Waylaid

by missgryffin

Lily Evans is thirty years old, single, and racing a blizzard to get home for Christmas when James Potter crashes into her life. Literally. [Muggle AU] [Trope Mash-up Game: 56. Awful First Meeting 74. Huddling for Warmth / 75. Bed Sharing]

A holiday one-shot that was born out of the trope mash-up game over on Tumblr: "56. Awful First Meeting + 74. Huddling for Warmth / 75. Bed Sharing."

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WAYLAID

Crunch.

Though she'd seen him sliding in her mirror and had braced for impact, she still winces as his car crumples her rear fender.

Really, it was just the metaphorical icing on the disaster of the cake that was the day: an emergency motion hearing, two days before Christmas, in the heart of London; heels that had blistered her skin beneath her tights; an unexpectedly closed cafeteria in her building, due not to the holiday but the impending inclement weather; and a belated rush out of the office, already deserted because of said warnings of inclement weather, and onto the highway, with only the unwrapped gifts in her trunk and a weekender bag that she'd stuffed in haste on her passenger seat. She was going home to Cokeworth, and it was only going to be her and her parents, since Petunia was doing Christmas with Vernon's side this year. With a very white (as in, blizzard-causing-road-closures white) Christmas forecasted, Lily had fully expected to spend the next three days cozied up on her parents' couch, watching holiday movies, flipping through catalogues, and alternating sips between cocoa and mulled wine.

Only, she'd gotten a later start than intended because of work, the blizzard had hit harder and earlier than predicted because of course it did, and though she could generally bulldoze her way through most situations in life (she wasn't a barrister for nothing), even she knew when to yield to Mother Nature and make for the nearest inn.

Which, she had—made it, that is. She is grateful. She is relieved. She is lucky.

She knows these things.

But physically, she is also hungry, thirsty, cold, tired, and rear-ended.

It's fine. She's fine.

Hoisting her weekender bag and her purse onto her shoulder, Lily launches her strength against her car door, pushing through the snow drift that had already started accumulating in the brief minutes between her stopping in a make-shift parking spot and being hit. Cold wind slices her face and whips her ponytail as she steps out of the car, and freezing wetness wraps around toes, ankles, calves.

She winces again. There go the new Ferragamos, purchased as a holiday treat to herself when she'd done her gift shopping. Though, after the blisters they'd put her through that day, Lily thinks she's ready to bin them regardless.

A voice calls through the howling wind: "Hey, you alright?"

She waves absently at the figure—tall, male—exiting the vehicle behind hers and calls back, "Yeah!" but doesn't wait for a response, only climbs awkwardly through the snow around the front of her car, pulling up her fitted pencil skirt as high as it will go to try and gain some mobility.

Finally, air coming in haggard puffs that burns the back of her throat, Lily reaches the end of her trek and yanks open the front door of the inn. She is immediately blasted with warmth, and in the seconds it takes her to recover her breath, she also notices the constant brrring of a ringing phone, the hum of chatter against a backdrop of a news channel coming from somewhere down the hall, and then vague shouting just before footsteps thump heavily from a staircase she can't see.

A gust of cold wind sweeps over her body before the door slams shut again, bell still tinkling softly as a gruff swear sounds behind her.

Turning, Lily sees a man much taller than her shaking snow out of his black hair and off his stylish gray coat. "Fucking hell," he mutters, and Lily notices that his glasses have fogged with his sudden entry into the warmth of the inn.

She can't help it; she giggles.

The man stops, looks at her over the tops of the frames. "Funny, am I?"

"Yes," she admits plainly. "As am I, I expect."

His eyes travel down her body, linger on her rumpled skirt and drenched designer shoes, then meet hers again. "Right," is all he says, voice sounding clipped, and then he reaches around her for the bell on the counter, tapping it a few times impatiently as he mumbles, "Isn't anyone bloody working around here?"

Lily stares dumbly at his retreating hand, thoughts clicking into place as her annoyance piques. So he's one of those people—those men—the kind she is used to enduring day in and day out in her prehistoric and patriarchal profession: he is (dramatic pause) Important.

She sighs and finds herself admonishing, "No need to be rude."

He scoffs softly beside her and retorts, "Says the pot to the kettle."

She throws him a side-eye. "You could apologize, you know."

"For expecting service when a patron enters an inn?"

"No, for crashing into my car"—(he groans)—"That was you, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," he sighs, "hit some black ice, listen, I'll pay for the damage—"

"Good of you," she snaps.

He pauses, then faces her fully, arms crossed over his chest. "It was an accident—"

She meets his gaze head-on, forcing herself not to be charmed by that chiseled face, and interjects, "Sor-ry."

He cuts off, eyes narrowing down at her.

"That's the word I think you're looking for? Must not be in your regular vocabulary."

She senses a retort rising on his tongue, but just then, a new figure blusters into their view, hair frizzing wildly and stacks of bracelets clinking as she blinks at them in surprise. "Oh! Hello." The woman leans forward, like she's about to tell a secret, and asks, "Are you here to stay at the inn?"

The man beats her to it, though his voice now sounds more amused than annoyed as he chirps, "That would be the idea, yes."

Lily rolls her eyes and says to the woman, "I'm afraid my car's stuck outside, and the road conditions are too bad to drive. If you have a room available, or anywhere to wait this out, really, I'd appreciate it."

The woman blinks at her again, then turns her attention back to the man. His hands are now in his trouser pockets, the picture of casual elegance, and if it weren't for his recent rudeness, that smile dimpling his wind-burned cheek might make her heart flutter. "What she said."

Bloody charmer.

"Ah, names?"

Lily turns her attention back to the woman, who is now holding a pen with a gigantic peacock feather taped to it. "Uh, Lily. Lily Evans."

The woman scribbles, then looks expectantly at the man, but Lily refuses to give him an ounce more of her attention.

"James Potter."

Wait a minute—she's heard that name before.

"One of you must be an air sign," the woman blathers, as if to herself, "with Mercury in retrograde and Saturn conjunct Mars, there's really no other explanation…unless your moons—"

"I'm sorry," the man—James—interrupts.

"Oh, now you say it," Lily grumbles.

He shoots her a dirty look, but the woman holds out an elaborate old-fashioned key strung on a ribbon, her mumbling apparently finished, and looks between them expectantly.

"Er—could you repeat that?" Lily asks politely.

The woman jangles the key in her face, eyes wide with wonder. "The stars are favoring you today—"

Was this some sort of joke?

"—but they usually do dote on new love—"

James interjects, "Oh, but we're not—" right as Lily tries to protest, "We don't even know—"

But the woman waves them off and prattles on as if they hadn't spoken. "We've been so incredibly busy this afternoon, the alignment of Uranus, of course—"

"Yeah, not the early blizzard stranding everyone," James grumbles under his breath, and though Lily has decided not to pay further attention to him, she finds herself nodding in agreement.

"—and I thought for certain we were filled up, but you arrived just in time to claim the last room—"

"Last?" Lily repeats stupidly.

"Last," the woman confirms as airily as if she was reciting the dinner menu.

She is too busy being dumbfounded to move, but James obviously isn't, because he plucks the key from the woman's outstretched hand. "Right," he says, "thanks."

Lily's racing mind suddenly screams at her, snapping her out of her stupor. She was there first! He's taking her key! But before she finds words to protest, he's facing her again. With the fog cleared from his glasses, she can see that his eyes are a bright hazel, and his lips twitch.

"Shall we go upstairs, love?"

If she wasn't damp, chilled, parched, starving, tired, and in searing pain where the back of her shoe was digging into her heel, she might have smacked him with her purse. But, the whole situation being as bizarre as it is, she figures she may as well be pragmatic about the whole thing.

"Of course." She presses her bags against his chest and adds with a simpering smile, "Darling."

His mouth falls as his eyebrows jump, and Lily revels in the sweetness of his shock. To his credit, he recovers quick enough to accept her bags, sliding them over his shoulder, even if his face is still incredulous.

But Lily isn't done; she grips his arm, feeling him tense under her touch, and balances on one foot to remove one offending heel, then the other.

"Much better," she sighs, and as the woman takes off through a connecting room, bangles clanging with every beckoning wave of her hand, Lily follows without a backwards glance.

The inn seems cozy, the sitting room they're passing through bursting with plush-looking sofas and velvet poufs, and the cushion of the carpet lining the stairs is a welcome comfort to her aching feet. James huffs behind her, the already-squeaky floorboards creaking even harder under his weight, but he doesn't say anything as the batty landlady bows them into their room at the end of the narrow corridor.

The second the door snaps shut behind them, he sets Lily's bags on a waiting luggage tray. "Well."

Lily sweeps her eyes over the room, quickly taking in the queen-sized four-poster, hung with the same velvet as the drapes surrounding the window; the dated and dust-covered television sitting atop an antique-looking dresser; a cracked door showing a hint of a small en suite.

"Well," she echoes, facing him with hands on her hips to help herself get straight to the point. "I only agreed to put up with this downstairs because your name sounds familiar, so I'm assuming you're not an ax murderer about to off me and that we can work something out—"

He rolls his eyes and leans casually against the wall as he cuts her off. "Relax, Evans. I'll take a couch downstairs."

"Oh." She fidgets with the pumps still clamped in her fingers. "Right, then."

"And I am sorry, by the way."

She blinks.

"For rear-ending you? While trying to get into the parking lot of this blasted place in the midst of an icy blizzard outside?"

Right. She manages a weak smile. "Yes, well, aside from a few thousand quid in damage, no harm done."

He chuckles dryly, pushing off the wall and reaching into the depths of the jacket under his coat only to extract a business card that he offers her. "Towing, repairs, cabs, whatever you need, I'll cover all of it. Call me when you have it sorted, I'll Venmo you."

She takes the card without looking at it, nodding a simple, "Yeah, thanks."

The air feels suddenly awkward around them, the room too small, the ceiling too low. Maybe he feels it too, because she sees his jaw clench, hears his swallow, before he says, "I'm going to, uh, go downstairs for a drink."

And with that, he turns and leaves, letting the door creak to a close behind him.

Lily flops atop the bed—softer than she'd expected, and springier, too—and lets herself have a moment to relax before pulling the business card in front of her face and squinting at the fine print.

James Potter, M.D.
Consulting Physician
Sleekeazy's Incorporated

Oh god.

She sits up with a jolt, heart hammering against her ribs as she reads it again—and then again.

Oh god.

She hadn't heard his name in passing, or even in the society pages her best friends still followed every day—she'd seen it at work.

Lily scrabbles off the bed, dives for her purse, and immediately scrounges for her phone, thumbing to her internet browser and shamelessly searching for him. "Come on," she mutters, tapping the sides of her phone as her service bars falters. Slowly, images begin to form. His biography page on the company website, his Instagram, his—wait a minute, he has a blog?

She's about to tap the link when her phone dies. Of course. At least it had managed to navigate her to this hole-in-the-wall place, the closest inn in thirty miles, before petering out.

Lily forces herself off the bed and through the banalities of settling into a room for the night: phone plugged in, shoes off the floor, hastily packed toiletries by the sink. It's only because she has nothing better to do, she tells herself, that she touches up her makeup, fluffs her hair, and slips on the Ugg slipper-boot things that she absolutely still wears and absolutely had made sure to pack before she finally makes her way back downstairs, through another sitting room, and to a more pub-style room with a smattering of full tables and a more modern TV mounted in the midst of a full bar.

A friendly female voice calls, "Welcome, love!" and Lily sees a lively-looking brunette with bouncing curls waving at her from behind the bar. She wanders toward the bar, determinedly not looking at the black-haired bloke sitting hunched over the counter.

The barmaid pushes a pint toward him, and he answers, "Ah, thanks, Rosie."

Lily doesn't miss the way the barmaid's cheeks flush as she smiles at him, and a weird, almost possessive feeling flashes in her gut, but before she can dwell on it further, the barmaid—Rosie—asks her, "What'll ya be havin', then?"

"Um." Lily peers behind her toward shelves crowded with bottles. "What've you got for gin?"

A lot, as it turns out. Lily selects a local variety, accepts the barmaid's suggestion for a mixed drink, and is just about to give it a taste when a loud bleating noise makes her jump.

Rosie obviously notices, because she rushes to explain, "Aw, don' mind that, jus' one o' the goats!"

Lily's mouth moves soundlessly, and James snorts somewhere to her right.

"Oi, Ab!" The barmaid's leaning halfway through an open door behind her, which Lily can just make out looks like the kitchen. "Got one in 'ere!"

A grumpy-looking man with a scraggly beard tucked behind his apron appears in the doorway, grunting under his breath as he picks up the squealing goat and carries it—Lily pinches her arm; surely she's seeing things—back into the kitchen.

Rosie follows him, and Lily, momentarily forgetting the awkwardness between them in the face of such a bizarre occurrence, slides onto the barstool next to James as she asks, "Hallucination is a symptom of hypothermia, right?"

She can hear his smirk in his voice. "It is. What makes you think you're hallucinating?"

"Gee, I don't know," she hisses, "maybe the fact that there are goats in the kitchen? Or that the television in our room is an artifact from approximately nineteen ninety-seven?"

He chokes on his drink, shoulders shaking in laughter, before he turns those hazel eyes on her. Combined with that dimple, they're downright sinful.

His voice drops to murmur, "Our room, hmm?"

Lily throws him a dark look and slaps her hand on the table, sliding over her own business card. "Not so fast, Casanova."

She expects him to roll his eyes, but instead they just linger on her face, a pleased sort of smile twitching at his mouth.

"For fuck's sake," she mutters. "It's not a compliment."

"Sure it's not."

"Don Draper, then," she tries.

"Come on, Evans, don't try to tell me you wouldn't shag Don."

"Well," she falters, "are we talking season one Don or season four, because—"

"One, obviously."

His eyes twinkle with mischief.

"Shut the fuck up," Lily scolds, frustrated at herself for letting him draw her into his orbit of banter. "The point is, we're stuck here in an inn that has goats in the kitchen—"

"Is that why you're giving me your business card?"

"No, that's because I remembered where I saw your name—"

"You remembered where you saw my name because there are goats in the kitchen?"

"No," she insists vehemently, "those are two separate things happening in my brain, some of us can do that—"

"What if I am an all-caps goat?"

"In what, rear-ending?"

Ale sprays over the counter as James spits it all out in an uncouth laugh. "I mean—"

"Oh, no." Lily's stomach flips as she catches up to the words that had tumbled, unthinkingly, from her mouth. "No, no, no. That is not—"

"Accurate? Might be."

She makes a show of scoffing. "You're vile."

"Thought I was Casanova?"

"In your dreams."

"Real original, that one."

"Thanks, I know."

He breaks the banter first, though he's grinning something stupid as he looks up at the TV and sips his pint.

Lily sighs, fingers tapping on the side of her glass, and asks petulantly, "Can you please look at that? We actually need to address this."

She doesn't miss the sideways look he throws her, brows furrowed in quizzical concern, before lifting up her business card and almost immediately drawing in a sharp inhale of breath.

"You're a barrister," he says absently, still staring at the card.

"I'm a barrister," she repeats, staring unseeingly at the television.

"For McGonagall and Co.," he adds, sounding slightly disbelieving.

"For McGonagall and Co.," she echoes.

"So you, er, know we have a consultation with Minerva next week?"

Lily lifts her glass to her lips. "I know you have a consultation with Minerva next week," she confirms. "It's on my calendar."

"And I suppose that means you know what it's about?"

She finally looks sideways at him, lifting an eyebrow in the process. "Can't be the most high-profile civil case going on in London right now, can it?"

James groans, cradling his forehead in his fingers. "We probably shouldn't talk about it, should we?"

Here, Lily diverges from his thinking with a high-pitched, "We-ell…"

He whips his head back around to her. "We-ell? What d'you mean, we-ell?"

Lily glances surreptitiously around them—Rosie is still in the kitchen, and no one else is paying them any mind—and tilts her head toward his conspiratorially as she explains, "Look. You guys are obviously thinking seriously about jumping ship with legal counsel, you wouldn't have a meeting with us at this stage if you weren't. I mean, Albus is even coming in for it, and he's been of counsel for years now. Besides, the case is being followed in the press, not to mention I have access to the court docket. I haven't started reading through everything yet, mind, I'm saving that project for after Christmas, but any information in there is fair game for me to know."

James blinks at her.

"Think of this like…the happy hour before our formal date."

He blinks again.

"So to speak."

A dimpled grin cracks over his face. "Lily Evans, are you trying to wine and dine me?"

She scoffs and mutters, "Trying to save your arse, is more like it."

That must hit a sore spot for him, because he winces into his pint. But Lily waits. She's good at reading people, especially when it's within the orbit of her job, and she can tell he has something to say.

Soon enough, he does. "Dad…hasn't been happy. With the way Gellert's handling the case."

"Not surprising," she mumbles.

James looks sharply sideways. "What d'you mean?"

"Only that he has a reputation," she says nonchalantly.

His eyes narrow. "He was recommended as one of the best."

"Oh, he's incredibly intelligent," Lily elaborates. "Honestly just as brilliant as Albus and Minerva if we're comparing brains. It's only that he's…well, egotistical is putting it lightly."

"Go on," James prompts.

Lily lowers her voice a tad further. "Beating Riddle, the barrister on the other side, it's…personal for him. They're like two alphas just constantly at each other's throats, and their clients are the ones who suffer for it. Because Riddle's always played dirty, but Gellert sinks to his level."

"Yeah," James says quietly, a tinge of coldness to his voice Lily hasn't heard yet. "He's been trying to dig into my credentials, my schooling…"

"I saw the article about a discovery battle." She knocks her shoulder against his. "Riddle called you a bully, eh?"

A muscle twitches in his jaw as he shakes his head, staring into his pint. "Fucking stupid," he grumbles. "Completely irrelevant."

"You know, I still don't understand exactly why you're so central to all this, mister consulting physician."

That earns her a chuckle as he jokes, "What, those don't usually get wrapped up in shampoo disputes?"

Lily shakes her head. "Never. Now, if you're part of R&D, on the other hand…"

"No," James tells her. "It's a funky deal, because it's a family company, but I technically am only a consultant, because I practice at St. Mungo's."

Her eyebrows lift at that; this man is full of surprises. "The celebrity hospital?"

He laughs dryly. "I prefer speciality hospital. We treat celebrities, sure, because we can offer the privacy and luxury accommodations they want, but most of my patients are actually people with rare illnesses or diseases."

Lily looks at him pointedly. "Who can afford to travel to London and stay in luxury accommodations."

But James shakes his head. "Not necessarily. We have a great donor network."

"Is is too cynical of me to wonder what the catch is in rich people paying other people's medical bills?"

"No," he says evenly. "And the catch is only that there's a lot of rich people and corporations keen on their names being connected to groundbreaking cases and cutting-edge research, so they're happy to give us some of their pocket money for our referrals if there's that kind of philanthropic goodwill in it for them."

Lily nods and sips her gin, processing it all. "So you're basically a do-good Dr. Frankenstein"—James chokes into a laugh—"and yet you're handing out business cards for your consulting gig and have also managed to get yourself roped into a salacious civil lawsuit about formulas for shampoo and hair gel?"

His eyes twinkle with mirth. "For a pre-first date, you sure do have me all figured out."

Heat prickles her neck, but she fixes him with a determinedly professional gaze. "Just doing my job, Potter."

His eyes flick down over her face, but then he turns back to his ale. "St. Mungo's likes its employees to keep low profiles. We don't exactly have to advertise, doctors know when to refer patients to us. It's easier to introduce myself as a Sleekeazy guy, and Dad doesn't mind."

"What do you consult on?"

"A whole gamut of things." He talks with his hands when he gets on the subject of medicine, gesturing around his pint. "I keep up on literature that's relevant to Sleekeazy products, stuff on ingredients, endocrine disruptors, that sort of thing. Our R&D works on hair products, yes, but some of our formulas have been adapted to other, more medicinal uses. And then there's employee health, which—don't even get me started on all the shit that falls under that..."

"So are you in the loop on the dispute as a consulting physician or as the owner's son?"

"Both," he answers easily. "I don't know if that's the answer you want, but it's the honest one. It's a family business, and I'm part of the inner circle at the top, so I know what's going on."

Lily swirls her glass before lifting it toward her mouth. "And…the dispute itself?"

James follows the movement of her glass, then looks away as she purses her lips around the rim. "I assume you know the basics?"

"A lab tech named Peter Pettigrew left the company," Lily recites, "and not long afterwards your dad's main competitor, MegaMalfoy, launched a product that seemed suspiciously like Sleekeazy's. Lab testing confirmed they had the same base formula, though Malfoy's version had a few differences."

"Insubstantial differences," James corrects automatically.

Lily smirks. "That is the legal argument, yes."

Anger flashes across his face as he leans in closer to her. "He stole it, Lily. Plain and simple. He's had it out for me and my family since school—"

"Who, Malfoy?"

"No, Snape."

This is new information to her. "Who's Snape?"

James sighs, then glances skittishly over her shoulders and gives her a nervous look as he asks, "D'you think we could, um…go somewhere a little more private for this part of the story? I think there's a reporter at that back table."

Her eyebrows lift, but she nods, and as Rosie drifts toward them, Lily says innocently, "I left my phone upstairs to charge, I'm gonna go grab it."

James picks up her cue and stands up. "I'll go with you, I need to charge mine." With a charming smile to Rosie, he gives her their room number for their tab. "We'll be back down for dinner, I expect."

Rosie winks at her.

Oh god—she thought—oh god.

Lily's still gaping when James cups her elbow and steers her through the dining room, and any hope she might have had that he'd been oblivious is dashed when he ducks toward her ear and murmurs, "Reckon she'd be flirting a lot harder with me if she didn't think we're fucking."

Her eyes flash at him as she hisses, "Which you insinuated on purpose, you git."

James appears entirely unrepentant as he asks, "Do you want me to say sorry again, or…?"

"Oh, shut up."

Lily shrugs out of his grip and marches the rest of the way up to their room in front of him.

She thought she'd gotten used to his presence, what with sitting so close to him at the bar downstairs, but once they're back in the confined space of their bedroom, Lily's chest feels tight, like the room doesn't have enough oxygen for the both of them.

"So," she starts, crossing her arms over her chest. "Snape?"

If James notices the newfound tension in her posture, he doesn't say anything, just sits heavily on the end of the bed, elbows braced over his knees. "He works in R&D for Malfoy, and he went to school with us."

"Who's us?"

"My best friends. Remus, who works in R&D, Sirius, who's in marketing, and Peter, who was in R&D before he betrayed us and did this."

"Okay…"

For the first time, James truly hesitates, finally asking, "This isn't privileged yet, is it?"

Lily holds his gaze, thinking fast. "It could be if I'm your personal attorney."

James smirks, though it doesn't entirely reach his eyes. "Then you're hired, Evans." His gaze drops to his hands, which he twists anxiously before plunging one into his hair, where it rakes through the wavy strands. "We were popular in secondary," he starts. "Sirius and I come from wealthy families—"

"Who's his?"

"He's a Black."

Lily scoffs. "Wealthy? Try fucking titled."

James waves her off. "Which he hates. He's practically disowned anyway. Point is, we were popular, Snape wasn't, we were spoiled gits for awhile, and we bullied him a little bit."

Lily's eyes narrow as she watches him, and when James looks up at her, it's with a resigned sadness on his face. "I'm not proud of it," he tells her. "I wish I could take it back. But it's the truth."

"Kids can be ruthless," Lily says diplomatically.

James nods slowly. "Yeah. And we were. Not that he didn't provoke us, mind, because he did. It wasn't like he was this helpless weakling, we weren't that evil. Snape was slimy. He played dirty, and it turned into a sort of war between us. But…"

Lily instantly prompts, "But?"

James hangs his head. "We took it way too far. Our boarding school was on the coast, and we went exploring off grounds all the time, we knew that place backwards and forwards. Snape was always trying to tattle on us and get us in trouble, so we thought we'd teach him a lesson about nosing around in our business and made up a story about finding treasure in this cave nearby. God, we thought it was such a laugh. We let him overhear enough to get him to follow us in, and then we snuck out so he'd be trapped in there. At least for a few hours, then we were going to find him again and corner him about following us. He was never very, er, athletic, you know? But…we'd lost track of time."

"The tides," she whispers, second-hand anxiety spiking in her stomach.

He drags a hand over his face. "Yeah."

Lily takes a step closer to him, enraptured. "So…what happened?"

James meets her eyes, voice hollow as he answers, "I went back for him."

Her mouth falls . "You—"

His jaw clenches. "Went back into a cave filling up with water to get him out, yes."

"But—"

"Remus and Peter went back to the school to get proper help, and Sirius stayed to help me. We made a chain of our trousers and shirts so he could lead me back, and luckily Snape was close enough to the entrance, trying to find his way out, that I didn't have to go in too far. But he…" James wrings his hands again, and Lily waits. "He couldn't swim very well, and the water was so cold, he was already getting hypothermic. Much longer, and he would've drowned."

Silence blankets the room before Lily exhales a long breath. "You saved his life."

James only nods.

Lily swallows hard, taking in the remorse etching his face. "He resents you."

He nods again. "And he hates that I'm a doctor."

She's not sure what makes her pry, but she finds herself asking, "Is that why you became one?"

James answers her question with a readiness that reveals just how much he's already reflected on that question. "Not entirely, no. I'd always thought about it, because I was a natural at science, good at problem-solving, good at performing under pressure. And our initial meeting today notwithstanding, I like to think I'm generally good with people."

He flashes her a wry smile at that, which Lily returns.

"But," he returns to solemnity, 'I can't pretend that day didn't change my life, because it absolutely did. That was the day I grew up. A lot of things got put in perspective for me after that."

Unthinkingly, Lily rests a hand on his shoulder and sits next to him. "I can tell."

He looks sideways at her with troubled eyes. "Sleekeazy sued MegaMalfoy for patent infringement and conversion of a trade secret, and now they're trying to twist it all into a narrative of Sleekeazy being bullies."

"Which sounds like slander—"

"Is it? When we both know what's true?"

She's suddenly indignant on his behalf. "But that's not relevant at all, that was, what, more than a decade ago?"

"Yeah, well, that's not exactly stopping them from trying. And if Pete's gone over to their side, who knows what all he's told them about conversations we've had since then and all the other petty shit that went on at school involving Snape."

That was still a piece of the puzzle Lily didn't understand. "Why did Peter leave?"

James shrugs, face looking more forlorn than it had all through his retelling. "I still don't understand that. The official line is that they offered him a lot more money and better benefits to go to Malfoy's, but who knows what sorts of ear worms they've been planting. Pete, he…he always struggled the most of us, like with keeping up, you know? And he never had the strongest backbone, but after so many years, I never imagined he'd…"

Lily squeezes his shoulder, and they sit in companionable silence for several moments.

"So," James eventually breaks it with a weak chuckle, "still interested in that first date?"

"Honestly? I'm even more interested now."

He blinks at her in surprise. "Really?"

"Oh, yes," she assures him. "It's just like Riddle to do this, and I already have some ideas for how we could approach it…"

She chews her lip, looking absently at the ancient relic of a television on the antique dresser, but then the realization of where they are abruptly knocks her back to her senses, and she pulls her hand from his shoulder as she banters, "But I'll let my boss explain them to your dad on our date."

James laughs genuinely at that. "Fair."

When she turns her head sideways to look at him, it's to see those hazel eyes already appraising her with a soft expression on his face, and this time, that dimpled little smile does make her heart flutter. Of their own volition, her eyes drop to his lips—pink, slightly parted—and then back up to his eyes, only she finds herself looking at his eyelids, because his eyes are on her lips.

Oh no. No, no, no. (But also: yes, please yes.) No. She shouldn't be thinking about kissing him. But hell does she want to. But it would be beyond inappropriate. But no way would it not be good. Right? She should just lean forward a little bit more and find out. But what if Minerva found out.

It is this thought that jolts her back to reality and onto her feet, sucking in a sudden breath as she tucks invisible hair behind her ear.

"Dinner?" She cringes a little at the faux peppiness she hears in her voice.

James clears his throat. "Dinner."

She grabs her charged phone on the way out and then begins her descent downstairs with his footsteps behind her.

The dining room is a bustling place, as if people hibernating in their rooms had all decided to pack in for a meal at the same time, and the only open seats Lily spies are a couple of barstools tucked against the wall by the bar. She beelines, but before she reaches them, a woman with coifed platinum hair and hot pink cat-eye spectacles inserts herself directly into Lily's personal space.

"Oh, sor—" Lily starts to apologize like the overly polite Brit she is, but the woman cuts her off with a megawatt smile, sticking her hand in the narrow space between them as she says, "James, what a surprise—"

"Rita." There's a bite to his voice, and as soon as he says it, Lily knows exactly who this woman is and where this interview is going—and she's damned either way.

"—and you must be his girlfriend, Miss…"

"Oh," James quickly starts, "she's n—"

"Evans." Lily clasps the woman's hand and gives her a professional smile. "Lily Evans. It's nice to meet you, Ms…?"

The woman preens. "Call me Rita, darling. I write for the Daily Prophet."

It takes every fiber of her body to choke out, "How…wonderful."

Rita relinquishes her hand, though one of her taloned fingers scratches Lily's palm on its way out. "I've been covering the Sleekeazy trial," Rita gabs, and Lily forces her face to stay impassive, as if she hadn't subconsciously noted every Rita Skeeter byline in the stories turning rote corporate dealings into society fodder. "So Jamesie here and I have gotten to know each other quite well. I must say, James"—here she turns her gaze on him over Lily's shoulder for the first time, a gluttonous grin on her face—"I had no idea you had a girlfriend—"

"I d—"

"We've very private," Lily practically shouts over him. "I'm sure you can understand."

Rita looks downright gleeful. "All the better for an exclusive—do you live together? Perhaps a home tour? How did you two meet?"

Lily surreptitiously steps one foot backwards onto James's shoe while simpering at Rita. "Like I said, we're very private."

Rita's relentless—"I've never gotten so much as a whiff of you before. Are you visiting? Is that why you're here at the inn?"—and for the first time, true anger starts to simmer in her blood.

A hand presses into her back—not hard like a warning, but soft, like a reaffirming presence. James. She's doing this for James, the man she just met, judged, and then, if she's being technical about it, engaged. But that's not the reason for the instinctive protectiveness that rises up within her at the threat of this reporter. (She'd rather not dwell on the real reason, or even name at all, though she suspects it has to do with that dimpled smile and unfairly good hair and heart-felt confession he'd just made. If she were to think about it. Which she's not. Because she needs to stop.)

"It's the holidays," Lily answers evenly. "We just got stuck in the storm like I suspect most guests here did."

"So you're doing holidays together?"

For the love of god.

Maybe it's the doctor in him, but James must somehow sense her boiling impatience, because he steps forward, arm still braced gently around Lily like a picture of domesticity, and teases, "Aw, c'mon, Rita, you know I like to let you come up with the answers yourself."

It's a stinging dig if Lily ever heard one, and she sees the woman bristle for a fleeting second before she arranges her face back into composure. "Well, I'll be around if you fancy a chat. Not like any of us are going anywhere anytime soon, hmm?"

And with that, she slips away into the bustling room.

James's fingers tighten on her back. "Back corner," he mumbles, and Lily lets him steer her through the squished tables and to the stools still miraculously open at the end of the bar.

She wriggles onto her seat, and as James slides in beside her, he hisses, "What the hell are you playing at, Evans?"

With a quick check around her shoulder—plenty of people nearby, but hopefully the loud chatter of the room would keep eavesdroppers at bay—she grits back, "We were screwed either way the moment she saw us, so I took the lesser of two evils."

He frowns. "What does that mean?"

Lily leans closer and explains in a hushed voice, "It's an ethical violation to sleep with a client unless the sexual relationship preceded representation."

A far-too-smug grin splits his mouth, the tosser. "Planning on sleeping with me, Evans?"

"Shut up," she scolds, though a hint of arousal makes her squirm slightly in her seat. Her neck promptly flushes. "It's about optics."

She hasn't even noticed that he's flagged Rosie until two drinks manifest in front of them and he raises an inquisitive brow over his bottle of ale.

After a fortifying sip of her cocktail, Lily elaborates. "We've been seen—possibly already photographed, knowing Skeeter—and we're booked into the same room. You really don't think all that would hit the tabloids if and when you lot switch counsel?"

His eyes flutter closed with an understanding groan. "Fuck."

"Yeah. And the press'll have a heyday either way, but if that all plays out, it actually looks better to a court to be dating first than it does to deny it while the evidence makes it looks like you've been sneaking around, which is exactly what it would look like. I'm not letting Riddle have that narrative. If we're going to be written about for this…mess, then we're going to look innocently lovesick, not sleazy."

The corner of his mouth quirks, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "So…we're dating?"

Lily throws him an admonishing look. "Down, Don"—he laughs—"Optics, remember? If the news cycle requires it, this is a date, and we have my statements to Rita to prove it."

"So…we're lying?"

An uncomfortable feeling gnaws at her chest, twisting her stomach. Though she's always considered herself a principled person, her profession had taught her how to be a master manipulator of truth. Not to lie, necessarily, but rather to make the facts in front of her work in her favor. She tells him this, trying to explain herself, and he only smiles. "That's where our professions differ, Evans. See, I deal with facts in front of me too, but I don't wish them, or speak them, into something they're not. I can't, or someone will die."

She gapes. "I've…never thought of it like that before."

He'd been leaning back against the wall behind him, but now he tilts forward, bracing one elbow against the bar as he cups his other hand around her arm. "Rita's watching," he whispers, "but since I'm an earnest bloke, for better for worse, how about we make this a real date?"

Her heart skitters, blood throbbing where his touch burns through thin cashmere. "A real date?"

"Yeah." His hand drops away, but his gaze stays glued to hers. "I've already been thinking about how to ask you out—"

She splutters. "What?"

James laughs—"You're sexy as fuck"—then pushes her his cocktail napkin—"when you're not spitting up all over yourself, anyway."

Her face is on fucking fire. He must see the daggers she's shooting at him with her eyes, because he drops a hand to the top of her thigh and jostles lightly. "I'm taking the mick, Evans. But for real, when I was down here earlier by myself, I was thinking about how to ask you out." Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "Among other things."

He—but—what?

"Other things," she repeats dumbly.

His eyes catch hers, and he smirks. "You gonna tell me you haven't thought about it?"

"I—well—" He's looking at her like he sees right through her, and maybe he is. Maybe he's a magical being who can read minds and see the flurry of fantasies passing through her brain that all seem to involve his mouth and their bedroom upstairs. Maybe that's why he's still smirking at her.

Unbidden, her best friend Mary's voice speaks up like a little devil on one shoulder, chastising her for having a delectable specimen of a man flirting with her, hell, staying in the same room as her, and not taking the opportunity to sample a piece of what was being handed to her on a platter.

Ah, hell. Two gins in and Mary's always right.

"Yeah," she admits, flicking her eyes (deliberately this time) down to his mouth and back. "I've thought about it."

A throat clears, making Lily jump in her seat, but it's only Rosie, standing on the other side of the bar with a pen poised over a small notepad. "What would ya like for food? We've got…"

Lily half-listens as Rosie prattles through the short menu, mind still preoccupied with hazel eyes behind stylish tortoiseshell spectacles and the new knowledge that, behind that stoic face and guarded demeanor, he'd been thinking romantic thoughts about her.

"And for you, love?"

"Uh." Rosie and James are both looking at her expectantly. Shit. "I'll have the same."

She feels caught, heat prickling at her neck, but this must have been a perfectly normal thing to say, because Rosie just jots a scribble on her notepad and rushes off with a smile.

"So," James breaks the silence with a cheeky grin, "are we en route to your family or mine?"

"Shit!" Lily hisses, scrabbling for her phone. "I forgot to text my mum, they'll be expecting me by now."

He pulls his own mobile from his coat pocket. "I should text my people too."

She arches a brow at him. "Your people?"

"Mum, Dad, and best friend," he answers as he thumbs rapidly at his screen. "I keep a tight circle, Evans."

"So do I." She taps a message to her mum—Had to stop at an inn bc of snow. Safe and sound. Cell service is poor. Will update when I can, xo—and watches the bar signaling its delivery creep forward. "Parents, best friend. I have a sister, but we don't talk much."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we're too different, plus she married a complete ponce—"

"Like, what kind of ponce?"

"Like, he supported Brexit because he was a fan of Trump and thought we should take a page out of America's book, and he had no concept whatsoever of all the layers of irony in that."

James sounds aghast as he mumbles, "Jesus."

"He's a drill salesman," Lily blabs on idly, eyes still locked on the painstakingly slow progress of her message, "and they're pregnant with a boy and his name's already down for some boarding school that requires a stick as part of the uniform so the boys all learn how to hit each other and assert dominance."

There's an odd, spluttering choking sound, followed by, "Christ." Then, a few beats later, "He must be awful at sex."

It's simultaneously the absolute last type of thing Lily expected him to say and the funniest thing she's ever heard, and before she knows it, she's cracking up in the utterly unattractive way, with tears leaking out of her eyes and wheezing sounds coming out of her mouth. "If you—knew them—ah fuck—"

Picturing Petunia and Vernon engaging in the marital act (as Petunia so primly refers to it) was not something Lily had ever wanted to do, but just then, on her second gin and snowed in at a bar with a goat bleating behind the counter (again), it was the entertainment she'd never known she'd needed.

And just like that, she forgets about all the car drama surrounding their initial meeting and also forgets all the lawsuit drama taking up the time that had passed since, and without even realizing she's doing it, she settles into the best first date she's had in months, or perhaps her life. Over the twin burgers, mash, and veg he'd ordered (which is hands down one of the most delicious meals she's ever eaten—surely there are old house elves of lore in that kitchen), they rib on Petunia and Vernon, laugh so hard they both cry, and cover vast ground in discussing their families and best friends, complete with tales of all sorts of embarrassing moments and university shenanigans gone wrong.

By the time Rosie takes her clean plate away and sets her third gin in front of her, Lily knows James has had two serious girlfriends, one of whom his mother hated and one she was more "okay" with, but that he hasn't dated much in recent years because his experience has been that women like his accolades but haven't reacted well to the amount of time he dedicates to his work because of them. She empathizes, having had the same experience with men.

She knows he considers his technically titled best friend Sirius his brother, and that they live together in a posh flat in London. She knows their other best friend, Remus, lives with his model girlfriend, Dora, who actually wears wigs for most photoshoots she does because she prefers her real hair to be colorful. It's currently lavender, though James was personally a fan of the pinkish red she'd had for awhile. He blushes at that admission, then blushes even harder when Lily teasingly observes that he must have a thing for redheads.

Somehow this transitions to Lindsay Lohan. James confesses he once could quote Mean Girls in its entirety, so Lily reveals her childhood obsession with The Parent Trap, then spills her longtime conviction that L.O.V.E. will be her first dance song if she ever gets married. James agrees, though a debate ensues over whether it should be Michael Bublé's or Frank Sinatra's rendition. They don't reach a decision, but instead move on to discussing Dennis Quaid's filmography.

They're reminiscing on scenes from Yours, Mine and Ours when the power goes out, and before her eyes can adjust to the darkness, a lofty voice she hasn't heard in a few hours bellows, "The eclipse is upon us! Everyone stay calm!"

James snorts loudly beside her, but the rising panicked voices of the other patrons in the room quickly drown out the batty landlady's astrological announcements.

Lily's too tipsy to participate in the pandemonium that follows, so she simply sits back and observes it unfold, and to her surprise, James does the same, apparently feeling no inclination to insert himself into the fray. There is shouting about radiators, candles are procured, and the goat man from the kitchens produces an old-looking battery-operated radio that he begins fiddling with at the bar. Though all that is coming out of the radio is static, he turns up the volume to full-blast. Lily scowls at him (though he can't see), but when more and more fidgety patrons begin leaving the dining room with their rationed candles, she can't help but admire his gumption.

For those still in the dining room, the air's panic dissipates into acceptance. Lily checks her phone and sees James doing the same.

"Messages go through?" she asks.

"Yeah, you?"

Relief floods her when she sees that not only did her text send, but that her mum texted back. "Yeah, it did."

The radio crackles, a garbled voice coming through about blizzard conditions. Lily strains her ears to listen, but the radio doesn't tell her anything she can't already surmise from the fact that they're sitting in an inn without power while howling wind rattles the windows.

She's feeling rather blithe about it all until the chill starts to creep in. Then, she sobers—and she worries. "What do you think the temperature is outside?" she asks James.

He sounds calm. "Oh, well below freezing."

"And…inside?"

His pause makes her stomach twist. "Cold," he eventually says. She's not assured.

"C'mon," he prompts, sliding off his barstool. "It'll be warmer upstairs."

He grabs her hand, his grip warm and engulfing, and they make their bumbling way up the creaky staircases and to their room.

"So," Lily says, setting the candle and matches they'd taken on the dresser.

Behind her, there's the rustle of bedding being pulled back. "So," he repeats. Footsteps pad over the floor, she turns, and then he's right in front of her. They had left the drapes open, and the faintest of moonlight falls over the room through the storm outside.

He swallows. "I, uh. I know earlier I said I'd take a couch"—her eyebrow lifts—"and I still can, if you want, but…"

"But?"

His smile is sheepish as he runs a hand through his hair, and she thinks he's bloody adorable. "Well, it'd be better for us to cuddle. Er, medically."

She smirks at him. "Is that the medical term? Cuddle?"

He chuckles, hand now rubbing the back of his neck. If Lily didn't know any better, she'd think he was nervous. "Not exactly," he admits. "But I suppose huddle for warmth is really the same effect."

Lily nods, crossing her arms over her chest tightly in a subconscious bid to lock in the little heat she has, but she tries to keep the lightness between them as she teases, "Like I'd let you leave when you're a built-in human furnace."

He pats her arm and smiles. "Smart girl."

Lily rolls her eyes, but then he's saying, "Put your coat back on. And do you have any warmer clothes in your bag?"

She does as instructed, shrugging into her now-dry wool peacoat, and shakes her head. "Mum always buys Christmas pyjamas, and I have old sweats at the house, so I didn't pack much."

James, for his part, doesn't seem to have anything with him besides the clothes on his person and few personal possessions in his pockets, which he empties onto the dresser. He then fills the small glasses from the en suite with water, sets them on the bedside tables, and climbs into the bed with shoes and coat still on.

Getting into bed with him is the most bizarrely pragmatic sexual-adjacent experience Lily thinks she's ever had, and if she hadn't already been jaded by the sequence of baffling events that had led them to that point, she might have been freaking out about it all a bit more. But whatever tension had been simmering between them seems to have been doused with cold water along with the fallen power lines, making their survival instincts override their previous carefree flirtation. James beckons her against him, tucking her snugly under his arm while he insulates them tightly with the bedding, and Lily simply thanks her lucky stars that she's had the good fortune of a buddy to endure all the blizzard's drama with.

He smells crisp and just slightly spicy, like his cologne had a hint of pine, and Lily nuzzles into the soft wool fabric covering his chest. "Bet you didn't think we'd end up like this when you walked into the inn this afternoon," she mumbles.

His chuckle rumbles under her ear. "Definitely not. Though I can't say I mind how this worked out."

Lily only hums, eyes starting to feel heavy. But after what feels like several minutes of howling wind and James's steady breathing, she's compelled to admit, "I'm scared to fall asleep."

"Why?"

"Because you're not supposed to fall asleep in the cold, right?"

He gives her a squeeze. "If we were outside, you'd be right," he says softly, "but we're protected enough here." She swears she feels the faintest brush of lips against the top of her head. "You can sleep, Lily."

She does.

Distant shouting rouses her awake, and she blinks, disoriented.

"We need a doctor—"

"Is there a doctor?"

"IS ANYONE A DOCTOR?"

A sharp inhale above her tells her James is now awake, and before she can get a single word out, he's bolting from the bed and striding from the room, shouting back, "I am, I'm a doctor!" as his footsteps pound down the corridor.

Adrenaline spikes in her body, and Lily launches herself after him, stuffing her phone in her pocket out of habit and stumbling down the hall and into the growing commotion at the foot of the stairs.

"Alright," James is saying loudly, "I'll need four or five of you to help me. If you're sober enough and have a strong stomach, let's go—no, you stay and warm up, mate."

There's shuffling and voices as a handful of men push through the front door, letting a gust of snow blow inside, but then just as abruptly, it all settles.

A sniffling sound draws her eye to a boy with flaming red hair who can't be more than thirteen. The batty landlady's patting him on the shoulder, he's shaking like a leaf, and though Lily has very little experience with children, she instinctively rushes to him, bending slightly at the knees to be able to look him in the eyes.

"Let's get you warmed up, hmm?"

He nods, swallowing hard, eyes swimming in tears. The landlady makes a nondescript noise and wanders away, as if Lily has relieved her of some unpleasant task, but Lily ignores her and focuses on ushering the boy into the dining room, where a handful of people have gone back to raucously drinking and Rosie, mercifully, is still behind the bar filling pints for them.

"D'you have any tea, Rosie?"

The barmaid's eyes fall on the boy by Lily, and her whole expression softens. "Of course I do. You sit here and get warm, your dad'll be back in a jiffy, you'll see."

He maneuvers himself onto a stool, and Lily takes a seat next to him as she asks as gently as she can, "Can you tell me what's happened?"

His sentences come out halting, both from his chattering teeth and his suppressed tears, but as Rosie comes back with a steaming mug and a blanket that she drapes around his shoulders, his words begin to string themselves together more smoothly. His name is Billy, and he and his brother Charlie had been in the nearby town running errands with their dad when they'd gotten caught in the snowstorm. They don't live far, so they were trying to make it back. They had to go really slow as the weather worsened, and they even stopped and sat in the truck for awhile, not able to see very well through the blowing snow. But then when the power went out, they could make out "the lights," which Lily figured must have been all the candles being lit in the inn. They tried to drive a little further on, and they made a small amount of progress until their truck got stuck. Their options had been to stay in the truck or to make for the lights. They'd gotten about half-way when his dad slipped and fell. He was conscious, but he was in pain and couldn't get up, so Billy, following his dad's instructions, took his little brother Charlie back to the truck, leaving him inside before running to the lights for help.

When he's done, Lily realizes her own tears are trickling down her cheeks, and she squeezes his shoulder as she tells him, "Billy, you were so brave. And my friend James is brave too, and he's going to help your dad and Charlie, okay?"

He sniffles. "Okay."

They sit in silence for awhile after that. Lily tries not to watch the door, tries not to show the anxiety swirling in her chest. The wind howls, spraying snow against the windows, and she thinks, James is out there—in a bloody peacoat, but she wills herself to stay calm, repeats like a mantra the words he'd told her only hours before. He's good at problem-solving, good at performing under pressure. He works for St. Mungo's, where he's no doubt encountered all sorts of emergency situations before. But that's in a well-lit, high-tech hospital, she thinks. Then she scolds herself. He swam into a cave with rising water levels when he was a teenager. He's probably done loads of other crazy stuff she doesn't know about—

The bang of the front door bursting open draws her attention, and she jumps to her feet, heart racing in her chest as footsteps crash down the hall and stop in one of the sitting rooms beyond. Her legs carry her without thinking, and then suddenly she sees him—James—covered in snow, cheeks red, and kneeling by a sofa where a man is being gingerly laid. It takes her a moment to register that she also hears him, giving orders to the gathering crowd around him.

"…I need whatever first aid kits you have. Rosie, get hot water going. Abe, we need blankets. If anyone has spare clothes, we need three sets now. Adult male size large and boys age ten to thirteen. You lads that helped me, go change and then get warm. No one's getting hypothermia on my watch, but these two are close, so we need to move."

He's in total command, multitasking as he starts to strip the man on the sofa as he talks, and everyone around him bustles to his instructions. Lily only fleetingly notices that the man from the kitchen—Abe—is carrying a bundle that turns out to be little Charlie before he's turned over to a couple of women who had materialized without her noticing. They must be mothers, because they immediately take charge of Charlie and Billy, ushering them aside to help them change into the spare clothes they'd already managed to collect. Lily watches it all unfold like it's happening in slow motion, suddenly feeling both mortified and utterly stupid that she hadn't thought to get Billy out of his wet clothes the whole time she'd been sitting with him.

"Lily!"

She starts at the sound of James's voice, but the sight of his gaze, focused and controlled, forces her to rise to his level of calm—or at least try. "What can I do?"

"I need light, do you have your phone?"

"Yes." Her fingers fumble trying to pull it from her pocket, then tremble as she tries to thumb on its flashlight.

A hand like ice closes around her wrist. "Hey." His voice is gentle. "Breathe—"

"Is he—"

James shushes her. "Facts in front of us, remember? I need you to hold the light for me so I can figure out what I'm working with."

Her nod is frantic, her "Okay," breathless, and as he turns away to give his attention back to the man on the sofa—red hair as vibrant as his sons', face pale, eyes closed but scrunched in a grimace—Lily focuses all of her attention on helping James by holding her phone-turned-flashlight as steady as possible. His fingers move quickly over the man, prodding gently at throat, neck, and head with softly spoken questions like he's methodically working his way through a top-down list, and yet he still manages to ask her quietly, "Are you breathing yet, Lily?"

It actually makes her chuckle, and James shoots her a quick little smile as she lets out an embarrassingly loud exhale.

Everything moves quickly after that. Her panic dissipates into controlled focus on her task, the room around them quiet as those who stayed to help or watch remain silent, awaiting any instruction that may come. A few add their own phone flashlights to the mix, and once it becomes clear that the man's two areas of pain are his low back and his right shoulder, James has Rosie hold warmed hands over the man's ears and Abe begin gently cutting away the wet, icy clothes that they were unable to completely maneuver off him due to his injuries. James lays a blanket over the man's lower body, ostensibly for modesty and for warmth, then begins the process of removing the frozen jeans underneath and doing as much of a physical exam of the man's spine as he can to determine a probable source of pain.

"Alright, Arthur," James says, narrating his progress. "Your neck is stable, you can move your fingers and toes, your knees are fine, and it doesn't look like you have any broken bones or torn ligaments. Your shoulder's dislocated, so I'll pop that back in, and then I think, based on how you said you landed, that you probably bruised your tailbone, but we'll keep you stable here all the same and call a car to have you get that scanned as soon as roads clear enough, alright?"

The man holds in a laugh, still slightly wincing in pain. "Call a car, eh? Do I get a limo for this?"

Polite chuckles break out around them. "Nah," James smiles, "you'll get an ambulance, I just like to say car so people don't freak out as much. Turns out thinking of ambulances with sirens usually spikes anxiety."

Arthur grimaces. "You got that right. And my boys?"

"Both just fine," Rosie soothes. "They're with some mums in the dining room, just waiting to see their dad."

"Alright, people," James announces as he maneuvers around Arthur. "If being in an operating room wouldn't be your thing, close your eyes—I don't need anyone else passing out on me just from trying to be macho. Arthur, this is gonna hurt like a bitch, but then you're shoulder'll be fixed, yeah?"

Lily squints her eyes shut; she's seen some gruesome photographs in her days at the office, but she doesn't know if she's up for watching real-life limb manipulation and isn't about to test that now. James grunts with effort, but if there's a noise from the shoulder, it's drowned by Arthur's scream of pain—and then it's over.

Scattered applause rings out as Arthur sighs back onto his pillow, but James is still moving, wrapping a small throw around Arthur's upper body like a sling to hold his arm in place.

"Do you have a phone?" James is asking. "Anyone we should call?"

"My wife," Arthur croaks. "Molly. But my phone…I don't know."

James glances up at Lily as he says, "That's alright, what's her number?"

She taps as Arthur recites, then hands him the ringing phone. A woman answers almost immediately with a frantic and booming, "Hello?"

"Molly!" Arthur bellows.

"Oh, Arthur! Good heavens, I've been worried sick, where are you? Are you alright?"

"Oh, just—had a little trouble, is all…"

James beckons at Rosie, and she ushers the two red-headed boys into the room, who crowd around their dad with beaming smiles as they hear their mum's voice on the phone. The story comes out in stops and starts, the crowd dissipating to leave the family to their reunion, and it's then that Lily notices James: pale, drawn—and shivering.

"Hey." She grabs his arm: wet, cold. Shit. "You okay?"

"Y-yeah." His teeth clatter, and the gravity of what's happened hits her fully: while everyone else who'd been out in the snow had been promptly changed into dry clothes and wrapped in a blanket, James hadn't. He's still wearing the same clothes he'd had on when he'd gone out into that snowstorm, the same clothes that had been soaked through when he'd returned. She'd felt his skin, cold as ice, when he'd grabbed her wrist earlier, and being in the powerless building had done little to warm him. Hell, Lily's still wearing her winter coat and has been completely dry this whole time, and she's still chilled from the bitterly cold air seeping through the inn's windows and walls.

"Come on." Lily pulls him toward the stairs. "You took care of them, now we need to take care of you."

"But—"

Abe appears in the doorway holding a stack of linens. "No, she's right, laddie," he says gruffly. "You've done your piece, now I'll get beds made up down here for the boys. Go, before you're the one who freezes to death."

She can sense his reluctance, but James nonetheless follows her, limbs moving more slowly and heavily the closer they get to their room, like all the adrenaline that had carried him through tending to Arthur was rapidly dissolving.

"Off," she admonishes, shoving him through the doorway and pulling his coat off his shoulders. He's shaking, teeth clattering, hands trembling as he fumbles at the buttons of his shirt. Lily swiftly shuts and locks the door, then goes to him, reaching for his belt buckle.

"This i-isn't—q-quite how I—"

She chuckles. "Don't say, how you thought I'd be getting your pants off."

He manages a weak laugh right before she tugs down trousers and boxers in one fell swoop, determinedly keeping her eyes on his torso as she takes over undoing his shirt buttons while he steps out of his bottoms and then balances on one foot at a time to remove shoes and socks. His shirt comes off last, and he's trembling even harder than before as all of his naked, wet skin is exposed to the frigid air.

Lily acts on instinct, immediately stripping off her coat and cashmere jumper.

"Lily, what—"

But he cuts off as she presses her front to his, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Body heat," she mumbles against his chest, feeling goosebumps rise up her own skin as she absorbs the iciness of his. "I watched The Day After Tomorrow when I was in uni, you know. Several times."

His breath is hot against her head as he chuckles, and the rumbling sound from his chest makes her insides flutter. "Just can't get enough Dennis, can you?"

"Never," she jokes back, "he's a DILF."

"You know, I always t-thought Jake G-Gyllenhaal was onto s-something." He might joke, but strain coats his voice and his body is still shivering.

She mumbles, "Could use that scarf he has right about now."

"What?"

Lily shakes her head; she just wants to keep him talking. "Nothing. Too convoluted to explain. What was Jake onto?"

His arms wrap more securely around her back, one hand curling around her waist, and his lips somehow find her ear. "Be in just enough mortal peril that the pretty girl wants to take care of you."

Despite herself, Lily smiles into his chest. "You're a prat, you know that?"

She hears him smile back. "And you're saving my life, you know that?"

Those words tug her heartstrings more than she'd like—more than she'd expected, if she's being honest—so she scolds, "Cut that out."

"What?"

"You know what."

"Being sentimental?"

She tries to swallow, but saliva sticks in her throat.

James goes on, "Because E-Emmy Rossum was r-right, you know."

Lily latches to the only thing she can poke fun of. "You remember The Day After Tomorrow?"

"Uh, yeah, Emmy's—a babe."

She only harrumphs into his chest and tries to deflect with, "What was she right about?"

James rubs his hands around her back, and it makes her shiver lightly against him. "Not rushing b-blood back to the h-heart too quickly."

Somewhere in this process, her brain switched to off, because she immediately teases, "No, I think it's rushed somewhere else."

He laughs softly, but to her surprise, he doesn't make any effort to pull away or otherwise prevent his now-obvious erection from pressing into her lower stomach. Lily isn't sure what to think about this, has no idea how to react to such blatant desire in such abnormal circumstances, but before she can search for an on switch that might help matters, he says quietly, "You're c-cuddling me in a s-sexy-as-fuck skirt and a—bra, Evans."

Right. "For rescuing," she justifies.

His voice sounds a little more normal as he teases, "Just want to w-warm me up, huh?"

"Mmm." She doesn't dare look up at him, or she might do something absurd, like snog the daylights out of him. "Cuddling is the way to do that."

His mouth finds her ear again, voice so low it lights fresh goosebumps on her neck. "Or we could fuck."

Air leaves her lungs. "What?"

"To warm up." The git's smiling; she can bloody hear it. "Cuddling to s-share body heat's good, but some, ah, blood flow is—even better."

"Is that right?"

His lips brush against the side of her forehead, sending tingles zipping through her body and exceedingly impure thoughts rushing through her brain. "But only if you were—so inclined to rescue your poor—frozen date, of course."

Seriously, the audacity of him. He can barely speak for shivering, and yet he still manages to seduce her? Lily pulls her head off his chest, needing to properly suck in a huff of air to come up with something cheeky to say, but his face is too close, his forehead is catching hers, his eyes are glittering in the low moonlight of the room, and the only words that tumble out are, "Shut the fuck up," before she pushes up onto her tiptoes and kisses him.

Heat erupts in her body and it's the strangest sensation, feeling lips cold as ice alongside tongue hot as fire, but she gives into it utterly, tugging his head down with fingers twining in his damp hair, ignoring the press of his spectacles into her cheek, smushing her body against his until she swears they're touching entirely from chest to knee.

James holds her tightly, hands running around her waist, up her back, and before she can help it, her foot pops behind her and she laughs into his mouth.

"What?" he gasps.

"I feel"—she kisses him softly—"like I'm living a rom-com"—another—"that's about to"—another—"turn into a porno."

His lips break into a smile, resulting in her inadvertently kissing his teeth, and they laugh together before he recaptures her mouth with his. This time, they kiss slower, less of a passionate outpouring and more of a tantalizing exploration, and Lily slips her fingers from his hair to drift along his muscled arms, down his chest, and then finally to the arousal still pressing solidly into her stomach.

He's thick in her hand, and Lily sighs into his mouth as she strokes him, relishing the groans her touch elicits from the back of his throat. But when they break for air, he suddenly sighs, forehead dropping against hers, as he tells her, "I don't have a condom with me."

Just then, she doesn't care one bit. "I'm on the pill. If you're okay with that."

He pulls back just enough to look at her. "Are you okay with that?"

Her eyes dart between his, hand unmoving but still wrapped around his cock. "Yeah. Obviously, or I wouldn't have offered."

A little furrow appears in his brow along with the little waver of confidence in his voice. "Even though we just met?"

She wraps an elbow tightly around his neck, pressing closer until they're nose-to-nose. "Oh, you mean a lifetime ago?"

His face softens.

"I trust you," she tells him in a whisper. "And I like you. And I think we've already covered enough ground to equal the requisite three dates, don't you?"

He grins, slow and sparkling. "I like you too, Lily"—a peck to her lips—"a whole fucking lot."

Then he kisses her again, deeper this time, and though he doesn't outright answer her question, he unhooks her bra and unzips the side of her skirt so fast Lily thinks it's safe to assume he agrees.

Though he's warmed up considerably, it's still freezing, and now she's shivering too, so they take off the rest of Lily's clothes quickly and scurry into the bed, where she pulls the covers up over her shoulders as she straddles him.

"Is this too much?" she asks, meaning the heat.

"You're not too much for me, Lily," he answers, swiping his thumb across her cheek. "You're perfect, actually."

Her skin flushes, stomach fluttering, as she bites her lip and admits, "I, um, I meant all the heat. If coming in here would be, you know. Too much, too soon kind of thing."

He squints his eyes shut in an embarrassed grimace. "Right."

"But I suppose that applies to…well."

Palms cup her breasts; eyes reopen. "I'm out of the danger zone," he tells her quietly. "And I mean it. You—this—it's not too much. It feels…"

His breath trails with the rise and fall of his chest, the only betrayal of whatever nerves stir underneath his surface, and Lily feels like the affection she's gradually garnered for him in the hours since he literally crashed into her life is multiplying into something too big to contain. He's snarky and funny and brave and kind and just an absolute dreamboat of a man, and now that they're able to slow down for longer than five seconds, she thinks she might have skipped a few steps and fallen in love with him.

Because she is suddenly a sap she doesn't recognize, she suggests the first word that comes to her brain with the merest hint of sing-song in her voice. "Extra-ordinary?"

His fingers squeeze, smile too big for his face as he groans, "Get fucking on me."

For all their blazing kisses earlier when they were upright, they're sensual under the covers. Time has passed strangely ever since the power went out, and even now, as she rides him with deliberate rolls of her hips, she has no concept of the world outside their little bedroom fort. It could be midnight or five in the morning, and she wouldn't be the wiser. Snow blows against the window in whispering hushes, bedsprings let out little squeaks that she tries to minimize for the sake of whoever's sharing a wall, and James's hands map her skin, mouth lavishing one breast and then the other, as she leans over him with muffled moans.

At some point, his hands still her hips, and he breaks away from his long attachment to her mouth enough to whisper, "Here, take a break, let me give it to you."

Her eyes flutter closed with a whimper, and then he's thrusting up into her with quick little strokes that practically take her to another plane of existence. "Oh my god," she mumbles by his ear. "James, that's—"

But instead of a word, a moan falls from her lips as his mouth latches back onto one breast. "Fuck," she hisses. "Oh, fuck."

His hands wander along the dip of her back, squeeze palmfuls of her arse, and all the while, he fucks her with steady little movements at an angle that is simply divine.

She pants in his ear, "You're gonna—make me come."

Lips wetly detach from her skin only to brush along her neck. "Let me feel you," he murmurs.

"James." Her hips start to grind in time with his thrusts, and they find the kind of rhythm that begets ruin.

He reaches for her face, brushing errant hair out of her eyes and cradling her jaw. "Get it, baby," he coaxes, "come for me." Lily's insides turn to mush at the sound of that word—baby—spoken in that soft, gravelly voice, and all she can manage to say back is his name, over and over again, first like a plea and then like euphoria, as they both chase her to the edge and he tips her over.

James swears, soft little things, and pushes further into her, mumbling sweet little nothings like, "So fucking beautiful," and, "God, you feel perfect." One of his hands slides down her back and to her arse, pulling her tighter against him as his hips take over more fully. "Shit, Lily."

She's beyond words, beyond thought, the sensation of him filling her almost more than she can bear, and so she answers him with a whimpering moan.

"I'm getting close," he tells her, and she drops from her hands to her forearms on his pillow so she can plunge her fingers back into his hair and trail kisses along his jaw. The latter of this elicits a groan, making his hips stutter before they speed up into an even quicker cadence than before.

"Come in me," she murmurs against his throat.

His breath's ragged. "Yeah?"

She sucks on his pulse and mumbles, "Please."

Fingers dig into the skin of her back, more swears empty into her shoulder, and then she hears a moan different than the others—raw—right before she feels him fill her.

"Ohmygod," he pants, hips pressing into her as flush as they can go. "Lily—fuck."

She massages his scalp with her fingers and hums against his neck, then clenches around him to make him gasp and coil tightly underneath her. "I'm so gone for you," she tells him in a hoarse whisper, teeth closing gently around the bottom of his ear.

He smiles, nudging at her cheek with his nose. "Go out with me? For real?"

Lily pulls her face up to his with a laugh. "That's what you're thinking about right now?"

His arms wrap tightly around her, a shy smile playing at his lips. "What I'm thinking is that I don't want to let you go, Evans."

Lily shifts so that he slides out of her and then lays on her side, one leg still draped over his hip. "Then don't."

She kisses him, insatiable for that tongue on hers, that stubble against her chin, and her chest glows with the knowledge that he must be just as insatiable for her, if his eager hands and even more eager lips are anything to go by. He rolls her halfway onto her back, and they keep making out, like they're a pair of randy teenagers instead of the thirty-year-old professionals that they really are, until he hooks his arm under her leg and slides into her a second time.

When he falls onto his back, spent, Lily laughs.

"Why are you always laughing at me?" he accuses good-naturedly.

"I'm not, this time."

His head tilts toward her. "Then what?"

Lily bites her lip, then giggles again. "I was thinking about what would happen if I tell my sister I met a guy and then when she inevitably asks about you, the first thing I say is that you're amazing at sex."

James laughs with her. "You can tell her you were literally waylaid."

Lily doesn't follow. "Yes? We were waylaid by the blizzard?"

His body convulses with laughter as he shakes his head. "No, you were waylaid by me."

Her brows knit. "I was…what?"

His eyes are full of mirth as they pin hers, and he enunciates slowly, "You were waylaid. Way. Laid."

"Oh my god." She claps her hands to her face as she gets it. "You—"

But no teasing insult comes to mind and she's laughing too deliriously to think straight.

Eventually, they calm, and James's voice is just the slightest bit mischievous as he asks, "If I tag along, do I get to meet her?"

Lily starts to answer, "No, she won't—" and then freezes as his words sink in fully. "Wait, what?"

He props up on one elbow, fingers curling around her cheek. "We can talk about it in the morning, but…well, we have two buried cars that both probably need repairs, so I didn't know if we'd end up, you know…tag-teaming it tomorrow. Or today. Assuming it's a new day, I don't even know what time it is. Hell, I don't even have your phone number—"

"James." His neck is warm under her palm. "Come here."

ONE YEAR LATER

Sun dazzles blindingly off the surrounding snow, beams through the passenger window, and catches her ring. Lily holds her hand up in front of her, wiggling her fingers and watching, mesmerized, as a glittering rainbow of lights blink and sparkle.

"Like it, do you?"

She glances sideways with a smile to find him watching her. "Eyes on the road, Potter."

"Yes, Future Mrs. Potter."

Lily grins and returns to admiring her ring. He'd offered it to her the night before, on one knee amongst a smattering of rose petals in the clearing of moving boxes where he'd set up a romantic table for two next to the window with a view of London's skyline that had sold them on their new flat. Her hands had already been shaking the moment she'd noticed the winding trail of rose petals from the door, her work bag dropped unceremoniously somewhere on their path, and then her knees had buckled with joy through his choked declarations and smiling proposal, her throat barely able to form the words, "Yes, James, a million times, yes," before she effectively tackled him to the ground. They shagged languidly, lovingly, right there on the floor, and then the pasta he'd made was reheated, the wine he'd opened was drank, and he'd carried her to their bedroom, where their bed was currently a mattress on the floor. They'd shagged blissfully, repeatedly, until sleep took over and they woke at midday only to speed through packing for the upcoming week so they could try to get on the road before rush hour traffic.

Needless to say, she'd barely even looked at the thing until now. She doesn't have to guess at how he paid for it, as the settlement they'd negotiated from MegaMalfoy had been substantial, but she is curious—

"How'd you pick it? We never did go looking."

One of his hands jumps to his neck as he steals smiling glances at her. "Uh, well, I wanted to get you an emerald, for obvious sappy reasons, but Mum said that was too cheesy, so I went with an emerald cut to be more subtle about it."

"Mmm," she teases, "yes, very subtle, do go on."

He only chuckles. "And, I don't know, I saw that one and I just thought it looked like you. Elegant. Beautiful." He sends over-the-top doe eyes her way. "Timeless."

She whacks him playfully—"You charmer"—but he captures her hand in his, lacing their fingers and bringing her knuckles to his lips.

"I can't believe it's been a whole year," he says quietly.

"I know," Lily agrees. "They remember us, Rosie and I emailed a bit the other day when I made the booking, did I tell you?"

He makes a noncommittal hum against her hand, and Lily carries on, "That profile Rita ran the next day? About you saving Arthur Weasley and his boys? Apparently they have it all framed up in the dining room."

He smiles against her skin but doesn't say anything, and not for the first time, Lily marvels at how he can be so arrogant sometimes and so modest at others.

Reminiscing about last year's rollercoaster of a holiday carries them along the winding road until a familiar inn comes into view and they maneuver around the snow piles to an open parking stall.

"Hold on," Lily tells him as they unbuckle their seatbelts, "I have something for you."

She fishes a wrapped box from the back seat and hands it to him.

James raises an inquisitive brow. "Christmas isn't for a few days, love."

She keeps her face stern. "And it's imperative that you open this right now, before we go in."

He stares a second, eyes searching hers like he's trying to figure out how serious she is, but then he lowers his gaze to the present, pulls apart the bow, and plucks open the paper along the tape.

Laughter explodes from his mouth the moment he sees the contents of the box. "The Day After Tomorrow? The Parent Trap? Yours, Mine, and Ours? All on VHS?"

"Yeah, so we can watch on the TV in our room!"

He can barely speak for laughing. "And what if Sybill upgraded to Blu-ray since we were last here?"

Lily freezes, momentarily panicked, but then relaxes. "No, there's no way."

His fingers catch her chin and the smile on his face is so adoring it makes her stomach leap. "You're just as sappy as me, you know that, Evans?"

"Shut up," is her useless retort.

He draws her closer. "I love you."

Lily lets her eyes flutter shut as her head instinctually tilts for him. "I love you too, you goat."

James snorts, shoulders shaking as his grin widens against her mouth. "We're coming back here every year," he murmurs. "Just for that joke, yeah?"

"Obviously," she agrees, and then she kisses him for real.

---

fin.