A Lesson in Communication, a harry potter fanfic

He had to tear his eyes away from her, from the sweetly innocent way her chin tilted up towards him, green eyes wide. "I'm sorry," he said, and her hand dropped from his like she'd been scalded. "This…isn't right."

He didn't understand the hurt on her face—the flicker of something like embarrassment—and felt his stomach lurch desperately. She tucked her hair behind her ear, avoiding his gaze now, too, and murmured two words which only compounded his confusion: "My mistake."

She hurried away, and he watched her go, because that was the only thing he could do.

The confusion started about six weeks earlier, in the staff room one rainy Tuesday morning. James and Remus stood together at the counter, and James watched as his friend heaped four teaspoons of sugar into his tea—"we've been trying to do fractions this morning," he'd explained, voice hollow like a man emerging broken from the battlefield; "this is medicinal".

"I'll probably be a bit late to the staff meeting later," Remus said, wrapping his hands protectively around his mug. It was May, so there was no good reason for the air to have the edge of a chill that it currently had. "Got to see a parent."

James nodded. "I'll be sure to take copious detailed notes in your absence."

They shared a smirk at this rather blatant lie. "In theory it should be quick, but this mum…she's a piece of work."

They moved out of the way so a desperate-looking Minerva could get to the kettle; James idled over to the biscuit tin, hoping something might have magically appeared since he'd checked before school. No such luck. "Thinks the sun shines out of her child's arse?"

"Apparently Dudley's a perfect angel who can do no wrong," Remus confirmed. "And them not reading with him at home is fine because 'that's what school is for'."

"Ugh," James rolled his eyes. "Well, good luck with that one."

Luck was apparently necessary: Remus didn't get to the staff meeting until it was almost finished, and slumped into the chair next to James with an air of frustration seeping from every pore. "Sweet lord have mercy," he muttered, as Albus droned in the background about adjustments to the attendance policy. "I think I've aged."

"You do look older," James agreed, glancing up from his notebook where he'd been doodling a pastoral woodland scene. "Haggard. Wretched."

"You say the nicest things."

"Dudley's mum on fine form, then?" he asked.

"The finest," Remus confirmed grimly. "The day he moves to Year 3 and she becomes someone else's problem can't come soon enough."

And for a while, that was the last James thought of any of it.

June brought with it a heat wave, and just in time for Sports Day. James loved Sports Day, far beyond what might seem reasonable—being outside, getting the blood pumping, encouraging that competitive spirit: what was not to love? True, someone usually wound up at the first aid tent with a sprained ankle, and last year Anna P and Anna T had ended up crashing into each other during the relay race, resulting in far more blood than the five-year-olds on the team were used to seeing, but still. A change was as good as a rest, as his father liked to say. And spending all morning outside, cheering on small children as they attempt the long jump, was as good a change as any.

He gathered together his crowd of red-t-shirt-wearing charges, rubbing his hands together. "Right, you lot," he said, and tried his best to fix each of them with an inspiring stare. "Last year, Green Team won, and Mr Slughorn hasn't let me forget about it—"

"They were cheating," one of his Year 6's called out, as disgruntled as James himself.

"That may well be," James replied—in fact, it was true, but he supposed he shouldn't be encouraging them to call everyone else a cheater. Minerva would say that was promoting poor team skills. "But the past is the past, and this year we are not going to let that trophy slip from our grasp."

"Mr Potter?" a voice piped up from near the front; he directed his attention to a small, blond boy. "It's not actually a trophy."

James held back a sigh of impatience. "No, I know," he agreed, "I meant it metaphorically—"

"What's mefadorickally mean?" one of the youngest team members asked.

"It means—look, don't worry, you'll learn all about that in a few years," he waved a hand airily. "Right, get yourselves warmed up, the starting whistle will be going in a few minutes."

As the team dispersed, some choosing to engage in a bit of light arm wrestling rather than warming up, James straightened, hands on hips. His gaze wandered over to Horace Slughorn across the field, resplendent in full tracksuit and matching trainers, like he'd been sponsored by Adidas or something. For an old codger, he was remarkably competitive: James couldn't hear the inspiring speech he was delivering to the green-clad team that surrounded him, but he could imagine the content. He was not going to want to let victory fall from his hands in a hurry.

Sure, James was competitive, too, but in a way that was cool. There was a subtle difference.

"Oh, good!" He turned at a new voice, finding a woman standing at his elbow. She scanned the crowd, phone clutched in one hand and a large bottle of factor 50 sunscreen in the other. A smart move, really, he thought as he took in the intense paleness of her skin, a pallor offset only by waves of equally intense red hair, half pulled back from her face. "I thought I'd missed the start…"

He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and tried to work out who she was. That kid in Year 4 was a redhead, maybe she was his mum? "No, you're safe," he told her. "Mr Dumbledore is still trying to find the aux cable for the PA system."

She grinned, finally meeting his gaze, and he had to remind himself to stay calm at the captivating glint to her green eyes. Bloody hell, she was beautiful. "Well, they do say a Sports Day is nothing without the mumbling commentary that no one can quite hear."

"They do," he agreed; she returned her focus to the swarm of his team. "Who are you looking for?"

"Dudley, he's in Year 2," she replied, and something twitched in the back of his mind, as yet unjoined thoughts reaching desperately for one another. "He's my—oh, there he is!" He followed her pointed finger to the small blond boy who'd spoken up earlier, who waved over at them with limited enthusiasm. "Not sure he loves Sports Day, to be honest, but here we are."

Something James couldn't really identify with; even at Dudley's age, he'd loved this kind of thing. His mum had said it was always a good opportunity to burn off some of his energy. "Hopefully he'll still have fun," he said, and, oddly, that was when it clicked—Dudley, and Remus, and his meeting… Huh. This woman, smiling and cheerful and currently pulling faces at her son to try to make him laugh, did not match up with the description Remus had given him last month. "I'm Mr Potter, by the way."

"Lily," she replied brightly. "So you're the one they all talk about at the park."

"At the—what?" he asked, turning fully away from his charges now to face her.

"The mums," she told him; judging from the expression on her face, she was rather enjoying this conversation. "They like to chat about 'the fit teacher'. Passes the time while the little ones are on the swings."

"That's—" He broke off, uncharacteristically flustered and at least 80% of that was to do with Lily herself rather than the mothers' group in question. "How do you know that I'm the fit teacher?"

She cast him an amused yet disdainful look. "That sounds like fishing for a compliment, Mr Potter."

He remembered to breathe. An important function. "James," he said, and at her raised eyebrow, "My name is James."

Any hint of cool or suaveness he might have managed to portray was bowled away by a shriek, just to their right, of: "Mr Potter's name is JAMES!"

Lily laughed, turning to watch the excitement ripple through the red team (apart from some of the older children, who noticed that first names were on the teachers' lanyard badges months ago and had already got over this thrill). "It's JAMES!"

"Well," Lily grinned, and glanced up at him again, "now that we've established your name—"

And that was when Albus found the aux cable, because the PA system burst to grainy life. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: are you ready to get started?"

A cheer swept across the field, and before James could really say anything else, Lily drifted over to where the families had gathered to watch, and he felt his shoulders sink.

Not that it mattered. She was a mum. An apparently difficult mum of a boy in his school. With vivid clarity, he recalled overhearing a peeved Minerva, only a few days into her role as Deputy Head of the school, informing Sybil Trelawney that no, it did not matter how 'hot' so-and-so's single dad was: dating parents was against the rules.

(Sybil had been in a right strop for the rest of the day. At the time, James and Remus had worked hard not to openly laugh at her.)

(It didn't feel so funny anymore.)

It was a Thursday evening, the shops were open later, and James had made the mistake of going to a bookshop. He was not anti-reading—couldn't be further from the truth—it was just that his impulse control was poor at the best of times, and he usually ended up spending a small fortune.

Today was no exception. He'd squirrelled himself away in the children's section, a stack of picture and chapter books already at his side, and he kept finding another one that made him think, oh, this'll be great for inspiring some writing, or maybe this one will finally convince Luke and Tom that reading isn't just for girls, or any number of variations therein.

He drew his experience in the children's section to a close for fear of spending himself out of house and home, leaving the stack behind the counter with Rachel, the very friendly shop assistant who was more than used to his book sprees by now. It was a shame they didn't work on commission; she'd probably have made a tidy profit out of him alone by now.

Thus unburdened, he made his way to the adult fiction, idling along the display of current bestsellers. The summer holidays were approaching; James, Sirius and Remus were booked to go to the south of France for two weeks to bake in the sun and drink red wine (Remus also wanted to visit a few chateaux, but Sirius wasn't so keen), and he would need a few books to get stuck into. Term time tended to be too tiring, with work and his other hobbies—football, for one, was time-consuming in and of itself—so he didn't get a lot of reading done unless it was the holidays. He needed to be prepared.

He rounded the corner, moving towards a display of crime thrillers, and that was when he noticed her. Head bent, face drawn in concentration; her long red hair was pulled back into a messy bun, something that shouldn't have been nearly so charming as it was; she clutched a hardback book in her hands, taking in what looked like the blurb from the inside cover. He paused, wondering if he should turn around and make a quick escape, but he remembered their chat at Sports Day, how something about her had drawn him in almost instantly: and not just her looks, which were undeniable, but something about her which seemed to fizz and spark, an energy that was overwhelming and incredibly appealing, even if he knew it shouldn't be.

The decision was taken out of his hands, anyway, because she closed the book with a sigh, put it back on the pile, and looked up, catching him in a stare. Luckily—miraculously—she didn't immediately call him a creep, but instead lit up with a smile. "Ah! If it isn't the reigning champion of Sports Day himself!"

He couldn't stop his grin, holding his hands up in faux-humility as if warding off legions of fans. "Please, stop, you're embarrassing me," he said. "Some say the children couldn't have done it without me, and who am I to correct them?"

"What is a team without its leader?" she agreed with a laugh. "It's James, right?"

He nodded. "And you're Lily," he replied. "Dudley's—"

Another customer cleared their throat from behind him, evidently unimpressed at his blocking the access to the latest Michael Connolly book. "Sorry," he murmured, moving out of the way, and Lily moved with him, something which shouldn't have pleased him as much as it did. "Crikey," he said, sotto voce; she leaned in a little to catch his words; "someone's keen to find out whodunnit."

"Apparently so," she agreed. "How dare we exist in the space that man wanted to occupy?"

"Pretty awful of us," he nodded solemnly. "I'm ashamed and appalled."

"How best to atone, though?" she asked; they'd started walking, side by side, more of an amble than anything with purpose. Her hand skated briefly over the embossed cover of a book on display as they passed it, and he wondered, just for a moment, how it might feel for her fingers to skate just as briefly along his jaw. "In the stocks in the market square? Or do you think it could just be a bit of 'discipline' a la The Da Vinci Code?"

He held back a smirk. "Well, my mum always said that sometimes we need a long, hard look in the mirror."

"Gosh," Lily said, voice flat, "as bad as that?"

He gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow, and she flashed him another one of those charming grins. He nodded to the books she'd been carrying around under her arm. "Buying all of them or waiting to make a decision at the till?"

"I started off by telling myself I'd wait to choose one at the till," she admitted, tilting the pile so he could see the spines—two of the three were ones he'd had on his mental checklist for his holiday. He wasn't sure why that fact felt a bit like being winded but in a nice way. "But if I'm honest…I'll probably just buy all three."

"A woman after my own heart," he winked. "Better to go on a book-buying spree than any other kind of spree."

"True," she agreed, "the other types of spree are less gentle."

"Exactly." They stopped, as if by mutual agreement, and faced each other. He couldn't stop smiling; neither, it seemed, could she. "Well, sorry to have distracted you from your browsing…"

She raised an eyebrow. "Please, James, you may have saved me from spending even more money." She paused, eyeing his empty hands. "Do you need enabling to buy something? I can be very persuasive when I want to be."

Somehow, he didn't doubt that. "I've got a stack of books for school already at the till," he explained. "I was just looking for something for my holiday reading."

Her face lit up again, genuine pleasure evident there in the sparkle of her green eyes. "Ah! Well, let's see what we can find, shall we?"

And, not that he necessarily needed help choosing books, he found he had no choice but to accept.

(It was possible that spending two hours in a bookshop, chatting with someone he really shouldn't be chatting with, was not the best idea.)

(It was also possible that he found it hard to care.)

He next saw her, a week later, in Marks and Spencers Food Hall when he was with Sirius. Well, supposed to be with Sirius, but the bloke had disappeared off looking for onion rings a while ago and hadn't been seen since.

James was surveying the meal deal choices—his mum had texted that morning to rave about the moussaka, not actually giving any context until he pushed for it—when he became aware of two things: one, the moussaka had sold out already, and two, someone was looking at him.

He caught sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye, that strange sensation of being watched like a prickling down his spine, and considered slipping off down the nearest aisle in order to make a hasty escape, but something stopped him. Maybe it was the slightest awareness of a flash of red hair in his peripheral vision; maybe he was too extroverted to hide away. Whatever the reason, he shifted his basket to his other hand, and chanced a glance over his shoulder to find—

"I thought it was you." Lily offered him a bright smile. "Trying to decide between the kiev and the lasagne?"

How was it that he went years of his life not knowing she even existed, and now it seemed like he bumped into her every other day? (His mum has always said he was prone to exaggeration, to which he replied, every time, that it was the most hurtful thing she could possibly say to him.) It was like his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest, even though it knew he couldn't feel this way, couldn't feel even adjacent to this way, about a school parent. He managed a slightly flustered smile in return. "As if the steaks aren't the best option," he replied. "You get more for your money that way."

She allowed him a nod, moving to stand at his side. As she cast her gaze over the food selection, he sneaked a glance into her basket: as well as an almost obscene amount of Colin the Caterpillar cakes, (he was starting to understand where Dudley got his appetite from; last week at sports day, the boy asked for a snack approximately every 10 minutes. Each time, James had theatrically patted down his pockets and explained that he had just given away his last one. Sarcasm that had been lost on the seven-year-old.), there were also two bottles of rosé, and what looked like a vat of chocolate mousse.

He swallowed, hard.

"Didn't realise you were playing the system," she said, apparently not noticing his small-scale breakdown over something very simple and logically-speaking not remotely erotic. "I suppose I look for something I want to eat, rather than whatever will most rip off Mr Marks and Mr Spencer."

"Ah, well, that's your first mistake, then," he replied. He reached for the pack of steaks, and a few of the sides at random; surely better than just standing there and staring at her. As tempting as that was. "Big weekend planned?"

"Oh, absolutely," she nodded, and he glanced over to catch her smirk. "Staying in to watch Love Island and mainlining chocolate counts as a big weekend, right?"

This would have been so much easier if she wasn't so bloody charming. "It does," he agreed. "Why would you want to do anything else?"

She smiled, holding his gaze. "It's funny I bumped into you," she said, and he wondered about the twinkle in her eye; "I was just—"

"Not a single onion ring to be found!" Sirius' voice cut through whatever strange moment they were having; they both looked round to find his friend standing there, weighed down by a surprising amount of food given he apparently couldn't find what he'd gone to look for. "I've already started my letter of complaint." Sirius ditched his collection into the basket in James' hands, and turned to Lily with a smirk and a wink. "Well, hello."

"Hi," she replied, but Sirius didn't hold her attention long; it made James' stomach swoop again, to see her so focused on him. "I'll let you get back to your shopping. Great to see you again, Mr Potter."

She walked away in the manner of someone all too aware that she was being watched, a gentle sway to her hips, that wavy red hair spilling down her back. James gulped, and Sirius cackled, like the supportive friend that he was. "Oh, this is delicious…"

James, worryingly, agreed.

Minerva turned to him, one eyebrow arched, spoon clutched in her hand as if she'd forgotten she was in the middle of making a cup of coffee. "You."

James decided not to take this blatant disbelief personally. It was often easier with that approach. "Me," he agreed.

The deputy head glanced around, perhaps checking for concealed cameras filming their interaction. "You've never expressed an interest in attending PTA meetings before," she pointed out. "In fact, Potter, I believe you once said you'd 'sooner paint yourself in strawberry jam and run into a beehive' than attend one."

"Really?" he asked cheerfully. "That doesn't sound like something I'd say."

She heaved a sigh. "Potter—"

"People change their minds," he told her. "I, too, am capable of growth. I thought you'd be happy, you're always banging on about us coming to the meetings."

"Banging on, am I?" she asked, but shook her head. "Of course I'm pleased, Potter, I'm just…surprised."

Given his previous, loudly-expressed thoughts on PTA meetings, he wasn't surprised that she wasn't surprised. He could always, always think of something he'd rather do on a Wednesday night other than sitting in the staff room at school listening to parents discuss how to spend the money they've raised, or how to raise more money. A wonderful organisation, to be sure, but not exactly his cup of tea.

And some might say that he had only changed his mind because he'd overheard Remus and Albus discussing the upcoming meeting, and that Dudley's mum was a vocal member of the PTA, and it immensely appealed to him to see Lily again, even if it was surrounded by other people and in an environment where they wouldn't get to talk one-to-one. They'd had, by that point, quite a few friendly chats on the playground at the end of the day, often finding themselves the last ones there—Dudley tugging her hand, desperate to go home—as if they couldn't quite tear themselves away. So maybe it made sense to assume that he was just seeking to extend these interactions in any way he could.

But people could be very cynical, couldn't they? He preferred to think of it all as being exceptionally community minded.

"Well, anyway," he shrugged. "I'll be there tonight. Let me know if you need me to argue for or against something in particular."

Minerva fixed him with an amused look. "I shouldn't think it'll be all that exciting, Potter, but I appreciate it."

Minerva's amusement at his expense aside, he spent the rest of the afternoon actually looking forward to seven o'clock, and found plenty to do in his classroom until the time rolled around to make his way to the staff room. The rest of the school was dark, abandoned; most of the teachers had made a hasty exit, taking their remaining work home lest they be drawn into the meeting themselves—usually James' move, too, so he couldn't blame them.

The room was already bustling, and he chose to ignore the startled and—creepily—interested looks he garnered as he entered, finding an empty seat next to Minerva who simply nodded her greeting without looking up from her laptop. He tried to surreptitiously cast a glance around the room (tricky when so many of the mums were looking his way) and swallowed down a sense of disappointment at seeing not a single fiery redhead in the bunch. Maybe she was running late…?

It soon became clear that she was not in fact running late; that Lily had chosen the one meeting he attended to stay at home. Maybe the mature way to handle it would've been to join in whole heartedly anyway, to prove his mettle to these people, most of whom seemed to think he was nothing more than eye-candy (apart from the mums whose children he had taught, who thought he was a good teacher and eye-candy). The immature way was definitely to tune out the whole thing, especially when a pinched-face blonde, clutching her handbag in her lap as if she expected someone to try and snatch it at any moment, continually piped up with irritating, ridiculous things to say.

So he was immature. At least he knew this of himself.

"Thank you for attending, Mr Potter," a brunette twinkled at him as he was trying to make his escape two minutes after the meeting ended, a painful two hours later. "It's so refreshing to have a different staff point of view. You have such fascinating opinions…"

He nodded vaguely, fishing in his pockets for his car keys. He wasn't so sure how fascinating his opinions could have been, given that he'd only really spoken up halfway through the meeting to explain that yes, new books were a good investment and not a "dreadful waste" as old Pinchy Blonde (as he had taken to calling her in his head) was trying to insist. "Right, well," he replied, meeting the woman's gaze for a moment—she was fiddling with a glossy lock of her hair, apparently oblivious to the wedding ring she was wearing—before he turned away. "Good to see you."

And maybe most blokes would have taken this as a reminder that Lily was a parent, and feeling this way about a parent was unhelpful at best, and what exactly had he hoped to gain from this evening even if she had been there—but he was not most blokes. Somehow, against all the odds, he felt an even stronger drive to see her again.

This was becoming dangerous, he knew. But he just couldn't stop himself.

By the time the school summer fair rolled around, James had convinced himself that maybe it was all fine, that catching glimpses of Lily across the playground at the end of the school day every now and then—always smiling, greeting her son with a hug, and sometimes even glancing over towards where he stood with his own class, as if she couldn't help herself—was enough for him. That she may be witty, and clever, and beautiful, but she was also a parent, and married (although he hadn't seen her wearing a ring, Remus says he had—a question that confused his friend greatly when James had finally plucked up the courage to ask a week or so ago).

Some may have called it denial. But for now, he felt sure that whatever silly crush he'd developed was fading away again, and soon it'd be gone completely. He just needed to wait it out.

Which didn't explain his alarmed reaction when, an hour into the summer fair and manning the bottle tombola stall, Lily sidled up, Dudley's hand tucked in hers and a bright smile on her face.

"Oh!" he said, like the learned, wise man that he was. "Hi!"

"Hi," she echoed warmly. "Having fun?"

He knew he shouldn't be flirty—her son was right there, not to mention the fact that they were surrounded by his colleagues and families from school—but it was near impossible to switch it off. Something about her rendered him incapable. "Sun, fresh air, encouraging a form of gambling," he replied, gesturing to the array of bottles, each carefully labelled, in front of him. "What's not to like?"

She laughed, and gave Dudley's hand a squeeze. "What do you say, mate? Fancy a go?" She tilted her face back towards James, asking, "What's the likelihood of actually winning on this game…?"

Given that James had essentially rigged the prize draw for the families of some of his favourite pupils that had passed through, he didn't feel it was an exceptionally flagrant display of favouritism to do so again for her. For them, of course. Not just for her. "I think you'll find yourself extremely lucky, if you choose to play," he winked.

She laughed again, but Dudley sighed, twisting around to scan the crowd. "This is boring," he declared. "Can I go on the bouncy castle?"

Lily shot James an apologetic smile, before crouching down so she was more on her son's level. "'Course you can. I'll be over in a minute, okay?"

Dudley didn't need to be told twice, letting go of her hand and racing off towards the rubber monstrosity. (James was very glad not to have been given that job—he'd had to man it a few years ago, and spent most of the time rescuing crying, overtired and overheated children who had managed to bounce into someone else. Not relaxing at all.) Lily stood again, turning back to him with a twinkle in her eye—and holding up a pound coin. "I'll still play, Mr Potter."

James actively chose not to think about how much he liked it when she called him that, but then, he thought he'd like whatever she chose to call him. He took the coin, their fingers brushing for a moment but with enough electricity to light up half of London. "Let's see, then…"

He'd become very adept at rigging this game, not that it was a subtle task: rooting around in the box of folded up raffle tickets for a few that ended with a 5 or a 0, which were the ones that equated to a prize. He was also acutely aware that a child was watching him with great suspicion, but it was becoming harder and harder to care. With a flourish, he held out a selection of winning tickets. "Pick one. I wonder if you'll win?"

Lily tried to suppress a smile, reaching out to pluck one ticket from his palm. "165! No way!"

"Oh my goodness!" he gasped. "Lily, that's a winning ticket!"

She clutched the ticket to her chest in abject delight. "Finally, my luck is in!" She couldn't seem to stop her smile either—at least it wasn't just him—even when he realised that, yes, it was a winning ticket, but it was attached to a bottle of Ribena, not one of the many, more tempting looking bottles of gin or prosecco on offer. "Oh, well, who doesn't like blackcurrant squash?" she asked, taking the bottle and holding it aloft like a trophy. "Champion!"

James laughed, helpless and a bit heartsick there in front of her. Who was he kidding, thinking his crush was fading? It was all he could do not to just sweep her away, off and away from the crowds to somewhere they could talk, and, yeah, maybe do more than that, too, but even just being around her felt like winning every prize in the world. Mesmerising. Intoxicating. "A worthy winner," he told her. "Congratulations, and don't drink it all at once."

"I won't," she winked; there was a moment, something like hesitation in her stare, but then she glanced over her shoulder towards the bouncy castle, and he knew their time was up. "I'd better go and make sure Dudley's still in one piece," she said, and met his gaze once more. "But…hopefully I'll see you later?"

She hoped to see him later? Was this what torture truly was? Because that was what it felt like, and he wasn't sure how his brain was still in one piece enough to form a sentence in reply, but somehow he managed it. "Yeah, maybe," he agreed, slightly breathlessly, slightly haltingly, as if this was his first interaction with a human woman.

She nodded, gifting him a quick smile before she turned away. "See you later, then, James," were her parting words.

He watched her fade into the crowd for far longer than was dignified.

The heat, having died down for a week or so, returned with a vengeance, and Sirius declared it a moral imperative that they spend all of Sunday at the Richmond Park lido ("there are deer in that park, Prongs," Sirius pointed out, as if this should be the deciding factor; "what more could we want of a Sunday?" Never mind the fact that the deer didn't tend to use the swimming pool—Sirius had never been a fan of letting the inconvenient truth get in the way of a good monologue). But, given that his other option was staying in his flat and sweating out of his eyeballs, James didn't take much convincing.

On arrival, it seemed that most of south-west London had the same idea, because the place was heaving: parents with their children, groups of teens sunbathing, adults trying to swim lengths and struggling with the backdrop of squealing and splashing. They found a spot to dump their things that was far enough away from the pool to avoid their towels getting soaked, sent Remus a quick text so he'd know where to find them, and then headed straight for the water.

"That," Sirius sighed, descending the steps deeper into the pool, "is heaven."

"Yes, I love being surrounded by children on my days off," James agreed, although he had to admit, the cool lap of the water was rather soothing. "If we see someone from school—"

"They'll finally know you've got a severe lack of abs hiding under those shirts you wear?" Sirius asked, pausing to sweep his gaze over his friend's body. James loved being objectified. "Good arms, though, I'll give you that."

"I have abs," James replied, running his hand over his torso. "Look! There's one!"

Sirius smirked, lowering himself until he was up to his shoulders in the water. "Ah, yes, the one-pack that everyone works so hard for."

"Fuck off," James said, quite cheerfully, all things considered.

Later, as Sirius and Remus competed to see who could swim underwater the furthest, James made his way over to the queue for ice creams. Something about swimming had always built up his appetite, even if technically he hadn't been swimming today so much as messing about in chlorinated water—but the effect was still there. He was just thinking about whether a double 99 with a flake was overkill when the person at the front of the queue turned around, an ice lolly in one hand and a cone piled high in the other, and his jaw practically dropped to the floor.

It was Lily. It was—it was Lily in a bikini, with ice cream dripping down her fingers, and a bright smile on her face as she spotted him, and—

Oh, god, he wasn't prepared for this in any way, shape or form. Physically. Emotionally. Metaphysically—

She cut off his internal ramblings by closing the distance between them and speaking up. "Well, hello again," she beamed, and he worked extremely hard to look at her face—her lovely, pretty, smiling, glowing face—and not her boobs, which in fairness to him, were right there. "I promise I'm not stalking you."

He forced up the most unnatural sounding laugh known to mankind. "Ha! No, I know," he replied. "Um, hi, you're—" He broke off, suddenly unsure of what words were and how to form them into coherent sentences. It was like his brain had switched into white noise mode. Nothing but tumbleweed. Tumbleweed, and the overwhelming urge to look somewhere south of her face. "Swimming?"

She smiled, quite generously, given his nonsensical ramblings. "Yep, Dudley was desperate to swim today, and his dad wouldn't take him, so I stepped in." She lifted her hand, pausing to carefully lick the drip of ice cream from her fingers. (He swallowed, very hard, and tried to think unsexy thoughts.) "I'm really only in it for the snacks, but don't tell him that."

James tore his gaze from her hand. Dudley's dad. Right. Shit. "Well, it was good to see you again," he said politely; the smile on her face flickered, just for a moment. "Better get those ice creams back before they melt."

Lily nodded, biting her lip for a moment (and was it his imagination that her own gaze lingered for a moment on his chest?) before she brought up another smile. "Have a good day."

"You too," he replied, the words choking out of him.

He tried not to watch her walk away, a challenge he was not equipped for—that green bikini was doing God's work, truly—and quickly decided that standing in a queue for ice cream wasn't a good idea right now. Sirius and Remus both raised their eyebrows at him as he came plunging back into the pool, forcing himself down below the surface for a moment before he rose to face them again.

"No ice cream?" Remus asked.

James didn't let his gaze drift to where he now knew an extremely beautiful woman was enjoying an ice cream with her family. "No," he replied. "I needed to cool off."

Something he wasn't sure a vat of ice cubes could achieve.

"I think I need help."

Remus glanced up from the stack of maths books in front of him, pen in hand and mildly bewildered expression on his face. "Sorry?"

James sighed the sigh of the weary warrior, dropping himself into one of the ridiculously-small chairs nearby (yet another reason why he preferred teaching the older ones—his legs were too long for this sort of nonsense). "Help, Moony. I need help."

Remus set his pen down; he'd always been the accommodating sort. "Anything specific?" he asked. "Or have I got free rein to pick? Because I have some suggestions—"

"I fancy one of the mums," he blurted, and immediately dropped his head into his hands.

"Ah." James couldn't see Remus' face, but he could picture his expression: probably fighting off amusement, the sod. "From your class?"

"No, actually," James sighed again; at this rate, he feared he wouldn't have any breath left to exhale. "From yours."

The pause was long enough for James to lift his head. Remus was frowning slightly, clearly running through a rolodex of likely candidates in his head. Excruciating. "Who—"

"Isn't it obvious?" James asked. "Sirius and I bumped into her at the shops and he wouldn't stop going on about her being 'exactly my type' all the bloody way home."

Remus' frown deepened. "Erm…Susie's mum? She's—well, she's young-ish…"

James couldn't stop the eye roll, even if he knew it would earn him a look of disapproval (which it did). "Who's Susie? No, I'm talking about…" And here, he glanced over his shoulder to check the classroom door was still closed, that no members of the leadership team had snuck into the room without his realising. "...Dudley's mum."

Remus' eyebrows shot up in surprise; his mouth even dropped open, in that classic comical way that seemed to happen more in films than it did in real life. "Oh," he said. "...huh. Really?"

James squinted at him. "Moony, she's gorgeous."

Another pause, then Remus nodded, not quite able to meet his eye. "Right, well. Um, okay. How are we getting around the whole…married thing?"

"That is part of the problem," James admitted. "That, and it being against the rules."

Remus fiddled with his shirt cuff. At least he was actually looking at him now. Progress. "Maybe that's it, then," he offered. "It's…forbidden. So it feels like it's more than it is."

James grimaced. It wasn't easy, hearing it spelled out like this. "Maybe," he allowed. "But—I swear she fancies me too, at least a bit. She's—well, she's very flirty."

Remus allowed a look of incredulity and what seemed like disgust flicker across his face for just a moment, barely noticeable to anyone who didn't know him as well as James did, before he cleared his throat. "Well, flirty or not, it's not allowed. So you need to…let go of it. Move on."

"You're right. I know you're right," James nodded, reluctance heavy in his voice. "I'll just…avoid places I might bump into her. Find someone non-school-related to hook up with. Think about other things."

"That's the spirit," Remus agreed. He almost sounded amused, but James couldn't work out why he would. "I really think you'll be over this and moving on with your life in no time at all."

Lofty goals, for sure. But James could try.

July in its final throes, and the end of term finally, blissfully, around the corner, it was decreed that a night in the pub was in order. Sirius, a creative director at an ad agency and nothing remotely connected to a school, had decided to take on his friends' sense of fatigue and weariness as if it were a personal affront, and nothing could possibly be a balm on this deep and lasting hurt unless it involved pints of beer and bags of cheese and onion crisps.

James hadn't planned on kicking up a fuss, anyway. He felt that a few pints might be just what was needed.

He'd managed to successfully navigate the past two weeks since his talk with Remus without interacting with Lily even once. He'd seen her across the playground at the end of the day a few times, but resisted the temptation to wander over, as he had done many times before, to strike up a conversation. Maybe it was a bit cowardly to hide in his classroom and close all the blinds, but needs must. He was getting desperate.

Because despite Remus' words of encouragement, he really did not feel like he was 'over it and moving on'. So many things reminded him of her—even things that had nothing to do with her, as if his brain were simply incapable of not linking every passing thought to Lily.

Even his unconscious mind was getting in on the act. Not every dream was about her, but far more than he'd care to admit were, and of those, a worrying number involved them snogging—well, that was where the dreams usually started, and then he'd wake up in a bit of a state and have to take a long shower to recover.

Frankly, his water bills needed him to move past this.

So, he did not take any convincing to go for a few drinks. At this point, he was willing to try anything that might distract him.

Their local was bustling, but luckily Sirius had arrived a while ago with some of his mates from work, bagging them a table near the dart board—their friend loved a bit of competitiveness, even if he was actually terrible at the game—and so James and Remus made their way through the crowd to join them. He slotted himself in next to Ben Fenwick, someone who looked exactly how James thought someone who worked in advertising would look, and gladly accepted the beer that Sirius slid over the table to him.

"Good of you to join us," Sirius smirked as Remus fell into the seat next to him.

"Some of us are expected to work for a living," Remus replied brightly, taking a long sip of his drink. "I know this is an odd concept."

"Sounds bloody awful," Ben agreed. "Drink up, then, you two. You've got some catching up to do."

One drink led to two, led to three, and then they managed to nip in and secure one of the dart boards after a group of noisy blokes finally left. It was standing there, darts in hand and feeling nicely relaxed, that James finally noticed something.

They hadn't been able to see the other group at the second dart board before: the noisy blokes must've been rugby players, or wrestlers, maybe, because they had basically blocked out most of the view of the room normally afforded their table. Now, though—and he knew that Ben, always on the lookout for such opportunities, noticed it too—he could see that, playing at the second board, were a group of women. And one of those women—

"It's you!" Sirius piped up. He wasn't shy at the best of times, but three pints down, he was basically best friends with everyone he came across: he'd already angled his way into the group, and slung his arm around Lily's shoulders. Luckily, she looked more amused than alarmed. "Shop girl!"

"That's what they call me," she replied, giving him a smile before she chanced a glance at James; she seemed a touch more nervous when she directed that smile at him, for some reason. "Small world."

"The smallest," James agreed, throat suddenly dry.

"I'm Sirius," Sirius said, arm still around her shoulders; he pointed to each of the group in turn. "That's Ben, Gid, and…well, you know James."

Her smile tightened for a moment. "I do," she confirmed.

James didn't know what to say. He felt a bit queasy. "Remus is in the loos," he said, and then, at the expression of pretty much everyone around him, wished he hadn't. Sirius was watching him with a look of utter bewilderment. "Um. I mean—you know him, too."

"Well," Sirius blinked, shaking his head. "Now that we've cleared that up—"

"They probably want to get back to their game," James said. Like an idiot.

Lily gave them all another, smaller smile, slipping out from Sirius' embrace. "I am close to a win," she agreed. "Good to see you all."

She sank back into her group—quickly surrounded by her mates, one of whom seemed to be murmuring something intently to Lily, glancing back in his direction—and Sirius ambled over to James, slinging his arm now around his shoulders instead. James wondered if it was more about staying upright than camaraderie. "What," Sirius murmured, "was that about?"

"Nothing," James insisted, and held up the darts indicatively. "Let's get on with this, shall we? I'm in the mood to wipe the floor with you."

Somehow, miraculously, Sirius let it drop, probably because James had cunningly ignited that competitive streak again. And, although he wasn't watching, it wasn't long after that Lily's group finished their game and disappeared back into the crowd, replaced by a group of people who held absolutely no interest for him.

He wasn't disappointed. That would be mad.

It was nearing closing time, the crowd thinning inside but somehow the ambient temperature still an uncomfortably sticky level of warm. James mumbled his excuses to the others, not that they were particularly interested—far too busy arguing about what they would do if they won the lottery, for some reason—and headed out the back, out into the small beer garden at the rear of the pub. Outside, at least, it was a bit cooler, and the sky above was clear, a few stars twinkling back at him as he sank onto an empty picnic bench with a sigh.

"You sound weary."

With a start, he turned to his right to follow the sound of the voice, and sure enough, there she was. Lily held a glass, half full and tinkling with ice, in one hand, and her phone in the other. She leaned against another table, not yet moving to close the distance between them.

"Feel a bit," he agreed. A pause, and he remembered how she had looked earlier—a bit hurt, a bit unsure. "Having a good night?"

She shrugged. "Mostly." She held up her phone a moment before slipping it into her pocket. "My sister's being a bit of a heinous wench, but when isn't she?"

"Ah," he said, wisely; watched, as she edged closer, leaning now against his table. "Siblings, eh."

She nodded. "You have any?"

"No," he allowed, and had to swallow down the feeling of pure joy at the smile that spilled across her face at his comment. It was like she was lit up from within. "Well, sort of. You met him earlier—Sirius? Adopted brother."

"Well, then," she laughed softly, and moved to sit next to him; her arm brushed his, sending chills running down his spine that had nothing to do with the cool night. "You get it."

"I do," he promised, but felt he had to add, "not that I'd call him a heinous wench, but—"

"Just a normal wench?" she asked, tilting her head to catch his gaze.

Now it was his turn to laugh. "Exactly."

She held his gaze for a long moment, something like electricity crackling between them, before she leaned back a little to look up at the sky. "Shame we can't see the night sky properly here," she murmured. "I love the stars."

He watched her, feeling like he could feel his heartbeat thudding in his ears, before he mirrored her actions. "You have to get out of London to see anything worthwhile," he agreed.

"That's my next trip, then," she decided softly. "Out into the countryside. No light pollution, no…noise."

"Sounds peaceful," he offered. "And a bit unnerving."

She smiled, straightening up to look at him; he, once again, mirrored her actions, and found himself even closer to her than he was before. Somehow, he couldn't seem to mind. "I think it's fine…if you're with the right person."

Bloody hell. How could she still be so charming, so effortlessly lovely—so beautiful, even in the half-light cast over them spilling out of the pub windows behind them? And how exactly was he supposed to sit there and do nothing?

She didn't let him consider much more than that, though, because suddenly she had pressed herself forward, pressed her lips to his, and for a moment, everything else around him melted away. His hand, acting on instinct rather than conscious thought, slipped to her jaw; the other, into that wavy cloud of red hair. In reply, she slipped her arm around his neck, drew herself closer than ever.

If he had had the power of coherent thought, he might have worried that she could feel the thud, thud, thud of his heart, sense the way his whole body zinged in response to her touch, to the soft, pleased little noises she made against his lips—and maybe, yes, he would've also thought about how this was not what he should've been doing, that he should've gone back inside as soon as he saw her out there too—

Actually, it was those thoughts, as painful as they were, that broke through the fog, and he pulled back rather more abruptly than he would've liked, his hands dropping to his sides; he tried not to notice the dazed, confused look in her eyes as she caught her breath, lips pink and kiss-blurred. He tried not to notice it all.

He stood up, and a moment later, she did too; she reached for his hand, a frown now drifting across her face. "James—?"

She hurried away, and he watched her go, because that was the only thing he could do.

The end of the school year had finally arrived, finding the staff and children alike in a permanent, hazy state of exhaustion, sometimes bordering on hysteria. James' class, facing their last ever day in primary school before moving onto the daunting heights of secondary, had become overwhelmed with emotion. At lunchtime, he stood on the edge of the school field, watching as they cried and hugged each other under the relentless midday sun.

"You'd think one of them was dying."

He turned to see that Remus had sidled up to him, hands in his pockets and surveying the scene before him with a smirk. "I didn't peg them as cry-ers," James agreed. "But here we are."

They both watched on as the crying seemed to turn to a bit of amateur wrestling, and then, gymnastics. "It's an emotional rollercoaster," Remus chuckled.

"How's your day going?" James asked, deciding that whoever that was lying now on the grass was probably fine. "Anyone crying in Year 2?"

"Not about the end of term," Remus allowed. "Someone got upset because they spelled their own name wrong. I think we're all a bit overtired."

James couldn't help but laugh. "We've all been there."

"Mr Lupin!" A loud, piercing voice preceded the appearance of Dudley Dursley—James tried to resist the temptation to wander off—clutching a sheet of paper and looking deeply perturbed.

"Alright, Dudley?" Remus asked mildly.

"I drew a picture of my family to give to my mummy later," the boy replied, frowning still. "But I want to climb the tree with Bobby and now I—"

"I'll look after it," Remus said, cutting off what James assumed would be a long, rambling explanation. "You go and enjoy your lunchtime."

Without a word of thanks—something, at last, wrong with Lily, if she hadn't instilled basic manners into her child—Dudley thrust the piece of paper into his teacher's hand, turned and pelted back across the field towards his friends.

"Oh how I'll miss these bonding moments," Remus said, and they both glanced down at the paper in his hands.

"A work of art," James remarked, taking it in. It was a classic family portrait, done by someone, if lacking in creative ability, more than making up for it with effort. Dudley had taken great pains to sketch out his mum and dad, with himself parked neatly between them. Perhaps the boy was colour blind, or struggling for crayon choices, because the stick figure marked 'MUM' had been given hair roughly the colour of straw. In fact, James thought, it might as well have been a different person entirely.

"Truly," Remus agreed.

James was about to look away—he could hear someone, likely one of his pupils, knowing his luck, screaming bloody murder in the background—when he noticed something. There, to the side, a hastily-scrawled stick figure with a huge smile and vibrant red hair, and above it was more of that careful, lopsided writing: 'arntee lily'.

His stomach dropped. "Remus…?"

Remus glanced over, sighing heavily. "Christ, I know—can't tell you how long we spent on long vowel sounds, mate. He even asked me how to spell aunty before he drew it!"

"No, that's—" His voice cracked, and he shifted his focus quickly from the drawing to his friend. "Lily is his aunt?"

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Um, yeah—"

"Not his mother?"

Now both eyebrows were raised. "Not his mum, no," he agreed, with the caution of someone speaking to a person struggling with their mental faculties. "Why, do you know her?"

James was not often speechless; his father said he'd been born with an answer for everything. But right then, all he could do was stare at the piece of paper, at the (admittedly, poorly spelled) writing above the smiling stick figure, and try to make his brain work again.

Remus was watching him, a confused frown on his face—one that soon gave way into a delighted smile, and laughter that was, James felt, a bit unkind, all things considered. "Oh my god—"

"Don't," James started.

"You thought—"

"Remus," James warned, his voice too weak to be particularly threatening.

"You really thought that she was—"

"Okay," James held up one hand, finally meeting his friend's mirth-filled gaze. "Look, in my defence—it wasn't clear that she wasn't—"

"If you say so," Remus agreed, before letting out a cackle that startled a nearby child. "Oh, my. This makes so much more sense, now. I thought you'd lost your mind when you said you fancied his mum!"

James frowned, both hurt and a bit confused. "Look. This was an easy mistake to—I don't see how I could have known—"

This time, it was not Remus who cut him off (the bastard was still laughing), but himself. Because if she wasn't a parent…

"Oh, bugger," he murmured. "I might have really fu—"

"Children," Remus warned him quickly.

"Erm, messed this up." James glanced at his watch. Ugh, still several hours left before the end of the day, and that was even hoping that Lily would be around then—after all, it turned out that she had no reason to be at school regularly. Christ but he was a bloody idiot. "We—" He cast a quick glance around to check no small, listening ears were nearby. "She kissed me, and I said it was wrong!"

Remus cringed, at last showing some semblance of sympathy for the ridiculous situation his friend had found himself in. "That probably didn't go down well."

"Understatement, Moony." James ran his hand over his face, knocking off his glasses in the process. (Something that happened to him more than it should have, really.) "What can I do? How can I fix this?"

Remus patted him on the shoulder, an empty gesture if ever there was one. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

There was nothing like the support of friends, was there?

She wasn't there at the end of the day, and James finally noticed the pinch-faced blonde that had so irritated him at the PTA meeting, sweeping Dudley into an embrace. How had he not noticed her presence before? He was slightly concerned that maybe he'd developed some kind of selective blindness.

But anyway, that was besides the point. The point was, he needed to find Lily, and he had no idea where to start. He didn't think going back to the pub, or the bookshop, and just…waiting, was a particularly sound idea. And if he'd hurt her as much as he was starting to realise he had…she would probably be avoiding anywhere she was likely to bump into him.

He wasn't sure what choices that left him with, short of standing at the top of the nearest high ground and shouting her name.

All seemed lost; that was, until he spotted, across the playground, that flirtatious brunette who had all but pawed at him after the meeting he'd attended, and Lily's words drifted through his mind… "the mums at the park…"

This could be his only chance.

After waving goodbye to the last straggler from his class, he strode with purpose across the playground towards the cluster of families lingering near the gate; the brunette—god, what was her name? This could be awkward—holding court in the middle. She spotted him quickly (of course she did) and lit up with a breathless smile.

"Mr Potter! Ready for your holidays?"

The others all turned, almost as one in a very unsettling fashion, to look at him; a few were not particularly subtle in their admiration, it had to be said. James pushed that down and just gave them all a friendly smile. "Absolutely," he agreed. "Look, this is a bit—well, random, I suppose, but—you go to the park sometimes, right?"

The brunette's smile flickered slightly in obvious confusion (which seemed fair) before she corrected it back to full wattage. "Oh, yes," she said. "My little Alfie loves to burn out some energy on the swings."

"Right," he nodded. "Have you ever, erm—do you know Dudley Dursley's aunt? Lily?"

Now looking mystified, the brunette shook her head—James' heart sank—but luckily, a blonde to her right piped up. "I know Lily!" she smiled. "She does so much for her sister, honestly, they really ought to be a bit nicer to her."

"Some people can be so ungrateful," another nearby mum piped up disapprovingly.

"Oh, I quite agree," James said, trying to tamp down the urge to hurry them all on. "Erm—do you have her number, by any chance?"

The blonde looked like she'd just been gifted the most precious nugget of gossip she could ever have received. "I don't just give out women's numbers, Mr Potter," she replied archly. James struggled not to look entirely too annoyed, something that would not help the situation. Thankfully: "But as it happens, she and I and a few others from the Year 2 families are meeting up for a drink later, at the Rose and Crown."

"Are you," he breathed, altogether very relieved and too pleased to try to hide it.

"We are," she smiled back at him. "At six."

"How civilised," a different mum piped up. "I wish I could get Bob to look after the kids so I could go to the pub when I fancied it."

"Oh, don't tell me, he thinks of it as babysitting," the brunette rolled her eyes. "It's not babysitting when it's your own children!"

"I can't tell you how many times I've said those exact words, Sharon," replied her friend. Sharon, that was her name. It wasn't likely that James would remember it, but at least he knew it for now. "So frustrating."

"Well, thanks," James spoke up, wary of being drawn into a long character assassination of a man he'd never met. "Enjoy your summer holidays, ladies!"

He walked away to a chorus of, "you too, Mr Potter!", the tone a bit simpering, and tried not to think about the fact that they were probably all looking at his arse as he walked.

A shower and a change of clothes later, and James was anxiously waiting for six to roll around. He'd explained the situation to Remus, who had pointed out—quite sensibly—that it might not be ideal to just bowl up to the group uninvited. Instead, his plan was to wait outside the pub, trying to look innocent and hopefully nonchalant until Lily arrived.

This was foiled fairly quickly by the arrival of Ben Fenwick, who apparently didn't need any company to decide on a trip to the pub. "Potter!" he declared, like he'd found a long lost friend, and dragged him inside before James could explain that actually going in to the pub wasn't part of his meticulous plan.

The closer it got to six o'clock, the more worried he felt, despite the pint that Fenwick pushed into his hands. She would be well within her rights to tell him to piss off—she probably thought he'd been playing hot and cold with her this whole time, stringing her along for a laugh, and to be honest, he wouldn't have blamed her if that was truly what she thought. He'd been so busy panicking about breaking the rules that he hadn't stopped to consider that she'd never actually said who she was.

Bloody hell. He really was an idiot.

He didn't have to check his watch, in the end; some part of him seemed to sense her presence, like a very specific spidey-sense tingling through him, and he glanced around the room before spotting that now-familiar head of red hair. She stood chatting by the bar, smiling with the blonde James had spoken to on the playground; in fact, he watched—with a growing sense of horror and powerlessness—as said blonde nodded in his direction, a sly smile on her face, and Lily turned to look.

Their eyes met. Her smile slipped away. She dropped his gaze.

God. It was now or never. Time to beg for forgiveness, or risk Remus reminding him of his colossal failure every week from here to eternity.

He muttered some excuse to Ben, not that the bloke was listening—too busy eyeing up a nearby group of women, ever the classy fellow—and left his table behind, picking his way through the crowd. He reached her side far more quickly than he'd thought he would; he'd been banking on a few extra minutes to put together something suave to say, something that would soothe her feelings and knock her off her feet. Too much pressure to put on a couple of minutes, perhaps, but it had been something comforting to cling to in this time of stress.

Sadly, it was not to be. He came to a halt between the two women. "Um," he said; they both turned to look at him. "Hi."

The blonde smiled, like this was her own personal victory. "Hi, Mr P," she replied sweetly. "Oh look, there's Ruth, I wanted to ask her about that pilates class she's started going to…see you later!"

With that subtle excuse to escape, she slid past him—even giving him an exaggerated wink, like a cartoon character—and left him alone with Lily, who was carefully inspecting her drink. "Sorry," James said, and paused, suddenly aware of the people around them; even if they weren't listening, this had the potential to be very embarrassing. "Erm…any chance I could speak to you…outside?"

She finally looked up, shooting him a wary look. God, she was even gorgeous when she was annoyed. "What? Why?" she asked, then added, "No, never mind. I don't want to know why. It was nice to see you, Mr Potter."

She tried to dodge past him, but he had quick reflexes—all that football finally paying off—and he reached for her hand, his fingers tangling briefly with hers. She looked down, startled to a stop, and he leapt on his chance to speak—anything, at all, to get her to stop walking away. "I thought you were Dudley's mum."

His words came out in a rush, but she looked up anyway, eyes widening. "You…what?"

James sighed. Dropped his tenuous grip on her hand. "I…thought you were his mum," he said, a bit more quietly this time. "That you were a parent, and—we're not allowed to—"

There was a moment, just a flash of something, where he thought she might slap him, or perhaps just walk away. Tell him to piss off, to not make stupid excuses.

But that moment passed, and all doubt was removed as she tipped her head back—and laughed.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, hand to her chest in an attempt to calm herself. "You thought that I was—"

"Well, look," he frowned, knowing he shouldn't feel defensive but not quite able to hold it back. "You never actually said who you were, and, well, you were with him a lot, I just assumed—"

A fresh peal of laughter, and he sighed, but smiled, at the sight in front of him. She was shaking her head in something close to delight. "I'm glad you're enjoying this," he told her. "I've been torturing myself over fancying the pants off of someone forbidden this whole time."

She beamed up at him, edging closer. "Fancy the pants off, eh?"

James held up his hands in supplication. "I tried denying it, but…" He paused. "I'm sorry about the other night. I—trust me, I didn't want to stop you…"

Her smile had softened, a sweet, quiet thing that he wanted to kiss, to taste, to memorise. "Well, I suppose it makes a lot more sense now," she allowed. "I thought you were just some kind of…"

"Cad?" he provided; she bit back a smirk, but nodded. "I'm really sorry. I—look, I have no expectations, I know I've done a great job of screwing this up as it is—"

"True," she interjected. "Stellar work."

"But I hope that you'll be able to forgive me," he continued. There were the nerves again, fluttering in his rib cage. "Because…I really, really like you, Lily."

She was quiet a moment; he wondered if this was it, if this was how it would end. Chances, lost forever. "I really, really like you, too," she said at last, and met his gaze with another one of those incredible smiles. "Even if you apparently lack in the communication department."

He couldn't help his relieved grin. "Just be very clear with me," he said with a wink, "and I'll get by just fine."

"Alright, then," she agreed, tilting her head as if in thought. "I can be clear." She reached for his hand. "Kiss me, James."

His breath caught in his throat, even as he reached for her; the movement was automatic, already ingrained in him. "That was pretty clear," he murmured.

She lifted her gaze to find his again—she had been lingering on his lips for a moment or two there—and smiled. "Waiting…"

Even he didn't need it spelled out any clearer; his arm slipped around her waist, drawing her body against his as his lips found hers. The noise and the bustle around them seemed to melt away, fade into nothingness as his hand slipped to cup her cheek, and he became aware of one of her hands on his chest, the other lingering at the nape of his neck as the kiss deepened.

It was only when someone jostled past them on their way to the bar that they peeled apart from one another, breathless and smiling; her hand still rested on his chest, his hand still brushed her jaw, like they couldn't quite bear the thought of separating completely. He stared down at her, taking it all in—the way her eyes glittered, the flush of her cheeks, the bitten-pink of her lips. "Thank god," he said, and her smile only strengthened. "You don't know how long I've wanted to do that."

"And just think," she said lightly, "we could've been doing that a long time ago if you'd just asked a simple question."

"Yes," he agreed, with a solemn nod. "I've learned a valuable lesson."

She laughed. "For next time, you mean?"

He just grinned back at her. He had a feeling there wouldn't be a next time.