"Why the fuck would I want to kiss you?" The words come out of her mouth with nowhere near as much vitriol as she'd intended them to. Instead, she sounds breathy, needy, just the opposite of what she was trying to convey.

Because in contrast to what she's said aloud, her brain is rather unhelpfully providing a number of answers to that question, even if it was meant to be rhetorical. The first being that the rest of her body is showing all the signs of wanting exactly that - her heart thudding a rapid rhythm in her chest, her breaths coming in shallow gasps, the way that her whole body's practically keening into him even though he's the one who's got her pressed into the lockers.

And he's… so fit. Even though his shirt's on now, the tanned skin and taut muscles underneath it are permanently etched into her memory. His hair is completely windswept, and she wants nothing more than to run her fingers through it, because god, the perpetual sex hair is killing her. Being able to look but not touch has felt like a uniquely depraved sort of torture, and now, right in front of her, is the opportunity for relief.

And then, finally, there's the obvious answer - she's done it once before, and she knows exactly how good it feels.

Even though it's been three years, she still thinks about that kiss sometimes, thinks about the way it felt to sink her hands into his messy hair, thinks about how perfectly his body fit against her own, thinks about the way he held her like she was the last real thing in the world worth clinging to.

But despite what she feels was a complete failure of delivery, James seems to take her words to heart.

"Shit." He blinks a few times as he steps back, burying a hand in his hair. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have - "

He doesn't get to finish that sentence, because for some reason that's the thing that finally makes her lose what little self control she had left, and she steps forward, grabs his face with both of her hands, and presses her lips to his. He's frozen in shock for half a second, but then he's got one of his hands wrapped around her waist and he's kissing her back properly, and - fuck.

If the kiss she'd shared with him in seventh year was a perfect ten, then this one has broken the fucking scale altogether, like a shotgun shot straight to the heart. But unlike that kiss, there's no softness here. This one is crushing, bruising, bursting with unbridled intensity.

He's got her back against the lockers again in an instant, and one of his hands is buried in her hair while the other traces down her side, setting her skin on fire underneath his touch.

Her fingers slide underneath his T-shirt, feeling their way up the muscles of his abdomen, laying their claim to as much of his skin as possible. His skin is burning hot under her touch, mirroring exactly how she feels inside, the heat rapidly consuming them both. She feels the rapid rhythm of his pulse under his skin, sirens sounding in the beat of his heart.

James responds with a hand under her bum, hitching her left leg around his hips and pressing her into the lockers even harder.

She had chemistry with Benjy, for sure, but never had her desire for him - or for anyone really - felt this mind-boggling, this all-encompassing, this wholly consuming. She doesn't care about the fact that they're in a locker room, she wants all of him right here, right now. The heat of his kiss is making her dizzy.

She grinds her hips against him, relishing the way his groan resonates in her mouth as she does so, relishing the way he holds her even closer and proves that she's just as addictive to him as he is to her.

"Fuck, Evans," he says, and Lily whines at the loss of his lips against hers, but then he drops his lips to her neck and she gasps. He bites and licks at the sensitive skin, no doubt making a mark on her, and she winds her hands up in his hair again, tugging none-too-gently and no doubt making his already messy hair that much worse.

She's just starting to think about getting his shirt off, about getting her shirt off, and everything else with it, when a loud bang from the locker room entrance stops that train of thought in its tracks.

They jump apart like they've been burned, Lily with her back still pressed up against the lockers, and she can't help but notice the absolute state she's put him in. His normal composure is shattered, and there's something wild and untamed in his eyes that leaves her wanting more, wanting to see just how much farther he can go before she pushes him off the edge.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she hopelessly attempts to catch her breath, and she sincerely hopes that whoever just came into the locker room doesn't come in their direction. Even separated from each other, a first-year could probably still guess exactly what they were just doing. Because if Lily looks anything like James does right now… it's written all over the both of them.

"We should - I - I should go," she says breathlessly. She can't even think straight right now, her mind clouded with want and memories, her senses completely overloaded by him.

What she's just done is so fantastically, incredibly fucking stupid, and she's more than aware of that, and even so she's still actively fighting the temptation to just fucking Apparate with him back to her flat to continue whatever it is they've just started.

He nods, swallowing. "Yeah. That's… yeah."

Without another word, she scoops her bag off the nearest bench and throws it over her shoulder. As she walks out of the locker room, she gently runs her fingers through her hair, attempting to tame the worst of it, but there's no need for it anyways - she doesn't run into anyone before Apparating home. Whatever sound interrupted them must not have been a person.

Back in her flat, Lily catches a flash of her reflection in a nearby mirror. All the things she'd suspected about her appearance are entirely true - her hair is a mess even despite her attempts to settle it, her lips are decidedly red and kiss-swollen, and even her shirt is rucked up awkwardly on one side, either from the way she'd been pressed up against the lockers or from James reaching underneath it himself. She can't remember - the whole thing already feels like a foggy blur of lust and heady desire.

Somehow, though, she can't bring herself to regret it. Or to swear off ever doing it again, should the opportunity arise.

Because unlike kissing him in seventh year, when doing so had led to the ultimate exercise in getting her hopes up then having them ruthlessly crushed, she's under no false pretenses this time. If she kisses him again, or hell, manages to see it through to what she'd been dreaming of doing the moment he pressed his hips against her own, it will come with absolutely no delusions of love or romance.

It's better that way, she thinks to herself - after all, that's the same way she viewed everything with Benjy, and the closing of that chapter was the cleanest break of her entire life. Nothing messy or complicated.

Merely an escape.

Her deep blue dress robes are laced just a touch too tightly - her own fault, really. It's succeeded in pushing her tits up in a way that makes them absolutely unavoidable - more than one man in attendance at the Black manor for tonight's dinner party has held a conversation with her breasts rather than her - but it's also created the less-than-desirable result that she can only take the shallowest of breaths without risking breaking her ribs.

Her flute of champagne has also gone entirely flat - a side effect of nursing the same glass for almost two hours - and now, every time she takes a sip, she has to repress a grimace.

She's also spent the better part of the evening trying to be as far away from Walburga Black as possible, and for the most part succeeded, although possibly at the expense of some decent intel. But she just absolutely cannot stomach being within the woman's proximity for all too long - not when she's personally familiar with what she's done.

It's rich, that Walburga is the person she has the biggest problem with, given how many of the other purebloods here have done so many other despicable things, and possibly more of them than the Black family matriarch, but something about knowing the victim of her actions and calling him a friend makes her particularly disgusting.

She doesn't miss the way Sirius occasionally flinches when someone near him moves too suddenly, the way that every single jab and insult he makes about his family comes with the briefest flash of sadness in his eyes - the sort of flash most people would miss, if they weren't intimately familiar with the same sort of complicated feelings wrapped up in having a family that no longer feels like one.

And Lily, of course, is intimately familiar.

So her hatred for Walburga Black stands.

At one point, Lily knew the underlying reason for this particular soirée, but she's completely forgotten it by now. So many of the purebloods look for any possible excuse to throw together an event, to flash their wealth at one another like a group of preening birds, comparing who has the shiniest jewels and the priciest artwork on the walls and the best selection of rare alcohol.

Lily supposes she can't complain about that much though, because the perpetual pureblood ennui is what gives her so many outlets to extract information from them.

After an exceedingly long conversation that had started with useful Ministry information and quickly spiralled into tawdry gossip about the extramarital affairs of a few of the older pureblood men, Lily had retreated into a corner. She'd intended to use the time alone to think through a plan of action for the rest of the evening, but her plans of isolation were quickly dashed by the arrival of Will Rosier.

He's had a few more drinks than normal, which only means he's especially keen on her tonight, hanging on every vapid word that leaves her mouth as if they're honey dripping from her lips. She's got half a mind to tell him to go fetch, to test the extent of his puppy-dog level of devotion - she's well-aware that despite his more gentle nature, he's still a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, still raised on their strictly defined ideals of how men and women should behave.

She gets the feeling that bossing him around, making any sort of demand of him, just wouldn't do. At the very least, not while they've got an audience.

And Lily always prefers to have an audience.

At the moment, she's letting Will blather on about things while she tries to focus on her next steps for the evening. He's currently discussing professional Quidditch, explaining aspects of the sport like he's speaking to a five year old.

Lily, for her part, is feigning the role of Calypso Selwyn, who has no reason to know a single thing about sports. Outwardly, she's displaying the proper level of confusion and awe at his explanations; inwardly, she's finding the whole situation utterly hysterical, the irony of a casual fan at best unknowingly explaining the sport to a professional coach not lost on her.

She has to bite her tongue to avoid correcting him when he shares a statistic about the Wimbourne Wasps' last season that's just entirely incorrect.

When Will pauses to take a sip of his drink, she takes a moment to scan the room, sizing up the rest of the attendees. Moments like this make her feel almost predatory, seeking out her next target and immediately devising a plan to get to them.

And then she sees an unexpected figure that turns that whole notion on its head. She'd recognize that profile anywhere.

She'd known it by heart when she was younger, looked for his face across the room and across the park in Cokeworth, trusted him completely until he picked his side and shattered that faith.

Severus Snape.

Her blood runs cold.

She hasn't seen Snape in years, but she's got a powerful instinct that if anyone would be able to see her through her pureblood disguise, it'd be him.

Lily's never regretted her choice to use glamour charms instead of Polyjuice Potion; on the whole, the simple changes do the job just as effectively for people who weren't ever particularly familiar with Lily Evans' face to begin with, and there's a lot less hassle and stress involved. The glamour charms don't wear off like Polyjuice does - there's no threat of being turned back into her normal self in front of a crowd if she stays longer than expected.

It does, however, create the extremely narrow risk that someone - only someone who knows her well, knows her face and body enough to see past the obvious changes - could recognise her.

That's never been a problem until now.

Suddenly, the hunter is the hunted. The shift is sudden and instantaneous - one moment she's searching the room like a predator, sizing up her ideal target, and the next, she's the prey, desperately seeking an escape or a hideout.

"It's suffocating in here, I'm going to go get some air," she announces to Will, pulling her arm away from his.

He stops her before she can fully leave, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. She feels a powerful urge to aggressively wrench it away, to attack him in return for daring to pin her down, but no, she can't do that.

A pureblood lady can't do that.

"I'll come with you," he says, his grip softening slightly.

She doesn't want him coming with her. For one, it violates every rule she's set for herself in this game - being alone with someone, even someone as harmless as Will, is a threat.

She also just desperately wants to be able to let her guard down for just a moment, to stop thinking about what Calypso would do and say next and to have a moment to digest what this appearance means for Lily, but it doesn't seem that she's going to be able to get that. Her only options are to take Will with her or to not leave at all.

And between those two, the choice is obvious. She needs to leave here, needs a reason - and he's her getaway car.

"Thank you," she says, her voice coming out unexpectedly breathless, and it's then that Lily realises just how hard her heart is hammering in her chest.

This wild game of survival balances on a knife's edge - she's gotten damn good at steadying herself, but that doesn't mean the threat of falling isn't uniquely terrifying every time.

She takes Will's proffered arm, and he leads them out of the mansion. He moves through the crowd to the front door far more slowly than Lily herself would prefer, and it's her basest impulses screaming go, go, go as the enormous front door comes into her field of vision.

The outside air is icy cold, a sudden shock to Lily's very warm system, and as she steps into it, the sense of relief is palpable. She gulps the cool oxygen down like water.

Will must sense the change in her as well, because he looks over and asks, "Better?"

She nods. "Much."

The front porch of the Black manor shares the same Victorian elegance as the inside, with wrought iron shaped into intricate swirls, the shadows of which dance across the freshly manicured lawn by the faint light of a few nearby sconces. For a house that's invisible to any non-magical person that walks by it, the Black family has put an exorbitant amount of effort into ensuring that it flagrantly displays just how much money its occupants possess.

Will pulls a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, sticking it between his teeth. "Want one?" he asks her, reaching back into his pocket as if to pull out a second for her.

She shakes her head. "No, thank you. I'll light yours though," she offers, pulling her wand from her dress robes. The tip lights up like she's struck a match, and she presses it against the tip of the cigarette until it burns. When Will closes his lips around it, she lets her eyes drive back up to his - he's staring at her, almost curiously, as though the simple action of lighting his cigarette has blown his mind.

He exhales, sending up a cloud of pale grey smoke around him.

"How do you know how to light a cigarette if you don't smoke them?" he asks, and Lily's almost taken aback. She can't remember the last time anyone at any of these parties asked any sort of genuine question about her.

"Just because I don't smoke them now doesn't mean I never did," she tells him, and that much isn't actually fabricated, though the rest of the story will be. "I gave them up when I left Beauxbatons - English cigarettes just don't do it for me the way French ones did."

She is, truthfully, not even sure if there's a difference between the two. But she imagines Rosier will eat the lie right up, the sort of classic snobbery that most purebloods practice in one way or another.

And he does, nodding along as if her explanation makes perfect sense. "Care to take a walk in the gardens?"

Truthfully, she doesn't care to. Coming outside with Will was, in itself, a dangerous act, and they're only a few steps from the commotion of the party and the other bodies. And now, she's possibly violating that one steadfast self-imposed policy - never get cornered alone - even more.

But the alternative is to reenter the party, to potentially run into Snape again, and to have no idea what to do with that. Even if, by some miraculous stroke of luck, he's gone now, his presence has thrown Lily violently off balance, threatening to topple the very careful control she's worked so hard to master in these settings. The careful control responsible for keeping her alive. Unsteadiness, in that room, with those people… that danger is so much worse than anything being alone with Will Rosier could ever present.

"That would be lovely," she answers, taking his arm again.

The Black family gardens are a vision - unlike the Muggle gardens she played in so often as a child, magic can keep flowers blooming all year round, regardless of the temperature. Even in the freezing cold of early January, violets sit side-by-side with a vibrant display of white, red, and pink roses, paired with some magical blooms that Lily doesn't quite recognise.

She lets Will lead her, to play the part of the daring rescuer of the damsel in distress, though she's careful not to get too comfortable either. The gardens appear to be empty, but she knows all too well how easy it is for a threat to jump out when it's least expected.

She's already had one close call tonight; she will not have a second.

She might not survive a second, if she's not fully alert and prepared for it.

Will begins to talk again in between puffs of smoke, some resuscitation of whatever topic he'd been discussing before her sighting of Snape, and she finds herself nodding along faintly, feigning rapt interest in his every word.

At least he's stopped trying to explain Quidditch to her.

In the center of the garden, where it seems they're heading, there's a collection of trellises, all covered with blooming vines and blue and white flowers. They artfully frame a bubbling water fountain - a fountain that would actually be quite beautiful if Lily wasn't distinctly aware that the statuette in the centre of the water feature was meant to depict the triumph of magic over Muggles. Bellatrix Black had shared that particular detail with her quite gleefully the first time Lily had ever visited the Black manor as Calypso.

"You look particularly beautiful tonight, by the way," Will says beside her, startling her back into paying attention to him.

"I swear you say that every time you see me," she teases. It's easier to slip back into character this time - time has dulled the initial panic enough that she's able to play her role more easily again, to think about things other than the bare necessities of survival.

"It's true every time," he replies smoothly, coming to a halt in front of the fountains. "Every time I see you at one of these parties I'm struck by how a woman as stunning as you hasn't been snatched up by one of my compatriots."

Well, first of all, she's not a piece of meat meant to be snatched up by anybody.

She pities the women who are actually stuck in the position she's pretending to be in - treated as little more than a prize to be won amongst the men, a provider of heirs and a piece of arm candy meant to be dangled around until their youth fades and takes their traditional beauty with it.

"I have plenty of years with which to get married," she tells him simply. "My father and uncle found it more important that I, ah, exercise my social connections for a few years before entertaining courtship."

He's studying her fully now, grey eyes glittering in the dim light emanating from the main house. Will is only a few inches taller than her, so they're practically nose-to-nose when he turns to face her. She can smell the numerous Old Fashioneds and cigarette smoke on his breath when he exhales.

"It's been a few years now, hasn't it?"

She realizes what's about to happen just a second before it does, which is, coincidentally, about a second too late to stop it. His lips are on hers, and his hand is gently curling around her waist, and the only thing on her mind is how all of it just feels wrong.

Unbidden, her mind immediately jumps to a very different kiss just a few days prior. A far rougher one, in a far less romantic setting than a magical garden, but one that made her feel something. Sent a spark coursing through her veins, a vivid and wonderful reminder of just what it feels like to be alive - a stark contrast from the lifelessness of kissing Will right now.

She snaps back into herself then, and pulls away.

He's looking at her with a tenderness in his eyes that makes her want to vomit.

"Will, I - "

The fear returns then, because they're in a garden alone and she's got to choose her words just right - she's not sure how Will handles rejection and he wouldn't be the first man to do so violently. But really, he should've known better, should've known that he was nothing more than an excuse to run from the party tonight. Nothing was ever meant to come from this.

He smiles sadly, like he's already predicted what she's going to say. Like he almost expected it. "I get it. I'm not a Twenty-Eight heir."

He's coloured her rejection with reasons of his own, supporting arguments that she's never said herself but that make sense for someone of her stature - of Calypso's stature. It's a shallow justification, of course - that she'd only want to marry a firstborn son who's guaranteed to inherit the bulk of the family wealth - but it's one that fits comfortably with her character.

In another life, one where she was forced to live in the confines of this world, where this was less a ruse and more her reality, Will would truly be the best option among them. He'd lack the money and status of the firstborns she'd be meant to chase after, and he's certainly no beacon of respecting women, but some part of him really is a halfway decent soul.

Although she's not entirely sure he'd be quite so decent to her if he met her as herself rather than Calypso. Fortunately, that's nothing she'll ever have to worry about finding out.

"I really am sorry," she says. "But I've got to abide by my family's instructions."

He nods. He looks a little heartbroken - she almost feels a little heartbroken for him, because he's fallen for someone who doesn't even exist. Calypso isn't even a real person, and here he is, so ardently placing his affections with a contrived persona.

"I think it's best if I head home for the night," she continues. She's known for a while that returning to the party isn't an option, and now staying out in the Black garden isn't exactly one either.

A getaway car was never meant to last, after all.

"I'll head back to the party," he agrees.

"If anyone asks after me, you can tell them the truth," she tells him. "I wasn't feeling well, and decided to call it an early night."

She doesn't include the last few minutes in that story, because she knows Will will leave them out as well. That he'd kissed her in the garden wouldn't look favorably for either of them - Lily because it would constitute some attack on her virtue, and Will because he'd immediately been hit with the cold sting of rejection.

No, it's for the best that that detail is discarded.

"I'll do that. Good night, Calypso."

"Good night, Will," she replies. "I hope I'll see you soon."

He doesn't respond to that one. She doesn't expect him to - the bitterness of having his affections spurned is a bit too fresh for him to feel any desire to see her again anytime soon.

As he returns to the main house, she heads to the Apparition point. She keeps a deathly tight grip on her wand, perpetually prepared for the worst, as if Snape might suddenly jump out from one of the massive bushes surrounding the front gates, but her paranoia never comes to pass.

It's only when she steps inside her own front door, clicking the lock behind her, that she lets herself slide to the floor, unlacing the deathly tight grip of her corset, the sheer weight of the night finally taking her down.