Chapter Thirteen: The Pub II
She'll follow him anywhere, anywhere, out of the pub if he so desires, to wherever he might Disapparate them to, to the very depths of hell—
And yet, when he leads her through a door that he unlocks with a few careful prods of his wand, he pulls her from the corridor into—
A laundry room.
An enchanted tub and washboard dominate the center of the cramped quarters, where an invisible hand scrubs a thick, cotton sheet into sudsy water. In the corner of the room, a drying rack runs from the floor to the ceiling, and a series of sheets and duvets waft faintly in the wind of an unseen source. Thick humidity permeates the air along with the overwhelming scent of bleach and detergent.
Still, none one of that matters. Nothing matters except James tugging her into the room, shutting the door behind them, and then gathering her into his arms. His hands bury into her hair near her temples, his fingers weave into delicate strands carefully styled by Mary's wand, and then the hard slab of his body presses intimately into hers as he tips her head back to look at her. His chest swells with a breath she feels and hears and experiences, right along with him, as his hazel eyes rove slowly along the planes of her face. His gaze meets her own, caresses the curve of each cheek, runs slowly along her jawline, and zeroes in upon her mouth. There, he lingers, and—
She waits. She waits for him to close the minuscule space between them, to lean down and capture her lips with his, but he doesn't.
"I miss you," he says instead, his voice quiet and faintly hoarse. She feels the swallow that courses down his throat. "Damn it, Evans, I miss you so fucking much."
Miss, present tense, not missed, from the past. Clearly, although he cradles her tenderly against him, he doesn't believe that he's bridges the gap between them.
"I—" Her heart flickers strangely in her throat as a jumbled series of responses nearly escape. I miss you too. I can't stop thinking about you. I can't remember the last time I cried over someone like this. I want you to kiss me. I—
He waits for her to continue, but only for a moment. "What?" he demands. His gaze returns to meet her eyes, where he stares with such intensity that it makes her shoulders twist. "Tell me, because—I can't read you. I still can't read you, and it's—I've been going mad without you. Ask Sirius. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I—fuck, I've spent half the nights without you at the cottage anyway. I keep hoping you'll come back, if only for a second, and—" His vocal cords cut out, as if axed with an abrupt strike. When he presses on, he sounds slightly strangled. "That's the only place I can sleep—in your bed—and I hate it. I hate that it smells enough like you that I sometimes forget that you're not there, and then when I wake up—"
Again, he breaks off with an air of constriction. Yet, unlike him, she'll wait an eternity for him to go.
Eventually, he does. "It's awful," he says finally, roughly, and his fingers tense in her hair. "It's awful, because I have a good few seconds before it all hits me again, and I'm so fucking happy for those few seconds, but then—"
She doesn't need him to explain it. She can recall that same feeling with far too much accuracy, because she often experiences it herself when she awakes in the early morning hours in a bedroom that no longer feels like her own.
Silence spreads between them, deep and dark and heavy, and broken only by the quiet sloshing of water in the tub behind him.
"James—" she says finally, his name a familiar shape upon her mouth, and—
He kisses her finally, his lips falling to meet hers after producing a faint swear, and the rest of the world simply fades away.
Slow. Soft. Gentle. Each pass of his mouth moves in that same way, carrying a tender undercurrent that quickly floods her system. He says her name back to her, a low, purposeful, "Lily," that she might think she imagines if not for the way she feels it break across her lips. As he drops a hand from her hair, her name passes past her parted lips, slips into her mouth with a clever stroke of his tongue, and slides down her throat to dwell hotly in her stomach. His arm winds around her waist to crush her to him fully, and the forceful treatment stands in direct contradiction to the tender work of his mouth. He handles her roughly, the lean of his body commanding as he pushes her back against the door—and, fuck, how many times has he snogged her in just that way? How many times has he shoved her up against some door or some wall to utterly break the interior of her brain with the skilled attention of his mouth, including all the way back to their one and only kiss at Hogwarts? Her body simply reacts, actions borne out of muscle memory alone, although—
No, that's not fair, and she knows it. Muscle memory plays a factor in it all, certainly, but deep longing and affection and desire have a larger role in what makes her lift herself onto her toes, what makes her snake her arms around his neck, what makes her all but cling to him with such intensity that she wonders if she'll ever manage to let him go.
He understands some part of that without her even needing to put it to words. As if he plucks that thought directly from her mind, he gives a panted protest into her flushed cheek as he scatters kisses upon overheated skin. "I can't, love," he says, and the endearment sends a familiar rush of pleasure into the far corners of her limbs. "I told you—I can't let you go, not now that I know—"
She licks whiskey from her lips, the flavor transferred from his kiss, as he drags his mouth along her jawline. "What?" she asks, and she hears the sheer eagerness that coats the single syllable. Fuck it all, fuck it all, but she wants to hear all of the things she hadn't managed to stomach in his office at Potters' Potion. She wants to hear every last declaration of his feelings and every last promise he's willing to give, because—
A steel trap wraps itself around her mind and squeezes, effectively shutting down the careful contemplation in her brain. Later, she will recognize the feeling as self-preservation at its finest.
In the moment, James catches some tiny blip of it all. His breath comes in quickly as he pauses in the sensitive space just below her ear, and he nuzzles a particular spot that he's bruised many times over. As always, the mere suggestion of the attention lavished there lifts goosebumps upon her skin, before—
"No." He jerks back abruptly, all but wrenching his face from her neck. Wretchedness paints an agonizing path across his features, darkening his brow and pulling at his mouth and sharpening his eyes. She has a single moment to take it in and feel the world drop from beneath her feet before he sucks in a sharp inhale. "No, I—you know how I feel about you. I've told you over and over, and I'll keep telling you all you want, but—" The hand on her back contracts to twist her dress tightly in a clenched fist. "You have to give me something first, Lily. Something. I don't even know if you've thought about me at all, if you've even missed me a little, if you care that we—"
The absurdity of the notion that she's lived her life peacefully without him contrasts with the reality of the situation—that she's spent her days precisely as he'd just described, barely eating and barely sleeping and existing in a hellish fugue state straight out of her nightmares—and so much so that it nearly inspires laughter, if bitterly given. And how, how can he not know all that with just a single look at her when he seems to almost read her mind at other times? How can he not see the wretchedness of her own, spy the misery in her soul, understand the upset that has cloaked her days, and all of it without her needing to speak?
"Of course I—" It comes out sharply, almost waspishly, a rebuke given just on the other side of an insult. A breath tempers her tone. "Of course I—I've been miserable, James—"
Sunshine breaks open across his face, so bright and brilliant and warm that she could bathe in it.
"Why?" he demands, and eagerness now overwhelms his voice just as it had hers. "Tell me why you're—"
The steel trap in her mind lifts just enough for an unwelcome reminder to join them in the laundry room, and it shuts out the brilliance of his smile immediately.
"You—" An accusation sits dormant on her tongue, one severe and heartbroken and perhaps without warrant. Tempering that takes much more effort, as does redirecting her question. "Are you celebrating something tonight?"
A quizzical cast works its way over his mouth. "Yes," he says, and with great impatience. "Yes, we're—Cyril signed his marriage contract with Sylvia Runcorn, so we're out—what? Why are you—"
Relief winds its way into her weary muscles to rope down her limbs, and so fiercely that he feels her body sag slightly with it. Her fingers grip the collar of his shirt so fiercely that they ache. "So you're not—"
Unlike most times, when he urges her to finish thoughts with heavy haste, he doesn't push her. He waits, and his eyes skitter around her face as he does, as if he searches for an answer hidden somewhere in her expression.
She can peg the exact moment that he finds it, or at least thinks he does.
"Lily." He speaks her name quietly, calmly, and with deadly seriousness. "What did you hear?"
She doesn't answer. "Is it true?"
In turn, he doesn't answer. "What did you hear?" he repeats, and there impatience breaks through again. With it, his voice picks up speed. "What did you hear, and who told it to you? Was it Titus? He would be right there in your ear, telling you all sorts of nonsense just to—"
"Is it nonsense?"
"Is what nonsense?"
Belatedly, it strikes her: neither one of them wants to put to words what she has yet to say aloud to anyone, even herself.
Seconds tick by. On her back, his hand remains held in a tight fist; on his shoulders, her fingers hold fast around his collar.
She breaks the silence first. "Are you marrying—"
His breath leaves him in a rush. "Fuck, no, of course not," he says, and with a bite. Truly, he bares his teeth in a snarl, and they gnash together as he speaks. "Of course not, not if you're—if you still want—"
Although he falters, she still understands the message. Moreover, she understands something deeply important, something she hadn't considered as an issue until that exact moment: he had never once considered the possibility of both marrying Lucinda and keeping her. Presumably, he knows her well enough to not expect even the suggestion to fly.
Broken fragments from her lips join the broken fragments from his. "But if I didn't?" she asks. "If I didn't—if I was done—would you marry her then?"
"I—"
"The truth, James."
The reason behind the insistence doesn't quite make sense, but she sees the need for it after his shoulders droop. His posture rounds inwards, and the hand on her back retreats to drag across his face. She misses the heat of it immediately. "I don't know," he says into his palm, and guilt drips across the words, guilt combined with an intertwined undercurrent of embarrassment and anger. "Her parents are really pushing it, and—mine would be overjoyed with it if that's what I wanted. It would be easier to just give everyone what they want, and, if it weren't for you…I might go along with it."
Ice settles into the pit of her stomach; in contrast, her hands burn around his collar as if she clutches flames. Even when she drops them to her sides, the burning doesn't desist. "Don't let me stop you."
In turn, he drops his hand from his face to also fall by his side, although it curls into a fist. "Fuck off," he says, and he sounds impatient yet again. "Fuck off with that. You know that's not what I want—"
"No, I don't."
"Well, then you should, and—"
"How?" It bursts out of her savagely, with such fervor that it surprises herself, and yet—
It doesn't surprise him. Although he blinks, just once, no other change crosses his expression.
Vitriol pours forth in thoughts turned tirelessly over in her head since Luca had dropped the marriage bomb into her lap. "This is what your kind does, Potter. You told me that, remember? Right at the very beginning, you told me that you knew more married pureblood men who keep muggleborns than those who don't. You laughed about it, even, like the entire thing was some great joke, and—aren't you a pureblooded man? Don't you bear the Dark Mark and do Voldemort's bidding and keep a muggleborn mistress? For you to act like you're different than them—or like we're different somehow, when we're—"
"We are." The hand in her hair dashes down to close around her chin, and he swells with a breath that shrinks the close confines of the room. "What we have—you know it's different. If you didn't—" A hard glint steals its way into his eyes, and she likes it not at all. "If what we had wasn't different, you wouldn't care about Lucinda, just like Perdita doesn't care about Sylvia. But you do care, don't you?"
"I don't—"
"The truth, Lily."
The reversal of her own demand prickles unpleasantly at the open wound in her heart, yet it pales significantly in comparison to the way that that wound still bleeds. "I—"
"I'm walking out the door if you lie."
He means it. She sees that in the determined hold of his jaw and feels it in the hand that brushes her hip as he grips the doorknob at her side, but—
Even just a single nod or a simple yes seems far outside her abilities.
She switches gears instead.
"You'd care," she accuses. "If you heard there were talks of me marrying someone else, you'd—"
In contrast, his own confirmation comes almost devastatingly easily.
"Of course I would," he says. When it draws her up short, in words and in breath, he simply stares. "What? If I heard rumors of you with someone else, I'd lose my fucking mind, and not even marriage. If I heard someone else even touched you—"
She thinks, strangely, of Luca Batista's fingers encircling her wrist and the gentle pity on his handsome face, but pushes away the memory of both.
James continues unabashed. "Just watching you hug the Prewetts tonight—I hated that, but—you know that. You know how I feel. You've never once told me—"
A protest forms feebly on her lips. "I've said—"
"Next to nothing, except what I had to literally drag out of you before you walked out on me, and—" He releases her all at once, the hand on her chin vanishing in one instant, and then his body following in the next. Suddenly, he's reared back from her entirely, the space between their bodies an abrupt, screaming chasm that she could fall into easily if so much as nudged. The washbasin sloshes behind him as he backs up far enough that his calves bump the sides, and only then does he stop. In the flickering overhead light of a single, bare bulb, his jaw looks tight enough to crack. "It keeps coming back to that, doesn't it? That I want more than you'll give me, and I know you think I'm a selfish bastard for that. I am, probably. But I can't keep trying to get you to feel something for me that won't ever happen. If you meant what you said—that you could never love me—" The latter three words sound almost as if they choke him, and they leave harshly, gutturally, from the base of his throat. Finally, they do choke him, and he falls into pained silence.
Still, she understands well enough. She isn't the only one attempting some measure of self-preservation.
The heavy aroma of bleach has started to prickle at her eyes. Only that explains the sudden wellspring of pressure, although it doesn't account for the faint tremble to her fingers as does her best to dash that pain away. "You're asking—" The stinging spreads to her throat. "Jesus, James, you're asking so much of me. It's not—"
The tight nature of his jaw softens, if just a bit. "I know." He swallows, and then he pushes upwards at his glasses to rub at his own eyes. "I know I am. I'm sorry. I just—" His glasses resettle, and his jaw locks again. "I can't pretend like I can do half measures with you anymore. I'm too far in and I'm too far gone, and—"
Although nothing noticeable changes in the room—not any part of their surroundings, not the thick humidity and painful burning aroma of bleach, not the horrific chasm that separates them—something changes. She feels it in both her body and mind, and she sees it, evident in a bare flicker of something astoundingly new in the depth of his golden eyes.
If pressed, she would swear that, before that moment, she'd seen every possible emotion play across his features at one time or another. Burning hatred, tender love, biting jealousy, hysterical laughter, all-consuming lust, warm affection, deep concentration—she's seen it all, and on and on and on, except—
This, whatever it is that dwells suddenly just below his expression, is entirely new. Yet again, he transforms into a new person, a fifth person, and this person steals her breath for reasons she can't quite comprehend.
One of his hands slips backwards to rest along the rim of the washtub. When he grips, he does so with such intensity that she hears his thumb scrape roughly across the wood. "Lily—" he begins, the use of her voice low and measured and solemn, as if he counts not each word, but each breath. "Tell me what you need from me. Whatever it is, I'll do it. I'd even—"
Several pieces slot into place at once, and panic rises so suddenly and thickly from her stomach that her throat fills with bile.
"Don't." It comes out in a hiss as glorious hope and horrific reality war at once within her. Nausea spins her head. "Don't you dare—"
"I would." His head tips up, his chin juts out, and she spies a sudden flash of courage well worthy of Godric Gryffindor. "I would, if it meant keeping you. Well—not keeping you, but—" His mouth twists as confidence clearly wavers over the fumbling of terminology, but it returns after a fraction of a second. When he speaks again, he sounds more certain than ever. "If it meant having you fully—and you having me—I'd—"
—defect. Like mentions of marriage and Lucinda, he doesn't look any more eager to truly put it to words than she feels, only this time for a very different reason. This time, the single turn of phrase could get him killed, and probably end her right along with him.
Yet she knows, just knows, that that's what he means. She feels the knowledge spark, flicker into a faint flame, and then catch with a heat that burns her chest.
Defect. Just as in his office, the word repeats in the inner workings of her brain on repeat. Yet, this time, the idea doesn't come from her. This time, the idea comes from him, in the form of an offer, and—
She doesn't even have to think.
"You can't." A fresh wave of panic douses the hope that had started to truly burn bright within her. In its absence, darkness reigns. "You'd die—you said so yourself—and I couldn't live if—"
—you died. She doesn't plan to say the words and also doesn't plan to hold them back, but she knows even as they start and then stop across her tongue that she means them with her whole heart.
The pressure behind her eyes has nothing to do with bleach, and she can no longer pretend that it does. "I'd rather—" She clears her throat to try to push past a new blockage. It works, if minimally. "I'd rather you just go through with marrying Talkalot than putting your life on the line because of my beliefs, and—I really don't want to see you marry her."
There. If he wants to question her fucking feelings, let him chew on that, and—
He understands, of course. Of course he does.
"Lily—" His fingers unwind from around the washtub. It sounds as if he holds back a small piece of laughter, laughter she sees work its way into the corners of his mouth, laughter she must assume would come out at least marginally hysterical just based on the way his voice crackles. "I know how good you are. I know how decent and self-sacrificing and noble and all of that shit that you are, but—listen to yourself. Listen to what you just said and tell me you're not in love with me. Go ahead. I'll wait."
Panic, already at the very maximum in her brain and body both, somehow crests only higher.
Suddenly, he's right back in her space. His hands once again slip into her hair, and he paints a path of kisses across the planes of her face. "I love you," he says as he brushes his lips against her brow. "I love you," he says again with a kiss pressed to the bridge of her nose. "I love you, I love you, I love you—" He repeats the words over and over, slowly and sweetly, as if he savors each admittance as he never has before. He kisses the corners of her eyes, decorates the line of each cheekbone with his lips, runs his mouth along her jaw. "I love you," he says, finally capturing her mouth in his, although he holds only for the barest of seconds. "I love you, and I—don't cry, sweetheart. Please don't cry. Everything's fine and I'm not going anywhere and we're going to be—"
So wrapped up in the attention of his mouth, in the smell of his skin, and in the wonderful warmth of his body, she hadn't even noticed her own tears. She only feels them slipping down her cheeks as he brushes them away with his lips, and then her breath burns on an unsteady inhale as she does her best to regain control over herself. "It's—the bleach—"
As his hand fishes into the pocket of his trousers, the slow pressure of his mouth never ceases. She feels his wand arm move and hears an incantation whispered into her tear-stained cheek, and then a fresh burst of clean, sweet-smelling air rushes by them.
There goes that excuse.
"Come home," he says as he kisses her temple. His nose presses to her hair and he takes in a breath that slakes some of the tension from his arms. Against her better judgment, her hands have found their way back to him, and she feels his biceps slowly unwind as he takes in her scent. "Come home, and we'll figure the rest of it out from there."
The broken fragments of her brain can summon only the feeblest of protests. "My friends won't understand why—"
He sounds resolute. "I'll go out there and charm the pants off of all three of them. I'll work at it until they're begging you to come back to me."
It sounds so much like the James Potter she'd loathed at Hogwarts—so arrogant, so self-assured, so blindly determined to get his own way at all times—that laughter flickers underneath the throbbing in her throat.
He hears her. In response, his smile curves against her ear. "I guarantee Sirius is already out there laying the groundwork for me."
That, too, sounds just like the James Potter she'd loathed. No, that sounds just like the James Potter she'd loathed and coveted, and those familiar feelings haven't changed. They've morphed, without a doubt, the change slow but sure. Yet they still hang on, that niggling piece of irritation and that all-consuming desire, and just as resolutely as ever. Somewhere along the line, she's started to wonder if they'll ever fade.
Something has changed, though. When his arm slips back around her waist to hold her to him, she experiences not even the tiniest amount of guilt or regret. Instead, his closeness soothes the open wound in her chest like the most potent of healing potions, and she gives in. She gives in and wraps her arms around his neck and allows him to hold her.
Other men have held her similarly. And yet, as she stretches up to his height to bury her nose into his neck, it suddenly doesn't feel like it. It feels like nothing before him had ever mattered in the slightest, or perhaps like nothing before him had ever existed at all.
His hand dances along the line of her spine, spreading slow sparks through the thin fabric of her dress, and he doesn't rush her. Quite the contrary. If pressed, she'd wager that he would willingly stay wrapped up with her in the laundry room of The Three Broomsticks for the rest of time, and—
Has she ever felt that same assurance with another man, or even another person? Even her best, dearest friends, who she loves with her whole heart? After Petunia—after Severus—after Edgar— after the general state of the wizarding world—has she ever fully quieted the anxiety in her head? The worries of but do they mean it and but will they leave and but will they change their mind? Because—
She has none of that with James, suddenly not even an ounce, and it's exhilarating and terrifying and freeing and—
He speaks against her hair. "You said—" His fingers flex upon the small of her back. "In my office, you said that you felt used because I didn't tell you about France, and—you were right. You were right. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to upset you. Not because it would have gotten in the way of shagging you, but because…I hate upsetting you. I hate fighting with you. I hate it when you're disappointed in me. And because…I don't agree with everything the Dark Lord asks of me."
Her fingers wind into the familiar curls that line the back of his head, and she says nothing.
He continues anyway. "But you deserve the truth. I'll give that to you, if you come home."
She knows a bribe when she hears one. The Sorting Hat might not have placed her in Slytherin, but it had considered it. He offers a bribe with an extended hand, a bribe that he knows she wants very badly, and—
No. No, he doesn't offer a bribe. He simply offers, the most un-Slytherin action she can imagine and a reality she sees when she pulls back enough to look at him. He isn't setting out terms to try to get her back under his control and into his bed. No, he simply wants to meet her halfway, or—
Or he does a good job pretending like it.
"What—" Her mouth has gone suddenly dry. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying—" His eyes dart past her for a moment, and his wand once again flashes into his palm. When he draws his wand along the length of the door, an incantation murmured under his breath, she knows he checks for eavesdroppers on the other side of the wood. That he takes the time to do so only ratchets her nerves up another notch, and they hold when, apparently satisfied, he tucks his wand away. "I'm saying I'll tell you anything you want to know, because—I want you to want me, not the person you see me as when I hide things from you. Although—" When he breaks off, she again sees that spark of someone new in the intensity behind his eyes. His gaze holds power, a power deeper and more intense than she's ever seen before, although the faint crease between his brows suggests the tiniest sliver of vulnerability. "I like that person, the person I am when I'm around you. Most of the time, I like him better than I like myself."
He extends towards her everything she'd sought when she'd signed the contract selling herself to him. No, he doesn't just extend it all—he extends it all on a silver platter, one all but thrust into her hands without her even needing to request it. Months earlier, she'd gone to Dumbledore's office in the dark of night with the intent of achieving this moment. How many times has she doubted that it would ever come? How many times has she cursed her own stubbornness, her own ego, and her own vanity that had convinced her that she could attain this outcome? How many times has she wracked her brain for the perfect event, the perfect moment, the perfect turn of phrase, all to lead him to the offer he puts forth in the laundry room of The Three Broomsticks?
It should feel good. It should feel great. Excitement should spike in her veins, victory should wash over her flesh, pride should shoot off her charts. And yet—
Nothing. She feels nothing, save for a familiar prickling of guilt at the base of her skull and a vague sense of unease.
"You shouldn't—no, you can't," she amends, because the prior feels too weak. "If you were to tell me anything—and anyone were to find out—"
"No one is going to find out." He threads a piece of hair behind her ear, a motion he follows with his eyes with keen fascination. "It's not something I'd go around publicizing."
He doesn't even question her. Then again, why would he? Decent, self-sacrificing, noble—isn't that how he'd just described her? And none of that is false, exactly, but—
It's entirely at odds with how she feels just then.
"But—" Her protests sound weak to her own ears. "Voldemort has ways of knowing things, doesn't he? Even when people don't tell him?"
"Only the things he looks for. He won't be looking for this."
After all, why would he? She's hardly a blip on anyone's radar. Although Voldemort must certainly know of her—a concept that turns her insides to ice—he only knows her as the muggleborn plaything whose safety James had prioritized over a fellow Death Eater when he'd attacked Thorfinn Rowle to save her skin. Although…that alone should make Voldemort suspicious. That alone should make him observe James a little closer and question him a little harder, and if he does—
James understands. Sort of. His smile looks understanding, at least, as his lips once again brush against the worried crinkle between her brows. "I'll be careful, Evans, and I'll be safe. You don't need to worry, although…I don't mind seeing it. If I'm honest, I never thought we'd get to the stage where I'd tricked you into caring about me enough for you to worry for my safety."
It sounds like a joke, but she rather thinks he means it. Moreover, she can't exactly argue with him. One of them has the other tricked, or perhaps they've both tricked each other. She can't keep up.
"Come home," he says yet again. "Come home and I'll tell you everything from here on out."
Maybe it is a bribe. Is she too trusting—too naïve—too assured of his devotion to her—to not suspect a motive behind his words?
It's that, a slender piece of concern, that nudges her towards suspicion. "And in return you get—what?"
It doesn't throw him in the least. "You," he says simply, soundly, immediately. "I get you, but—no more half measures. No more holding back on your part. No more lies on mine. I tell you everything, and you let me in."
Again, he offers her everything—everything—if only she has the nerve to take it. No, not only the nerve. If only she has the nerve and the guile to take it, all while knowing that she places her heart in harm's way if she tries to open it to him. That she does so based on a foundation of lies—lies he apparently doesn't suspect; lies that place his very existence in danger—contrasts entirely with his open honesty and best intentions.
How had things flipped so entirely? Or had they always stood this way—with him approaching her openly and her holding things caged to her chest—although she'd broken things off with him because she'd felt duped?
Now, who dupes who? Jesus, she really can't keep up.
Her throat works overtime to swallow down her confusion, her lies, her overwhelming guilt. "What if I can't?" she asks, and she feels her voice break slightly towards the end. "What if I can't let you in? What if—what if it's too much, the separation between us and the things you've done and will do, and what if I'm too—"
—damaged. She doesn't say it, but—with thoughts of Petunia, with thoughts of Severus, with thoughts of Edgar, with thoughts of the world—she does think it.
He possesses enough confidence for both of them. His shoulders straighten with it, and his chin tilts up importantly. "None of that matters." His thumb traces along the smooth edge of her jaw in a gentle caress. "The rest of the world—it doesn't matter. Only we matter, and—you'll see. If you'd let me in—if you'd give us a real shot—you'd see that—"
"And when the contract is up? What then? Where do you see this going? Because there can't be a real shot, not while you're fighting for—"
"I already told you that I'd—"
Again, they've reached the same impasse. Defecting—the idea, the action, the offer—all lingers once again around the edges of their conversation. And yet—
It's not just the very real possibility of his death that frightens her. The idea that he makes such an offer solely because of her—because of his desire for her, because of his devotion to her, because his love for her—sits uncomfortably upon her shoulders. If he were to eschew Voldemort's orders for another reason—truly any other reason—it wouldn't bother her half as much. If he were to disagree with the message, or loathe the violence, or even fear for the long-term sustainability of following a brutal madman, she could get on board. But for him to offer to leave for her—
Somehow, it's simultaneously both too much and not enough, and all in one neat, horrible little package.
Before she can lead them back into a conversation they've already circled, the door behind her begins to glow. A brilliant white light backlights her body, and she barely has time to even recognize that something has changed before James has her jerked away from the doorframe. His left hand encircles her wrist, and he refuses to let her go even after he's wound her in an arc around his body and has himself placed between her and the door. With such speed that she misses the draw, he has his wand once again gripped tight between his fingers, and then the door flies open to reveal—
Mary, her sweet Mary, who holds her own wand aloft and has her eyes narrowed in a determination that only offsets a tiny bit of the angelic softness of her face.
James lowers his wand first.
When Mary speaks, her voice carries none of its customary warmth. "I should have known better than to let you go to the loo by yourself, Lil," she says quietly. In the dim lighting of the corridor and the light that spills from the laundry room, Lily can make out the taut, slender muscles that rope down to grip Mary's wand, a wand she doesn't lower from the target of James' chest. "I thought it the second you left, and I wanted to make sure that you were okay."
Lily opens her mouth to speak, but James gets there first. "What did you use to find us?" he asks. His grip on Lily's wrist lightens but doesn't drop altogether, and his thumb lifts to stroke lightly at the back of her hand.
If either his winning tone or the equally winning smile sway Mary at all, her clipped response doesn't show it. "A tracking charm."
"On Evans? Or—"
"I don't care enough about you to track you." For Mary, it's an insult worthy of a fatal blow. Slowly, with precision and an obvious message, she lowers her wand a fraction of an inch. "Come collect your mate, will you? Black won't leave our table."
What had James said in reference to charming her friends? "I guarantee Sirius is already out there laying the groundwork for me." Somehow, he'd just known—or perhaps he and Sirius had planned it all—and—
Understanding strikes belatedly with the force of a hex.
"Black won't leave our table," a table that includes Marlene, Marlene who can't help but run her mouth and who has the self-assured confidence of a pureblood. How many times has that confidence gotten her deep into trouble, simply because she lacks the sort of careful consideration that Lily and Mary must use to make all decisions—and that Dorcas, as a half-blood, must also employ on a regular basis?
When she steps around James, he gives no indication of surprise. In fact, the winning smile upon his face only seems to grow, as if her sudden surge of panic endears her to him. "Happily, Macdonald," he says, and, with smooth, simple motions, the fingers around Lily's wrist suddenly slide downwards to entwine into hers. Before she can so much as blink, he holds her hand with the utmost ease, and it feels like he has no intention of letting go anytime soon. "Lead the way."
xxx
Of all the things Lily expects—mainly chaos, raised voices, brandished wands, perhaps hexes hurled across the bar floor—she doesn't expect to find peace.
And, yet, she does.
Sirius sits in her vacated seat at the table with her friends, and he poses like something pulled straight out of Witch Weekly. With a goblet held in one hand, he has his other shoulder draped across the back of his chair. The casual lean of his body works perfectly with the elegant lock of dark hair that brushes his eyes as he speaks, and he pushes it back before he waves a finely-made hand with a bit of unhurried speech. A hidden piece of a smile lingers behind the surface of his mouth, as if he revels in some private joke, and—
Lily can only assume that that private joke comes at the expense of Marlene and Dorcas, who sit on the other side of the table with an air of perfect politeness. Neither holds their wands aloft, or even has them in sight. Neither wears the sour scowls that had once formed at the mere mention of Sirius' name. Neither appears close to anything like violence. In fact—
Both appear perfectly at ease in his presence, and Lily hates that she understands why. Like James, he can simply just do that to people, even people who know better than to fall for it.
The second he spies James—or, perhaps more accurately, spies James still cradling Lily's hand within his own—his private joke erupts into a public one.
"Missed you, mate," he says when they approach. Two bottles lie before him on the table, the glass of both a shade of deep, pretty blue. He uncorks the top of one, splashes a good amount into his goblet, and offers it to James. "McSpratts," he says by way of explanation. "I figured I owed these girls the good stuff—although I think you probably deserve it most of all, Evans. I'd give you back your chair, but—well, there's no point, is there? Not when we need to go back to our table."
Lily can only stare at him, and he simply looks back, his smile wide and his face handsome and his very existence infuriating. "I'm sorry, we?"
James' fingers squeeze hers faintly. It imparts a message he doesn't put to words, but a message she still hears.
He stands at her side, his hand in hers, in the most public of forums. Loud and clear, she hears what this conveys.
Mine.
He might as well say it. He might as well conjure the words into air to flash above her head. He might as well tattoo it onto her skin. Mine, he tells the world—or at least the patrons of The Three Broomsticks—and—
She should fight it. She should. But she simply doesn't have the energy, or the desire, to do so.
"Yes. We." Somehow, Sirius' grin goes all the brighter, so brilliant that it must blind Mary when he aims it her way. She slips behind him to return to her own vacated seat, and he gives a faint snort of laughter when she lowers herself to sit on the very edge of the chair with rigid posture and her body pulled as far from him as possible. "Ideally the lot of you, but—you kind of have to, Evans, whether you like it or not."
"Or not." The words leave her mouth flatly. "It's definitely or not."
In contrast, Sirius' speech comes out fluidly, charmingly, with the smoothness of a great orator. "I figured. It's usually 'or not' with you, isn't it? But no matter. Now that you and James have made up—and you have, haven't you? Good on you, mate—he's going to need to prove that to those gits over there." Sleek hair once again falls into his eyes as he nods across the bar, towards the long, raucous table that Lily refuses to so much as glance at. She refuses. She refuses, but—
Her traitorous eyes follow the path of his head, and she finds precisely what she'd expected: most of the table of slimy gits conversing in loud tones with louder laughter, their glasses full of drink and their cheeks red from it, and their attention zeroed in on one another. Presumably, they haven't yet caught sight of her and James, but she knows well enough how they'll react when they do. Don't they always react the same to the sight of her, like she offers some great amusement free of charge? All of them do, save for Severus, and save for—
Gideon. Fabian. Edgar. The three stick out like sore thumbs amongst the group of boisterous, unruly lads. Gideon's smile looks strained. Fabian's shoulders look tense. And Edgar—
As if he can somehow sense her, Edgar's blue eyes pierce from across the smokey pub. He catches sight of her just as he lifts his glass to drink, and—
His attention snaps immediately down to the innocent clasp of her hand in James'. It feels innocent, at least—and particularly when compared to the multitude of others things they've done. Yet, without warning, the warm pressure of James' fingers feels suddenly lewd, as lewd as those same fingers inside her, as lewd as the way he often manhandles her body to move her as he likes, as lewd as her utter delight at that same manhandling, and—
It all passes in the blink of an eye, thoughts scattered through the far corners of her mind, and she doesn't think. She disentangles her hand from James', but she manages to do so gently.
It doesn't deter him. Immediately, he has that same hand upon her, his fingers gently brushing at the curls that drape between her shoulders, and then his caress trails down over her spine. Even through the satiny fabric of her dress, the mere suggestion of his skin upon hers sends a rush of heat through her system.
Part of her hates herself for it.
The other part finds comfort in the solid presence of his body, because he soon has her pulled into his side. With his arm around her waist, he settles her neatly against him, where they fit like two puzzle pieces made for one another, and—
She needs. Oh, she needs, and so much—so much, so much that she can't have, not there, not then, so—
She settles for a drink.
Sirius pours her one, tipping a generous helping of McSpratts whiskey into a glass conjured from his wand. When the long, dark rod appears in his hand, she sees Marlene sit up a little straighter and move her arm faintly under the table.
Suddenly, it makes sense. No matter the alleged peace between them, Lily has no doubt that Marlene holds her own wand in her hand, and that she has the tip pointed squarely under the table towards Sirius—or, more accurately, pointed squarely towards Sirius' bollocks.
"Do explain." Marlene's voice holds a hard, determined note, one that Lily knows well. "Do explain why any of us would willingly go join your merry band of dickheads over there."
James chuckles, and it vibrates his chest. "Merry band of dickheads," he repeats, and Lily hears a smile she doesn't see as she takes a liberal swallow of the whiskey in her hand. "I like that. I'll have to remember—"
"Don't try to charm me, Potter. It doesn't work on me."
Sirius' laughter joins in, the bark as sharp as Marlene's tone. "Now, McKinnon, don't be too hard on him. James here has had a rough time of it lately, what with Evans sacking him off. Has she been a wreck too? We should have spent this time comparing notes instead of chatting Quidditch, because—I've never seen him quite like this. He has it bad. We're talking—Evans could spit on him and he'd probably thank her. He'd probably like it, honestly, and—Merlin, it's getting a little pathetic. I don't know what to do with him."
It has the desired effect. Dorcas begins to laugh, presumably against her will, because she stifles the sound with a dainty hand pressed hurriedly to her mouth. Still, it doesn't matter. Laughter sneaks out regardless, and Mary follows suit. Even Marlene cracks a smile, however reluctantly given, because—
Again, Sirius can just do that.
James takes it on the chin. His hand contracts against Lily's hip in a gentle squeeze, and he gives a chuckle of his own when it causes her to jump. "I told you," he says quietly, the words pressed against her temple. It's an admission meant solely for her, and—
Heat rushes again, and with more intensity than ever.
"It's funny," James continues, his voice rising to normal levels. "Sirius acts like he's revealing something secret, like none of us know how I feel about Evans, but—I'm not shy about it. We all know, don't we?"
"No." When Mary speaks, the amusement has abandoned her so entirely that it looks like she had never once laughed. Gravity pulls inward at her soft cheeks, and she levels James with a hard, even look. "No, I'm afraid we don't all know how you feel. Tell us." It's a demand more fitting of brash Marlene or even level-headed Dorcas, but—
Coming from Mary, her sweet, sweet Mary, it hits ten times harder.
James doesn't falter. "I'm mad about her. Absolutely gone. Completely obsessed with everything about her, and—"
Against her better judgement, Lily tips her head back to look at him. His head looms just inches above hers, brought closer by her the height of her heels, and it provides her with a perfect close-up to the sharp, angular line of his jaw and the smooth slope of his neck and the messy curls that wind around the back of his head.
In that moment, he steals her breath. He steals her breath without even trying and without even looking at her, a task simply completed by his existence, and—
"Listen to what you just said," he'd told her in the laundry room, "And tell me you're not in love with me."
Right there, in The Three Broomsticks, understanding smacks her square in the gut with the force of a bludger.
He'd made a point, and a good one.
xxx
It speaks to the force of Sirius' personality—and James' personality—and their personalities when combined, which shine tenfold—that they all end up seated among a troupe of Death Eaters.
"We have to," Sirius explains patiently. Against his vocal wishes, Lily had conjured herself a chair, and James had followed suit. Another hearty helping of McSpratts follows, tipped into her glass from his hand. "James, explain it, will you? Explain that if the lot of them don't see you and Evans all loved up, they're going to make more trouble—and Titus especially. If the rest of you don't want to go, you at least have to let us borrow Evans. What's it going to take? What do you want in return?"
Dorcas takes a go at mustering her harshest tone. "We don't barter over our friends, Black," she says, and Lily notes for the first time that her wand hand also remains stashed underneath the table, and that the clasp of her tiny, silver clutch lies open beside her drink. Does she clutch her wand, just as Marlene, just in case Sirius should make a move worthy of the Dark Mark upon his forearm?
And what does it say about Lily that she now never once fears for her physical safety around him, perhaps simply because she sees him as an extension of James?
"Really?" Sirius tips back his glass, and his eyes dance over the rim. "Because—Merlin, on any given day, I'd sell Pete down the river for half a sandwich. I'd charge a bit more for Remus, because he has a good deal of worth, even if he doesn't see it himself. And James? Well—" His neck twists, his head tips, and he allows the joke to hang in the air as he grins upwards at James.
James bites. "No, go on." Again, Lily hears his smile. It sounds as if it hasn't faded an inch from before. "What am I worth? It better be a whole sandwich."
"Depends." With an elegant flourish of his wrist, Sirius drains his glass. "Depends entirely on how much you're sulking over Evans. Lately, I'd pay someone to take you off my hands." He stands, and the legs of his chair scrape loudly against the barroom floor. "So—are you ladies coming, or are we kidnapping Evans?"
Kidnapping. Normally, when someone with his brand on his arm kidnaps someone like her—
It has a very different result.
Marlene doesn't move; it's because of this, Lily can only assume, that neither do Mary or Dorcas. "We're fine here, thanks," she says, and Lily hears her mum in the iciness of her tone, the indefatigable matriarch of the McKinnon clan who had eschewed pureblood values with such fervor that she'd painted a target upon all their backs. Marlene has her deep, navy eyes, and her nerve. "You're more than welcome to leave, of course. Thanks for the drinks."
Sirius reaches for the slender neck of one bottle of McSpratt's. "There's more where that came from when you join us. Macdonald, you should pick the next round. Whatever you want. And—" His ever-smiling mouth pulls faintly to one side, as if he tastes something sour. What comes next sounds a tiny bit less flippant. "You're mates with Bones and the Prewetts too, aren't you? You should sit by one of them. Or me, if you want. I won't try to put it on you, but I can't say the same for the rest of them." After a beat, he pulls the second half-empty bottle of McSpratt's towards himself, and he threads it through the fingers of the same hand until the two bottles clink together. "But, McKinnon and Meadowes, you have nothing to worry about. You should be fine."
Marlene swells with righteous indignation, and a flush creeps up the front of her throat. "You—" she begins, and Lily can only imagine what will follow—some barrage of insults, or showering of profanity, or hurling of accusations. It surprises all of them—though perhaps no one more than Lily herself—when Lily cuts it all short.
"I'm going," she says without conscious thought. She speaks on pure instinct alone, and instinct draws forth what follows. "I'll have a drink, and then I'll be back. You don't need to come with me. I'll be fine. We can leave right after. Don't—"
It's Mary, her sweet Mary, who steps in when Marlene and Dorcas both appear too dumbstruck to speak. "Don't be ridiculous," she says, and she joins Sirius in standing. Although she comes up not even to his shoulder in height, something about the way she carries herself exudes even more power than the charisma that leaks from his every pore. "Where you go, we go."
It is, apparently, as simple as that.
As Marlene and Dorcas and stand—Dorcas reaching for her clutch to stash her wand subtly; Marlene openly drawing hers out from under the table with a challenging look cast Sirius' way—Lily slips from the comfort of James' arm. Up close, Mary wears faint evidence of strain in the tight corners of her rosy mouth, and Lily closes fingers around her wrist. "Mare," she murmurs, although she hardly knows how to continue. "Mare, you don't have to—"
Mary looks past her shoulder, and Lily has no doubt where she glances: towards the pale skin and dark, brooding eyes of Evan Rosier.
"Don't worry about me," Mary says softly, so softly Lily almost misses it. "This has to happen sooner or later, doesn't it? I've put it off long enough. Maybe it's for the best."
Maybe. A lot seems to hinge on that maybe, and yet—
They chance it.
There's a grand reshuffling of bodies before they even arrive, one had from a gesture at James' hand. Lily catches the way that he waves in an unspoken signal, and the way that Peter Pettigrew first notices it. Drawing himself up, he nudges Remus Lupin in the ribs—the latter of whom looks a little haggard in the dark bags that bruise his undereyes—and then the way the two gather the attention of those around them. "James is coming," she can easily imagine Peter explaining with that high, trembling awe that he'd always used to address James at Hogwarts. "James is coming—Sirius too—and they're bringing the table. Make room, make room, make—"
No, perhaps not the table. How would Peter reference Lily and her friends? The girls? The women? The bitches? The mudbloods, the half-blood, and the pureblood? Lily doesn't know Peter well enough to even hazard a guess, not like she might with the rest of them.
Bodies shuffle. Chairs appear, conjured from thin air. Greetings hail, those offered on the other side of grins far too lecherous for Lily's liking, and—
Bless Gideon, and bless Fabian. Gideon conjures a chair, and then Fabian moves to sit on it, leaving an empty space between him and his brother. Matching pairs of gray-blue eyes train on Mary and Mary alone, and Mary's bared, tawny shoulders slump with an ounce of visible relief before she takes the spot allocated.
Neither Dorcas or Marlene are as lucky.
Dorcas ends up sandwiched between Norton Burke and Rodney Crabbe, the pair of whom look like a duo of boulders on either side of her petite form. And Marlene—
Marlene perches onto the edge of a chair at the sides of Oliver Mulciber and Titus Gibbon. Immediately, Lily's mind races to how in god's name she'll ever make it up to her.
It feels utterly unfair to take a place beside James, one with Remus Lupin on her other side, who smiles kindly and who looks even more worse for the wear when she views him up close. It isn't fair that her body should sing from the closeness of James—not when the skin of Marlene and Dorcas clearly crawl and while Mary stares down at her fingers twisting in her lap—or that her heart skips a beat when James slides an arm intimately around her shoulders.
Only Edgar's presence mars it all. And the fact that she thinks of it like that—of kind, gentle, caring Edgar marring things between her and James—speaks volumes, volumes she doesn't much like.
James' lips brush her temple; she looks up to find him watching her, and to find happiness once again like a brilliant sun across his face. "I know how much you hate this," he says quietly. The fingers on her shoulder stroke slowly. "I know you're only doing it for me, and—fuck, Evans, I love you for it."
Her throat constricts in response, although if it does so in happiness or upset, she can't quite tell. "You need to stop saying that," she warns, because it seems far easier than trying to pick apart her feelings.
His smile simply widens. "Never," he says, and his free hand slips under the table. He grips just above her knee, his palm a searing heat against bare skin, and his thumb brushes the inside of her thigh. When she jumps—and when the heat from his hand quickly submerges her body—he laughs faintly under his breath. It sounds more than a little giddy. "Come home," he requests gently—and requests, not demands, a difference she catches without doubt. "Please come home. That's all I want. I won't ask you for anything else, but…you can ask me whatever you want."
Does he suggest something filthy and delicious and devastating, like the need that courses through her veins? Or does he reference what he'd offered her in the laundry room? "I'll tell you anything you want to know. I want you to want me, not the person you see me as when I hide things from you." The words once again blitz through her mind with the speed of a racing spell, and they strike with the same force. No matter how long she lives—another day, another week, another month, another hundred years—she doesn't doubt that that declaration will live inside her forever, whether she likes it or not.
"James—" His name slips from her mouth in a second warning, this one rather more breathless than the first, and she has a front-row seat to the way it affects him. His jaw flexes, his pupils dilate, his gaze drops determinedly to her mouth, and—
"Macdonald!" From James' other side, Sirius' voice cuts through it all, and it says much and then more that the sound of it pulls James back to himself, if slightly. Mary sits across the table and down several seats, and it means Sirius must lean to address her around the other bodies and raised, jovial voices. "What do you want to drink? Anything you—"
Oliver Mulciber's tone carries a hard, biting edge. "Why don't you ask Evan? I'm sure he knows. I'm sure he could recommend a lot that Macdonald would like."
Evan hears. Although outwardly deep in conversation with Regulus Black, Lily witnesses the way the tendons flex in the sides of his neck, and the palest of pink that warms his fair skin.
Mary doesn't answer, and her eyes bore even more pointedly towards her lap. Fabian gets halfway there, his jaw separating angrily, but—
Marlene has the first word, one spoken just as Lily draws in a breath to offer a piece of her own. "Evan can get fucked," Marlene says shortly, brittlely, and—
Laughter escapes Lily first, flying free from her lips without warning. Once it's out, she can make no attempt to stifle it. Moreover—
She doesn't want to. Evan Rosier can get fucked, as far as she's concerned, and the way Mary's dark eyes briefly flash her way tells her that she agrees.
More laughter follows, that had in the general vicinity of the long table. Quickly, Marlene's words spread past the members who had heard it firsthand. Those who hadn't caught it are soon given the honor of having it repeated, and the far side of the table—where Severus sits, where Lucius Malfoy sits, where Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange and Bishop Macmillan and Norton Burke and, the man of the hour, Cyril Bulstrode, sit, among many others—are soon inundated with repetitions of Marlene's cheek. Necks crane her way, the faint flush in Evan Rosier's throat spreads upwards towards his ears, and Marlene—
Marlene sips her drink, her long limbs loose and her expression deceptively serene, almost bored.
That, right there, exemplifies pureblood confidence entirely.
Mary would never dare speak so boldly. Dorcas neither. Lily might—Lily has—although she's paid dearly in the past for refusing to stay confined to her place.
Marlene has never paid that price, and it shows.
After Sirius whisks Mary away to the bar to purchase more drinks—and after Fabian and Gideon her go, because it looks for a moment as if they might protest—Marlene has more to say. It's a response Lily sees coming a mile away, one given after Oliver Mulciber decides to run his mouth again. "James—is Sirius after that?" he asks, nodding towards where Sirius and Mary stand at the bar. Sirius speaks effusively, his hands gesturing broadly, and Mary keeps her head down so that her hair falls in a dark curtain around her face. At one point, she does look up long enough to laugh, although it looks reluctant, and it goads Oliver further. "What, has he heard all about what Evans is doing for you and figured he'd try out the mudblood thing himself? I mean, we know Macdonald's good for it. Evan proved that. Has she sold it to anyone since? Or has she—"
Marlene steps in with characteristic bluntness. "You're foul," she says. Although he sits at her side and she could speak quietly, she doesn't bother keeping her voice down. If anything, it sounds like she raises it. "Absolutely foul, and—it really shows why you're so interested in paying for a woman. You can't get it any other way, can you? When was the last time you didn't pay for it, Mulciber? When was the last time someone willingly shagged you? Really think about your answer. I'm sure you have to wrack your mind for it. I'll wait."
Again, laughter breaks. On the other side of Remus, Lily hears Peter Pettigrew titter perhaps the most loudly of all, his laughter sharp and his expression incredulous. He has the sleeves of his knitted, mustard-yellow jumper pushed up, and she notes the lack of Dark Mark upon his forearm.
Something dark flashes over Oliver's strange, greenish eyes and pointed mouth and broad jaw. He has it replaced with a smile in an instant, but Lily still catches the change. "Careful, McKinnon," he warns, and he does his best to inject a smile into his voice, as if he, too, is in on the joke. It falls utterly flat. "You know, it's a real shame you're…you, really. Such a waste of a pure bloodline and such a waste of what could otherwise serve a man well. Here's hoping you come around to reality eventually."
Titus steps in, because of course he fucking does. The mere suggestion of his voice sets Lily's nerves on edge, and James' arm around her shoulder contracts in a warm squeeze when he feels her muscles tighten. "She will," Titus says, and something indecent lies behind both the prediction and the look in his eyes. "She will, and…I'm sure whoever ends up getting her will set her straight."
Getting her. Getting her, as if plans to distribute women lie in the future—the near future, one where even Marlene's prestigious name won't protect her.
Lily leans forward in her chair, her heart a constant flutter in her mouth. "Marley." Marlene's pale hair whips around her cheeks as she turns, and Lily sees the utmost confidence still bright behind her eyes. "Switch me spots."
Marlene smiles. The deep purple of her lips hasn't faded a bit. "I'm fine, babe," she says, and she leans back in her chair, crossing one long leg over the other, as if to prove it. "Completely fine. They're just trying to shock me, and it's not going to work. You know—" Her pinky extends as she takes a sip of her drink. "Maybe I should buy myself a muggleborn man. Does it work that way, the little fucked up system you all have embraced? Can I throw coin at someone and demand his cock whenever I want it? I mean, I am a pureblood. If anyone should be able to do it, I should—"
More laughter. James' presses his against Lily's hairline. The sound should soothe her a little, as it often does, but it doesn't. Not then. "She's relentless," he mutters near Lily's temple. "Reminds me of you." It sounds like the deepest of compliments.
Sirius and Mary return touting drinks in slender glasses, the color a brilliant red that matches Mary's dress and the top of which fizzes faintly. When Mary passes Lily a glass across the table, she smiles—actually smiles, as if she means it, and—
In the chaos of it all—as Lily's nerves fray and her worries catapult to new heights and she questions her sanity for bringing her friends into this mix—she takes a moment to appreciate Sirius Black, who has apparently put Mary at least briefly at ease and given her something to smile about.
Titus speaks over it all. "You're going to buy yourself a mudblood?" he asks Marlene disbelievingly. He wears a grin Lily recognizes well, and one she loathes. "I'd love to see that. Really, I would. If you're looking to ruin yourself for any self-respecting pureblood man, that's one way to do it."
"But you're not ruined, even though you've bought—how many women now? Do I even want to know? I don't." Marlene tosses back the contents of her drink, and she accepts the fresh one Sirius slides her way. "We're going to finish these and then we're leaving, because this is a shit way to celebrate Lily's birthday and I'm not subjecting her to it for any longer than I have to."
Sirius has returned to his spot beside James, and he casts Lily a wink around the side of James' head. "Evans looks perfectly fine," he says, and—
Loved up. He'd wanted to see them acting loved up, and she must wonder if he wants it to keep someone—like Titus—from causing trouble, or if he wants it to make James happy.
James is happy. She hears that in the low hum he gives against her ear, and feels it in the slow, reverent way he strokes her leg, his drink forgotten upon the table, as if he can't stand to keep his hands from her for a moment. "Your birthday," he says quietly, and she looks up at him once again. Immediately, she regrets it. He's too close, and too beautiful, for her to fully keep her wits about her. "I was sorry to have missed it. Very sorry. I intend to make it up to you."
The drink Mary had passed her tastes like summertime, something sugary and sweet that fizzes upon her tongue. "How?" she asks. In the background, she hears Marlene continue her diatribe, her tone mocking and perhaps a little dangerous, but James blocks out the particulars with nothing more than the crinkle of his eyes behind his glasses.
"However you want." He's turned towards her, twisted so fully in his seat that he has his back to Sirius, and he looks at her as if no one else around them exists. "I'm open to suggestions, although I definitely have my own ideas. But let me start by taking you to dinner tomorrow."
Dinner. How different this invitation feels to the first time he'd taken her out, when he'd burst into her home with a garment for her to wear and a demand across his lips.
When her head tips, her cheek brushes against his shoulder. It takes everything in her not to rest there. "I will if I can choose where we go."
He agrees immediately, almost tripping over himself in his eagerness, as she'd expected. And yet she hadn't quite expected the realization that follows.
She's back in it with him, back in that same situation she'd sought so hard to avoid.
Moreover, she can't regret it. Not with his offer to tell her everything still fresh in her mind—and not with his eyes so warm upon her face.
xxx
They leave, eventually, although it takes time. Sirius buys another round of Mary's chosen drink without asking, and Marlene takes his spot beside James when he steps away to do it. A reshuffling happens once again, and Sirius finds himself across the table from James rather than beside him. Edgar graciously gives up his seat to Dorcas, which takes him further from Lily and probably relieves them both. She knows it does her. Soon, Lily finds herself and her friends more insulated along the table, surrounded by Gideon and Fabian and James and his friends. In that way, passing a secondary drink goes almost pleasantly, although Marlene remains brittle and Mary remains quiet and Dorcas remains more of a spectator than a participant.
It's Dorcas who puts it all together when they return to the flat. "You're moving back in with Potter, aren't you?" she asks Lily as they brush their teeth side by side in the cramped quarters of their shared bathroom. Drink has warmed Dorcas' cheeks to twin red patches, the color stark underneath her freckles. "First thing after work tomorrow, right?"
"No." Lily leans to spit into the sink. "No, but…we're going to dinner. And then we'll see from there." When she straightens, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, the same mirror where, only a handful of hours earlier, her friends had readied her for the evening with great ritual and fuss.
She looks, to her own eyes, like an entirely different person, and it's both thanks to James and also all his fault.
With a deep breath, she turns to Dorcas and tells her everything.
xxx
A/N: I really have no idea how two months have passed since my last update. Genuinely, life has been chaotic enough that I had no idea it had been that long. Thank you for your patience in waiting for this update!
If you're looking to check out more of my work, I've created a new pen name on Amazon for m/f erotic fiction. If you're missing all of Bought's steam, Tempted By Her Boss by Blair Stanton has all of that and then some.
March is nuts for me personally, so I don't want to promise an update that I can't deliver. But I'm definitely aiming to update quicker than this chapter! That's my goal. Come chill with me on Tumblr (scriibble-fics) for more info on updates and just a ton of nonsense on my fics generally—and please let me know what you thought of this chapter! I've missed reaching your guys' thoughts.