A/N: At the end of this chapter, there is implied attempted non-con; this will return as a theme in later chapters. Please take care of yourselves - don't read if this is not for you.
Thank you so much to ClaudiaWrites for being an amazing sounding board and advice giver 3

THEN

Coventry, 2008

"And how do we know Owen's feelings on war have changed over time?" Mrs McGonagall's voice was sharp, attempting to cut through the early afternoon malaise that always settled over the classroom – no matter how interesting the subject – during last period on a Friday. She gazed at them over her spectacles, perched on the end of her nose in a way that surely could not help her eyesight, until she found someone foolish enough to meet her gaze. "Lily?"

Lily loved English Lit, far more than was considered cool, and it was this that usually stopped her from putting her hand up to answer questions. She wasn't desperate to be popular, necessarily – but she liked to be liked, and her cohort didn't take too kindly to anyone who showed too much initiative. It went against her principles, a bit, to hold herself back, to make herself smaller, somehow, but secondary school wasn't a time to have principles. She could worry about that when she got to university.

She had always been on the back foot, ever since she'd arrived as a nervous eleven-year-old in shoes that were too shiny and a backpack that didn't have the right logo on it. She'd passed the eleven-plus, freeing her from the constraints of Cokeworth and its small-town, everyone-knows-everyone pressures; instead, that freedom had spat her straight out to the nearest grammar school, a forty-minute bus journey away in Coventry, away from the shadow of her sister Petunia (who had resentfully studied at Cokeworth Comprehensive until she was old enough to take herself and her inferiority complex off to London to "find her passion", or rather, find a bloke willing to put up with her nonsense). A fresh start, of sorts. But even in her seventh year at this school, she still found herself feeling an outsider – trying to fit in, to be liked and accepted. To not be the strange, brainy ginger girl from that ratty little town.

Given that it was only a few months until exams, and then the terrifying freedom of university in (god willing) Oxford, she knew she should really stop caring what these people thought. Some habits were hard to break, though.

She cleared her throat, hating that so many pairs of eyes were now on her. At her side, her friend Mary gave her a supportive nudge. "The bitterness of the last stanza shows it, I think," she said nervously. She wished Tricia Parkinson didn't smirk every time Lily ever spoke in class, as if the girl was in on a joke that Lily would never be party to; she wished Jack Mulciber, rich enough to probably buy her own home five times over and have change to spare, didn't look as if he'd only just remembered she existed when she spoke up in class; she wished she couldn't see Evan Rosier across the room, watching her with a look that was both intensely bored and deeply mocking. She wished she didn't care quite so much what her peers thought of her. "The 'you would not tell with such high zest' – he's angry."

Tricia and Jack exchanged a smirk at their desk, at what, Lily didn't know – and didn't want to analyse. Maybe it had nothing to do with her. At her side, Mary shot her a reassuring smile: fast friends since day one of Year 7, she'd always been envious of Mary's ability to not give the slightest shit about what was considered cool or not. "I was at primary school with little Tommy Avery," she'd said with a raised brow. "I cannot find someone intimidating when I saw them piss their pants during the Christmas play."

Another reason that Lily felt on the back foot with everyone here – they all grew up together, knew each other well. She was the unknown, even now, and she hated thinking that anyone could try to fill in the blanks about her.

"Good," McGonagall nodded approvingly, before – thank fuck – shifting her attention to a sheet of paper on her desk. "This leads us neatly into our next homework project. A paired piece-" groans filled the room, "-that will focus on efforts made by Owen and Sassoon to change how those not on the Front viewed the war." She shot Rosier, muttering something with a knowing smirk to Avery at his side, a scathing look. "I'm sure I need not remind you that, with final exams fast approaching, this is a task you should take seriously. With that in mind, you will not be choosing your own partners."

More groans, which, in Lily's experience, only ever seemed to galvanise their teacher. It was like the woman was happiest when her students were at their grumpiest. McGonagall started rattling through the list of pairings, teens getting up to haul themselves over to a new space – hardly anyone seemed particularly happy, apart from Rosier, who caught Lily's eye with a sneering smile as he made his way past her over to Marlene McKinnon, easily the prettiest and most popular girl in their year – and Lily was so busy wondering why he suddenly seemed to be interested in her reaction, and in watching the new interactions play out around her, that she almost didn't hear her own name. "- Lily Evans and James Potter."

Potter. She glanced around the room, seeking him out. She found him by the window, doodling something on the pages of his notebook and not seeming at all concerned about what was going on around him. With a sigh, she gathered her things and stood up – obviously he wasn't going to move over to her.

Potter had joined Royal Coventry Grammar School for sixth form, his family having moved "up north" from London. When he'd explained this, in vaguely bored tones, to the likes of Rosier and Avery and their gang, they'd all laughed sneeringly. "Bloody Londoners," Mulciber had said, clearly going for Rosier's approval over endearing himself to the new boy. "Anywhere north of Watford Gap is 'up north' to you."

And that had been that, apparently: for sixteen-year-olds, the error of letting anyone infer that you thought you were cooler than them, even if that inference had been extrapolated from the most benign of sentences, was enough to deny you a ticket into the in crowd.

Potter, for his part, had not seemed to care. He had made a few friends – quiet types, like Remus Lupin, a friendly and studious boy that Lily had fancied quietly for the first few years of school, but had never really spoken to beyond the standard classroom discussions. When Lupin wasn't around, Potter kept to himself. He was blessed to not be struck down by Lily's intense need to be thought of well by those around her.

When she reached his desk, she cleared her throat, placing her notepad and pencil case down in the empty space next to him. He finally looked up, and a flash of something crossed his face, something she didn't know him well enough to unpick. "Sorry you're stuck with me," she said, because she had to say something. She felt suddenly very aware of Rosier and McKinnon sat at the table behind them. "I promise I'm not-"

"Right, let's get seated, quickly," McGonagall's voice cut through before Lily had to think of an end to that sentence, and she dropped into the empty chair, trying not to blush. Potter was still looking at her, and from this vantagepoint, she could see the flecks of gold that lit up his hazel eyes. She'd never really been close enough to see, before. Oh, she thought. "I suggest you use the remaining time to choose your poems – you'll need at least two per poet – and to start taking notes."

She uncapped her pen – she had a favourite pen, that was the level of nerdery that she was working with – and glanced back at Potter again. This time, he had half a smile playing on his lips, and she felt suddenly, deeply self-aware: was that a smile at her, or with her? "So, um, Anthem for Doomed Youth could be a good start," she said.

"Yes," he agreed, and she realised that she couldn't remember the last time she heard him speak. They only shared English Literature as a subject – his other subjects had more of a humanities bent, whereas she skewed towards the sciences – and hardly anyone spoke in McGonagall's class unless they had to. "And maybe Dreamers? That one digs the knife in a bit, doesn't it?"

As he flicked through the poetry anthology between them, remarking on what could work for their project, she felt guilty, and it took her a moment to realise why: he was clever – he was thoughtful, insightful. For the past nearly-two years, she'd looked at him and thought very little – just that he was tall, and skinny, and had messy dark hair that constantly looked like he'd been pulled through a hedge backwards, and that he seemed more interested in playing football than in making academic contributions. She'd just assumed he was one thing, and in a matter of seconds, he'd shown himself to be quite another.

She smiled. "And we want to dig the knife in, do we?"

He raised his eyebrows, watching her scribble something down on her pad. "Isn't that half the fun of all this gloomy war poetry?" he asked; something in his tone made her look up, and she found that his smile matched hers. "Suffering and pain?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "The title of my autobiography."

He smirked. "That's not the vibe I get from you at all…"

Which meant he'd thought about her – reflected on her vibe, whatever the hell that meant. She felt like the classroom around them was melting away.

By the end of that first project session, it was not much of a surprise to her to realise that she fancied him. And not just because of his lovely eyes, or lanky, darkly-Byronic good looks which she had somehow failed to notice until presented with them up close: he was funny, he was knowing – helooked at her in a way that no one else had ever looked at her before. That he had a brain, and a zingy wit, made him suddenly seem a different person in her eyes.

And, luckily, by the end of that first project session, she sensed that he fancied her, too.

They found excuses to meet, to discuss their project, despite McGonagall telling the class that the work would mainly be done in lesson time. They met up in War Memorial Park – "it seems fitting, don't you think?" she had said, and he had smiled at her in a way that made her toes curl deliciously – and sat under the trees, notes scattered around them on the picnic blanket she had dug up out of the garage. The first few times, they even made a decent pretence of actually studying, and it felt like something out of a film, something someone far more glamorous than Lily Evans would ever experience: they discussed poetry, and war, grand, overarching debates that were peppered with his wit and warmth and that smile, again and again.

But it was the fourth Saturday, sitting in the sunshine, when James Potter leaned closer to murmur in her ear, some passing comment on a group of kids who had just wandered past. His breath against her skin, his lips ghosting along the shell of her ear, sent her eyelids fluttering. She laughed, far out of proportion to what he had actually said, her stomach churning with promise and nerves alike. He moved back, just enough to look at her, and they stared into each other's eyes for what felt like hours – but was probably closer to two minutes, at the most – before he finally, blissfully closed the distance between them, and kissed her.

She hadn't known kisses could feel like that. Her experiences in that arena so far had been few and far between – Ben Fenwick, back in Year 10, who was sweet but had kissed her like he was trying to suck deadly venom from her tongue, and Peter Pettigrew, at a party near the start of Year 12, who had drunkenly launched himself at her before she'd had the chance to say, no thank you. Underwhelming experiences, both of them, and what she had considered to be fairly typical kissing encounters.

Apparently not.

His hands raked through her hair, or slipped down her back, holding her close against him so that she could feel the enticing thump of his heart against his chest, in time with her own. Every new angle of their mouths or shift of their bodies brought shivers of pleasure that she hadn't realised could be a part of the process. From that moment on, any time spent not kissing James was, by all accounts, time badly spent.

She didn't know if he had more experience than her – she didn't know what he'd been like back at school in London, although for some reason, her small-town mind seemed to associate his growing-up in the capital with a swathe of girlfriends, sexual experience to spare. She didn't want to ask; it seemed needy, and she didn't want him to stop liking her.

And he really did seem to like her. "You're so beautiful," he murmured into her hair one afternoon, curled up in each other's arms on a bench in the park. "Look at you," he'd say, when they met up, out of the rain, in a coffee shop near his house.

They kept it to themselves, this burgeoning thing between them. It was never agreed upon out loud, but it felt like the right thing to do – she didn't want the popular kids, the crowd who thought speaking up in English Lit was a personality flaw, to pick apart what they had, to try and make it seem like less than what it was. It meant everything to her. She didn't want anyone else's opinion on it to sway James, to pull them apart from each other.

She almost told Mary, dozens of times. There was no one she was closer to, really, and she knew that Mary would be supportive. She'd not kept secrets from her before – they were the kind of friends who had a text chain detailing their PMT symptoms in excruciating detail. No stone was left unturned, apart from this one, apparently. Maybe it was more exciting, to keep to herself for now. To know that he was looking at her, across the cafeteria or their English classroom, that he was thinking (as she was, too) about how it felt to kiss her, to slip his fingers along the band of exposed skin between her jeans and her top, to sink his hands into her hair or encircle her waist – to know he was thinking all those things, about her, about Lily Evans, and no one else realised.

Okay, yeah. The secrecy was hot.

The poetry project finished, but the afternoons in the park, or in Costa, or wandering, hand in hand, down high streets in nearby towns where no one knew them, carried on apace. In three months, she'd gone from hardly thinking of James Potter at all, to thinking of him in every passing second that she had.

The end of sixth form party approached: one last blow-out, before exams started and they all had to knuckle down, before the summer holidays came to pull them all apart from each other, currents in the wind that would send everyone off to different universities, colleges, jobs, gap years. It felt momentous, in a way that Lily had not expected it would, and she knew that a large part of that was down to James.

They'd thoroughly enjoyed whatever they could get away with on a picnic blanket in a public park, or against a brick wall down a side street, but it was getting harder and harder to not breach each other's clothes. When she'd suggested, heart in her throat, that they book a Premier Inn hotel room for the night of the party, he'd kissed her with such fervour, with such promise and intensity, that she'd felt like her mind had separated from her body entirely, floating away on a blissful slip-stream. "I can't wait," he had murmured, and she knew without a doubt that she felt exactly the same way.

Her parents believed her when she said she was staying at Mary's after the party: she had, after all, spent eighteen years building up a reputation as someone who would sooner throw herself in the nearest body of water than lie to her parents. She styled her red hair into gentle waves, dabbed on makeup that Mary assured her would highlight her cheekbones, and slipped into a dark green dress which she just knew James would love. He talked about her eyes often enough – "my green-eyed goddess," he'd smirked once, before kissing her with intent. She felt confident. Excited. Ready for whatever the night would bring.

The party was being held at a hotel and golf course on the outskirts of the city, a room hired out and decorated in lacklustre style by a committee that she assumed were more interested in actual partying than décor. It was warm and crowded, a sea of faces already half-cut and keen to let loose before exams and real life put them in a headlock. She couldn't see James anywhere; he must've been running late.

"Evans," a silky voice called out, and she turned to see Evan Rosier, leaning against the bar and surrounded by his usual posse. When Rosier spoke, everyone knew to listen – there was something unsettling about that level of power. Maybe it was the fact that he knew he had power. He was handsome, in a classical sort of way, blonde hair and blue eyes that pierced. She'd fancied him in passing back in Year 11, and he knew it. She remembered, as clear as day, hearing him talk about her to Tom Avery in the cafeteria: "Christ, she's from Cokeworth, Tommy. Imagine the industrial cleaning I'd need to do on my cock after that." Funnily enough, her crush had faded quite quickly after overhearing that conversation, although – mortifyingly, and to her utter shame – her need to be liked by him, to have that anointing from someone everyone in their year seemed to adore, did not go away at all.

"Hi," she said, glancing apprehensively around the group. Marlene McKinnon stood nearby, catwalk-gorgeous in a sliver of a purple dress which accentuated her coffee-coloured skin. She watched on, the hint of a smile on her lips, a smile that didn't quite feel warm. "Alright?"

"Oh, very," Rosier replied, and the group around him laughed appreciatively. At what, Lily wasn't sure. He pressed forward, closing the space between them, and passed her a glass of something fizzing and dark. Everyone else in the group had one, too, and she took a quick swig, wanting to wet her throat, not give them a reason to think less of her. "You look fit tonight, Evans."

She blushed – and hated herself for it. "Oh, um, thanks…"

"Didn't realise you scrubbed up so well," he added; Jack Mulciber muttered something that made Tom Avery laugh. Lily quickly drained her glass, blinking past the way it made her head swim. "Apparently you can take the Cokeworth out of the girl."

Lily set her glass down on the nearby bar, feeling increasingly self-conscious. Back at home, in front of her bedroom mirror and with only thoughts of James' gaze, the dress had felt sweetly seductive, just the right level of charming and sexy, discreet but alluring. Now, with the weight of eyes of the most popular group in school levelled at her, it felt like a miscalculation. "Well – thanks." She looked round the group again; it felt odd, to have them all so focused on her. Odd, and a bit intoxicating. She wasn't used to this level of attention. "Everyone looks great."

"Don't they?" Tricia Parkinson agreed, voice like silk; she had a drink in one hand, and the other snaking up Mulciber's arm. They made for a strange pairing, Lily thought – they didn't seem to actually like each other very much. But that was almost par for the course for the popular crowd: find someone of equal attractiveness, whether they had a personality or not. "And it's so great to spend time with you, Lily. You're headed to Oxford too, right?"

Lily blinked, giving her a smile; Rosier edged closer to her, handing her another drink. "Oh, yeah – I didn't know you'd applied."

Tricia's smile didn't quite reach her eyes, but Lily wasn't sure it ever had, in all the time she'd known her. "My parents wanted either Oxford or Cambridge," she shrugged elegantly. "Tommy got an offer too – and Evan."

Maybe the fresh start of university wouldn't be quite so fresh after all. She was going to have to keep pleasing these people, wanting their endorsement, for the foreseeable future. Either that, or change personalities entirely, and she hadn't managed that in the past seven or so years. She didn't like her chances in the next few months. "That's cool," she said, with a brighter smile than she felt. "It'll be a little Royal Coventry reunion."

Two things happened at once: behind the group, she caught sight of James, now watching her with an unreadable look on his face; and Rosier reached out, took her hand in his, and gave her a charming smile. "Evans, can I borrow you for a sec? I want to show you something."

Her instinct to have people like her, approve of her, no matter who they were, overrode everything else for a moment – and a moment was all it took. "Oh. Really?"

Rosier took the glass from her hand as if it was nothing, as if they did this sort of thing all the time. "Not out here, though," he said.

She looked over his shoulder, saw the looks on the faces of the group around them – a mixture of envy, amusement, disbelief. McKinnon looked irritated, casting Lily a look which seemed to scream, you think you're one of us?

She didn't. She really didn't. But she could handle five minutes out of the room with Evan Rosier, surely, and the social capital she would gain would be worth it, wouldn't it?

So why was she still hesitating?

It was a muttering – she thought from Lissa Nott's direction, although it could have been any of them – that pushed her. The word "frigid" seemed barbed. Aimed, to sting.

She didn't want to go. But she didn't want to be the frigid girl, too afraid to even walk out to the corridor with the coolest guy in school. She didn't want those labels hanging around her neck, not when she was already weighed down by all the other labels she'd collected over the years at that school.

"Okay," she murmured, and her throat felt dry. "Just for a minute?"

"Of course," Rosier winked, and Avery let out a wolf whistle as Rosier led Lily away from the group and out the door, in the direction of the toilets. Lily glanced over her shoulder, seeking James' eyes in the crowd, and before he disappeared from view, she was surprised to see the look on his face. No, she thought, you don't understand. This isn't anything at all.

But then he was gone, lost in the crowd. And, apart from a fleeting glance exchanged across the length of the exam hall a month later, she never saw him again.