A/N: For Jilytober Fest 2022, Bittersweet Challenge, prompt: "It never works for us and it never will." Angst to Fluff. (I found it hard to spins traight fluff, so I apologise for the shades of angst behind the fluffiness!)

Also, the title is from Taylor Swift's 'Sweet Nothing', which helped me through writing this and which I adore. Especially the piano version.


Prompt: "It never works for us and it never will." Angst to Fluff.

There were, Lily reflected, a number of reasons to hate James Potter. His stupid, endless habit of tousling his hair. His self-assured smile. The silver spoon he'd suckled since infancy. The shed in his back garden filled with dusty broomsticks in perfect condition, all less than ten years old, discarded for the crime of no longer being novel. He had a penchant for loud music, louder parties, and borrowing his best friend's deafening motorbike at six in the morning, which was the time he woke each morning, with perfect skin and perfect hair and perfect breath, to undertake his morning jog and begin the day's activities. He was carefree and obnoxiously so, far removed from the concerns of paying rent and bad-tempered bosses, and he failed to understand the rigidity of given lunch breaks, which on more than one occasion had led to a disciplinary infraction. Not for him, of course – punishment could not touch James Potter – but for her. And she had every intention of never forgiving him for it. He was, beyond many people (well, the people Lily surrounded herself with), the most supremely hateable of all.

Lily Evans had lived with him for two months, and was coming to believe that the number one reason to hate James Potter was that he was simply impossible to hate.

"I hate you," she murmured anyway. She lay wrapped in plush white blankets, dark red hair fanned across a pillow of the same palette, milky sunlight pouring through the window. Above her, James smiled, face as bare as his torso without his spectacles, hair rumpled (but in that tantalising after-sex way, not the normal half-dead way Lily was afflicted with).

"No," he said, after a moment. "I don't think you do."

Another reason to hate James Potter: he was always right.

Later in her life (well, as late as she got to, anyway), the snatched summer that followed on the heels of her schooldays would seem an idyll. It was warm, but only pleasantly so, and there was enough violence and death in the papers that they were aware enough to be grateful for their cocoon, if not yet entirely ready to lose their lives for it. There were Order meetings, of course, grim interludes sprinkled liberally through their sun-kissed soporific serenity, but for now they did not leave bruises. Wounds closed with a wave of a wand and a kiss pressed to the site of injury.

But at that moment, in late August, naked in James' bed, Lily only thought of the feeling of James' hard, muscled stomach under her featherlight touch, and of the hunger brewing in her stomach. And of James' knowing smirk as he looked at her, eyes crinkling.

"Lily," he said, taking her hand.

Twenty minutes later, her cheeks were flush and her breath scant, and – per the mirror hanging over the mantle – her hair was in truly dire straits. James' thumb rubbed circles against the soft flesh of her shoulder. He sat propped by a pillow, completely naked save for the gold watch on his wrist, reading the morning paper. Naturally, Lily was left at the end of her tether, breathless, and James might have returned from a nice hot bath. The bastard.

His watch hummed. He checked it, and a rare frown crossed his features.

"It's six-thirty," he said, disbelieving. Lily groaned and pressed her head into his ribs. He curled his arm around her and patted her bum. "I was going to go for a fly with John."

"It's too early to talk about quidditch," Lily said, squeezing her eyes shut. He smelt of dark wood and summer breeze.

"It's not quidditch," he said. "It's flying. A leisurely broom ride." He dragged his fingers across her skin. She pressed her face into the firmness of his body. His hands cupped her hips. "I thought you liked broom rides?"

"I hate you," she murmured, kissing hm.

In the end, James skipped his jog, with some trepidation, and focused his efforts on steaming up the bathroom. Lily brushed her teeth, her reflection obscured in the foggy mirror.

"Come in!" James called, sticking his head out of the shower. Lily caught his eye in the mirror.

"You hog the water," she accused, with a mouthful of toothpaste. He made a rude gesture.

"Come on, the more the merrier."

"In showers?"

"'Course, if it's you." He flashed her his best smile and she rolled her eyes, spitting into the sink. Steam poured from the shower, carrying with it the sweet scent of grapefruit soap. Lily rinsed her mouth, sighed, and shrugged off her bathrobe. James closed the glass door. She strode over and knocked on the door. He pressed his face up against the glass.

"Missed me too much?" he asked, a little muffled.

James Potter and his stupid dimples.

He let her in.

With dripping hair, Lily made tea, while James started on breakfast. Toast turned golden brown, and he supervised the slicing of citrus fruits and watermelon, humming some Fizzing Whizbees song. With a few waves of his wand, they arranged themselves on a painted platter that had belonged to James' aunt. Lily squeezed out the teabags and carefully carried two china cups to their kitchen table. James insisted on using them ("What's the point of having them sitting there collecting dust?"), but her hands shook every time she moved them. Which really probably made it riskier.

"Your food," James said, as she sat down, shooting the platter to the table with a flick of his wand. Lily instinctively ducked, but that morning, the food actually landed on the table, only losing a single orange slice in the journey. Miraculously, she hadn't spilled their drinks. James joined her at the table with a jaunty smile.

"One of those days, you're going to crack me in the head," Lily informed him, taking the proffered plate of buttery toast. James swallowed a mouthful of tea and winced.

"Hot," he said. "Like you." Lily sighed dramatically, adding fruit to her dish.

"I remember when you used to compose chants – odes – to my beauty," she said. "You've got lazy." He raised his eyebrows, chewing thoughtfully.

"You were the one who told me to stop, after the side-saddle incident," he pointed out. "I'd happily come up with a million chants, but no, I mustn't put people's lives at risk-"

"Marshall Fawley had a horseshoe bruise on his cheek for a month!"

James grimaced. "Oh," he said, trying to sound concerned. "What a shame?"

"Prick," Lily said cheerfully, biting into her toast. James posed, beaming angelically with his eyes shut, and then started on a grapefruit quarter. Lily pointed her wand at the wireless and put on music – not the news, pointedly not the news. Crumbs crusted her lips and James brushed them off with an easy wave, eyes alight. Sunshine poured through the windows, and pooled the world in gold. The juices of their fruits shimmered, waiting to burst on their tongues; their tea glowed. James shook his head back and forth to the music, curls falling over his eyes, humming all the while. Lily smiled, watching him, tearing into the supple orange flesh. The sun danced across his face; he was lost in his own movement, fluid, wondrous. She longed to kiss the mole on his jawline. The muscles in his face rippled, and there it stood, a castle on the edge of the world. She set her orange down and wiped her mouth.

"James," she said softly. He swayed back and forth.

"Don't need no broom, I'm flying free, I think by now it's plain to see!" James opened his eyes, locking his gaze on hers. "I'm nothing without you!"

Lily couldn't take it any longer. She grabbed his cheeks, leaned over the table, and kissed him. He returned her force immediately, tongue skating over her lower lip, hands closing over hers. Her heart beat fast, thrilled. She grazed his lips with her teeth then dove, peppering a trail of kisses across his face, desperate and insistent, before she found the mole. There she pressed hard, running her hands over him tenderly, and he arched against her.

"Lily," he murmured, reaching for her. His hand snaked around her waist and pulled her forward. She jolted, hitting the table, and fell forward, breaking from his face. Her hip clattered against the platter of fruit skins, which in turn hit her teacup.

"Shit!" she cried, pulling away. The cup smacked the floor, and Lily squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the clean-up. After a panicked moment, she peeked. Tea dribbled across the floor, but the delicate china teacup was, miraculously, intact. Lily gaped, pushing herself off the table, ignoring the blossoming stain on her shorts.

"I told you you wouldn't break it," James said nonchalantly. Lily managed a tiny shake of her head.

"How?" she asked. James shrugged.

"It's my great-great-grandmother's. The story goes that a wizard from Saxony fell madly in love with her, but she was already engaged to my great-great-grandfather. So he gave her the china set so she would always remember what could've been. And he did a good job of enchanting it," James continued, picking the teacup up. "It was meant to last as long as his love."

"Wow," Lily said, and raised her empty hand in a kind of toast. "To that very dedicated Saxon wizard."

"Cheers." James bumped the cup against her fingers. Then they got to cleaning up. Lily was never so thankful for magic as she was when she had to clean. As she washed the dishes, a frown rumpled her forehead.

"D'you think he'd be cross?" she asked, directing the soap across the plates. James looked up as the bin lid shut.

"Who?" he asked.

"The bloke from Saxony," she said. "You know, he never got the girl, and now a hundred years later or something, we're here knocking his china off the table because we're too busy snogging." James ruffled his hair thoughtfully.

"Nah," he said, after a moment. "He'd be pleased, wouldn't he? We're embodying his whole true-love thing." Lily snorted.

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I'd be well happy if our great-great-grandson and his girlfriend smashed up my things because they were mental about each other." Our. The word burned a fluttery hole in Lily's stomach. Our.

"Yeah," Lily agreed, burying her smile in the sink, too pleased to point out that the whole problem was that James wasn't the Saxon wizard's progeny.

James went for his jog after that, and Lily finished off a letter to Mary and sprawled out with a copy of Emma. The house's cooling charms worked on overdrive as the heat crept in, sneaking through the open windows and under the doors. When she spotted James at the end of the drive, she promptly fetched a glass of icy water and waited by the door, stirring it absently.

James flung himself through, panting hard, and Lily raised her eyebrows mildly, as if she'd just happened to be there.

"Hot?" she asked dryly. James pant-laughed, shaking his head like a dog, and scrunched a wink in her direction.

"You know I am," he said, swiping his fingers across the glass. "For me?"

She popped an ice cube into her mouth. "I was thinking about it."

"Don't make me duel you," he said, stepping inside. "Oh, fuck, those charms are good."

"Duel me? Have you been taking drama lessons from Sirius?" Lily rolled her eyes and gave him the glass. "Am I good or what?"

He chugged it down, water slipping down his neck, over his collarbone, and under his shirt. He wiped his mouth when he finished, still breathing hard. "You're the best," he informed her.

Lunch was out in the garden, tea and sandwiches, and then they swam; it wasn't planned. James jumped in, complaining of sweatiness, and then pulled himself out and chased Lily around the pool. Lily sprinted, careful not to slip on the wet stones, still in her pyjamas. James caught her around the waist and kissed her temple, laughing as he picked her up, and swung back and forth.

"One -"

"I surrender! I surrender!"

"Two -"

She couldn't even pretend to be afraid. Instead, she tried to escape him, so she could jump in herself, and he wrestled her furiously, trying not to let her feet touch the ground.

"Fuck – three!"

He tossed her in. She flung through the air, temporarily weightless, and then there was a rush and she was submerged in the cool blue water. She tilted her head back and saw a flurry of movement. James splashed next to her in a torpedo of bubbles. She popped up first, gasping, and he broke the surface next to her, hair wet.

"Look what you've done to my pyjamas," she said, kicking her feet to stay afloat. They'd turned see-through in the water. James grinned.

"Bugger."

Lily sighed. "Well, you'd better help me. To make up for it." She pulled at the hem of her shirt. James swam over frenetically.

"Oi, hang on!"

After that, they folded into the drowsiness of a summer afternoon. Lily traipsed out to the garden and picked potion ingredients; James strummed a guitar, practising chords. Honey light stuck to the grass, and warmed each leaf, each flower. Lily carefully dug worm-filled soil up and re-potted the plants that were outgrowing their homes, stretching up to the sky. Dirt crusted her nails and she rinsed her hands under a tap. By the time she came inside, her wicker basket was full, and she headed down to the cellar to sort and store them. A few ended up drying in the study, criss-crossing the room like tinsel.

The conversation over what to cook for dinner was short: nothing, they decided. Lily ran a bath, James showered, and they dressed up. Lily fingered the thin straps of the lime dress as she examined herself in the mirror. James had bought it for her after Marlene mentioned she'd fallen in love with it when they'd gone window-shopping; she'd tried to take it back and he'd stopped her at the door. It had taken two weeks before she'd genuinely realised he didn't want anything in return. She didn't owe him. It wasn't transactional; he'd just wanted to do something nice for her and make her happy. That was the strangest feeling in the world. What had she done to deserve this? Why her?

"Alright?" James asked, fumbling with the buttons of a muggle shirt. "You look amazing."

Lily brushed her hair behind her shoulder. "I'm alright," she said, watching him in the mirror. "Thank you. He nodded, realised he'd missed a button, and started undoing them.

"I mean it," he said. Lily turned, facing him, and strode over. She took the shirt from him and easily pushed each button through the hole. She started at the bottom and made to his collar, at which point she looked up and smiled at him.

"There," she said. James' eyes crinkled.

"This is why I prefer robes," he told her. Lily dropped her hands away from him.

"Alright, then."

"No." He caught her waist. "You know what I mean." He kissed her cheek.

They found a pub in a seaside village a few towns over from Godric's Hollow, busy but not crowded. They were probably overdressed, but it was nice, all the same, and James looked nice, so she swallowed her blush. They ordered a round and James got talking about quidditch, his whole face lining up. They'd been to two games over the summer, and while she realised that she'd been much more invested in school quidditch, where she knew most of the players, rather than in watching professional strangers, there was something about the atmosphere. She chipped in with names she knew were wrong and laughed when he flustered over his words.

"How could you get them confused?" he wanted to know. "One's a beater, one's a seeker! They've nothing in common!"

"They both sound similar," Lily persisted. "Beater. Seeker." James shook his head in disbelief.

"Mad."

Two more rounds and shepherd's pie and the only cocktails the pub put on, and Lily couldn't keep track of what they were talking about; she was fairly certain they'd devolved into some sort of secret language, bartering inside jokes and obscure references and by the end really just guessing sounds. Somehow, she could pull words from James' grunts, and he could twist her laughter into coherent sentences. She was sure anyone else would have them committed, but it all made perfect sense to her. James spilled beer down his front and they were snogging and then Lily tried to make it to the bathroom and remembered she hadn't broken in her shoes yet and they were choosing this moment to antagonise her feet. She made it into the loo, barely recognised her reflection, and hurried out, looping her arm around James'.

They stumbled onto the street, dizzy and delirious with love. The sun burned like fire on the horizon, a beckoning a bruise-purple evening. The streetlights bloomed as they staggered hand-in-hand, casting butterscotch shadows over them. Lily's heart took up residence in her wrists, and she pulsed with life, brimmed with it. Here, now, as her fingers interlocked behind James' neck – as he dipped her – as her feet blistered from her shoes – this was youth.

"I'm going to spin you," James whispered, breath full of whisky. Lily giggled and shook her head.

"No."

"You want to."

She giggled harder. "I don't."

"Yeah, you do!" James lifted her into the air and Lily squealed with mirth, holding onto him as he spun her through the air. It was absurd and ridiculous and she felt as though she might burst from loving him too much. Her hair whipped through the sunset. For one crystal-clear moment – one that, in two short years, would flash through her min as green light hurtled towards her – her life was perfect.

Then she lost a shoe.

She hollered and James put her down, searching frantically in the direction she gestured to.

"That way!" she said, shooting apologetic looks to the others on the pavement. "I'm so sorry," she said, cheeks heating, as she and James made for where the blue pump had landed. Lily peeled off her other shoe, finding it easier to go barefoot than with one leg shorter than the other. The runaway shoe languished beneath a dirty window and a peeling poster. James picked it up and cleaned it off with a quick spell, furtively checking the street as he used his wand.

"My hero," Lily smiled, taking the shoe from him. "We've got to stop doing that. It never works for us and it never will."

"But it's fun," James said. Lily hid her face in her hand.

"Yes," she admitted, leaning against the brick wall. Then fingers flitted across her ribs and laughter burbled inside her, shooting up and out of her mouth, uncontrollable. She laughed so hard she crumpled, uselessly batting at James' hands as he tickled her. It was indecent, practically, out on the street. Annoying. But she couldn't stop and she couldn't care, not then. These strangers could hate her for disturbing the peace if they liked. They didn't matter to her. What mattered was – was –

"Stop it!" she managed, as James once more evaded her attempt to tickle him back. He tickled her harder and she threw her arms around him, kicking her legs furiously, at which point he scooped her up entirely, carrying her like a bride. "You're drunk," she accused seriously, bopping his nose. He made a face.

"You're drunker."

He carried her into the alleyway they were to apparate out of, and even when he put her down she kept holding onto him, laying her head on his shoulder.

"D'you think we could borrow that motorbike Sirius is working on?" she murmured, as he cast revealing charms to ensure there were no muggles around.

"What?" James asked distractedly. Lily shrugged.

"We could figure out how to use it," she supposed. "Go for a ride."

"You're mental," he told her.

"Says you." She pressed a kiss to his sleeve.

She was rubbing circles into his palm with her thumb when a bright blue light swooped down upon them. Lily blinked furiously and belatedly reached for her wand; James stepped in front of her, his wand pointed at the light. Once it stopped moving, she realised what it was; the image of a bird gleamed like moonlight on the sea. A phoenix. She sucked in her breath. James lowered his wand, but only slightly.

"Urgent. The Aviary. With your best." Their old Headmaster's voice died, and the bird took wing. Lily stared, the afterimage burned hazily into her retinas. There should have been a panic within her, a terror, and the sluggish absence frightened her more than anything else. Her receptors were blunted by drink and happiness and the cloying heat. She looked to James, whose eyes were already on hers. He smiled weakly and squeezed her hand.

"Well," he said, with all of his bravado and no confidence, "this is it." He looked down at himself. "Being sloshed might help the nerves."

Not now, Lily thought. Why now? There were a million things they were supposed to do – not only before this, but to start this. She was meant to – to have potions ready, and be dressed a certain way, and – she couldn't remember. The instructions fizzled into nothingness in the alleyway, with her shoes in her hand and smeared lipstick.

"I love you," she promised, gripping him tightly.

"I love you," James said. "Until the end, hey?"

And they apparated into the next part of their lives.