Lost In Symphony

A/N - Written for Jilychallenge August'21. Theme: Summer Feelings. Prompt: "I got lost on this campground at night and I am so sorry I thought this was my tent and now I'm waking up next to you and um hi this is just a little awkward" camping AU


Oh boy, she's burning to death.

And it's fucking murder.

Fire runs thickly under her skin, tongue long since numbed to the abhorrent taste of the mixed drink that momentarily swirls and sloshes in her mouth before sliding down her throat. The solo cup in her hand is the fifth of the evening, and the warmth settled in her spine from the alcohol is further boosted by the campfire that roars just a few feet away. But even under the sweltering blanket of the summer night and the crowd of bodies swaying nearby, the thing that most effectively heats the blood in her veins is the silent gaze fixed on her from across the firepit.

They've been at this for at least fifteen minutes—though time is hard to keep track of when she's got more vodka in her body than water—and she distantly wonders at what point everyone else decided to leave them alone to their little game.

He's got a soft white t-shirt stretching sinfully over broad shoulders and chest muscles, long fingers wrapped around a cup identical to hers. The beat of her pulse is loud in her reddening ears as he raises the drink to his lips, mouth curved permanently into a small smirk. He tosses it down, Adam's apple bobbing languidly, tanned skin painted vibrantly in the reds and golds of the fire blazing in between them.

And then his eyes are back on hers, glinting behind glasses and shameless in their staring.

She's burning.

"Lil, come on!" Scrambling fingers wrap around her wrist suddenly, and it's Mary, pink-cheeked and yelling as she sashays excitedly on her feet. "Dance with us!"

The 'us'Mary hollers about refers to a portion of the upperclassmen from Hogwarts High who have gathered for the week-long summer camping trip at Malvern Hills organized by four ridiculously persuasive boys, one of whom has evidently made it his life's mission to driver her spare.

A large stretch of shared camping pitches on the uneven terrain forms the makeshift dancefloor, and she eyes it for a few seconds, trying to make her drunken decision.

Considering several factors, such as the hard discomfort of the boulder under her arse, the fact that the majority of her friends are dancing with abandon a few feet away, and the knowledge that the boy she's fancied for over six months still hasn't made a move beyond eye-fucking her from across rooms and—as it turns out—open spaces, she finally nods her head and lets Mary pull her onto her feet. The world tilts a little thanks to the toxicity coursing through her blood, but she focuses on the burst of colours and music her senses have captured now that she's been given a chance to look beyond hazel eyes and chiselled jaw, and stumbles only about three times on her way to the mesh of dancing bodies.

When she allows herself a quick turn of her head to look back at him, one of his brows has arched high in obvious challenge.

She faces forward and holds back the spilling smile.

Blades of grass tickle the hyperaware skin of her ankles as she's swallowed by sounds and a swarm of shitfaced, unchaperoned teenagers. It's easy to let the spinning in her mind guide her when she screams herself hoarse, hands thrown up and lost in the symphony of a gorgeous, carefree night. She can hear Mary laughing next to her ear, and the sound prompts a mirroring of the joy on her own face; cheeks stretch wide, heart humming as laughter spills out, golden, flowing.

The presence of a body right behind her sends sweat trickling down her neck and spine, and she twists around to find the flash of a bright grin and glossy brown eyes.

"Hi, Lily!" Benjy Fenwick swings his hips exaggeratedly to the beats, clearly a fair bit drunk himself. "Glad to see you finally joined us."

Before she can wrap her mind around the words and formulate a reply, his hand finds hers and twirls her around wildly at the next crest of tune. She laughs louder now, head flung back and legs unsteady as she lets him guide her around. A few groups away, Dorcas and Marlene scream to them, and Mary shimmies her way over, leaving Lily to dance with Benjy.

The boy in question lets out a shrill hoot for no discernible reason, and they spend the next several minutes dissolving into fits of nonsensical laughter. She's soon flailing her limbs to the beat, eyes closed and sweat beading above her lip and nose when Benjy takes her hand again and clumsily whirls her around...

Right into a solid wall of chest.

The smile on her face hasn't even slipped completely by the time she blinks her eyes open and looks up, but it certainly does when she notices exactly who she's spun into. And then she feels stupid, because of course, it's him; of course, it's his heart she feels pounding under her fingertips. Who else could possibly send such warmth bubbling through every inch of her being?

The smirk that had been playing on James's lips all evening seems to have been wiped clean, replaced by a look so intense in his darkened eyes that it seems entirely out of place amidst the ecstasy of grinding bodies and screamed lyrics.

The lines of his jaw and the flush of his cheeks make him look almost... angry.

She opens her mouth—to say what, she doesn't know—but he's firmly sliding both hands around her waist before she manages, his skin hot on the sliver of stomach revealed by her crop top. The brush of contact makes her feel like she's never been touched before this moment.

A gasp tears out of her throat at the sensation, the sound lost to the night.

He spins her waist, but doesn't let her get far, pulling her back to him by the hips immediately so that her back slams snugly against his front. She doesn't know where Benjy has gone, doesn't know if anyone is paying attention to them, if anyone even possesses the capacity, still, for sober enough observations that cannot be laughed off as intoxicated imaginings come morning light. But none of that matters now, not when her eyes flutter closed when she feels him duck his head into the space between her shoulder and neck, feet never relenting against the pulsing beat of the music as they dance without rhythm.

Her hands fall down to cover his arms when he takes to tracing a torturous path along her skin with the tip of his nose. The brush of his lips against her collarbone, under her ear, sparks something alive in her, and she's twisting back around, fingers clutching onto the light cotton of his t-shirt. A deliberate push of her hips against his; mouth sliding slowly over the stubble lining his jaw.

"Hi, Potter," she whispers on his cheek, the musk of him turning her already misty mind even woozier, more brazen. "Jealousy isn't a good look on you."

She wonders if she's ever uttered words more untrue before this moment.

Something rumbles through his chest—or perhaps it's the shaking of the ground as a new, upbeat song blares through the speakers—before James turns his head, ghosts his own mouth over the shell of her ear. "Are you sure about that?"

She's just about to get her senses under control, fight against the shiver that wants to run down her spine at the skittering of his breath against her cheek, and tell the smug bastard that yes, of course, she's sure! But then he plays unfair.

His tongue darts out, licks gently at her lobe, right below it, and the game is his, completely.

"James." She arches her neck, voice positively needy and taking on a tone that she'd undoubtedly be embarrassed by had she not been as hammered as she is. Her grip twists tighter into his front, body pushing closer, and she chases more nearness, halting only when her lips are practically skimming his. "Will you fucking kiss me already?"

His mouth tilts up now, that earlier arrogance returning full force, and she hates him, but hates herself even more for finding this as hot as she does, stomach bubbling tellingly.

"So impatient," he teases, nose brushing over hers as his right hand climbs slowly up her side, over the curve of her waist and breast to the sticky skin of her nape.

It's just as his lower lip slides between both of hers that someone knocks right into her from behind, sending her head bumping into James's, mouths pulling back with identical winces marring their expressions. But beyond the hormonal frustration she undergoes at that moment, the concern that feels more pressing is the sensation of cold liquid slipping down the back of her top, trickling lower and lower until she's certain it's seeping into the waistband of her shorts.

A horrified shriek escapes her when she quickly jumps through all the possibilities of what could have been dropped over her in a party as crazed as this one. People continue dancing around them, not bothered in the least by the fact that drinks are being toppled into her person. The detachment of the inebriated mind is proven so impressive, in fact, that the culprit of the situation doesn't even take the time to stop and apologize to her before continuing on their merry way.

"You alright, Evans?" James yells over the cacophony, worry and amusement mixing in his eyes as he brushes knuckles over her cheek.

But she can only grimace. A quick swipe of her hand along the small of her back, and she pulls back to find fingers coated in some light pink liquid. For some reason, her brain seems to think it's a good idea to sniff and check what she's touched.

It's not a good idea.

At all.

The concentrated stench of a thoroughly spiked punch seems to call to the vodka still gurgling in her stomach and throat like a siren, and before she can think through the actions, her hand is shoving James away, waist bending forward as nausea clambers to her mouth.

"Evans—" He's trying to fight her hold, stepping forward to rub her back. "Fuck, you okay?"

She clamps a hand to her mouth, eyes squeezing shut. Jesus fucking Christ, this cannot be happening right now!

"Lily?" Mary's voice, yelling over the music; slender arms wrapping around her middle. "Oh, babe, you're going to be sick. Come on, come on, let's get you out—"

James's fingers brush over hers as Mary pulls her along. "Wait—"

"It's okay, Potter. I've got her!"

Had she not been otherwise preoccupied with wanting to hurl out her guts at this precise moment, she might've kissed Mary for dragging her out of the suffocating wave of bodies, and more importantly, away from James. The quickest way to get a bloke to stop fancying you, in her expert opinion, is to puke at his feet right after you were about to snog him for the first time. And this thing between them—whatever taste she'd gotten, pressed up against him, back there—it isn't something she's keen to let go anytime soon.

They make it farther than she expects; several feet away from the pitch, but it's still a good distance from the toilets lined up at the end of the campsite when she's hunching forward and emptying her stomach into a neatly trimmed bush, unable to hold on any longer. Mary's fingers are instantly pulling back hair from her face, and the light breeze that kisses over the sweat-laden skin of her neck feels heavenly, even if nothing else does.

As the retching starts to subside, she's alerted to the full extent of Mary's own level of inebriation, for the brunette seems to be murmuring the lyrics to Summertime Sadness—in a tone that is nowhere near a twin to Lana Del Ray's smoky timbre—with a purely glazed smile on her face. There's no time to laugh at her friend's expression, however, because another wave of nausea crashes over her as soon as she opens her mouth.

"Ah, Lil," Mary sighs. "Don't you just love these young nights?"

She grimaces, bent at the waist. "I can't—feel my tongue. It's like... it's not mine."

"That's 'cause it's Potter's, silly!" Mary laughs at her own wit, much too loud and manic for a joke as juvenile as the one that's been foisted upon the night. She can't do anything but groan, head spinning too fast to keep up with the girl's lewd insinuations. "You looked like you were ready to shag the bloke back there. If he didn't get to you first, that is." The sound of sloshing water penetrates through the pounding in her skull, and she looks up to find Mary extending a bottle towards her. "Here. Drink. Then sleep."

Sniffling and coughing a few times, she straightens, rinsing the taste and feel of vomit from her mouth before taking a long swig of water. It doesn't do much for the fact that the tents are engaging in a fancy pirouette around her, but at least she doesn't feel like her stomach is quite so high up in her throat any longer.

"Fuck, Potter's going to think I'm such a lightweight," she moans, thrusting the bottle back at Mary. "And he's obviously not going to be interested in snogging me now that I almost puked on him."

"Honey, you are a lightweight," Mary giggles, laughing in the face of her red-eyed gloom. "But the day Potter says he doesn't want to snog you is the day I say goodbye to these babies—" she pulls at her dark strands, "—and dye my hair blonde, and you know how terrible that'd look with my complexion, Lil, so it's never happening."

She's too drunk to keep up with that sentence, let alone find meaning behind Mary's wiggling eyebrows; she groans aloud again, and lets the sound speak for itself.

"Bed." She turns around, stumbling on the sloping ground for a second, arm lurching forward to brace herself against a windbreak beside her. The tents interspersed along the path have taken a pause in their pirouette routine and have proceeded to swing dance with the lights that have been strung up to help the campers see better. In her case, this intention has backfired spectacularly under the influence of terrible mixed drinks. But through the haze of her water-colour vision, she manages to identify the olive canvas of their tent. "Bed."

"Lily!" Mary's voice behind her. "Babe, that's not—"

"Tomorrow!" she yells back, arm flapping in the air. "Need bed."

"But it's—"

But nothing, and she conveys as much by unzipping the entrance and practically barrelling inside the tent.

The air within is warmer, almost toasty, a scent that's both familiar and unique floating around faintly in the dark space. She inhales deeply, shucking off her shoes and blindly feeling around for the zip again to give herself some privacy. An uncoordinated tug has her peeling off the still-wet top clinging to her back, sighing in relief at the spread of relative cool over her heated skin. The action feels soothing enough that she slips off her shorts as well, chucking both garments to the very back of the tent to staunch the stink of alcohol stitched into her clothes by now.

And then, with unstable feet and a spinning head, she crashes down and slips into her sleeping bag.


He's sat near the now-flickering campfire again when he sees Mary strolling back towards the party with a half-empty bottle of water swinging precariously between her fingers. But instead of finding the person he's been waiting for, who'd actually left with her several minutes ago, it's his prat of a best-mate swaggering beside her now, a smirk on his lips as they beatifically chat each other up.

"Oi, Macdonald!" he hollers over the music in the backdrop, palms cupped around his mouth. Both heads turn towards him, identical glints of delight lighting up mischievous eyes as they walk over. "Is Evans alright? She…uh—didn't look so great back there."

"Is that right, Potter?" Mary smirks. "It seemed to me like you thought she looked really great back there."

"Can't believe I missed the show." Sirius clicks his tongue, arm looped loosely over Mary's shoulder as his mouth stretches around a shit-eating grin. "Try and time these things properly next time, mate. I won't ever again be denied the absolute pleasure of watching you make a move on Evans only to have her vomit on you because I'm off to the fucking loo."

"She didn't actually—" he pauses, knows his current audience holds no interest in the semantics of the situation, and stupidly flicks a stray stick into the dying fire to busy himself. When his gaze shifts up again, it's to find Mary quickly looking down at him with a pleasant smile, as if she hadn't just been engaged in a silent and animated conversation with Sirius. "What's going on?"

"Just saying that you should probably head to bed now."

The response, so unexpected and drastically different from the depravity he'd been expecting Sirius to spout, sends him leaning forward with a confused shake of head. "What? Why?"

"Well, it's late, isn't it?" Sirius shrugs, face entirely innocent—and by correlation, entirely suspect. "You've been downing quite a few cups yourself, Prongs. Remus and Peter have already turned in, and there's no bloody way that I'm holding back your hair and glasses when you inevitably empty your guts."

He narrows his eyes for a second, waits for the other shoe to drop, but it's terribly hard to imagine any insidious reason that would prompt Sirius to send him to bed early, an act that, by its nature, feels completely innocuous. The best he can come up with is the possibility that his friend wants the privacy to flirt hard enough with Mary that she'll sleep with him.

And yet…

"Where's Lily?" he asks, uncaring just how pathetic he sounds at this point. That fleeting brush of a kiss he'd shared with her during the dance earlier seems to have ignited an ache in him whose intensity he can't even begin to understand, let alone alleviate. "Isn't she coming back?"

"'Fraid not." Mary smiles mollifyingly. "She's already in bed. Stumbled straight to sleep, the poor thing."

"Oh." He looks down, runs a hand through his hair, hopes the disappointment in his chest isn't quite so flagrantly displayed on his face. "Well, then I suppose—"

"Go on." Sirius waves a hand, head jerking back towards the tents. "You're fooling no one by pretending you give even a rat's arse about staying out here any longer." And then he steers Mary over to sit around the campfire himself. "I'll be back in a while. Or maybe not."

He watches as Mary smirks boldly at Sirius's unsubtle suggestion, and gets up with a fond shake of the head to walk past them.

"In your dreams, Black."

"Oh, if only you knew..."

The rest of their smarmy exchange is lost to him as the distance stretches wide, the warmth of the evening slowly giving way to the cool breeze of nighttime on the hills. He walks past several pitches and tents, pauses momentarily to wave and smile at a few people he recognizes, but ultimately realizes that the thrill that had been coursing through his veins during the past few hours has been snuffed out with Lily's absence. By the time he spots their tent, makes a turn towards it, he's somewhere in the vicinity of being glad that Sirius sent him away.

Sleep should do him some good; soothe the pounding in his temples; rekindle the brightness that has dulled around his edges.

He's quiet as he steps inside, removing his shoes before turning around to zip up the entrance again. It's as he's taking off his glasses and changing into boxers that he frowns a little, sniffing at the faint smell of alcohol percolating in the air. The oddity doesn't seem too out of place, however, and he quickly figures that it's probably just a consequence of Sirius having messed around with their stash sometime during the day. And by the looks of things, the git also seems to have dumped his unpacked clothes onto his sleeping bag, for there's a lumpy shape that's visible on the ground despite the darkness, despite his own blindness.

It almost looks like a...

No.

No.

It can't be.

But he takes a step closer; another; the soft rise and fall of the body turned away from him becomes unmistakable.

It is a person! Sleeping in Sirius's bag! In his tent!

Wait—this is his tent, right?

He hurriedly kneels on the spare sleeping bag and switches on the torchlight on his phone.

Body curved to keep the brightness away from the snoozing figure, he squints and sets on a search for the initials his mum had scribbled onto the fabric of his bag when they'd left. The colour matches, the pattern matches, and though the letters J and P have smudged by now, become indiscernible to someone with eyesight as poor as his, it's all the proof he needs to conclude that this is, in fact, his tent. Which leads him, immediately, to drive the following conclusion: there's a random person who's climbed into Sirius's bag in the middle of the night, either accidentally, or because they're a bit of a stalker hoping to seduce his friend unawares.

Either way, he's not about to sleep next to a possible maniac, no thank you.

There's someone else in our tent, he texts Sirius furiously.

A minute passes without response, the time changing to 1:06 A.M

His eyes close shut, a silent swear dropping from his lips as he realizes he's not going to get an answer anytime soon. Driven to desperation, he's switching off the light, turning back around in the dark.

"Hey," he whispers, nudging the person on their arm. The skin feels incredibly soft under his touch. "Uh, I think you're in the wrong tent."

But he might as well be speaking to the ghosts of the valley for all the response he gets. Curiosity has him scooting closer, observing how the person's hair drapes over their arm and shoulder, curtaining over cheek as they sleep soundlessly.

He suddenly can't seem to remember if there are any blokes at school with hair that long, and wonders whether this lack of information can allow him to conclude that the intruder is a woman.

"Um, hello?" He pokes her—if it is indeed a her, which he's quite certain about, now that he's gotten closer—again. But she remains sleeping.

There's nothing to it, then.

An arm braced on the other side of the sleeping bag, he carefully pushes himself up, neck craning to try and see the person's face to identify her. The diminished space sends a soft, pleasant scent of perfume floating up his nose, and the familiarity of it slams into his chest, almost makes him lose his balance and drop on top of her. Because this floral smell, it's...

He balances himself on one arm, reaching out with the other to gently brush away strands of hair from her face. She sighs delicately under the touch, her cheek warm against his fingers. He thinks it's entirely possible that he has forgotten how to breathe, all oxygen lost to the reality of her, so close to him.

Fucking Sirius.

He'll have to thank him in the morning.

"Lily?"

It's the soft utterance of her name, and the slow path he lets his fingers trace over her nose and lips and chin that gets her brows twitching for a second, before her lashes flutter on a tired blink. And then she's opening her eyes, the green almost glittering black in the dark, the glaze of sleep still not wiped clean.

But it's not difficult to spot the moment awareness floods her fully, not least because of the fact that she jerks around wildly under him, turning so that her back is flat against the canvas floor.

"What the fuck?!" Lily blinks in rapid succession, mouth opening and closing comically. "James?"

His eyes fall to her lips, hand dropping from her cheek to brace against the ground, bracketing her in. "Alright, Evans?"

"What are you doing here?! Did you—" her head shifts from one side to another before she returns her gaze to him. "Did you sneak into my tent?"

"No, actually you sneaked into..." The words fade into a dying whisper as he notices the light heaving of her chest, skin barer and more glowing than he's ever had the chance to observe. Thin straps of a white bra hang loosely off her shoulders, the swells of her breasts too noticeable, and his following swallow feels strangely dry. "...mine."

"I most certainly did not," Lily chokes out, her eyes stuck somewhere on his collarbone. "And why are you shirtless?"

"Why are you?"

She looks down, seems to take in the truth behind his question with a good dose of horror. "Oh my God!" Brows pinching together; eyes flying back to his face with an expression that makes it too easy for him to picture the flush that must be crawling over her skin. "I'm shirtless!"

"You are," he says, voice low. As if completely out of his control, his fingers slowly slip over her neck, brushing down the warm skin, revelling in the soft gasp that flows from Lily's lips. When it doesn't look like she'll slap him away, he dips a little lower, body enveloping hers, hand sliding down the ridges of her collarbone, over sternum, to halt above her thundering heart, right along the edge of her bra. "Lily... what are you doing here?"

"I should be the one asking that," she whispers, hooking fingers around his neck. "I don't understand—"

He cuts her off with a brush of his mouth over hers, the pressure gentle but firm enough to let her know he wants this. Lily stills under him for half a second, and right before panic can dig its claws into his chest, she's tugging him closer, kissing him back with fervency that's a reflection of his own desire. Her other hand traverses the skin of his chest, effectively sending his every nerve-ending blazing beneath the surface.

When she drags her fingers north and sifts them through his hair, something snaps inside him. He rushes to unzip the sleeping bag, lifting off for a beat as Lily tugs herself out, shifting until she's back underneath him, pulling him closer. But now, with barely any barriers between them anymore, he feels her, and by the soft noise that erupts from the back of her throat, he figures she feels him too. She sucks on his bottom lip, wrenching a groan from his mouth as he kisses her harder, tongue running over her mouth in languid strokes. She's immediately prying her lips open, allowing him to taste her, properly, and the buttery warmth that seems to spread through every cell he's composed of has him disoriented, practically dizzy.

"Christ," he pants, unable to think straight when she gently scratches her nails down his abdomen. "You're cruel." And before Lily has a chance to respond to the accusation with anything more than a smug upturn of lips, he's clamping hands around her hips, pressing into her more firmly, swallowing her sharp intake of breath.

"Fuck!" She pulls away after a few seconds, lips swollen, eyes wide and bright as she tries to find air. There's epiphany playing on her face. "You were right. This is your tent! I was drunk and I thought—" But he's already dropped his head onto her shoulder, laughing openly. "Potter! Stop laughing! Do you understand how terrifying this experience was for me? What if it hadn't been your tent? What if—I mean, I woke up and—oh!"

"Hm?" He slowly runs his tongue along the side of her neck, thumb brushing over the underside of her breast, below the edge of her bra. Lily arches into his hand, head rolling to the left to give him more access. "What were you saying about your terrifying experience?"

"I was..." She squirms a little, one leg hooking around his thigh and bringing him closer. The sudden, strategic friction sends shock shooting up his spine, makes him stutter over her with a deep groan. It's evident she enjoys this; hips rolling into him once again, demanding more. "I don't know what I was saying."

"Good." He returns his mouth to hers, tongues brushing, delving deeper; her fingers running over his back; his hand painting a path from breast to stomach, teasing at the waistband of her knickers. But he pauses there, content to strum at her lower stomach, the inside of her thighs, skin warm, warm. A shallow breath drops from him as he languidly drags his forefinger over her center, over the cloth. "Fuck, Evans, you feel so... good."

She tugs roughly at his hair, moans into his mouth, before pulling away with a frazzled gleam in her eyes. "James," she says, fairly whines, and things turn even more painful for him, down south. "Will you fucking touch me already?"

A smirk blooms on his face at the familiar phrasing. And even as his fingers slip under the thin cotton, even as he gives her what she wants, what he wants, even as he loses himself in the symphony of the glittering night and the feeling of her against him, he manages to smile the words into her neck.

"So impatient."


A/N - Hope you enjoyed this sexual tension madness! Come say hi on Tumblr at maraudersftw