Hey! This is a flirty little one-shot I wanted to make while I write my other Jily love story... Just a little drabble to hopefully make you smile :)
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. Art work by the awesome Meg (tumblr: anxiouspineapples)
"We have a 21 year old male, laceration from the right pectoral muscle to lower left abdomen, heavy bleeding," a nurse stated pushing a gurney through the doors of Lily's Emergency Department at St Mungo's.
She'd been so busy these days — not only was there a terrible war raging on with no end in sight, but also, more and more Healers were quitting as the working conditions worsened. Lily couldn't find the heart to leave though: helping people was her passion. She had to do her part in fighting for their cause — even if she was overworked and underpaid.
Lily fully pulled back the man's crimson soaked robes and used her wand to cut open his shirt to reveal the nasty gash, pulsating blood out with every beat. They finished pushing the man into an empty room and Lily turned to the nurse. "Get me Blood Replenisher, Pain Potion, Essence of Driftnil and Dittany, stat."
He left the room and Lily returned to the wound, trying her usual tricks to get the muscles to sow back together and cover the bones she could see under the mess of red. It wasn't working. She tried a few more spells, all of which refused to stitch up his flesh. "Come on..." she muttered under her breath, racing the clock for his life.
"Evans?" A low croak broke her from her frustrated concentration.
Her eyes panned up to look at her patient's face. "Potter?!" She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it was him before. Suddenly, she felt her face flush and became hyper aware that her non-wand hand was resting on his bare stomach. You're a Healer for fuck's sake. This is your job. No need to get weird about it now...
James' face went from pained to dazed to cracking into a lazy shit-eating grin. "If I'd have known all it took to get you to take my clothes off was getting gutted, I may have done it sooner." James sodding Potter: on his possible death bed and still hitting on her. She tried not to notice how pale his usually tan skin was... and hated herself for even remembering his usual complexion in the first place. He winced. "Please don't kill me as retribution, Evans."
Lily scoffed, returning to her wand-work, flicking her wrist wildly. "Of course not. I'm a professional, Potter. I took an oath to help all my patients... Even if that patient happens to be you."
James smiled before cursing as another one of Lily's spells failed. "Thanks Evans, you're a lifesaver," he said through gritted teeth. Lily rolled her eyes and noticed his go wide as he groaned. "Oh no, that was horrible." His right hand came up to slap himself in the face.
"Sorry, I'm doing my best here, try not to move—"
"No," James cut her off, "I'm just sure you've heard that line hundreds of times... this blood loss is making me terribly unoriginal." Lily had to smile at his obvious embarrassment and ability to remain flippant in the face of imminent peril. "Just let me die," he sighed dramatically.
"No can do Potter, I have a record to uphold." The nurse came back and dropped off the supplies at the table next to her, then went to work setting up some machines to monitor his vitals.
James smirked. "Of course you do. Well, I'm finally glad you never gave me the time of day at school because you were 'too busy studying'," he said weakly.
Lily wiped her brow, angrily uncorking one of the potions and dripping the brown liquid on his lesion. It hissed and emitted purple smoke. "Well, fat help it's doing me now; what did you get hit with?!"
James was fading. She had to figure this out and fast. She quickly grabbed the Blood Replenishing Potion and brought it to his lips, cradling the back of his head. Her nurse did a quick spell to clean the blood off his glasses and Lily was rewarded with an unhindered look into his hazel eyes. She'd never really given him proper eye contact while at school. He was always staring at her, but whenever she'd hold his gaze for too long, she'd get hot and flustered in places she didn't particularly like to admit. She never liked his power over her body's reactions, thus worked extremely hard to fully avoid him altogether. It had made her feel like a silly schoolgirl that he affected her so... even when she'd actually been a silly schoolgirl.
He mumbled, "Death Eater... silent spell." He sipped slowly, his head getting heavier and heavier in her palm.
Her adrenaline kicked into overdrive and she felt her heart racing, willing herself to be better, be smarter to save him. Then it clicked. Death Eater. She knew this curse. She'd seen her former best friend attempt it on a cat and sobbed and sobbed until she was able to get him to tell her the counter curse. It had been the end of their friendship as well as the poor cat's life since she hadn't acted hastily enough.
Like hell Potter's going out the same way as that cat, she told herself resolutely. Lily put his head back on the pillow and urgently began her incantation, relief flooding through her as she finally started seeing some progress. James groaned, but she watched as his muscles slowly mended under her masterful work. Lily let out a secret sigh of relief.
James' coloring started returning to normal, even as his breathing remained laborious. She allowed herself to study him, saying internally that it was her damned job. His eyes had fluttered closed underneath his thick lashes, and his mouth had relaxed, leaving his full lips slightly parted. His strong jaw looked even more defined then how she remembered it at 18. She silently wondered what else had changed in the three years since she'd seen him last as her eyes wandered back down to his chest. That has… I mean, she knew he had been ripped in school while he was playing all that Quidditch, but these were the muscles of a man. His new scar rippled over his abs and she lightly skimmed her fingertips over it, half remembering she should work on trying to prevent the scarring.
"So what's the diagnosis doc, am I gonna die?" Lily pulled her straying fingers back like she'd been burned, blushing profusely at being caught ogling his body. When she looked up at his hazel eyes, she saw he was smirking oh-so-smugly. Damn boy has always known he was hot as hell.
"Yes," she sniped, utterly humiliated at all but confirming her physical attraction to him, "but not today."
James laughed, and immediately grimaced as the action put strain on his new, tender skin. "Jeez Evans, you can't do that to me." Lily quickly uncorked the Pain Potion. "Joking about a patient's death doesn't scream professionalism. I may just need to have a chat with your Ethics Department…"
The edges of Lily's lips pulled upwards slightly. "Well, that's what you get for being so damn dramatic."
Lily helped James' head up once more, threading her fingers through his hair and bringing the concoction to his mouth. He drank greedily. "Mm, that feels amazing," he sighed.
"It should, it's for the pain."
James licked his lips, drawing Lily's eyes to them briefly, stop it, as he swallowed his dose. "Not the potion, your fingers in my hair." He winked at her cockily.
Lily couldn't help but snort as she grabbed the Dittany again, hoping it would work now that she had removed the Dark Magic from his body. "You never give up, do you?" she asked, fighting her smile, but she knew James could see it anyway.
"Nope," James admitted freely. "Who knows, maybe my brush with death has made me even more bold."
Lily poured some of the Dittany onto a cotton ball and dabbed it lightly on his scar, bending over his chest to reach the top end. "Merlin have mercy on us all," she mumbled. She felt his warm gaze linger on her as she continued her work on his body. "You know, this won't look that bad after I'm done with you. Plus chicks dig scars," she added playfully.
She snuck him a glance and saw him give her a toothy grin. "Duly noted, Evans." His eyes finally wondered down to his own body and he gasped exaggeratedly. "My nipple!"
Lily jumped back, spilling some Dittany in the process. "What?"
"My nipple! Where'd it go?" James asked in a tizzy.
Lily's brow scrunched, "Well… you came in without it. I mended the wound, I didn't recreate anything that was missing…"
James painfully got up onto his elbows, looking down on his pecs mournfully. "My poor nipple, just magicked right off…"
Lily held in a giggle, act professional, act professional, you idiot… "James, it's not that big of a deal, it's not like you need them."
James let out a sharp exhale, looking up at her. "Spoken like someone who still has both her nipples."
Her nurse gave a snort at the other side of James' gurney, awkwardly reminding both of them that he was in fact still there. "Look, you're making Greg uncomfortable," Lily said in mock exasperation. "Greg, could you please go see if Healer Patel is still here?" She turned back to James. "He specializes in more cosmetic spell-work, I'm sure he could conjure you up a top-notch nipple." The nurse left the room relieved.
James grinned deviously. "What Evans, too strange to give me one yourself?"
Lily felt her cheeks burn as she went back to applying the liquid to James' scar. Damn this man and his effect on my soul. "Knowing you, you'd somehow go back in time just to show it off to me in school and rub it in my face." There was a quick beat. "Metaphorically."
James' grin grew wider. "Probably literally too. I was a bit of a git back at Hogwarts, wasn't I?"
Lily got down to rubbing his abs. His delicious, unfairly defined, abs. "Just a bit," she smiled despite herself. This conversation, what she was doing, it was all too much for her to deal with off of only four hours of sleep, and who knew how many months (years?) of her dry-spell. "Honestly, I'm surprised I never heard from you once school ended." She felt like she was revealing an awful lot in that small statement.
James thought she sounded sort of sad about that fact. "I had to take the hint at some point, didn't I? I mean, I could hardly be any good at being an Auror if I was secretly a stalker myself."
Lily bit her lip, nodding her head. She'd never admit it, but it wasn't until after she graduated, and he was finally out of her hair, that she realized what her friends had always known… she sort of fancied the arsehole. However, at that point, it was far too late and she had much too much dignity to go running after him, confessing she had been a fool. She missed his constant attention. She missed his quips and their quarrels. And now, looking down at his hard, perfect specimen of a body, apparently she'd missed out on a whole lot more too. "I never thought you were a stalker, Potter…" she whispered.
James cocked his head to the side, analyzing her. He reached out and put his hand gently on hers, stilling her ministrations temporarily. "Thank you." He gave her an earth-shattering smile. "For saving my life."
"Any time, Potter." Her emerald eyes got lost in his for a moment, but then she pulled herself out of his irresistible influence, pushing a stray red lock that had escaped her ponytail back behind her ear. "Actually, take that back, don't do it any time: I don't think I could handle that much stress in my life."
James gave her hand a squeeze, drawing her gaze back toward him. "Sorry I gave you a scare there, Lily." He said her name reverently, like it was his favorite.
She was so confused, what had changed? Was it really just a sharper jawline? The maturity she heard in his voice? The way he was looking at her in the same manner he always had — like she was his whole world and he'd do anything she asked? The thought of actually losing him forever when she'd never even given him, given them, a real chance before?
Before she knew it, she'd brought her lips down to his and captured him in a sweet kiss. She gasped when she realized what she'd done, trying to back up, but he pulled her back to him, tracing his fingers up her cheeks and into her hairline as he kissed her with everything he had until she felt weak in the knees. When their mouths eventually broke free, and they were leaning forehead to forehead, she saw James' shit-eating grin return.
"What?" she asked breathlessly.
Mischievously he replied, "You were right: chicks dig scars."