Star of the North, this is for you, because I promised you this long, long ago:
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Ten things James likes most about Lily Evans:
One: her name.
It's such a lovely name, he thinks. Hinting of pale colours (like the flash of a knee under a skirt) and breathtaking blossom (like the red, slow flush that blossoms on her face when he tells her he loves her) and just a hint of wickedness, like the few poisonous Lilies you can find.
He likes the way it sounds on his tongue, rolling and honey-smooth and delicate, Lily, Li-ly, Lily. He likes the way it curls on his parchments, the 'L' smiling and the "i" winking and the 'y' curving like a reaching hand. He loves the way it fits with 'Potter', Lily Potter, Lily Evans Potter.
He once checked the meaning of her name in a dictionary. As words rolled down the page, one word caught his eye; in Hebrew, 'Li' means 'for me'.
"For me, For me" he whispers now, into his pillow at night, into the curve of her neck, into her ear. "For me".
Two: her hair.
It just so Red, he thinks. Like fire, like a torch in the middle of the dull brown crowd, like that brilliant sunset he saw once, in one unforgettably hot summer day, which coloured the sky with crimson stains and flowers of indigo and orange. Red as Gryffindor, with a shine of gold in the right light, red as her lips right after he kisses her, red as blood when he tangles the flowing locks in his fingers.
Red like life.
Three: her smile.
It's like a burst of sunshine in the room, like someone turning on a lamp. It makes his knees wobble and his head spin every time, makes him weak and faint, makes him blush like a first year with a first crush. Makes him feel like one, too.
James likes to kiss Lily's smile, can feel the sunlight seeping into his bloodstream through his mouth, can feel the happiness flow into him and threaten to overwhelm him and make him drunk on it, just from feeling the tug from her lips on his own.
Every time Lily smiles, James thinks he is falling in love all over again.
Four: her voice.
Her voice is like nothing he has ever heard before, clear and musical and just wonderful, like all of the world's sonnets wrapped into one beautiful sound. Alive and passionate and just right, and every time he hears it the sound vibrates through his bones and wraps around his heart, one more string that binds him to her, one more tie that can never again be pried opened.
It is like the sirens' voice to the sailors, and he will happily go to his death after it, and no amount of earwax plugs could help him.
Five: her hands.
She has such small hands, delicate, the bones fragile and thin, and when he holds them, he feels as though he's holding a bird, so light her hands feel. He likes how smooth her hands are, how white. He likes the thin webbing between her fingers, because she always giggles when he bites at it. He likes the way her hands turn red when it's cold, because then he can warm them up for her. He likes the way she never fully manages to remove the ink stains from her hands, no matter how much she scrubs them, likes the way she bites her fingernails on Transfiguration tests, likes the way the quill always leaves a dent on her finger which takes hours to pass. Likes the fact that she's left-handed. Likes the way her right thumb is just a tiny bit longer than her left.
Most of all, James just likes the way her hands fit so perfectly in his.
Six: her eyes.
She has the most gorgeous eyes he has ever seen, and the most unordinary. Almond shaped and huge, framed by thick, long red lashes, which always make her seem amused, even when she's not. And so green you could get lost in them. Not the dull, faded green most people have, or the murky mahogany-green Remus's eyes turn around new moon, or even the piercing green-gray McGonagel's eyes are. Just Green, devoid of any other colour, so vibrant you can see them across the Quidditch field when she comes to see your practice.
Red and green, that's what James' Lily is like.
Seven: her freckles.
She has so many freckles, on her arms and legs and face and neck and fingers, not the crude red-brown spots some redheads have, but small, sweet dots, a dusting across her nose, in the hollow of her throat. They are part of her, part of what makes her so beautiful in James' eyes, part of being Lily. One day, he thinks, he will map them out, number them, give them all names, even. Lily laughed when he told her that, but he couldn't be more serious.
Lily hates her freckles, but James wouldn't have it any other way.
Eight: her scars.
He collects them, like stories, the memories of them, like keys to the ultimate truth that is Lily. One on her left knee, from when she fell from a swing when she was five; one on her elbow, from when she scraped it along a rough stone wall; three long, needle-thin slashes on her shoulder, where her grandmother's cat scratched her once.
James collects them like pieces to a puzzle, all the things he never knew, all the events he wasn't in, all the time he missed. A cross-like scar on her finger, one line from an oven, one from a shard of glass. James likes to think that one day he will collect them all.
Nine: her wit and brilliance.
She has a tongue like a knife, sometimes, his Lily- he's been on the other side of it too many times not to know- and a mind as sharp as a razor. She notices every tiny detail, every thing and fact that escape his mind. She learns things with a speed he can only dream of. He likes her curiosity, her unquenchable thirst for knowledge, her everlasting urge to learn. He loves the way she scrunches her nose when she doesn't get something, and the way she brandishes her quill in the air with triumph when she solved a problem she was working on. He loves the fact that she's a perfectionist, he loves the way she snaps at him when he interrupts her in the middle of something important, loves the way she beams at everyone when she gets a perfect score on a test.
James loves the way she managed to learn how to read and speak James fluently, when he's still stumbling blindly over the basics of Lily.
Ten: the way she says "I love you".
He loves the way she said "I love you" for the first time, shy and blushing and not quite meeting his eyes, and remembers he felt as though he would burst any minute, because already he could feel the bliss leaking at the seams. The feeling has not changed since then.
He loves the way she says it off-handedly, when he kisses her temple and she is deep at thought, and doesn't quite realize what she is saying. He loves the way she looks into his eyes, her face shining with emotion, and says it. He loves the way she whispers it when they sit together in the common room, or how she mouths it across the classroom at him when she finds the Lily he left for her on her desk. He loves the way she mumbles it into his skin at night.
Mostly, he just loves the fact that she loves him.