Fashion Disaster

Chapter 7

Day 6 Part 2 AKA The Hairy Rodent

"Sirius, stop drinking all the eggnog before the guests get here!"

"You're not asking Remus to stop!"

"That's because he does not live here. He is a guest."

"Everything is lovely, Mrs Potter. Thank you so much for having us." Remus smiles politely, taking another sip of his eggnog, blue eyes glimmering with unshed laughter over the rim of his cup. Across the kitchen, Sirius throws him a narrowed glare, flipping the bird when Euphemia is turned away.

"It's our pleasure, dear. You and Peter should really stop by more often."

"Yeah, then I wouldn't have to make fun of Prongs all by myself."

At the sound of his name, James jolts back into himself, eyes dragging up morosely to stare at the occupants of the crowded kitchen. "What?" he asks, runs a hand through his hair. "Oh. Yes. Remus is a guest."

Euphemia turns around, tutting with a frown as Sirius howls in amusement. "Honestly, James. Stop playing with your hair. And wipe that expression from your face, would you? You'll make someone think we're abusing you in this house."

"But I am being abused!" he cries, points a finger at Sirius. "By him. Emotionally."

"You and your theatrics." His mother shakes her head.

"Mum! I, your beloved son, have been forced into a sweater that has the face of a manic, hairy rodent chewing on a yule log on display!" He gestures wildly at said sweater, ignoring the laughter of both his friends as he stands up from the seat behind the counter to prove his point better. "And my girlfriend of exactly twelve hours is about to walk in here anytime. She'll take one look at me and make this the shortest relationship in history ever! Can you still say I'm being theatrical?"

"Yes, I can."

James wants to stomp his foot, wants to strangle Sirius. The latter much more strongly. "Mum!"

The woman who birthed him rolls her eyes. "Honey, you shouldn't have made this bet in the first place, then. No son of mine will back out from his promises."

"Evans won't care, Prongs," Sirius manages to wheeze. "She'll—she'll think the whiskers are cool."

"Fuck off!"

"Language."

"Sorry, Mum."

"Besides, it's not my fault that you took off the outfit I had chosen for you first."

"I was in mortal peril!"

"Actually—" Remus starts, and then pauses at the frown on James's face. "Never mind. Yes, you could've died because the sequins were itchy on your skin."

"I actually think the sweater's kinda nice," says Peter, entering the kitchen with his empty glass, plump cheeks already tinged pink with alcohol. "Rats are really misunderstood creatures. They're smart, and I've heard they can be as affectionate as dogs."

The horrifyingly sad truth is that the boy truly means it.

"Sure, Pete," James says through gritted teeth, watching as Euphemia refills Peter's glass with silent laughter in her hazel eyes. "But that still doesn't mean I want one planted on my chest. Especially not one that looks like—"

But exactly what it looks like, he's not able to articulate—and probably for the best, considering the audience of his mother—because the doorbell chimes through the space right then, cutting his words short. Almost in tandem with the sound, James's heart leaps to his throat, insides twisting and knotting in a strange mixture of anticipation and nerves.

A beat passes, and then, as if provoked by a shared burst of awareness, James locks gaze with Sirius. They engage in a silent second of terrifying understanding, before both boys shoot straight out the room, long limbs flying, socked feet skidding, adrenaline pumping.

"Boys!"

"Stay away!" James, having been closer to the door, and therefore, the first one out of the kitchen, shouts over Euphemia's annoyed call.

Sirius just barks a laugh behind him, delighted and sadistic. "That eager to show off your sweater, eh, Prongs?"

"Don't fucking try. Anything's better—shove off!—better than you telling her things that'll just make me look like an even bigger idiot."

Before Sirius has the chance to pull a response out of his arse for that, they rush out into the foyer, and—

Find that Fleamont has already opened the door, his back turned to them as he blocks the girls from view.

"Well," Sirius smirks, "I think I almost prefer this."

James is inclined to agree—or rather, disagree—since his father is just as likely to say something embarrassing about him to Lily, with the added downside being that James can't knock him over the head like he can Sirius. And so, he's left helpless to do anything as he watches his father step aside, waving the girls inside with a gleam too delighted in his brown eyes.

"Oh look," says Fleamont, grinning at them as they walk over. "Here are the boys, dressed all dapper for you ladies."

James doesn't try to hold back the grimace pulling at his face.

"Dapper, indeed." Mary smirks, eyes on his sweater even as she hands her jacket over to Fleamont. She's dressed in a red knitted jumper and thick leggings underneath, and Sirius makes no attempt to hide how blatantly he checks out her arse. With the presence of a parent around, however, they're restrained to quirking lecherous brows at each other for the moment.

But when Lily shrugs off her beige longline overcoat, revealing the sexiest jeans and a form-fitting maroon ribbed sweater underneath, James finds his mind turning foggy, any and everyone else disappearing from view.

She lets his dad take the coat, politely offering her gratitude, and when she turns around to look at him, finally, James realizes there's something off about the smile on her face.

He frowns.

"Come now, son, this is no expression to greet your guests with." Fleamont clucks his tongue, walking over to him and quickly ruffling his hair. The very next second, his dad has leaned down and whispered in his ear, "and especially not your future wife with."

James closes his eyes, face aflame. "Kill me."

But Fleamont simply straightens and adjusts his glasses, pleasant as anything. "Come along, then, or Euphemia will complain that I've been hoarding your time all evening."

Sirius and Mary follow him with identical, shit-eating grins splitting over their faces. James, on the other hand, tries to remember how to breathe, tries to recall how his chest is supposed to feel when his heart isn't banging quite so violently against it.

Right before they pass by him, Mary catches his eye. "She's nervous," she mouths, eyes flitting to the corner to indicate Lily, who's still standing feet away, pained smile frozen on her face. Before James even has the time to digest this information—Lily's nervous, to be here, to meet his family, what the fuck—the rest of them have already cleared out of the entryway.

"Hi," he clears his throat, smiles brightly. "You look… really good."

Some stiffness seems to fall from her shoulders, and she steps forward. "Thank you. So do..." Her brows twitch, lips pinching for a beat as she looks at his chest, "...you."

"Oh, I know." James pulls at the sweater, making a show of staring down at it contemplatively. "Nothing accentuates my roguish handsomeness quite like a savage rodent stuck to my front, don't you think?"

When he doesn't get a reply immediately, he glances up to find that Lily has moved closer, teeth biting away obvious laughter. It takes next to no thought to reach out, grab her wrist, and pull her right against him. A gasp falls from her lips, no longer laughing, eyes caught on his mouth.

"Potter." She presses a palm against his chest, shifting a little when his hand finds her waist. "We should go in."

"What are you worried about?"

That gets her gaze to jump to his, surprised. "Worried?"

He brings up his other hand and smooths out the crease between her brows with his thumb. "Right here." He smiles gently. "You have to know that you've got nothing to be nervous about. I'm the one with the face of a rat on my chest, Lily. You're... perfect."

The tension unknots from her muscles under his touch, and then she's smiling softly, fingers playing with the collar of his ugly sweater, eyes caught onto the movement. "It's mad, and I know we've only known each other for a week, but I just—I want them to like me. Your parents and friends." She looks up again, a little hesitant. "And don't you dare get a bigger head, but... this feels important to me."

His head immediately feels heavier, grin spilling wide and shameless.

"Evans." James's hand moves from her brow to curl around her cheek, fingers disappearing into soft red hair. "Are you saying I'm important to you?"

Her eyes narrow, but the uptilt of her lips is hard to suppress. "That's not what I—"

But he's already kissing her, the words swallowed by the press of his mouth on hers.

Whatever.

They both know she was lying anyway.

It's only as he's pried her lips open under his, as she's properly threaded her arms around his neck, that someone obnoxiously clears their throat from behind James. The way Lily jumps back from him, then, makes him feel like the rodent on his sweater has come alive and bitten her.

"You both planning on joining us tonight?" says Sirius, and James doesn't need to turn around to picture the smirk on his face. "I'm starting to think Evans has a thing for you in strange outfits, mate."

"Fuck off, we'll be right there."

"Shit." Lily's got a hand clamped over her mouth, and she quickly rushes forward to follow right behind Sirius, fixing her hair hurriedly. "I can't believe I let you distract me like that."

"Let me?" James scoffs, strolling after her. "Please, you can't keep your hands off me if you tried."

She looks at him for a second too long, brows arching. "Rashes healed yet, Potter?"

"This is no way to get me to like you, you know," he grumbles.

"Who cares about you? I only said that about your family."

"And that is precisely why you'll fit right in, Evans." Sirius grins, draping an arm around her shoulder as they enter the kitchen. "The only rule in the Potter household is expending constant energy to keep Prongs grounded to the earth, lest he float away because of his balloon head."

James thinks that's a bit too rich, considering who this is coming from, but resorts to keeping his mouth shut when he notices how Lily's cheeks have flushed pink under the spotlight of several sets of eyes directed on her.

"Oh, welcome, darling," coos Euphemia, striding forward with open arms that are quick to pull Lily into an embrace. Sirius shoots a knowing look at James over their heads as he moves to stand beside Mary. "It's so wonderful to finally meet you." Euphemia pulls back and smiles kindly. "James wasn't kidding when he said how beautiful you are. And he's said it an unthinkable number of times."

"Oh, my God, here we go."

"It's alright, Prongs. Not a single person in this room is surprised to hear that." Remus grins amusedly. He leans to the left and waves from behind Euphemia. "Hi, Lily. I'm Remus, James's friend from school."

"And I'm Peter," says Peter from around a mouthful of chocolate cake. James suddenly has the jarring thought that the boy resembles the image on his sweater quite a bit, and averts his eyes, feeling uncomfortably guilty. "'S good to meet you."

"Hello, everyone," Lily greets, cheeks glowing, pleased. She looks at Euphemia again. "Thank you for having us here. I know this was extremely last minute, and it's Christmas Eve, but everything is so lovely. Mary and I are really grateful."

"Oh, nonsense," his mum titters, and it's glaringly evident that she's flushed giddy from inside. "It's our pleasure. Come, come, we've been saving you girls some eggnog and cake."

When his dad grabs a glass of whiskey and passes by him to the living room, he winks at James on the way. "Seems like you and Sirius have some competition for the spot of favourite child, son."

And when he catches Lily's eye across the kitchen the very next second, making it evident that she'd been looking at him already, he thinks he's never been more pleased with having to share his parents' affection before.

Post dinner finds them all squeezed together on the living room sofas and chairs, Euphemia and Fleamont having left them alone for the evening, a freedom they've used to cosy up with towering mugs of hot chocolate and The Polar Express playing on the television.

The train has just arrived at the North Pole when Sirius and Mary make a show of getting up, and to absolutely no one's surprise, slink away somewhere in the house to presumably snog each other's faces off. James can only hope and pray that their destination of choice isn't his bedroom.

He'll burn his sheets later, just to be sure.

"Pete and I should be leaving, mate," Remus sighs a few minutes later, jostling a sleeping Peter's shoulder. "It's getting late."

"Are you sure?" James looks at his watch. "You could stay for a while longer, maybe until the movie's done?"

Peter yawns terrifically loud. "Gotta leave now if I wanna return tomorrow evening, Prongs. I've promised Mum to wake up early and spend all morning with her."

"Well, alright." James nods, getting up and giving each of them a brief hug. "See you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah. And by the way—" Remus winks, his voice lowered to a whisper, "you're welcome."

It takes James about two and a half seconds to understand the meaning behind the words, a time by which Remus has already turned away with an uncontrolled smirk. "Say goodbye to Sirius for us, if you manage to find him."

James nods distractedly, heart suddenly slamming against his ribcage as he turns around to find Lily placing down her mug of hot chocolate, now empty. She looks up at him and rubs her lips together, a smile tilting up the corners of her mouth. "I guess I should be leaving too."

"Oh, but how could you?" He walks back to sit down next to her, the sweet warmth of her skin making him woozier than the three glasses of eggnog he'd downed earlier. "You can't leave without Mary."

"Well—" She lifts an arm and braces it against the back of the couch as her body twists to face him. "I should go find her then."

James hums, reaching out to let a strand of her hair slip and twirl between his fingers. The place where her knee touches his thigh seems to be burning. "We should all do things… but we don't do them."

Lily bites her lip, laughter shining in green eyes. "What?"

"We don't do things we should, because we don't… and then—stop laughing, Evans!"

"I'm sorry!" Lily gasps, free hand wrapping around his wrist as she bends forward, positively wheezing. "But—what the fuck are you on about?"

"I was trying to say that you should stay here and snog me instead without sounding like a prat," James huffs, cheeks heating. "And now I sound like an even bigger prat."

"Potter, you realize we're going out now, yeah?" Lily shakes her head, placing her hand on his chest and gently pushing so that he's half lying on the couch, armrest digging into his back. She's got a sly grin on her face as she moves closer, almost over him, hair curtaining around them softly. "Which, by definition, means that you can want to snog me without sounding or feeling like a prat."

"Well, in that case…" Heart pounding a mile a second, James cups her cheek, brings her even closer. "I want to clarify that I always want to snog you, Evans."

She nuzzles her nose against his. "I might need to come up for air to run the store, but we'll work around it."

Their mouths meet on mirrored grins, more teeth than lips, and James thinks this kiss is somehow even better than the first they'd shared—which he's taken to replaying at least twice every minute inside his mind by now—most notably because there are no sequins digging into his skin or hairs tangling where they shouldn't. Lily tastes like chocolate, and even if he wasn't already partial to the flavour, it would've easily become his favourite now, with the taste of her mixed into it.

His hand travels to slip under the hem of her top, and she shivers for a second at his touch, breaking off from the kiss to pull in a shaky breath. Instantly, he's nervous he's gone too far too fast, but she simply says, "Wow!" and slides her lips more forcefully over his.

Fingers disappear into his hair, mouths opening wider, her hips on his suddenly moving very deliberately, and James is more certain than he's ever been that this is the best fucking snog of his life, which also means he's quickly going to embarrass himself if they don't slow down.

But death feels easier than telling Lily that, especially when she feels so unthinkably good against him.

Thankfully—agonizingly—she pulls away first.

"Oh fuck," she chokes out, breath fanning over his face. "Fuck, we're at your house. Your parents could walk in any second!"

He's forgotten how to speak. "Uh... hm."

Lily laughs again, some mixture of rueful and amused, before slowly extracting herself from him. They sit upright, spend a few seconds fixing their clothes and combing fingers through their hair. But as soon as he looks at her again, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, the decidedly unchaste thoughts are quick to return to his head.

"Stop looking at me like that!" She rubs her hands over her face, but it's impossible to miss the pleased glow on her face. Abruptly, she's scrambling around in her pockets, and then thrusting two long slips of thick card paper into his hands. "Here, look at these instead."

James blinks, tilts his head at her. "What's this?"

"Coupons for our valuable customers at Take a Bow!" Lily grins, tucking hair behind her ears. "As a thank you for buying so much stuff this week from the store. And also, Happy Christmas!"

"Lily, you—" His eyes flit between her and the coupons. "You really didn't have to do this."

She places her hand over his, squeezes lightly. "I know. I wanted to."

"But—"

"James, please, for the love of God, come to the store, and let me pick out some good clothes for you!" She huffs, positively adamant. "I can't live with myself if you only associate it with this horror of a week and the disastrous outfits you've had to wear."

"What?!" He shakes his head, laughs way too loud. Bloody hell. "You think—you actually think that the dare is what I associate your store with?"

She quirks a brow. "Yes?"

"Dear God, Evans. You can pick the clothes for me. But just so we're clear, I'd visit Take a Bow every day for the rest of my life even if I had to dress like a literal clown to gain entry. And you think—"

"For the rest of your life?"

The amusement drops from his face, horror replacing it as he realizes exactly what he's gone and said during his rambling, passionate spiel. "Not—not like that. I only meant, for as long as we're… ah, what the fuck, I can't seem to find a way out of this!"

"You," she grins, "are so fucking easy to mess with."

James feels the oxygen rush back into his lungs, and groans out loud. "Please stop hanging out around Sirius."

"Why?" And then she's pulling him back down to her by his sweater, ugly rodent disfigured in between. "Are you jealous?"

"If I say yes, will you stop trying to kill me?"

She brushes her mouth over his. "You don't really want that."

"You're right. I don't."

When Sirius and Mary re-enter the room ten minutes later with thoroughly dishevelled appearances, and start hooting and hollering with abandon, James simply takes the time to pull his hand out of Lily's hair long enough to shoot them a loving middle finger.

"Prongs is being indecent, Mum!"

"SIRIUS!"

A/N - This fic has been super pointless and fun to write from A to Z, and I've cherished every single moment of it. I never thought I'd be writing such a long fic without a plot, but this experience has made me realize I should probably do this more often 😂😂

Please leave some reviews and come talk to me on Tumblr! I'd love to hear anything you have to say or share about this fic. While I'm sad to be posting the last chapter, I'm also excited to actively start newer projects. Love you all with my whole heart!