A/N: For Jilytober Fest 2022, prompt 11: "Don't worry"
This is inspired by me recently playing Hogwarts Mystery and choosing an option that led to Madam Pince saying that James and Lily were always studying together in the library, it's no surprise they became Head Boy and Head Girl. Therefore.
He was back again, which was more than Lily expected. The first time he'd sidled over, after hearing her pose a question to Marlene about Transfiguration, she'd been astonished to discover he knew where the library was, let alone was capable of occupying it. The second time, she'd been alone and he'd trotted over unprompted to ask how she'd managed on their previous assignment, and the third he'd given her a Bertie Botts' (dirt-flavoured, but he hadn't tricked her, she'd genuinely thought it was fudge. And he only laughed at her a little when she realised what it was). Lily heard footsteps and looked up to see him approaching, with wet hair and loose maroon robes.
"I need you to pay me back, please," he said, slipping into the vacant chair beside her. He held a textbook in his arms and actually had a bag slung over his shoulder. Lily blinked and slipped a scrap of paper into the Ancient Runes book she'd been pouring over. James heaved the textbook onto the desk, and Lily frowned, recognising the cover.
"I've been looking for that," she said. "You took it out? Advanced Charms?" James shrugged, leaning back in his seat.
"I take advanced Charms," he said. "Why wouldn't I take it out?" Because it's a really damned indecipherable book, Lily thought. Written in the nineteenth century, the point of each sentence was harder to determine than the theory behind it.
"What do I owe you for?" Lily said instead. James grinned lopsidedly, and her stomach did a stupid little flip. Let it be known that 1977 was the year she had finally given in and admitted that he wasn't a complete disaster to look at. It probably helped that he appeared to have a newfound appreciation for showering immediately after quidditch practice and had changed his cologne to something more mature; it had deep, warm notes she couldn't name, but that made her think of warm fires and cardigans and snow-lined streets and hazy rooms with dark wooden bookshelves. Which seemed to be the antithesis of what James actually was, but nevertheless, it was a nice smell. He smelled nice. God, she could feel her fifteen-year-old self wanting to smack her upside the head.
"I helped you with Transfiguration," James said, drumming his fingers on the book cover, "I need your help with Charms." Lily's mouth fell open. James made a rude gesture. "Oi! What?" Lily pressed her lips together, trying not to smile.
"You're asking me for help?" she said. "You, James Gryffindor Potter -"
"Henry," James corrected.
"Henry?"
"Yep."
"Oh." For some reason, she'd always imagined him to have some ridiculous middle name. She cleared her throat. "You, James Henry Potter, are asking me, Lily Joy Evans, for help?"
"Joy?" His lips twisted into a smile. Lily crossed her arms.
"What?"
"Nothing." He ruffled his hair, looking away. "You weren't a very joyous child, were you? I remember you shouting at me a lot. Not smiling."
"I was joyous," Lily said, affronted. "I was very joyous. You were just annoying. And frustrating. Sort of the opposite of Father Christmas. You were a joy leech." James nodded slowly.
"I haven't had that one before, to be honest with you."
"Well, you probably should've." James flung a hand over his heart, and Lily rolled her eyes, pressing on. "The point is: you want my help?" Marlene would never believe her. She didn't really believe it either. Here James was, not only asking her nicely for something, but admitting he didn't know something. And she did. She had something on him. She grinned.
"D'you want me to beg?" James asked, folding his arms across the book and laying his head down. Lily sighed, moving her own book out of the way and pulling out the revision material she had on her for Charms.
"No," she said, unrolling a scroll of notes and laying out her books. And then: "Well, maybe a little." James scoffed.
"Evans, Evans, please-oh-please, please share your almighty wisdom," he said dryly, clasping his hands beneath his cheek and shaking them.
"That was pathetic," she told him.
"Don't insult my begging abilities, or I'll take my patronage elsewhere."
"Oh no, what ever would I do without you? Revise in peace?" James laughed, and it thrummed through her, light and pleasant. Madam Pince scowled behind him, glaring as she guided books back to their proper places. Lily swallowed a smile.
"What do you want to look at?" she asked, trying to approach something businesslike. James slid his head off the book and pushed it towards her. She took it, and found a bookmark at the beginning of one of the recommended chapters for their upcoming exam; Charms in Motion-Making and Manipulation of Fraudulent Forces. The language was terribly convoluted, but the concept made sense to her, once she broke it down.
"I thought you would've been all over this," she said absently, flicking through the pages, where walls of text presided in miniscule print. She put her nose almost to the binding in an attempt to make it out.
"I get the maths," James said, with an irritation in his voice she hadn't expected; she bit her lip. "It's the….nature connection stuff I don't get. What does it mean, I have to 'know the waves as intimately as one's mind's changeability, in which there is always a spectrum of what one may choose from or believe, and to know each end is to know the corners of the map, and even if one does not well know the land that lay in between there is an acquaintance and willingness to be partnered'?" Lily looked at him, mind whirling. He ran his fingers through his hair. "I know I'm very attractive, but you've got a better chance if you're not goggling, honestly." A strip of heat flushed Lily's cheeks, and that mortified her even more, burning her whole face. She ducked her head back into the book, determinedly not looking at him.
"Don't worry, I don't fancy blokes with heads bigger than a quaffle. I'm quite strict about measuring it." He snorted.
"My head's big because it's full of knowledge and cleverness. I think that requirement shows an unwillingness to be outdone, Evans."
"Potter, you wish you outdid me." James pulled a face. Lily examined him. "Did you really memorise that entire quote?"
"With the help of my humongous noggin," James confirmed. "I was looking at it for about two hours straight. It's a mad thing to write in a textbook. What do water-repelling charms have to do with knowing your mind's changeability? I think the author was a touch off his rocker."
"They all are," Lily admitted. She found the part he'd quoted and decided to start there. "Alright. So I think – well, what I took from it was that it's about understanding the elements you're working with. It's not enough to do the equations, not like Transfiguration. There's more feeling to it. It's not just in your head but in your gut. When you're performing these spells, you have to account for the waves, for the movement, not only in terms of the wind or the speed you want to go at, but in what pushes and pulls them." James was silent, and Lily chewed hard on her lip. "Is that explanation just like, completely incomprehensible?"
"No," James said quickly. "No, it's just a weird concept." Lily searched for the words to describe it.
"Charms is more esoteric than Transfiguration," she said. "I think, in Transfiguration, when you're using your willpower, it's a lot more of a battle. You gain dominance, the elements yield, and you transform them. In Charms, it's more like a conversation. Or a dance."
"A dance?" James raised his eyebrows.
"Shut up. The text means, you have to understand how the waves will react to different things, what they want, and how to convince them they want something else. You have to understand that they want to go in one direction because of the wind, and that they're rising up to meet the moon, and they've got all this churning energy inside them that's pushing them towards something, so, say, they're hurtling towards your boat because they're kind of under a lot of external pressure, they've got all these other forces propelling them. And you have to understand the spectrum…if it's very windy, if there are other boats around, there's more going on, more that they have to sort out. You have to work together. You gently nudge them elsewhere – you have to be a force too, but one it's willing to listen to. Your charm has to be persuasive, not demanding. Nature's different to a desk." She was rambling, now, and she stopped abruptly. She could feel James' eyes on her. She coughed and turned the page over, looking for some explanation she could move onto.
"You sound like you're in love, Evans," James teased. Lily laughed shortly.
"As if. I've never been in love."
"Really?" Lily glanced up. James' brows furrowed, and he leaned towards her a little. Like he was genuinely curious. She shrugged.
"Really," she said.
"Not even with-?" Lily shakes her head quickly.
"No." James rubbed his nose.
"You two went out for months. I thought you would've been the real deal." Lily shrugged again, running her finger down the page.
"He was nice," she said. "But, you know, I'm not building a shrine to was fine. I was never going to marry him."
"Yeah." Lily jiggled her leg, debating for a moment.
"Have you been in love?" she asked. Fair was fair. James sat up, strangely solemn, and she regretted asking. A silence passed between the two of them; James looked directly ahead at the towering bookshelf.
"I think so," he said, eventually. Lily nodded, knowing she ought to accept that. But –
"She was nice." – James had asked if it had been about her ex. She reserved the same right. Maybe that was where they always ended up tangled together. Neither she nor James could leave well enough alone. Hence why they couldn't tolerate each other for the first five years of school.
"Yeah," James said, tapping a rhythm on the table. "She was nice. But I was never going to marry her." In the glowing yellow lamplight, parts of his dark hair shone like ink.
"Who marries someone they meet in school, anyway?" Lily said. "Nothing's real in here, not properly. Once you're out in the real world and there's a billion people to talk to, it's different, it's always going to be different. It might be fine in school, when you have forced interests – your house, your classes, whatever – but when you've got jobs and rent and groceries, it changes. You can really like each other in school and get out and realise you hate each other."
"You think so?" James asked.
"Yeah. God. Nobody here would be able to stand being married to me. I'll have to scour the seven seas for a bloke who can put up with me."
"I could put up with you."
Lily's eyes landed on his. Brown pools, flecked with liquid gold, peppered with a sincerity so intense it was intimidating. For a second, they stared at one another, then James broke away, laughing. Lily coloured once more; stupidly, stupidly.
"I put up with Sirius," James pointed out, "you can't be worse than that." Lily rolled her eyes, trying to play along.
"I assure you, I'm insufferable," she told him. "What was it you used to call me? 'A snot-nosed prig'?"
"That was because you never laughed at my jokes."
"That was because you weren't funny."
James promptly made a ridiculous face, tongue reaching for his nose, eyes squinted, head tilted back. Lily determinedly kept her face straight.
"That's not funny," she said. "That's absurd." James huffed, glaring at the Charms textbook and whacking it.
"Charms is absurd." Lily twisted her lips.
"A little bit, yes." She turned back to the textbook, ignoring the quick beat-beat-beat of her pulse. "That's what makes it more fun than Transfiguration."
"Does that mean you think I'm fun?" James asked, eyebrows darting upwards. Lily looked at him sidewards.
"That would be absurd," she said. He grinned. Lily tried her hardest not to grin back.