Wednesday.

Lily got up before anyone else every morning. She went down to the common room on Wednesday to find James waiting on the couch. He waved her over, so she went, warily. When she had seated herself he said,

"You're up early."

"Bad habits are hard to break."

"I know they are."

"Please, Potter, not now. It's early, give me a break."

"Might as well start the day off with a bang."

She spread herself out across her half of the couch and closed her eyes. She had had a long night. She didn't like it when Sirius set her up with other houses, but she didn't have much choice. She went after hours to deliver. It took a very long time.

A warm breath of air on her skin made her snap her eyes back open, startled. She sat up, cracked her forehead against James' and fell back with a thud.

"Jesus, James, don't do that." She pressed a hand to her chest and tried to slow her breathing. "Just – prod me or something, all right? Don't hover over me like that."

James was rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You should talk, you don't have bits of metal waiting to break into your face. What is your problem?"

"What is your problem? I'm trying to get some sleep, so please, just sit there and be quiet."

He sat there, quietly. She didn't move. Growing tired of waiting, he went over to the table where he had left his books. He had only been working for a few minutes when she got up, stretched, and came over to join him.

He didn't look up as he said, "Did you sleep well?"

"How civilized," she remarked, ignoring his question. He kept working.

She leaned over until her head was next to his, and blew on his ear. He kept working. She tiptoed her fingers across the table toward his quill. He ran out of ink, and moved his hand.

Eventually she bored and got up. Resting her forearms across his shoulders, she bent down and touched the tip of her nose to the nape of his neck. He jumped.

"Merlin, you're cold!"

"Ah! He lives!"

"I thought we'd already determined that."

"That was me."

"Right."

He carried on in silence. She sighed and rested her chin in her hand. "You really hate me, don't you."

"Don't be ridiculous. I just hate what you're doing."

"No, you hate me," she insisted. "In your upper-class fascist –"

"Stop hanging around Sirius," he said.

"Here it comes."

"You're starting to sound like him."

"That was the end of your sentence."

She said this in the tone she might have used to describe a miracle. He dipped his quill again. "What a marvel you are."

"You don't get me."

"I most certainly do not."

"I wasn't finished. What I mean is, you said something about Sirius that wasn't relating to his drug abuse."

James moved faster than she thought was possible for such a negligent character. She didn't have time to draw back before his face was an inch from hers. "You don't call it that."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"We don't talk about it."

Lily laughed. "We don't, don't we. We make sure to mask our words in fucking civilization, don't we, we make sure we're good and kind and sensitive to each others feelings, and that way no one can tell that you spend every day of your fucking life tearing me down." Her voice rose toward the end of her sentence. James moved away.

"Quiet, you're going to wake everyone."

"Oh, no." She was laughing again. "I don't care about anyone else, remember? I do whatever the hell I please and carry on my merry way, isn't that sweet, until you get hurt and then it's oh, Lily darling, why don't you go play somewhere else? Why don't you take your fucking –"

James had stood up so fast his chair tipped, but he let it lie, covered her mouth and stood behind her, pressing her close. "Quiet. You're going to wake everyone."

She pried his fingers off one at a time. They were twisted in her grasp as she said, "Why don't you take your fucking hell to someone else's doorstep, and don't you fucking cut me off," she finished.

James waited until she was ready to let go. Then he went upstairs to change his robes.