Authors note: Sorry for all my ffn readers, I have been posting the new chapter on AO3 and have neglected FFN. So you will now have around 4 whole chapters to read. Thanks for reading!

But I can feel it take a hold (I can feel it take a hold)

I can feel you take control (I can feel you take control)

Golden, Harry Styles

Level five pining made James cocky. Lily would probably use the term arrogant but either way, James now had more confidence than Sirius when he had a perfect hair day.

The image of Lily blushing at breakfast kept replaying inside his head, over and over again. Her creamy complexion interrupted by the pretty pink flush on her cheeks, her long eyelashes fluttering downwards in an attempt to avoid his gaze, the small tilt of her lip exposing the threat of a smile. James was ecstatic, almost skipping down corridors to his classes, if Sirius hadn't pulled him by the elbow and forced him to walk by his side.

"Prongs, you are being ridiculous" Sirius drawled as he pulled James back again after he flung himself forward in an another excitable frenzy.

"You do the same thing when you're happy" Remus piped up from behind them.

"What? act like a total pillock?"

"He's just happy that Lily finally likes him back"

James beams at his mates.

"We actually don't know if she fancies him" Sirius interrupts.

"She definitely doesn't hate him anymore," Peter adds, giving James a soft smile.

"She likes him" Remus says confidently, causing everyone to stop and look at the Werewolf expectantly.

"Did she tell you?" Sirius presses, noting that James was now stock still, all nervous and excitable energy had vanished.

"Uh, not technically, but she doesn't deny when I tease her about Prongs now" Remus awkwardly answers. He pushes Sirius ahead, as the hallway full of students starts to bottleneck around them.

"Wait, you talk about me to her?!" James asks, stepping towards Remus and stopping them from walking any further.

"James, we're going to be late to class" Remus scolds, pushing his friend backwards and nudging him to carry on walking.

James relents, picking up his pace. When they get to charms, James flings himself on top of the table and turns his attention to Remus.

"What does she say when you mention me?"

"You're acting like a girl, Prongs" Sirius complains, pulling out his chair and draping himself elegantly over it.

"Sexist" James bites back, narrowing his eyes at his best mate.

"She complains about you a lot still but it's kinda been hard to get her to shut up nowadays, she always manages to bring you into the conversation" Remus sets about organising his parchment and quills, not noticing the large grin now occupying James face.

James jumps off the table and flings himself onto his chair dramatically, faking a swoon.

"I think I'm dreaming," he sighs.

All three boys groan in response.

"I think James' brain exploded," Marlene chuckles.

Lily's ignoring her friends. She had been all day, but still Marlene keeps bringing up what happened that morning at breakfast.

"Did you see him in Charms? Couldn't keep his eyes off you Lils" Mary mentioned, once again.

"Did you want to come to mine to study?" Lily tries to veer the topic to something more mundane.

"To watch you drool over Potter? No thanks" Marlene quipped, sending Lily a coy wink.

Lily groaned, picking up her bag and slinging it over one shoulder.

"Mary?" She asks, hoping her more-quieter friend would accompany her.

"Sorry Lils, Remus said he would help me with Defence and I'm meeting him here in ten minutes"

"Fine. Guess I'll see you girls in the morning" She sighs, turning on her heel and ignoring the soft amused giggles she hears from her friends behind her. They were lucky they were in the library, otherwise Lily would have already loudly scolded them.

She hadn't meant to be so openly abashed at James' comment that morning, her brain just couldn't help but turn into complete mush at the sight of a cocky smile from him. The gleam in his eyes was enough to make her legs shake. She had truly opened herself up to the idea of thinking about James in a way that was too explicit for her own brain to comprehend.

She had been avoiding him all day, trying to ignore his stares and his silly quips he kept trying to send her way during class. She had really tried hard to not smile at them, and she had been doing a good job.

But then James Potter had to throw a spanner into the works.

She strolled into their shared common room, to a frustrated James Potter. Normally, this would have made her scoff, but when she finds a fit bloke, hair mused from running his hand through it constantly, sitting obviously aggravated- from the way his biceps tensed and head buried into his palms with his elbow on his desk, this time around her stomach flipped and she felt her throat grow dry.

His shirt sleeves were bunched up around his biceps and his glasses were perched on the end of his nose. He looked exhausted and annoyed and Lily tried really hard not to climb onto his lap and make him feel better.

"Alright, Potter?" She managed to say.

She had put her bag down by the couch and walked over to the tea station. Grabbing two mugs, she began to make them both a tea. She was determined to keep her hands busy throughout this conversation, making their tea the muggle way.

He coughed and turned around in his seat at her voice. He had bags under his eyes and he looked terribly tired but that didn't stop the easy smile from pulling at his lips. So effortless and innocent, it made her stomach flip in a completely different way.

"Better now you're here, Evans."

"Struggling a bit there?" She gestured to his homework set out in front of him on his desk.

"Trying to get these bloody formulas to stick" he grumbled, turning to the parchment and furrowing his brows.

He looked rather cute.

She shook her head and went back to focusing on their teas. When she finished, making him his borderline abusively sweet tea, she grabbed a chocolate biscuit out of the biscuit tin and took the two over to him.

She felt her fingers tremble slightly as he reached out for his mug, giving her a crooked smile when he noticed she had also brought him a biscuit.

"Thanks Evans, what would I do without you?" he grinned, sipping on his hot tea and making a sound that should be extremely illegal.

She gulped and nodded, not able to formulate a response after hearing that devilish sound. Instead she quickly turned to pick up her own tea and made her way to her room.

"Where are you going?"

She turns around and finds him frowning at her.

"Thought we could have our tea together"

Just the very thought of them being together made Lily so nervous, she was surprised she didn't spill her tea all over her.

"Need to get changed out of this shirt Potter" She smirked, glad to see him nervously nod at her answer, "Can you live without me for five minutes?" she added on boldly.

She didn't wait for his answer, she knew he wouldn't expect that from her. She was blatantly flirting with him and she really didn't care.

She left her tea on her bedside table and quickly pulled off her uniform along with her bra. She never liked to stay in her uniform for long, the material always felt too stuffy and tight on her. She much preferred wearing light materials. But as she sifted through her drawers, she had remembered that she had ceremoniously dumped most of her clothes in the laundry basket that morning, forgetting to do so a couple of days before.

Instead, she was left with a small singlet and threadbare pyjama shorts. She quickly popped to the bathroom before returning to the common room, and noticed that her singlet was rather see through in the mirror. She caught her eye on a jumper that had been left on one of the hooks in the bathroom and without thinking, pulled it over her head.

It was a Gryffindor Quidditch hoodie, the standard one that anyone could purchase. She knew deep down that it was Potters, but thought he wouldn't notice, seeing as the majority of the house had one of their own. The hoodie was a little larger than what she would usually wear, so it fell to her mid-thigh, making it look like she wasn't wearing the little shorts underneath. She shrugged, thinking the hoodie as a whole actually made her look a little frumpy and collected her tea from her room before joining James back in the common room.

She had left her tea on the coffee table and was pulling out her textbook for Transfiguration when she heard him gulp. It was rather loud and she twisted around to find her staring shamelessly at her from his desk. The cough that followed, sounded more like a choke and she couldn't help but chuckle slightly at the reaction. She narrowed her eyes at him and sat down on the couch opposite, textbook in lap.

"What are you wearing?" He finally said, after swallowing a few times and turning around more in his chair.

She looked down at the jumper, her heart rate rapidly rising.

"A jumper?" His eyes were still latched onto the Gryffindor logo on the front, and before he replied, she quickly added - "I'm wearing pyjama shorts underneath, the jumpers just too big"

Her cheeks felt embarrassingly hot as she realised he must have thought she wasn't wearing anything underneath the hoodie.

"No - I mean, that's a shame" he smirked before shaking his head, "but that's my jumper" he said a little more seriously this time.

She blinked.

Fuck.

"Is it? Fuck -sorry I thought it was mine" she lied.

"It says Potter on the back" he gulped, his eyes still glued to her chest.

"Fucking hell" she cursed loudly and went to pull the jumper off.

"No, no. You can wear it, I didn't mean- fuck no please leave it on, it looks so much better on you anyway" he managed to say, his own face growing pink.

But Lily had already taken the jumper off and was just about to throw it over to him when she caught him staring at her chest again, his eyes so wide she was surprised his glasses hadn't popped off his head. She was caught in a trance as she watched him lick his lips and was finally snapped out of it when he wiggled slightly in his chair, noticing for the first time that he was trying to hide a growing erection.

She averted her eyes quickly and looked down at the jumper still in her hands. Then she realised she was left in her rather-see through singlet with her hard nipples out for show.

"Fucking hell" she mumbled, wrapping her arms around her chest while trying to pull the jumper back on.

She had become a tangled mess and was grunting and cursing up a storm when she felt a hand tug at the jumper and another hand pull her arm through an arm hole.

James tenderly helped her put the jumper on again, and with as much confidence as she could muster she looked up to find him standing just a feet in front of her. His face still attractively flushed, he coughed awkwardly.

"Please keep it" he murmured, eyes flashing to the jumper and back to her eyes.

"Thanks - sorry I didn't realise it was yours and I only had these pyjamas left to wear because everything else is in the laundry basket and I completely forgot I wasn't wearing a bra" she rambled, looking down at her hands, all confidence thrown out the window.

"Lily, it's fine"

He never called her Lily.

She felt a sudden intense warm rush of pleasure and appreciation flow through her body, her heart thumping erratically still but it didn't seem as nerve-racking as before.

She looked up and found his warm hazel eyes looking back at her, she brought her gaze to his lips and watched as he licked his bottom lip slowly. The small action made her nerves tingle. She wasn't sure who drifted their gaze first but she let her eyes wander, down his neck, across his collarbones that she could see peeking out from his opened collar, to his biceps, shirt sleeves still straining against the muscles, and quickly down to his groin. He was still hard, and Lily gulped soundlessly at the sight. His groan was what made Lily snap out of her examination and she found him still looking at her.

He had watched her check him out, and you know what? She wasn't even the slightest bit embarrassed about it. Because he didn't just look at her like she was a weird crazy girl obnoxiously checking him out, he was looking at her like he wanted to eat her. His gaze was so lust-heavy that she probably would have fallen over if she wasn't already sitting down.

Before any of them could react to their overt mental undressing of each other, a certain someone that had an obvious disregard to the privacy of others came tumbling into the common room.

The almost-growl that emitted from James mouth as he looked upon his best mate with exasperated rage, made Lily's entire body tense with pleasure. James' eyes flickered to her thighs as she squeezed them in an attempt to keep her hormones from flinging her body at him. He quickly narrowed his eyes on his best mate. Sirius Black came strutting into the common room, a wide grin plastered on his face and grey eyes flickering back and forth between the pair of them.

"Apologies, did I interrupt something?" Sirius announced, paired with a smile that looked too cocky to be ignorant.