Saturday, September 3, 1977
The next morning they all lounged around in the common room, talking about what to do with the day but not making any real effort to do anything more strenuous than sprawling on the armchairs and dodging the Quaffle as James and Sirius tossed it back and forth.
"If I go down and play Quidditch for a bit, would you come down and watch?" James asked, gazing across the room out the window at the breezy September day. "Conditions look excellent out there."
Remus settled further into his chair. "I dunno, it's kind of a long walk down to the pitch," he said, turning a page in his book.
"And we're kind of busy doing important things," Mary added. She lay stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace, frowning in concentration as she painted her nails.
"Right, very important," James said, rolling his eyes. "Why is that nail polish a different color on your nails than it is in the bottle?"
"It changes color based on my mood," she explained. "I lost the little paper that says what each color means, though. What mood do you reckon pink is supposed to be?"
Sirius studied her nails, then drummed his fingers against the side of his face as he thought. "In my expert opinion, I'd say it means either lazy or horny. Possibly a combination of both."
She laughed. "I didn't really need nail polish to tell me that, I suppose. Those are my two moods 99% of the time."
"Not true, you've forgotten drunk," Sirius pointed out.
Mary considered this, then shook her head. "Drunk is not a mood, it's a state of mind."
"Well, so is horny!"
"What about sleepy?" Remus mused. "Is that a mood or a state of mind?"
"I don't think it's either," Sirius said. "It's more of, I dunno, a feeling?"
"This is a ridiculous conversation," James said, getting to his feet and crossing the room to talk to his Seeker who was sitting by the window reading.
"But how is a feeling different from a mood or a state of mind?" Peter asked.
Sirius shrugged. "How the hell should I know? You act like I actually know what I'm talking about when I'm really just talking out of my arse."
"No, sleepy is definitely a mood, because I remember it said the nail polish would turn blue if you're sleepy." She finished painting her nails and looked at Remus, her face lit with excitement. "Ooh, Remus, are you sleepy? Can I paint your nails and see if it works?"
Remus cast a doubtful look at the nail polish. "I don't think so," he said, hiding his hands inside the sleeves of his jumper.
"Oh, come on, Moony, it's definitely your color," Sirius urged. "It's scented, too, isn't it?"
"It is," Mary confirmed, holding her nails up to her nose. "This mood smells like strawberries. I forget what sleepy is supposed to smell like, but it will be a fun surprise."
"I'm sure it's lovely, but I'm all set," Remus said. "Padfoot, you do it."
"Yeah, all right," Sirius said, shrugging. He rested his hands on the arm of his chair, and Mary moved towards him and eagerly began applying polish to his nails.
"Well, I'm going down to the pitch," James announced, leaning against the back of Sirius's chair. "Bubbles, Seven, and Sunshine are going to come down too and have a bit of an impromptu practice. You lot want to come down and watch when Padfoot's nails are dry?"
"Remind me again why you call your teammates weird nicknames instead of their actual names?" Mary asked, but James ignored her.
"I'll come down," Peter said at once, and everyone else nodded except Lily.
"Evans, do you want to come?" James asked, but Lily was so absorbed in her book that he had to touch her shoulder before she started and snapped her head up to look at him.
"Sorry, what?" She glanced at Mary and frowned. "Why are you painting his nails?"
Mary laughed and finished Sirius's left hand. "Because he said I could. Did you miss the entire conversation?"
Lily set her book down on the arm of her chair. "Apparently. Sorry, I was just really into my book."
"That's all right," James said, amused. "I was saying this lot is going to come down and watch me play a bit of Quidditch with the team if you want to join." He glanced down at her book and grinned. "But if you'd rather stay here and read, I won't be offended."
"Oh, no, I'll come," Lily said, folding back the corner of her page to mark her place. "Let me go change and grab some snacks, and then we'll meet you down there."
"All right," James said, striding off towards the portrait hole and gesturing for his teammates to follow.
Once Lily was safely up the staircase and out of earshot, Mary raised her eyebrows and leaned in closer to the others. "Now she's voluntarily watching Quidditch? Merlin, can they just date already?"
"Ooh, we should try some of my ideas for speeding up this process," Sirius said. "Maybe if we really talk up how good James is at Quidditch, mention those Quidditch muscles?"
Mary laughed and shook her head. "You two and bloody Quidditch muscles."
"Laugh if you want, Macdonald, but you've seen them! They're real and Evans fucking loves them, you can't tell me she doesn't."
"I dunno," Remus said. "If spending hours in the pool looking at each other half-naked didn't work, what makes you think this will?"
"We just have to keep adding to the sexual tension until it pushes them over the edge, you know?" Sirius tapped his fingers against his leg, then chuckled when he noticed the bright pink color of his nails. "Look, Macdonald, same color! I guess my mood is lazy and/or horny, too."
"Again, didn't need mood nail polish to figure that out," she said, leaning against the arm of his chair and comparing their nails. "Guess that's why we get along so well."
"Guess so," he said, shrugging. "Anyway, everyone on board with the plan? Macdonald, maybe you can bring up the Quidditch muscles so it doesn't sound as staged. Moony, you can say something like, even though you don't normally care much for Quidditch, you love watching James because his dedication is so impressive and he's really committed to the team, blah blah. And Wormtail, just do what you normally do, as anything more enthusiastic would just look bloody ridiculous."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Peter asked anxiously.
"Nothing, you're a supportive friend and it's lovely," Remus assured him. "Padfoot, what are you going to do?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I'll think of something," Sirius said, unconcerned. "I also thought it might be good for them if they were forced to watch other people snog."
"Ugh, watching other people snog is so uncomfortable," Remus said, grimacing.
"Exactly," Sirius said. "It'll be uncomfortable to watch because it will remind them how much they want to snog each other, and hopefully it will give them the kick in the arse they need to actually do it."
"So you're saying we need to snog in front of them as much as possible?" Mary asked, smirking.
"That's what I'm saying, yeah. And don't be afraid to get a little handsy, Macdonald. It's for a good cause."
"Should we also try to let them be alone as much as possible?" Peter suggested.
"Yeah, that's a good idea," Sirius said, nodding. "And we should have some sort of code word that means we all need to clear out. How about noodle?"
Remus shot him a quizzical look. "Why noodle? Actually never mind, not important."
"You ready?" Lily asked as she hurried across the common room to join them, the bag slung over her shoulder bouncing against her hip with each step. She frowned as she took in their smug expressions. "Did I miss something?"
Mary shook her head and stood. "Nope, nothing. Come on," she said, linking her arm through Lily's and steering her across the room toward the portrait hole.
When they reached the Quidditch pitch, James and Bubbles took turns trying to score while Sunshine guarded the goal posts and Seven flew high above them, scanning the area for the Snitch. The group sat on the first row of bleachers and Lily handed around the snacks she had brought.
"I forgot James will have to add three more players to the team," she said, watching as James sent the Quaffle sailing into the goal post just out of Sunshine's reach. "That'll add an interesting dynamic to the team, won't it?"
"James is really good at seeing the potential in people," Remus said. "Like Seven, his Seeker? I know almost nothing about Quidditch, and even I can tell how talented she is."
Sirius looked sideways at him and smirked, and Remus blushed but continued.
"He'll find the best talent Gryffindor has to offer and train them up so they fit in with the rest of the team. He lives for that, you know?"
"And he really knows how to motivate his players," Sirius added. "Remember that awful loss to Slytherin fifth year? He managed to salvage the season and win the cup anyway."
"How could we forget that?" Peter said, grinning. "That loss to Slytherin was at least 50% your fault."
"How was it your fault?" Lily asked.
"What? You don't know this story? Evans, have you lived under a rock for the last two years?" Sirius raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
"This is my favorite story," Mary said. "This idiot-" she gestured at Sirius and rolled her eyes, "shagged Megan Bernard and then wouldn't give her the time of day, so she got so depressed she could barely hold her Beater's bat and it ended up costing them that game against Slytherin." She laughed. "You really don't remember that? She threw pumpkin juice in his face at dinner and everything, it was hilarious!"
Lily frowned. "It does sound vaguely familiar." She turned to S0,loirius, grinning. "You're kind of an arsehole, aren't you?"
Sirius poured a handful of Bertie Botts into his palm and popped a yellow one into his mouth. "Always have been, Evans. You lot just love me anyway because of my other redeeming qualities."
She nodded. "I suppose that's true. Anyway, that is pretty impressive that he was able to turn the season around like that."
"Impressive is an understatement," Sirius began, but before he could say more James was gesturing for him to come join them. "I knew he'd ask me to come play Beater for them eventually," he said, tossing the remaining Bertie Botts into his mouth and getting to his feet. "See you lot in a bit."
The remaining four of them watched the practice with varying levels of interest: Peter kept exclaiming things like "Ooh, that's called the sloth-grip roll. James is really good at it, isn't he?" or "Look how focused he is when he makes a shot. He can visualize exactly where the Quaffle is going to go. It's impressive, right?" but Remus was surreptitiously reading his book and Mary lost interest and began studying her nails, hoping they would change color. Lily remained silent but kept her gaze fixed on James, watching the intense concentration on his face as he went into a dive, marveling at the silent communication between him and the other players, and wondering when she had become such a Quidditch fan.
"He does look good on a broom, doesn't he?" Mary asked, losing interest in her nail polish when it remained the same shade of pink.
"He does," Lily said without thinking, then blushed and began stammering an explanation. "I mean, not that he looks good, I just meant he looks at ease on a broom, because he's such a good flyer, you know?"
"No, I think you meant it the other way, but we can agree to disagree," Mary said, grinning and bumping her shoulder, and Lily spent the rest of the practice trying and failing to keep her mind off the way the wind made James's t-shirt cling to his lean frame.
When the sun began to set James called a halt to the impromptu practice and Sirius jogged over to the bleachers.
"Evans, would you mind helping him put all the equipment away? Everyone else has to get back to the castle, and I'd do it, but I'm lazy." He turned to Mary and grinned. "Do I look good playing Quidditch?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I could hardly contain myself watching you. We're going to have to go back to the castle and shag immediately."
He laughed. "You say that sarcastically, but the chances of that actually happening are pretty high."
She shrugged. "Yeah, fair. You are actually a pretty decent Beater, as far as I can tell. Why don't you join the team?"
"Because as I just said, I'm lazy," he replied, waiting for everyone to join him before setting off for the castle. Lily stood there watching them leave for a moment before turning and heading across the pitch to where James stood, gathering up the brooms and Quidditch balls.
"Sirius said you needed help putting things away?" she asked.
He ran a hand through his hair although it already had a wind-tousled appearance. "Yeah, will you just take the brooms?"
"You don't keep these in the broom shed?" she asked after James had wrestled the Bludger back into its box and set off for the locker rooms.
"Nah, just the school brooms are kept in there. It gets too cold, and other people could mess with them, you know? We keep our personal brooms in our lockers." He pointed to one of the brooms. "That one's Sirius's, but I just keep it with mine for times like these."
When they reached the locker rooms James returned each broom to its correct home, standing in front of his own locker, then crammed the brooms in and shut the door before she could look inside.
"What have you got in there that you don't want me to see?" she asked, trying to reach around him to tug the door open, but he batted her hand away and steered her towards the door.
"Nothing, just, you know, Quidditch team secrets that can't be revealed," he said, not meeting her eye.
She grinned. "Right." She glanced over at him and thought for a moment, then said, "You know, you're really good at Quidditch."
"Nah, I'm no good," he said, laughing. "Absolute shit."
"Okay, I realize that was a bit of an obvious thing to say," she said, shivering as the late afternoon breeze lifted her hair and tugged at her clothing. "But I've never actually paid attention and watched you play before. I really enjoyed it, actually." She watched his face break into a huge smile and marveled at how little it took to make him happy. "You get this sort of focused look when you're concentrating. It's kind of adorable." She blushed, staring down at the ground and regretting her choice of words.
"You get a similar look when you're really focused in Potions," he said, and she was so surprised that she forgot her embarrassment and looked up at him, a quizzical smile spreading across her face.
"Do I really?" The idea of him studying her as she completed the methodical steps to brew a potion made her feel both self-conscious and flattered. She often lost herself as she bent over the cauldron to check the shade of a potion, falling into a trance-like state as she counted stirs and the steam enveloped her and tickled her face. Brewing a potion had been a solitary activity for her since her friendship with Snape had ended, and she had never imagined anyone being interested enough to pay attention to her precise yet fluid movements as she chopped ingredients or adjusted the heat under her cauldron. She felt almost as if he had caught her doing something indecent and deeply personal, which was ridiculous, as she brewed her potions in plain view of the entire class. Yet still the feeling remained, heightening her awareness of his body next to hers and flooding her cheeks with color. Get ahold of yourself, you idiot.
James nodded, unaware of the havoc his words were wreaking inside Lily's head. "You do. It's just as adorable as my focused Quidditch look. Probably more adorable, actually, as you're not usually sweating your arse off in Potions class." He grinned and ran a hand through his hair, then nodded again. "Potions just makes sense to you, doesn't it? Like for me I just follow the recipe and hope for the best, and it works out for me unless I get sidetracked watching, well, anyway, if I get sidetracked and forget to stir or reduce the heat or something and it ends up boiling over."
"What do you get sidetracked watching?" Lily asked, a sly glint in her eye.
"Anyway," he continued, avoiding her question. "It's not the same for you, is it? For you the recipe is a sort of guide, but you know enough to tweak it and put your own little personal touches on it. If anyone else tried to do that it would be a bloody disaster, but you always seem to know how to make a recipe even better. And what's even more impressive to me is how much you enjoy it. When you're in that zone it's like everything else falls away and it's just you and the cauldron, isn't it?"
"It's really not that impressive, I just read a lot of Potion books and I have good instincts, I guess," she said, her mind lingering on the note of admiration in James's voice and the affection in his eyes as he described her talent for Potions. "But how do you know that? How I feel like I'm the only one in the room, how everything else just disappears?" She wracked her brain but could not remember ever voicing this thought aloud to anyone. In fact, she wasn't sure she had ever been able to describe it quite as succinctly as James had.
James shrugged. "I can just sort of see it in your face. Also, that's what it's like for me when I play Quidditch, so I thought it might be the same." He glanced over at her and his face fell as he noticed her expression. "Sorry, I hope that doesn't make you feel weird or anything. It's not like I stare at you for the entire class or anything. It's just something I've noticed."
"And you think it's adorable," she said, a teasing note in her voice.
"I think that was your word, not mine, Evans."
She blushed but continued, "You're still not denying it, though."
He ran a hand through his hair, grinning. "You're right, I'm not."
She hesitated for a moment, trying to decide how to put her feelings into words."I don't think it's weird, by the way. I'm just, well… Nobody's ever taken the time to really figure me out that way, to understand how my mind works. You really get me, I think, in a way that nobody else does, and I guess I never realized that until now." She paused with the next sentence hovering on the tip of her tongue before plunging in, because what was the point of holding back now? "I guess that's why we get along so well, and why I feel like I can talk to you about things that I can't really talk to anyone else about."
As Lily fell silent she realized they had reached the steps to the Entrance Hall. For a moment she wondered how the entire walk had passed without her noticing, but then she dismissed this as unimportant as she took in the look of pure joy on James's face. He had stopped walking and stood facing her, not bothering to restrain the huge grin that lit up his face. The situation would have been comical, except she was also experiencing the same overwhelming rush of happiness.
"Are you all right?" she asked after a moment. "Did I break you?"
He shook his head and laughed, his eyes still wide with incredulous wonder. "No, it's just, bloody hell, it's so good to hear you say that." The sun had set now and the chilly air raised goosebumps on Lily's skin, but she felt no desire to go inside, no desire to do anything besides savor the happiness on James Potter's face. "I know we've been friends for a while now, but sometimes I still can't quite believe that you don't hate me anymore, and I half expect you to tell me to sod off if I say hello. So hearing you say that, well, it means a lot."
That unbridled, radiant grin remained on his face as he fell silent and kept his eyes fixed on hers. Lily felt herself blushing but found it impossible to tear her gaze away.
"Of course I don't hate you anymore, you prat," she said, her voice soft. "To be honest, I probably never actually hated you, I just thought I did."
He chuckled, and she noticed the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. "Seemed like the real thing to me, but I suppose it doesn't matter now."
"I suppose it doesn't." Somehow they had drifted closer together, and Lily could imagine how the scene would play out if she allowed herself to give in to the desire that had intensified over the past few months until it was almost impossible to ignore, but something held her back, and instead she said, "Should we go inside? The others are probably halfway through dinner by now."
For a moment James stood there without reacting, as if still hoping to salvage the feeling of charged intimacy that Lily's words had dispelled. Then he blinked and nodded, seeming to regain his composure although he did not quite manage to hide the frank disappointment that clouded his face.
"Yeah, I suppose we should," he replied, gesturing for her to go first. "After you." She stepped through the door, unsure if she could feel his eyes on her or if it was simply her imagination, and wondering what in the name of Merlin had made her walk away when even now, all she wanted was to get closer.