Chapter 3
Ice Cream
What Lily had woken up the day before wondering, she now knew with certainty: she fancied the living daylights out of James Potter. She really had no idea what had come over her, but something about the way he managed to simultaneously look like a sex god and a lost puppy was apparently turning her brain to mush and making her do erratic things like hold his hand and kiss his cheek and think that maybe she should have just gone for his mouth instead.
Actually, scratch that thought. Replaying the way he'd thanked her—thanked her!—for kissing his cheek, she rather thought that kissing him on the mouth may have caused an actual aneurism.
"What d'you think, Lil—should we get a table at Florean's?"
Lily started at Mary's voice, jolted from her reverie over James. "Yeah, probably should while one's open."
She followed Mary's back as her friend cut through the ambling crowd in Diagon Alley, making for the patio outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, and they nabbed a small bistro table shaded with an umbrella.
"Oh, look"—Mary nodded in the opposite direction from which they'd come—"the boys are here."
Lily's stomach gave a little lurch. Her mind had been racing all day over what this afternoon would be like, hanging out with James and Sirius in Diagon Alley. Would James hold her hand? Put an arm around her again? Would she remember how to breathe? All she knew for certain was that she'd worn her hair down on purpose, sticky July heat be damned.
She watched as James chatted with Sirius and Kingsley Shacklebolt, a Gryffindor one year below them, outside Quality Quidditch Supplies. He was just…magnetic. He talked with a smile on his face, eyes crinkling behind his glasses, and Lily could tell he was in the midst of a story by how he was gesturing with his hands and how Kingsley and Sirius laughed around him.
Someone drew his attention, and he turned with that easy grin on his face to greet whoever had approached them. Through a gap between him and Sirius, Lily saw who it was: Aiko Chang, a Ravenclaw in their year who played Chaser and was in several of Lily's N.E.W.T.s, including her Ancient Runes study group.
And who had kissed James.
Lily had learned that piece of information the day before during their little rooftop game. She had no idea when it had happened or how it had transpired, but a strange mixture of roiling jealousy and evil satisfaction swirled in her stomach as she remembered it. On the one hand, he now stood next to Aiko, talking with her like his normal suave-looking self, smiling that easy grin of his. But on the other hand, he'd rated her snog an A, and she hadn't been the girl who had held his hand the day before.
Though, now that she thought about it more, Lily was starting to feel a bit self-conscious. She'd hugged him first (on the bike), teased him a considerable amount, initiated holding his hand, and kissed his cheek. And while she'd thought James had liked it—liked her—maybe she'd read it all wrong. He hadn't talked to her like he was talking to that group now; he looked completely at ease, like he was genuinely enjoying himself, whereas the day before he'd seemed stiff and almost awkward. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. Maybe he'd just been randy because he was seventeen and she was a girl in short shorts. Maybe he hadn't initiated anything because he wasn't into her like that but was just too nice not to go along with it when she did. Maybe he'd seemed uncomfortable because she'd come on too strong.
Maybe meeting up with them today was a bad idea.
"He's looking fit today, hmm?"
Lily's head snapped over to Mary, watching her with an amused expression. "Who?"
Mary rolled her eyes. "Please. You were all over the bloke yesterday."
Lily chewed her lip, and Mary's face changed from teasing to concerned. "What's wrong, Lil?"
She chanced a glance back to where James still stood in lively conversation with the boys and Aiko, no doubt about Quidditch, since they all played. "Nothing, I just—" She chewed her lip before asking Mary quietly, "Do you think I was too much? Yesterday?"
Mary's eyebrows flew up her forehead. "Too much? Lily, the boy was practically eating out of your hand."
Lily sighed and maintained a focused gaze on her friend. "Look over there, Mare. Look how he's acting."
Mary feigned a nonchalant glance around them before looking back at Lily, clearly puzzled. "Normal?"
Lily nodded. "Exactly. That's James. Yesterday he was…I don't even know. Not normal."
Mary shrugged. "He obviously fancies you."
"No, not obviously," Lily protested. "Look at him talking to Chang and tell me it doesn't look like he fancies her."
"Well—" Mary clamped her mouth shut. "I mean—" She tilted her head. "But—" Her lips pursed. "Hmm."
"See?" Lily sat back in her chair with her arms crossed. "I don't know what to think anymore."
Mary leaned forward on her elbows, an inquisitive look on her face. "You actually fancy him, don't you?"
Lily flushed.
"Like, not just oh, James is fit—you actually really like him."
It was more of an accusation than a question, but the intensity of Mary's gaze made her feel like she had to answer all the same.
Lily snuck a sideways glance over at James, taking in the long, muscled limbs; the messy black hair he was ruffling; the faint dimples in his cheeks. She had slowly realized over the course of sixth year that he was more than just a pretty face, and not just the class clown she'd always cast him as. There was a quiet intelligence behind all that laughter, showing itself only in his top O.W.L.s and those late nights studying in the common room. And then there was a focused determination that came out in full force when he was on his broomstick, Quaffle tucked under one arm, and a bold ruthlessness that emerged when he drew himself up to his full height and got in the face of whatever Slytherin was being a bully.
It was ironic, really, that she'd always thought him a bully growing up and now he'd turned into a sort of antihero. But while once she'd looked at him and thought arrogant, obnoxious, insufferable, now she looked at him and thought confident, charismatic, admirable.
Lily sighed, wondering if she'd missed her chance. He'd asked her out a few times during fifth year, and she'd turned him down, not interested in his childish antics and petty bullying. So now her conundrum was that he seemed like he'd largely grown out of the behavior that had led her to reject him, yet he hadn't tried asking her out when she actually wanted to say yes.
Bugger.
"Yeah, Mare," she said quietly, resting her chin in her palm as she gazed at her friend. "I really like him."
Mary smiled, her dark eyes glittering. "So…is there a problem?"
Lily nodded toward James. "Yeah. How do I know if he likes me back if he's not making a move?"
Mary rolled her eyes, but Lily pressed on, "No, I'm serious. Yesterday was all me. He has to know I fancy him, but I can't tell if he actually fancies me like I fancy him—"
"That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard you say—"
"—so it's his move, is all."
Mary rolled her head dramatically. "You're being self-conscious because of"—she inclined her head in the boys' direction, where Aiko was still chatting with them.
Lily gave an equally as dramatic shrug. "So what if I am? It's his Quaffle, Mare."
Mary sighed and mumbled something that sounded like, "So bloody stubborn," but Lily ignored her and pushed up from her chair, announcing, "I'm going to get an ice cream. Want anything?"
Mary shook her head with a coy smile. "I'm waiting for Sirius so we can split a sundae."
"Suit yourself."
There was a short line, in which Lily spent all of her time him-hawing over whether trying a new flavor was worth forgoing her usual favorite combination, and ultimately deciding it wasn't.
"Double-scoop," Lily ordered, pointing at the glass pane of the counter. "One classic fudge, one sprinkle cake."
She set her coins on the counter and carefully took the towering cone that Florean handed her with a hearty, "Enjoy, m'dear!"
Lily thanked him with a grin and turned to go rejoin Mary at their table outside.
Only someone was in her seat.
More specifically, James was in her seat.
His face split into a grin when he saw her. "Alright, Evans?"
"Mhmm." She stood next to the small bistro table, not having anywhere to sit since James was in her chair, Mary was now sitting in Sirius's lap, and all the tables around them had filled.
Sirius teased, "That's a lot of ice cream, love."
Lily shrugged and met his eyes over her cone. "I'm hungry."
"And those are the two best flavors," James added. "Impossible to choose between them."
Lily smiled to herself, filing away the tidbit of information that they liked the same flavors, and licked her cone, sweeping up a bite of chocolate fudge mixed with cake batter and sprinkles.
Sirius grinned wickedly. "Dare or dare, Evans."
She gave him a look over her cone and said thickly, "Dare."
He chuckled. "Finish that ice cream cone as fast as you can."
Lily rolled her eyes, ducking to sweep up a melting section with her tongue. "I'm already hurrying, Black."
He just barked a laugh, watching amusedly as she quickly licked at the beading ice cream.
Against her better judgement, she looked over the cone at James. His normal hazel eyes were blown behind his glasses, and she vaguely thought that the look on his face should have scared her. It was hungry. Predatory.
And, despite her prior proclamation to Mary, it filled her with a sudden urge to tease him.
Lily looked fleetingly down at her cone to line herself up, but then she flicked her eyes back to James as she licked a long trail up the side, twisting her wrist to prolong the path of ice cream being scooped into her mouth.
She could have sworn his eyes flashed, and she definitely saw a muscle twitch in his jaw.
Sirius let out a low whistle as she lowered her eyes to her ice cream, tracing a similar path but rotating her wrist to get the other side. She didn't have to look to know James was watching her. She could practically feel his gaze burning into her skin, sending tingles through her veins, making her—
Wait. Fuck. An icy pain stabbed her forehead, making her wince and hiss through her teeth. That wasn't James. That was brain freeze.
Lily's life flashed briefly behind her scrunched eyes as she realized that the one time—literally the one time—she tried to sexily eat an ice cream cone, it was ending in utter humiliation.
Also defeat, as a stray trickle on her wrist told her that her cone was melting in her hand.
"Lily? Lily—" Mary sounded frantic, but Lily waved her off with her free hand before pressing her palm to her forehead.
"Brain—freeze—"
A hand bigger than her own enveloped her hand holding the cone, and a faint slurping noise reached her ears amidst Sirius's barking laugh and Mary's peeling shrieks. She would have sworn icicles were stabbing her skull, and then a blob of cold ice cream slid down the crevice between her thumb and forefinger. The slicing cold on her skin matched the cold in her brain and then, out of nowhere, warmth, intermingled with faint traces of cold, passed wetly over her skin. Lily shuddered at the double sensation, her legs suddenly feeling rather wobbly, and then a hand was pulling her sideways and she stumbled down awkwardly into a lap. The stabbing icicles slowly relented, and Lily blinked open her eyes, wondering if it was possible to fall down while sitting.
Because she was in James's lap. And his hand was covering her hand still holding the ice cream cone, which was nearing the halfway point toward resembling a cone of soup rather than ice cream. And as she watched him scoop up a mouthful of ice cream with a darting pink tongue, understanding hit her like the Hogwarts Express. He'd licked her.
Her chest suddenly felt very tight, but she didn't have time to react to that realization because James was pushing the soupy ice cream cone away, eyes scrunching in his own brain freeze.
Lily reached for it instinctively, cupping James's hand in her own as she brought the cone to her mouth and slurped. James groaned softly, something low in his throat, and Lily forced herself not to look at him, barely able to handle the fact that she was licking at the same ice cream he'd just been licking.
The cone cracked in her hand, and a helpless giggle escaped her as she tried to keep the whole cone from falling apart. Angling what remained, she slurped up the rest of the melted ice cream hurriedly, and James must have recovered from his brain freeze faster than she had, because she heard the low rumble of his chuckle as he withdrew his hand from where it was trapped between hers. Lily looked over at him, watched as he licked the stray droplets of melted ice cream from his fingers, and her stomach flipped at the sight. Wordlessly, James reached up to her face, swiping his thumb over the corner of your lip.
"You had a little—er—"
"Thanks," Lily breathed. Fingers curled against her low back, and Lily noticed for the first time that was where his other hand was.
A wheezing gasp of "Fucking Merlin—" broke her from her trance, and her eyes snapped up toward her friends. Sirius has tears streaming down his face, his shoulders shaking in silent mirth, while Mary was all but sobbing in his lap, drawing long, wheezing breaths while she pointed at Lily.
"That was—the funniest—" Her friend clutched her stomach, doubling over as she gave up trying to speak and just shook her head in shaking laughter.
James's voice, soft and low near her ear, pulled her attention back to him. "Gonna finish that?"
Dumbly, she looked down to her hands, where she still held most of her in-tact yet slightly soggy waffle cone. "No."
Smiling that signature easy grin, he plucked the cone from her hand and brought it to his mouth, taking a practiced bite where the cone wouldn't crack. Lily stared at him, mesmerized by that flash of teeth, by those lips that had swept over her skin. His eyes crinkled behind his glasses.
"Good thing I was here, eh?"
"Er—yeah. Thanks, Potter." She wrenched her eyes away from him, heart racing, as she reached for a napkin to wipe the stickiness from her fingers.
Mary had regained a semblance of control, and she said haltingly, "Oh, Merlin—I don't remember the last time I—laughed like that."
Sirius was wiping his eyes, still chuckling. "Mare, we're getting ours—in a fucking dish."
Mary nodded, collapsing into a fresh fit of giggles.
Sirius turned his laughing face to Lily. "Truth or truth, Evans?"
Lily balled her napkin and chucked it at Sirius, hitting him in the neck. He only grinned wickedly at her.
"Truth," she huffed.
"If I told you there was an open chair, would you want it?"
Without any input from her brain, her mouth just said, "No."
James choked on his cone, and Lily ignored Sirius's snort as she lifted her arm over him to thump him on the back.
"Though," she continued, smirking down at James's streaming eyes, "it would be nice if my current chair didn't die on me."
He swallowed the last of the cone and cleared his throat, his eyes dancing as he held her gaze. "Already dead."
Lily arched a brow. "Cause?"
He didn't miss a beat. "Lily Evans."
She burst into a laugh. "How did I kill you?"
His mouth turned up in that crooked smile. "Eating ice cream and sitting in my lap." He shook his head lightly. "You're deadly."
She shoved him playfully, unable to help the giggles tumbling from her mouth. He was ridiculous. And also, she thought as she smirked down at him, more like himself—more back to that playful, charming James—than he'd been the day before. Lily let her arm rest across his shoulders and felt his fingers squeeze around her waist in response.
Though she knew there wasn't any electricity in Diagon Alley, just then, she could have sworn she'd felt it.
