a bar, and not just because her arse looked like it did. She spoke to the middle-aged woman pouring her drinks—Pearl, presumably—with an expressive hand, much as she might have while standing in bare feet in his parents' kitchen, chatting with Remus or Benjy or Dorcas or whoever.
He never should have asked her to go for a drink. He should have demanded they drink at home.
Home. He hadn't thought of his parents' house in that way in years.
"Good of you to join us," Stuart Wilkes said. He looked just as James remembered: thin-faced with a narrow nose and a tight mouth, like someone had stretched his face in an unfortunate way. He'd always had strange eyes to go along with that strange face, a very bright, intense blue, and James found them locked on him in a way he didn't like. "Fortunate that Thomas happened to run into you. Have you been here before?"
"No." James sat very carefully still, unwilling to shift his weight as he wanted. If he moved too much, wouldn't it give away how fucking uncomfortable he felt? "Diana has. Like I told Thomas, she's a great tour guide."
Thomas. He hated the feel of that name on his tongue.
"We've seen her here," Evan said. He held a glass of something thick and dark that James didn't recognize, the same contents in the glass he'd passed to Thomas when he'd sat down, and he took a sip. "We all talked about chatting her up at one point. Where'd you find her?"
It was probably fucked, but James really kind of wished they'd tried hitting on her. He would have paid big, big money to watch her shut down that scene.
"Three Broomsticks. I went through with chatting her up." It was a ruse, but he still liked saying it. It sounded like pure Gryffindor bravery, whereas none of them had gotten up the nerve to go near Lily.
Unfortunately, he kind of understood that. She'd intimidated the hell out of him for years, after all. She still did.
"Mum and Dad like her," Thomas said. His eyes lingered on Lily in a way James didn't like. He wouldn't have liked it at the best of times, but considering her arse in her dress, he really didn't like it. At the other end of the table, Regulus had fallen into conversation with Thronfinn Rowle and Lucinda Talkalot and Emma Vanity, which left Stuart Wilkes, Arian Mulciber, Thomas Avery, and Evan Rosier as James' conversation partners.
Lovely.
"She's easy to like," James said. Thomas' mere mention of Declan sent a shot of irritation into the back of his neck. "And your dad has made it very clear that he likes her," he added, unable to help himself. "Repeatedly."
To his surprise, Arian laughed into his drink, and Stuart followed suit.
James doubted that Evan had the capacity to laugh, but he smiled.
Even Thomas smiled, although James couldn't read it as genuine one way or the other. "Yeah, Dad's like that," he said simply, like he could guess the exact tone that Declan used when talking about Lily-as-Diana. It always made James' skin crawl. "Lucky you're with her now for this Wizengamot run. It would never go through if you were still with that mudblood."
What the fuck.
Was he trying to goad him? Was it some sort of test to see how James reacted to such talk about Lily? He wouldn't put it past any of them to do something of the sort, and James worked hard to keep his face neutral as Thomas went on.
"Whatever happened there?" he asked.
Yes, it sounded like a test.
"Priorities changed," James said, selecting each word carefully. Under the table, he rested both hands on his knees, palms flat against his legs, all too aware that he'd tucked his wand into the pocket of his cloak, which sat right within reach. His fingers itched with the desire to shove his hand into his pocket and grab it. "I started thinking about things differently. It didn't work out."
None of that was a lie, exactly. They could interpret it how they wanted.
Thomas nodded. "I'm not surprised. She was certainly good enough for a few things, but nothing else. Glad you got to get those few things from her before sacking her off." He surveyed James over the rim of his glass, undeniably interested and keen. "Severus swore he wasn't bothered when you finally got to fucking her, but he was. We all saw it. I still can't fully figure out why you both went after her so hard, but I get part of it, at least. It's dirty blood for a reason, isn't it? She always seemed like she'd be filthy in bed. Was she?"
James didn't have words.
If the words existed to express how he felt just then, he didn't know them. No swear summarized it; no adjective summed it all up.
Really, overall, he was so fucking mad that he felt almost outside himself.
Lily saved him from…fuck, he didn't even know what he planned to do, but he hoped he'd managed to keep from looking like he wanted to do it.
She set a heavy crystal tumbler in front of him, a double of what he recognized as Campbell's Finest Old Whiskey the second he took a much-needed drink.
Of course she remembered his favorite drink—and of course it cost about three times as much as Firewhiskey.
"I owe you about five drinks for this," he told her, and she smiled as she took the seat next to him.
Even though she looked relatively relaxed, she didn't lean against the back of the chair, but sat perched towards the front, her posture perfect and her head high. "You don't owe me anything," she told him, smiling. "I'm fully capable of paying for your drink. I really doubt your manhood will suffer for it."
It was such a Lily thing to say that he felt the pressure in his chest loosen a little. Adrenaline still coursed through his veins, thick and hot and angry, and she seemed to know it. She reached under the table and picked up one of his hands in hers, her touch soft and gentle. With the greatest ease, she settled his hand above her knee, just as he'd done during the Rosiers' dinner to annoy her—and because he had wanted to, of course. She'd threatened him so severely then that he could hardly believe that she had initiated such contact, but he understood a second later. She saw his anger and sought to bring him some sort of comfort.
It worked. Annoyingly.
Her leg was wonderfully smooth and warm and solid, a weird descriptor, but touching her helped him feel anchored to the moment.
The moment was temporary. It would pass. And when it did, when he somehow managed to escape the fucks around the table who he wanted to curse one by one, she'd be there. He'd have her.
That shouldn't have comforted him as much as it did, but for the love of Merlin, it did.
"My manhood is fine," he told her, and the way she smiled against the rim of her wine glass further confirmed that she aimed hard to lift his spirits. "I'll show you later."
Fuck all of them. Maybe he'd just flirt with her so outrageously that they'd all feel uncomfortable and Thomas would regret inviting him to join them. That would be a dream.
It didn't work, of course, because the idiots around him laughed, as they never had at a single word James had ever said or any action he'd ever done. Then again, after the way Thomas had spoken about Lily, those words James refused to even recall—yeah, it made sense for them to laugh.
He shoved flirting with her firmly off the mental table. Sexualizing her more in front of them seemed like a very, very bad idea.
Lily may have had the same thought, because she changed the subject. "You said you'd seen me here before," she said. Her rich brown eyes still looked a little like her own, because she hadn't altered their almond shape, and she regarded Thomas thoughtfully. "When?"
"A few different times," Arian Mulciber answered smoothly, stepping in unasked. "Imagine our surprise when Evan and Thomas reported that they'd seen you with James at Evan's parents' house."
Well, hearing Arian speak it managed to make James officially hate the sound of his own name. If he'd told Lily that, he didn't doubt she would have teased him about his ego needing just such a takedown.
"We were able to tell Dad you didn't just drop out of the sky," Thomas added. "He couldn't figure out where the hell you came from—or why James kept you away from us for so long. Apparently, James said he had to make sure that he planned to keep you around before he introduced you to anyone."
Yeah, it was official. James hated the sound of his own name.
The comment either amused Lily, or she put on a good act at it. "Oh, are you keeping me around?" she asked James, and, yes, the way she bit her lip when she looked at him told him that she was indeed entertained by the comment.
Despite it all, he found himself smiling back in response to the smile she smothered. "I'm trying to keep you around," he said without thinking, but the second he heard the words, he wondered if they maybe hit too close to home. "Is it working?"
Fuck, how much did he want it to work?
"I haven't decided."
Yeah, that sounded about right. Well, it was better than a 'no,' even though he very much doubted that she had any idea exactly how deep his thoughts went. Really, he had hardly any idea how far his thoughts went, and he didn't want to know either.
As she turned back to Thomas, James watched the amusement slide off her face into something far more polite than the warm way she'd regarded him. "You must never forget a face either, just like Pearl. I haven't been here in ages, not since I got access to the pawnbroker's next door. That was really why I was in here, to try to get access because they're so bloody exclusive—or they were, I guess. That's been gone since, what, March? A real pity. Mr. Selwyn could find just about anything I asked for. I heard a Ministry raid shut them down."
"Crouch," Stuart said without pause. His thin face twisted grotesquely. "He has his eye on half the businesses around here. Selwyn missed a handful of permits, and the next thing you know—"
Somehow—mainly, just from the general atmosphere of Knockturn Alley and its occupants—James doubted it was anything quite that innocent.
"They say he's really putting his all into his run for Minister," Arian added. "Crouch, that is. Father told me last night, who heard it from one of ours inside the Auror Department. He's determined this time around."
Oh, now that was interesting, from start to finish.
Maybe even more interesting? That Arian would drop something like that in front of near-strangers—no, not near strangers, one near-stranger and one enemy-turned-potential-ally—so readily.
Evan rolled his cold, cold eyes. "The Wizengamot would never confirm him, not even if he managed the popular vote. It would never happen, especially not after we get a few more members into the chamber with the next vote. He's made too many enemies, and we have too many supporters. Of all the candidates, he's the least likely to—"
We. Ours. They spoke like James and his mates talked about Quidditch teams.
Lily rested her hand on top of James' and squeezed lightly. "Forgive me, but Ministry talk bores me senseless. I'm going to go join the others."
And then, to James' utter dismay, the traitor stood up and left his side, and looked like she thought nothing of doing it either. She crossed to the other side of the table and settled into a seat next to Lucinda Talkalot, and immediately complimented Lucinda's necklace—the same compliment she'd given to Walburga Black, like it was some sort of homosocial pickup line. Just like with Walburga, it apparently worked. Lucinda smiled, and her voice took on a slightly less formal tone as she fell into conversation with Lily.
"One drink," he called down to her, just as he had at the Rosiers' dinner party, and she sent him a very similar sort of look as she had then, all dark teasing, before she resumed talking to Lucinda.
So began perhaps the longest ninety minutes of James' life.
Somehow, he found himself both bored and on the edge of his seat at the same time. Lily had done the right thing by excusing herself from the Ministry conversation, because he also didn't care what any of them had to say, although he knew he had to listen closely. He needed to remember every detail possible, and stay on his toes so he could play the game properly and react like he needed, not like he wanted, in order to keep up his ruse. But, fuck, it was all so dull. He hardly cared to hear them express opinions on ongoing Minister for Magic campaigns. They trashed Barty Crouch Sr., expressed vague interest in Cornelius Fudge, and most enthusiastically extolled the virtues of Augustus Rookwood, an Unspeakable who had also thrown his hat in the ring.
Was Rookwood in with them? Jamese had seen him around before, but he'd only ever heard good things about him—from Declan and his pals, sure, but from people outside the pureblood circle as well.
"We'd need two-thirds majority to confirm Augustus, and I just don't think we can get those numbers," Arian said reasonably. And he sounded bloody reasonable, something James would have never thought him capable of. "He's well-liked, but you know the do-gooders are going to hold out for Crouch. They want to see all of Knockturn shut down and all of our families arrested for nothing more than our lineage. Crouch would do that."
James tried very hard not to stare.
They thought they were persecuted as purebloods? How? How could they be so deluded?
"Doesn't that make Fudge the only viable option?" he asked. He remembered Cornelius Fudge's round, earnest face. He looked like a man eager to please those around him, a dangerous quality in a leader, but one that both sides would consider valuable. "If Crouch or Rookwood can't get the numbers, that only leaves Fudge as a compromise."
"We've thought on that," Thomas said, and he gave James a smile far too reminiscent of his father. Like Declan would have, Thomas looked pleased that James had put that together, like he thought him some ignorant first-year with no knowledge of the world. "You've met him, haven't you? What was your impression of him?"
James wished he hadn't said anything at all, but he could hardly just sit there silently when he was meant to ingratiate himself with them. "Your dad introduced me last Friday before everything went to hell," he said, and none of them so much as blinked. Clearly the horrors of the night hadn't affected them too terribly, which didn't surprise him at all. Forewarning had undoubtedly made handling it all much easier. "I didn't think much of him." That was true enough. "He seems alright, but kind of just blends into the scenery, doesn't he?" That was true too. "He likes your dad a lot."
No, it wasn't quite that. Fudge didn't like Declan a lot. He wanted Declan to like him a lot. That was obvious even in the brief interaction James had had with them both, and it didn't bode well.
Thomas smiled, smugness visible around the corners of his mouth. "Yeah. He knows who it's important to impress. We like him for that."
Again, the plural, the we. They sprinkled it throughout conversation, but it continued to stand out. Clearly, their opinions were not their own, but the thoughts of the whole lot of bellends that followed Voldemort.
Well, that sort of groupthink was at least helpful. At least it meant that James knew that whatever they told him was the opinion of the lot of them, and not just their own stupid thoughts—unless they fed him false information, of course. He couldn't dismiss that possibility.
Yet, for reasons he didn't fully understand, he thought they probably spoke honestly. There was very little suspicion on any of their faces, although Regulus continued to toss him the sour or disgruntled looks that reminded James all too much of Sirius in A Mood, proper noun. Evan watched him very carefully too, but not with mistrust specifically. He just seemed like an observer in general. No, overall they appeared to have more or less accepted him fully, which had to mean that the plural, the we, had accepted him behind the scenes. They all clearly followed instructions from above, and to the letter. Obviously someone from above had okayed him. Declan? Someone higher? Who?
Beyond that, they didn't really say too much, he noted. They spoke of politics, sure, but they never mentioned a word about Voldemort. The 'we' and 'us' could have merely stood for the cluster of pureblood families that they all ran with and nothing more. Really, nothing they said indicated anything past that, nothing too secret or criminal in the least. They'd accepted him, but not fully.
Still, the fact that they'd accepted him at all told James something he'd expected but dreaded: they'd probably end up approaching him about Voldemort eventually, and he'd have to figure out what to do then.
He shoved those thoughts away. He couldn't do a thing about them in the moment, so it did no good to dwell on them.
To his complete and total surprise, Emma Vanity took up Lily's vacant seat at his side after she went to get another drink, and she struck up a conversation about Quidditch, something he wouldn't have seen coming in a million years. Beyond that, he would have never expected her to look keen and interested in what he had to say, or to ask probing questions about his time playing for the Arrows. She lived and breathed Quidditch—he'd known that playing against her at Hogwarts—but he'd never imagined that that living and breathing could go so far as to include a single thing to do with him.
Annoyingly—so annoyingly—she was actually kind of pleasant to talk to. He would have enjoyed talking to anyone who knew as much about Quidditch as she did, but her? He'd hated her. He did hate her, in the same general way he hated the lot of them. Finding commonalities with any of them set his teeth on edge and made his shoulders ache. It reminded him too fully of the times Declan made him laugh, where he hated himself a little more with every joke he enjoyed. Talking to Emma functioned the same way. The longer they debated about blatching and blagging and stooging, the dirtier he felt.
Regulus didn't join in with the politeness that edged further and further into friendliness. James had expected as much, but Regulus still found it necessary to tell him that explicitly.
He met James outside the bathroom—or ambushed him, rather, since he came in wand blazing—metaphorically, of course—and face like a dark and angry storm. "What's your game?" he demanded without preamble, his tone harsh. He even sounded a bit like Sirius, and staring at him, a brief, wild jolt hit James' chest. It felt as if he argued with his best friend. "I don't care what they say. I don't trust you. You're not one of us. You and my so-called brother—you're the biggest pair of mudblood lovers I've ever seen. You couldn't get enough of the Evans mudblood at Hogwarts. I haven't forgotten. And he—"
James took a breath, one meant to steady himself, but it didn't quite work. "It's nice to see you too, Reg," he said, swallowing all of the ways he wanted to verbally, physically, and magically set Regulus straight, and he sidestepped him to rejoin the table, almost shaking with anger.
If they insulted him? Whatever. He could take it. But his friends, especially Sirius? And Lily too? That would never cease to make him furious, and he knew Regulus knew that. He wanted under his skin, so James would blow up and say or do something stupid. James wanted to do or say something stupid, but he'd put up with them for far too long at that point. If he lost it then, why had he suffered for an hour and a half? It would all be for nothing, and he was too fucking stubborn to give them that satisfaction.
Lily caught something about the way he looked when he rejoined the table, and she came back to his side not five minutes later. "I believe there was some mention of taking me home," she said, standing beside where he sat. She slid her fingers into the back of his hair, the touch soft and gentle and soothing. "Is that still your plan?"
She didn't have to suggest it twice.
Bidding them all goodbye took longer than it should have, past when he and Lily had fastened their cloaks. By then, James hardly cared if he looked impatient to get away from them. He was, and he didn't doubt that they'd assume that his impatience had everything to do with getting her to home and to bed. Really, they weren't wrong, and he didn't try to dissuade them of the notion. He secured his arm around her waist, and holding her—annoyingly, so annoyingly—made him feel like he had when she'd his hand on her leg or ran her fingers through his hair. She felt warm and solid, and holding her both grounded and soothed him in ways he didn't quite understand.
"We'll see you next Saturday," Thomas said absently, but he caught James' look of confusion. "Fudge's garden party? Apparently they're going all out. A pretty desperate bid, if you ask me. He invited everyone in the Wizengamot and up for election, as well as the best families and just a ton of other important people, so I know you were invited."
He was. He'd gotten the invitation weeks before but he'd forgotten and, fuck, for a second James hated himself for even existing, because it meant existing near them.
"That's right." He hoped he didn't sound too grim. "Yeah. We'll be there."
"I like that you just assume that I'm joining you at these things," Lily told him in an undertone as they ducked out of the bar. She waved goodbye to Pearl on her way out. "Asking me would be nice. If you're trying to woo me, this isn't how—"
He kissed her. He knew it was stupid, because the rain and the havoc on the street both seemed to have only increased and he knew he shouldn't drop his guard for a moment, but he didn't care. She apparently had similar thoughts about their surroundings, because she kissed him back for all of a second before disengaging gently.
"Home," he said. He didn't think before he said it, although it hardly escaped his notice that he'd thought of his parents' house as 'home' twice that night, and only because she lived there.
He knew she noticed—because how could she not?—but she mercifully didn't call him on it. She just nodded, stepped back, and Disapparated.
The rain was certainly good for one thing. She couldn't stop him from rushing into the house right behind her when buckets poured from the sky, and she laughed a little as she stripped off her wet cloak and then removed her heels. Watching her step out of them, he tried to ignore the tiny flicker of disappointment in his stomach. He'd always really liked those shoes.
"Was that how you saw our drink going?" she asked, removing her appearance-altering charms, and at least she could laugh about it, even if it was quietly under her breath.
He still didn't feel much like laughing. "I didn't imagine it as a nightmare, so no. That wasn't what I pictured." He watched her shake out her hair, curls once again a brilliant red that only complimented the color of her lips, and swallowed. "Can I stay tonight?"
The desire came to him as asked, and then suddenly hit him with full force like a hard slap in the face. He wanted to kiss her and touch her and strip off her stupid dress and burn it—or keep it, but only if she hid it in the depths of her closet just for him. Yet, more than that, he really, really just wanted to hold her.
He tried not to read too much into that. After all, her presence was literally all that had gotten him through such a terrible hour and a half. He would have cracked without her there. Somehow, he knew that instinctively.
She glanced up at him, and seeing her eyes green again hit him harder than usual, just like the color of her hair. "Believe it or not, hanging out with those complete wastes of space hasn't exactly left me in the mood," she said, her tone light.
"That's fine. We don't have to do anything. I'd just…like to stay." Fuck, why did that have to feel so vulnerable? Why did it have to make him sound foolishly lovestruck and eighteen again, when he wasn't either of those things? (He wasn't.) She clearly didn't believe him, because she gave him a sarcastic, mistrusting look under her eyelashes. "What?" he asked. "Don't act like I'm going to jump you if that's not what you want. Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll have a wank before I get anywhere near you, and—"
She began to laugh, and he hated that the sound relaxed a little knot of tension at the base of his neck that had burrowed deep into his muscles. "Right," she said, tone all skepticism, and left the foyer. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked, which bid him to follow her. "You've never—"
He didn't need her to finish. "Actually, I did do that a few times when we were together, but only when I was really, really mad at you and didn't want you to manage to tempt me into apologizing when we went to bed."
That stopped her in her tracks in the den, where she'd left a single lamp lit. Soft, warm light played across her features, and then she really, truly laughed. "You're a fucking liar."
"I swear to god."
Although her laughter continued, he didn't miss that something in her smile changed. He hadn't exactly planned the muggle swear, but after he'd said it, he didn't doubt that he'd used it subconsciously because she'd told him earlier in the night that she'd liked that in the past. "What if I'd apologized to you and had wanted to shag? What would you have done?"
"Mind over matter." He meant it too. He'd always wanted her again immediately, right from the moment he pulled out of her. It might have taken him a second, but he would have managed, and happily.
She had that look again, that look that reminded him fully of her statement, you laughed me into bed. It made him want to laugh with her and kiss her all at once. "You're telling me you plan to just get into bed and roll over and go to sleep? That's your plan?"
"Yes. Well, I'll probably snog you for a while first, but I really think we should allow that, and I'll make several counterpoints if you disagree."
He thought she would make him go through those counterpoints, just based on the look on her face. She wore a familiar small, challenging smile, and when she paired that with the lift of a single eyebrow, he began to mentally prepare talking points in his head.
"Okay," she said, shocking the living hell out of him. "Have your wank, but don't act like I'm not going to wake up with your cock pressed up against my arse. That's how I woke up the other day, and that was after you'd picked glass out of me. I can't imagine what you're going to want to do after how you've looked at me all night." She paused for a second and then started out of the den. "And after spending the evening with those bigots, because I assume there has to be some sort of part of you that wants to shag me to get back at them for what they believe."
"That's not why I want you." He wanted to shag her because she made his insides swirl and his mind race and all without even trying and—
And because of how her arse looked in her dress while climbing the stairs, because, holy shit, it made him almost hate her.
"I'm sure it's in there somewhere," she said, sounding so bloody reasonable, when he felt nothing of the sort.
"I don't need a reason to want to shag you. I've never needed a reason."
Still, even as he said it, he thought back to Thomas' horrible, infuriating words about her. "She always seemed like she'd be filthy in bed." Suddenly, he almost hated himself instead of her, because even as he'd hated Thomas and hated his stupid mates for grinning and hated the entire fucking bar for existing, the words had still sparked a flash of desire in him. Just the mere suggestion of Lily in bed had reminded him of all of the incredible ways they'd once come together, which had flashed through his mind in the course of a few seconds. Even enraged, he'd wanted her, and badly.
And that? That made him feel like shit.
He didn't have long to ruminate over it. Her fingers went to her ears to remove her earrings when they reached the third-floor landing. "Can you unzip me?" she asked, stepping into her room without pause, and his heart fucking leapt at the chance to follow her, even though he knew it would leave him nothing but frustrated.
She went to tuck her earrings away in her jewelry box, and then waited patiently as he sought the tiny zipper just under the nape of her neck, fingers fumbling with nerves and desire, and vision only made possible by the faint hallway light filtering into her dark room. As if to help him, she gathered her hair all to one shoulder, which did nothing to help—at least not to help how he felt. Even just the exposed skin beneath her hairline made his heartbeat flicker a little, which sent a hot coil of embarrassment to mix with the desire that flooded his stomach. When he finally found the zipper, he bent to kiss the slender sliver of her neck above her collar, and he felt her shiver a little, as she always had. The reaction was just so entirely her that it—annoyingly, so annoyingly—only made him want her more.
"This is why I didn't even want to let you inside, let alone upstairs," she said when he pulled the zipper down just enough that he could kiss a fraction of an inch lower. "It's not fair that this is your fucking house, I can't—"
"Is that why you're letting me stay?" He knew the answer, just based on the way her breath caught as he slid the zipper a little lower, but he wanted to hear her say it.
"No."
Yeah, it felt about as good to hear as he'd expected. He smiled against her back as he focused his mouth just between her shoulder blades. "Do you want me to stop?"
He knew the answer to that too, but it felt even sweeter to hear her sound faintly annoyed as she repeated, "No," for a second time. Her annoyance only made it better, really, because he could imagine that she was angry at herself for wanting him badly, and he really, really liked that idea.
"Tell me to keep going."
She reached a hand behind herself and swatted at him, just the lightest of taps, and she joined him when he started to laugh. "You're the worst," she said, that same thing she'd said to him days before when he'd had his fingers inside her, and he knew her well enough to know a compliment when he heard one. "You said you weren't going to jump me, remember? So either unzip me normally or keep going and tell me what you're going to wank to, but that's as far as it's going."
That knocked the laughter right out of him.
"You're the worst." He wasn't sure he meant it as a compliment in return. "You know the second you act like you want me to do anything I say, I'm going to—" Really, he didn't know how to finish that sentence, because he didn't know what he would do. He both very much did and didn't want to find out.
"So, you'll be thinking of me, then?"
Despite the growing hardness in his cock that came with a steady helping of frustration—it seemed like it always did with her—he laughed.
"Are you fucking joking me with that?" he asked. "Love, I never stopped thinking about you." Was that too vulnerable of a thing to admit? He didn't care. When he pulled her zipper the rest of the way down, revealing the length of her spine down to just above her arse, impatience suddenly broke across his body in a tidal wave. "How the hell is even your back this beautiful? Where aren't you perfect? It's not fucking fair. You're—"
"You're losing your head a little."
He was and he knew it, but he didn't care. So much of her had become available for his hands and mouth, and even if it wasn't the exact part of her he wanted to touch and kiss, it was somehow better than most things he'd done to most other women.
Just running his hands down her back and kissing her neck made him feel that way.
How? How was she so far in his system that wanting her felt like a physical need? How did she make it feel like the world would somehow right itself, at least just a little, if he could just get inside her?
And how did the soft sound of her breathless laughter somehow make the world seem, if not entirely right, at least closer to right than it had been in years? What the fuck was that?
"I remember when you used to wake me up this way," she said, pulling him immediately from his thoughts and into something much, much more pleasant than his potential spiral. "I hate mornings—I know you know that—but I always liked mornings where you woke me up by kissing my back. Those were good mornings."
"Tomorrow can be a good morning." He'd make it the best morning of her fucking life.
"You said." He knew what she meant without needing her to say another word.
He'd promised not to do anything other than snog her. He knew that, and he was a man of his word. With a deep breath, he stepped away from her, a move that almost physically hurt. "I'll be back," he said, and she murmured something soft and quiet to indicate that she'd heard him.
Almost as soon as he'd stepped out of her room, he heard the gentle rustle of her dress falling to land in a pile on the floor, and the sound managed to almost cut him.
Of course he thought of her in the bathroom. He leaned an arm up against the wall and pressed his forehead against that arm to rest there, and when he wrapped his hand around his cock, he immediately couldn't think of anything except for her. He was surrounded by her things— her toiletries and cosmetics, her robe near the shower, the scent of her body wash—which aided his brain's one-track obsession, but he knew he would have had the same thoughts if he'd stood in his own room instead. She was just there, an almost constant pressure in his mind, and whether she lingered in the back or came fully up to the front depended on a whim of his brain.
So after having her so close, having just kissed the warm skin of her neck and back as her hair tickled his nose in an irritating, somehow pleasant way? After feeling on edge for hours, just because he'd seen her put on a dress? After having had his fingers inside her days before? She appeared in the forefront of his mind easily and increasingly often.
He came quickly, and by design. He didn't care about the journey; no, wanking was a means to an end that night, the end being in bed with her without feeling like he could spontaneously combust if she so much as moved her hair in a way he liked. It helped that his inspiration sat across the hall, of course. He could see and smell and feel and taste her so fully that just thinking back on the red of her mouth—and imagining that mouth wrapped around his cock, as he'd imagined so many times before—was enough to send him into a series of frenzied thoughts that flew through his brain in an instant as he worked his cock with smooth, practiced strokes.
He thought of her up against the wall in the spare room while she begged for him to touch her, the word 'baby' quiet and pleading and uniquely her.
He thought of his birthday seventh year, the one she'd spoken of almost a week before, where she'd stared into his soul while on her knees in the library.
He thought of how hard he'd gotten her to come that night, and three times, no less, that shag that she apparently still thought about. She'd said part of her motivation for blowing him twice that day centered around knowing that he'd work extra hard at her that night, and she'd assumed correctly. She'd known by then that watching her come was almost a selfish act for him, because he got off on making her come almost as much as he got off on his own climax.
He thought of how she'd told him that she'd almost cried when she came the third time, and he remembered her climax as if it had happened mere days before, not years, the sight and the sound and the feel of her burned into his mind as if branded there. He'd always loved the way she went limp and relaxed after she came, because he knew it was a thing only he could give her. (He knew because he'd asked her—more than once—if only he could get her to feel that way, not something she could do herself, and she'd confirmed as much—more than once. Hearing that had never gotten old.) That night, she hadn't even managed to move afterwards. He'd almost collapsed too, because he had come nearly as hard just from waiting so he could get her off as many times as possible, and he'd sat quickly and pulled her into his lap, breathless and almost dizzy and his brain transformed into a loose, liquid mush as every muscle in his body all but sang with pleasure.
"What did you just do?" she had asked, wonderfully warm and soft against in his arms and almost shaking a little, and he'd taken that single question as one of life's biggest compliments. She'd sounded bewildered at something he'd coaxed out of her body, and that was honestly just about the best gift she could have given him for his birthday, let alone on top of the three incredible times he'd come that day.
The world looked a little clearer after he came and cleaned himself up, but not much, really. Weeks before, he would have expected some post-nut clarity. Most things became glaringly clear once his cock became less of an issue and stopped functioning as his brain. He'd realized he'd needed to break things off with Esther after shagging her, after all, something he hadn't allowed himself to consider before he'd gotten off. It usually worked that way with women. How many dates had he gone on—or even considered going on—only to find himself entirely uninterested after getting off by his own hand or by the woman in question? How he felt after coming usually worked as a true indicator of his feelings on a woman, and usually left him with a clearer mind.
None of that worked with Lily. The mess of what she left inside of him remained, pulsating with such ferocity that it almost felt like he'd wanked for nothing.
He found clothes waiting for him outside the bathroom door.
He recognized the soft shorts and a t-shirt as clothing he hadn't seen since his parents had died, garments he'd left in the depths of his wardrobe because he hadn't cared enough about the clothes he'd abandoned to venture inside his bedroom and retrieve them. He changed into the shorts, fully aware that they would conceal nothing when he inevitably got hard—within the hour, he somehow already knew—but eschewed the shirt.
If she still liked his shoulders and arms, she could fucking suffer right along with him.
He wasn't sure if she set out to make him suffer in return or not, but he did suffer, of course, when he found her in the spare room back in that infuriating oversize tee and a pair of thick socks.
The sight of her a second time didn't dampen his desire in the least, even if it didn't shock him to see her dressed that way, as it had before. If anything, seeing her the second time was even better than the first time, because her mouth was still beautifully red and her hair hung long and loose around her shoulders, mussed a little from the steam of her potions. All of it together looked somehow cute and sinful all at once, and for a moment, he could only stare at her, lost for words.
In the next moment, she caught sight of him. "I hope it's okay that I got you clothes," she said, drawing the corner of her lip briefly between her teeth. "I thought you might not want to go in your room, but I might just be projecting how I would feel. I know I'm constantly apologizing for overstepping here, and it's—"
"You weren't projecting," he said, throat a little tighter than it had already become at the sight of her. He cleared it roughly. "Thank you. Really. And, like I told you, you're allowed anywhere you want to go."
Really, he found that he didn't mind the thought of her in his room, which didn't surprise him. But what did surprise him? He knew instinctively that having her there with him would make things easier if he were to set foot in his room, just as she'd made the night easier, just as she'd made everything about his horrible pureblood masquerade easier, and sometimes even fun.
He had the sudden, undeniable urge to laugh, and probably quite hysterically.
"I know you've said that, but I should still ask," she said, lifting the lid off a cauldron. She checked its contents with a sharp, critical eye. "I don't want to open up places that could hurt you—although it feels like that's all I've done."
"You haven't done that at all," he said, and she smiled a little as she returned the lid to the cauldron.
"Thanks," she said, the word short and sweet, and she slipped by him into the hall. "I appreciate that."
He had no idea why she'd thank him for disagreeing with her, but he wasn't about to push it.
Instead, he went to wait for her in bed.
Fuck, just thinking like that—of waiting for her in bed—made him stupidly happy.
She looked softer when she returned to the room, her face free of makeup and her hair brushed out. Unsure of what else to do, he watched as she went to straighten her desk, righting the very little disorder that reigned by putting away a quill and settling her notebooks back into place. She went to the front of her dresser, where he'd stepped over the soft pile of her dress on his way to bed, dropped in the exact spot where he'd unzipped her. It had felt almost like a taunt when he'd first seen it still there, a reminder of what he couldn't have, and he couldn't help but feel like she'd left it there on purpose just for that reason. Under his gaze, she shook the dress out and went to hang it back in her closet towards the front, where she kept everything red, her garments organized by color.
The routine reminded him exactly of spending the night at her flat years before. He hadn't even known he'd missed her down to the simplicity of her routine, but he had.
Last of all, she extinguished the lamp on her bedside table and then slid into bed in the darkness that descended.
He wanted to touch her immediately, although if he wanted to hold her or finger her, he didn't know. Both, probably.
"I'm glad you were with me tonight," he said instead of reaching for her.
He could see her settling into her spot, and she'd turned to face him, her face just visible in the dark and quite clear even without his glasses. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time," she said. "What times we've had. It's never a dull moment with you, is it?"
Without thinking, his hand came to her face, instinct driving him to feel if she smiled as wryly as she sounded. He found that she did smile, but having his hand there made not kissing her twice as hard as before.
"They asked about you," he said, the admission emerging from somewhere, although he knew he'd never manage to repeat Thomas' exact words back to her. He wasn't about to put all that in her mind. "Avery and them. They asked what had happened with us. Just—so you know, because I feel like you should know. They haven't forgotten about you."
He felt like she should know because he wanted her to be careful, but he didn't want her to bristle if he said that.
She nodded, cheek soft under his hand. "I knew they hadn't," she said. "But thank you for telling me. You're right. It's something I should know."
Later, he would wonder if she flipped topics so abruptly in order to avoid further conversation about Thomas and his comments. He would always assumed that the answer was a resounding 'yes.'
"I told the others at the table that I apprenticed for Rue," she said, tossing a sort of curveball at him with her words.
He caught the quaffle, at least sort of. "Why?"
"People knew that around Knockturn. It's part of how I got into some of the places I can go now, because people knew I worked for her—well, that Diana worked for her." She sounded matter-of-fact, and he didn't doubt that her face matched. "I couldn't exactly walk around there as myself. At first, Rue hesitated to take me on because of it. She had no prejudice against muggleborns, but she knew I wouldn't last a second in Knockturn as myself because of people like Avery. Altering my appearance was how we compromised."
Something in her voice, a certain amount of wistfulness, tugged unexpectedly at his chest. "Tell me about her."
"Rue?" She sounded surprised. "Why?"
The answer was so obvious that it almost embarrassed him to say it. "I would have liked to have known her."
He would have liked to have known Madam Rue because she was important to Lily. He knew that, even if he didn't want to say it.
She fell silent for a long pause, the sort of silence that James qualified as companionable. He let his fingers drift to her hair as he waited, and she allowed him to do so. "I don't quite know what to say," she said eventually, voicing a true rarity indeed. A raw honesty rung in her voice. "She was exceptionally kind, wonderfully open-minded, and endlessly generous. That's what Gideon and Fabian's gran and I wrote in her obituary for the Prophet. I don't know how else to describe her." He thought he could hear her swallow. "She made me feel whole again when I was very broken. It was something no one else could have managed, and other people—Mary, Dory, Fabian, Gideon—tried. Rue just…knew. She knew what to do and what to say. I've never seen anything like it."
"You're a little like that." He'd hardly ever seen her misstep in a conversation, after all, and people generally liked her. She sparkled a little in a way he couldn't verbalize, but he didn't doubt that other people saw it too. She drew people in.
"That's kind of you to say." She shifted, tucking her hand under her pillow. "She also gave me a shot when no one else would. I had no idea what I would do after I couldn't finish Healer training. She gave me a purpose and a salary and a job where I could do something I loved. She gave me a home eventually, even though I moved in with her mainly because she got so frail even months before she passed that I worried about her."
"She sounds…" He couldn't put words to it, and better understood her struggle at that. "I'm glad you found her," he settled on eventually, and that didn't sound quite right, but it was better than nothing.
Her wistfulness only increased. It was longing, he realized, the sort of longing that left him feeling almost jealous for reasons he couldn't articulate. "Me too. She's well-known around Knockturn—and the wizarding world generally, really—which made it easier for me to run errands for her, but people also thought she was kind of mad." She laughed a little, just a few soft chuckles under her breath. "She was, in a way. She tried things no one else had even thought of when brewing. She encouraged me to push past the boundaries of conventional potion-making, which made me a better brewer. She changed my life, and I couldn't do half of what I'm doing for Dumbledore without her training."
That piqued his interest greatly, maybe even more than his interest in her legs, which he knew sat temptingly close, soft and bare under the sheets. "What are you doing for the Order?" he asked. He'd wondered, of course. So had the other Marauders, and they had asked Remus after it more than once. "She's trying to create a few things," he said with each question, growing a little more frustrated every time James or Sirius or Peter asked, the latter two also quite invested in the mystery. "I don't know anything more than that."
That was about all she gave him just then too. "I can't explain it until I'm done," she said, her words slow and careful. "Dumbledore didn't explicitly say not to say anything, but I don't think he wants me talking about it until we know how it works out."
That hardly assuaged James' interest.
"You did well tonight," she said, and he knew she changed the subject purposefully. She also didn't care that he knew, obviously, because she put no effort into making it a smooth transition. "You didn't look miserable at all, even though I knew you were. I almost believed that you enjoyed yourself."
"You helped." He wanted to take the admission back the second he made it, but knew that he couldn't. Rushing on seemed like the only possible remedy to such a vulnerable statement. "How do you do it? How did you just get up and go sit with people who—who hated you so much in school that they'd like the potential to hurt you? Talkalot spit in your face sixth year, love, and you acted like you could become friends. How?"
She gave another quiet laugh, but that one sounded humorless and more than a little thoughtful. "It's like Knockturn Alley. You get used to it. It's easier for me, I suppose, since I'm not me there, so I don't have to grapple quite as much as you do with a lot of things, like what people would think to see me in their company, or outwardly dealing with shitty past interactions with all of them. I can play a character, go home, and know that I'm doing it for a good reason." She fell silent for a second, as if her own reasoning had made her falter, before going on. "Again, I wouldn't know half the things I know about brewing or healing if Rue hadn't sent me all around there. It's been useful to have this Diana persona and spend time there, but I'm sick of it all. Really, really sick of it. It's exhausting, and it's part of why I want out. Tolerating it all—the bigotry and the entitlement and the potential for violence—it wears at you no matter how hard you try not to let it. I'm sure it'll become much harder for you to stomach long-term, because you have to be yourself and that means you can't escape them like I can by being two different people. I'm sorry for that."
The room quieted after she spoke, so much so that James could hear the faintest patter of rain on the roof, which had clearly let up. The sound made the cozy warmth of the bed feel somehow even sweeter. "You help me escape it," he said, and—
And, fuck, if that didn't have 'I'm eighteen again' written all over it, what did?
Suddenly, he doubted he could trust any words that left his mouth, because apparently they'd decided to bypass his brain. With that in mind, embarrassment warming the back of his neck, he kissed her.
Annoyingly—but predictably—kissing her made any negative feeling fade quickly.
He waited for her to pull back, but she didn't.
No, she moved closer to him, and at the very first inch she cleared between them, he immediately dragged her close to fit her body into his. She fit there neatly, just as she always had, her mouth wonderfully familiar but somehow still new and exciting, and her own hand going to touch his cheek.
On her way to his cheek, her hand brushed against his bare chest, and that? That derailed things entirely.
"I told you to get your own thing," she said, mouth just removed from his. "Lay off this whole arms-and-shoulders thing."
"Why?" he asked, but he fucking knew, and he heard the self-satisfaction in his voice as she ran her hand over his shoulders and then slowly, so slowly, down his chest.
A new problem had presented itself—a delightful problem, but a problem nonetheless.
If she gave in and touched him and looked at him and thought about him like he did her, and she made that clear, how was he supposed to resist simply jumping her?
He wanted her. It didn't matter that he'd just come at his own hand. He wanted her, but he'd promised he wouldn't do anything with her. He'd promised he just wanted to sleep beside her. And he did want to sleep, but he really, really wanted to fuck her first—although, for reasons he couldn't articulate, he wanted to keep his word maybe just as much.
He heard the smile in her voice as slid her nails lightly across his stomach, making his breath catch in his throat. "Lay off because you can't win," she said. "You're just going to make me more frustrated, which means I'm going to have to frustrate you more in turn, and I'll win that. You know I will. It's not something I'd ever let myself lose."
That sounded very, very fun and very, very promising.
"Are you frustrated?" He knew that too, because her words had given that away without prompting, but he still wanted to hear her say it.
She didn't hesitate. "Yes."
When she tangled her legs with his, her skin warm and smooth and wonderfully soft, he reached immediately for her hip. It was a reflexive move, something he hadn't thought through. His hand came in contact with more skin than fabric, as her shirt had ridden up, and he thanked his lucky stars that he'd gotten himself off before climbing into bed with her. If he hadn't, he knew he would have worked his absolute hardest to get her knickers off, and he would have felt badly for breaking his word in the morning.
"Tell me why," he said, running his hand down the length of her leg as far as he could reach, and then back up again. How did she still feel familiar after three years, yet somehow also as thrilling as if he'd never touched her before in his life?
"I'm frustrated because you insisted on coming to bed with me, and then you insisted on not wearing a shirt, and then you insisted on snogging me." He felt her eyes on the path that her hand traced, as if she sought to memorize every contour of his chest. "If I did this to you—"
"I'd be fucking thrilled. You want to show up at my house and get in bed with me without a shirt on? Do it. I'm pretty sure I've gotten off to thinking about something like that recently." When her shirt inched up further, his fingers went with it, and he found the soft lace edge of her knickers low around her hips. "You don't have to stay frustrated, you know. Ask me any other time. Any other time. Just not tonight. I promised I wouldn't do anything, so I won't, not even if you beg. You said you didn't want to do anything. That's that."
He really, really hoped he could stick to that once he could get hard again.
"Even if I begged?" she repeated. She scoffed, a light laugh under her breath. "You're a fucking liar."
He traced the line of her knickers across her hip and over the smooth, wonderful curve of her arse. The touch thrilled him probably four times as much as he expected it did her, because his pulse had started to race. "Try me, Evans."
She didn't remove his hand, not even when he left the line of her knickers to the rest of her backside. "What, do you want me to beg?" she asked, and even just the idea of her begging him to touch her set his soul on fire.
"Yes. Badly." He swallowed so hard that he heard it, and knew she must have too. "Do you feel like begging?"
"With you?" Her hand had traveled to his hair, fingers tangled in the unruly curls at the back of his head. "All the time."
He heard himself groan, the sound heated and as frustrated as she swore that she was, a sound that he didn't intend to make. After that, he was on her, impatient hands sliding up the back of her shirt to pull her closer, once again coming into the contact with all the beautiful skin he'd admired when helping her into and out of her dress. He kissed her, and then he kissed her, something harder and longer and with more intent than anything he'd yet given her. She matched him entirely, sliding a leg across his waist, and he took the hint and dragged her underneath him.
Once there, the whole situation got better and worse all at once.
He had her so close and accessible, body all but open to his touch, legs wrapped around his waist, her shirt sliding up further so he could touch her sides without going too far under the hem. He'd held her identically in bed countless times, but never when he couldn't do anything further than snog her and touch as much of her as he could without doing anything too forward, and it fucking hurt and felt incredible and somehow both at once.
"We need to stop," she said after hours or days or weeks where he couldn't think of anything but her mouth against his and the slow movement of her tongue and the warmth of her body. She sounded short of breath, as if she'd just run several miles, and rather pained from it, like running had left a stitch in her side. "If we don't stop, I'm going to have to go take my own trip to the loo soon, because—fuck, you're dangerous, Potter."
Holy hell, her admitting that she almost needed to go get herself off because he'd gotten to her so much? That was supposed to make him stop kissing her?
Beyond that, she had to know—she had to—that hearing her call him 'dangerous' immediately sent his brain right back to their seventh year at Hogwarts, when she'd first started admitting just how badly he made her want him. Just hearing 'dangerous' fall from her lips made his stomach flip with pleasure.
Still, he'd given her his word. He couldn't break that. Not with her.
Reluctantly—so, so reluctantly—he slid off of her to settle once again on his back, his stomach still coiling with heat. After a second, he reached and tugged her towards his side, ready to tuck her in as she'd moved subconsciously in her sleep the last time he'd shared her bed. She went readily enough, but he could feel her heart racing as her chest pressed against his side.
"What did you mean when you said you couldn't shag me?" he asked, and his voice sounded a little strange to his own ears. "You said I meant too much to you. What does that mean?"
Later, he had no idea how he had the balls to even ask her those questions.
If he caught her off-guard, it didn't show. "I said I don't think I could just shag you," she said, as if that explained it all, instead of just repeating the words back at him. "You're not just some random lad. You meant way too much to me for me to be able to do that. Could you just shag me? Just shagging, nothing more?"
Later, he would wonder if she'd posed the question as a test—and, if it was a test, he later knew that he'd failed.
"Yes," he answered. He didn't bother to put a bit of thought behind it.
Yes, he could just shag her. Why couldn't he? Sure, he'd loved her once—no, he'd once loved her a lot, in a way that had made him lose control over himself, yet had also made him the happiest he'd ever been. Yeah, she had somehow managed to grow even more beautiful since he'd last seen her, and even just kissing her was better than a whole host of things he'd done with anyone else. Of course he dreamt about shagging her. Constantly. All the time. Who wouldn't? And, yes, he not only still fancied her, but he'd come to understand and accept that he still liked her as well, even though he didn't want to. Again, who wouldn't? She still made him laugh and still transformed every situation into something better just with her presence and still made him feel like he could walk on water when she looked at him in a very specific, adoring way, even though she playacted the look for their assignment. No bloke would be immune to her charms. None.
But none of that meant that he wanted more with her than to laugh with her and work as they needed and shag whenever they could. It didn't mean he was falling in love with her again, and could lose every bit of himself in the process. It didn't.
"Really? So you'd be okay with us shagging for the next few weeks until I move on from here?" she asked. "Because—I won't be around, James. Not after I'm done here. Whatever I decide to do, you won't see me." He knew that, but he'd never heard her put it quite like that before, and it socked him in the gut. She went on. "You could shag me for the next few weeks and then say goodbye? That would work for you?"
"Yes," he repeated, and, fuck, he wanted to mean it. He did mean it, really. He didn't want her to leave and never see him again. He wanted absolutely nothing of the sort. His brain couldn't even truly comprehend the possibility of her disappearing out of his life, not after she'd just reappeared and made him feel—
Well, made him feel. He hadn't really felt like he did with her, not since his parents had died.
But if she had to move on? If she truly meant to never see him again? "We should at least enjoy it before you leave," he said, and he hoped she didn't notice that he fumbled a little over the word 'leave.' "I'm happy just being around you, Evans, but we'd both be a lot happier if we shagged. You know that."
Was that too much to have said? Did that reveal too much about the way he felt—whatever that was?
She didn't answer for a long time. He'd taken to running his hand through her hair, slippery strands sliding across his fingers, and she rested a hand on his chest almost delicately, her touch light. "I'll think on it," she said finally. "If it wouldn't hurt you—" She didn't go on.
She also didn't say anything about if it would hurt her, although he would come to understand in following days that she very much thought that it would. Instead, she jumped topics entirely.
"We need to focus better when we're out together," she said. "Like Fudge's party—we can't just fuck off there like we did at the auction. We can't let this interfere with that."
'This' seemed to be the very intimate way they'd come to lay together, and the fact that she wanted to limit its interference with their mission meant only one thing: she'd come around to letting at least something happen with them.
Sadly—so, so sadly—he knew he'd take whatever part of her she offered. He just wanted her, and however he could get her. He always had, even if it was no longer clear exactly what he wanted or why he wanted it.
"I'll do better," he promised, trying to smother a grin. "But I'm going to need you to at least snog me afterwards, so I have something to look forward to at the end of it all. That would definitely motivate me to do better."
The hint of a smile in her voice allowed him to grin fully. "I can probably do that," she said, and at her words, the foreseeable future became almost golden with opportunity.
xxx
A/N: And so our boy is realizing that things aren't nearly as cut and dry as he wants them to be when it comes to what he wants. I know more than a few of you are frustrated with his slow realization about exactly what he feels, but things are clearly turning for him! I'm excited for reactions to the next chapter, because it's another one of those favorites of mine, and we get to see James continue to grapple with the desires of his heart and his dick. We're actually getting to a stretch where the next several chapters are ones I really, really like, and I can't wait to share them with you all.
So grateful for the reviews for the last chapter! The love for the Knockturn Alley scenes was super validating, and I positively cackled at the frustration over the cliffhanger. I'm not going to lie—it definitely made me want to leave more cliffhangers, because I'm a sucker for engagement, but I held off here. The excitement for Snape also had me laughing. We'll definitely see him sooner or later, and I'm so excited for it.
Hope you're all doing well and staying safe, especially everyone impacted by the snowstorms in the US this week. Much love to you all!