Down in the Great Hall, one of the few other people in Lily's year at the Gryffindor table come dinner time was Remus Lupin. She shimmied into the seat across from him.
"Hey Remus," she said.
"Ah, Lily," he said, snapping the book he'd been reading closed. "I didn't realise you were staying, you weren't in the Common Room."
"I was up in my room."
"No wonder then! What are your plans for tomorrow?"
Lily shrugged, careful not to look him in the eyes.
"Do you want to come out with me tomorrow after lunch then? I'm going to stroll down to Hogsmeade."
"Awh, thanks," she said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, "but I'm busy. Maybe tomorrow?"
"Busy with what? It's Christmas break!"
She blushed, couldn't stop herself from doing so.
"I, um, I'm helping a friend…study."
Remus, much to her chagrin, winked at her.
"Studying, is that what they call it these days," he grinned.
"Not like that," she moaned. "It was honestly just some book reading."
He sighed. "How disappointing. I was hoping for scandalous gossip."
"I have never been very good for that," she said. "What are you reading?"
She reached over and started laying food on her plate as Remus told her about his book, an action thriller of some description. It sounded frightfully boring, except for the bits where a Niffler was trained to steal someone's precious heirloom.
It was hard to pay much attention, when her mind was laser-focused on the incident only a few hours ago. Her skin still burnt with the memory of Lucius' body pressed against it, the smell of him still lingered on her clothes.
She so desperately wanted to talk to someone, but there was no one she could trust. Sev would lose his mind, and Seph and Madeline would never let her live this down even if they were still at Hogwarts. Remus seemed like he could be a safe bet — okay, so he would definitely tell James and Sirius and Peter, but… He'd hopefully keep his mouth shut until the new term started, and then this whole messy situation would be over anyway. She would have to be careful to keep the details hidden, was all.
And, actually, if she thought about it, maybe James hearing she had interest elsewhere would put him off her scent.
"Remus, can I talk to you about something?" she said, trying to stop herself from grimacing. This was all too ridiculous.
"Of course," he said, leaning into the table conspiratorially. "Have you murdered someone?"
"What? No!"
Remus laughed. "You just look extremely serious."
"No, nothing serious, just…" She would have to choose her words carefully. "Well, earlier in the term, I had an incident with a fellow classmate…a male one."
Remus leant in, looked extremely curious.
"Anyone I know?"
"Who don't you know?"
"Okay, good point," he said shrugging. "Well, who is it?"
"No, I'm not telling you that, I was just hoping for some advice, I suppose," she said, shrugging. "You've dated a few people, haven't you?"
Remus nodded, and she noticed a blush creeping onto his cheeks, but was too giddy to really think about that now.
"Well. So. Anyway, we had a… romantic incident. A chaste one, don't give me that look! But he is a terrifically bad choice of suitor, and I know it's not a good idea, but I quite fancy him back. We could never, you know, actually date. But…"
"But you want to see where it goes?" he asked, looking sympathetic.
Lily sighed. "I don't know. He's a bit of a twat, but he's also terribly charming."
"You're not talking about James are you?" Remus asked, narrowing his eyes.
Lily shook her head quite hard. "No! Not James."
Remus let out a breath. "Good, because I would have absolutely killed him if he'd been keeping secrets from me."
He took a bite of his food, his expression thoughtful.
"So you don't want to marry this guy?" Lily shook her head. "And you don't even want to date him?" Another shake. "Well, then. As long as you're clear about that, I don't see what the harm could be."
"It could bad! What if people found out?"
Remus shrugged. "You never struck me as someone who cared particularly about what other people thought."
Lily thought for a moment. This was true, but Lucius was another level of terrible situations to be caught in.
"Look, we're 17. If we don't make bad decisions now, when will we ever get a chance to?"
Lily took a deep breath and nodded.
"That's true…" she said slowly.
Remus clapped his hands. "Here here, to bad ideas!"
He lifted his goblet to her, and while she rolled her eyes, she toasted him back.
"So, now will you tell me who it is?"
Lily laughed. "Absolutely not. And don't go spreading this around, if you could please?"
"I will do my outmost, though Sirius has ways of getting things out of me…"
Lily smirked. "I have heard rumour about that."
Remus went an extremely dark shade of pink. She noticed, however, that he did not deny it.
"I have a feeling that isn't the advice you wanted," Remus said, trying not to look her in the eyes.
"Not really…" Lily said.
"Well then, my advice is — what a terrible idea, Lily, how could you consider it? Really, you should know better," Remus said grinning. "Was that at all convincing?"
"Not in the slightest, but good effort."
Lily wanted to watch Lucius carefully over lunch the next day, but every time she looked over at him, his eyes seem to be caught on her. She would blush, and look back at her plate, and continue pretending to listen to the Fourth Year sitting across from her. Worse yet, whenever she looked over at Severus instead, only a few seats down from a certain blonde Slytherin, he was watching her carefully too. And he didn't look happy, either, glancing between Lucius and herself whenever they exchanged a glance.
The most annoying part was that she wanted to march over and tell Sev that there wasn't anything going on, and he could put that surly look away. Oh, and that she wasn't his girlfriend, to even get that surly over. But it wouldn't be true, would it? She had kissed Lucius. She could have excused it if it was one drunk incident, but now she had kissed him sober.
And she wanted to kiss him again. Badly. More than kiss him, if her nighttime fantasies were anything to go by. Of course, she'd thought of him before like that, but it had been a silly thought — he was gorgeous, of course she thought about him like that. But last night, the thought that pushed her over the edge had been realising that Lucius might be down in the dungeons, thinking of her like that too. Had possibly thought of her like that for a while.
"I assumed I'd be rebuffed", he'd said to her only a few days ago in the library. He had wanted to kiss her for longer than just one drunken night at a party. And, if she was honest with herself, those "silly thoughts" that had compromised of her sexual fantasies may no longer be so silly. She did want to sleep with him, had wanted to for a while. She just had never taken it seriously because she didn't consider him a viable option. Both because he was ridiculously good-looking and had a reputation for getting a lot of the Slytherin girls (and a few Ravenclaws, and even one Hufflepuff if the rumours were to be believed), and because she'd even go for it, if an opportunity had presented itself.
But after the last week, and her chat with Remus, she thought she might have changed her mind.
Even so, she had decided to let him take the lead. She wasn't going to throw herself at the boy, and he had been quite forward so far. She would see where the Christmas break would take them, all two weeks of it.
Once 3 o'clock rolled around, Lily marched into the Potions Classroom with purpose. Lucius was already there, greeting her with a lazy smile. He was dressed more casually than usual, with a well-fitted jumper and loose pants under a simple robe. He looked fairly dreamy, but Lily tried not to think about that as she sat in front of him.
"Morning, Evans," he said. "What do we have on the teaching plan today?"
"I thought we'd get started with something simple," she said. She had at least prepared some ideas. "How about Mindograff Potion?"
"But I'm pretty good at that already."
"Well, now you can show off your skills, then."
"Prepare to be impressed."
Lily watched him quietly as he worked. Lucius seemed to be taking it seriously; no laughing or joking today, just head down, working. Annoyingly, it only strengthen her attraction. She could see him sticking his tongue into his cheek as he concentrating on chopping the frog brain which was positively adorable, and his shoulders looked so good as he bent over the desk.
He kept looking up at her as he added the ingredients to the cauldron, almost like he wanted to see her expression. She just cocked an eyebrow every time he did so; he wasn't getting validation that easily.
Finally, he used the little towel on the desk to dry his hands.
"Time for your inspection, Professor Evans."
She wouldn't fall for his tricks again, and so approached the cauldron from the other side. She took a deep breath in, and it smelt of overripe apples and tree moss.
"Wow, good enough to eat, not that you would want to," she said. Using the cauldron spoon, she lifted some of the dark green liquid out of it, and watched it slowly drip back down. "Good viscosity too."
"Viscosity, aren't we smart," he said, grinning at her. "So, did I pass?"
"I think so," she said. She laid the spoon down. "Clearly not something we need to work on."
"And my skills? No comments?"
"Well," she said slowly, "you definitely didn't grind the poppy head the way I showed you yesterday. You'll crack so many more of the seeds inside, if you do."
"Is that right? I guess you better show me again." His devilish smirk was back, and she knew why he was asking. She wondered if he'd not ground it the way she'd shown on purpose. But that might have been the part of her that wanted to believe he had been just as flustered by their tryst yesterday as she had been, as unflappable as he sometimes seemed.
She grabbed the remaining spare poppy head off the desk, and came round his side of the table.
"Come here," she said.
She placed the pestle in his hand, and stood slightly behind him.
"Like this," she said. She adjusted his fingers on the pestle so he could more finely direct the grinding motions. He was so warm she could feel the heat of him against her, despite only their fingers touching. And was it her imagination, or were his fingers shaking slightly? Must have been her imagination — Lucius didn't tremble.
She slid her hand over his, barely able to breath, trying to ignore his scent of warm leather, and made the motions for him.
"Your turn," she gulped. With reluctance, she took her hand off of his, but didn't move away from him.
He did it perfectly, the poppy seeds making soft cracks at every touch.
"Like that?" he breathed. His voice was thick and low.
"Perfect," she said.
Her fear that he'd immediately move off after that was unfounded, because they stayed rooted to the spot, both of them, and instead she could hate herself for wanting him to stay anyway. Merlin, she hadn't been wrong yesterday; it was a bad idea. And yet.
And yet, as he turned around to face her, she didn't move an inch, so that his whole body slid against her as he spun. She looked up into those cold, grey eyes — except, they looked quite warm in the candlelight. There was no smirk now, only a concentrated gaze and a flat line of a mouth.
His hand reached up, and his fingers touched her neck. Lightly, at first, and when she leant into the touch, he pressed more firmly. He stroked his fingers back and forth, and she had to concentrate not to make a sound, give herself away in the heavy, weighted silence between them. Then his fingers trailed up to below her chin, where he turned her face more upwards towards him.
He stared at her, not saying a word, for several, long seconds. She watched his Adam's apple bob.
"I'd like to kiss you," he whispered, as if there were anyone else there to hear them.
Her lips, unbidden, said; "I'd like you to."
He seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded ever so slightly. He leant down slowly, and his lips grazed hers. She tried to lean into him, but he moved too quickly away. She gasped, wanted to moan that that was not enough, but bit her tongue. She yearned for more, yearned to taste him again, to feel his tongue flicker against hers. She hoped it wasn't writ too plain across her face.
He gave her a grin. Maybe it was stupidly obvious.
"I'm going to kiss you again," he said.
She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
This time, it was a real kiss. All wet, hot needful passion, and he tasted just as delicious as he had the day before. She reached a hand up to hold onto the back of his neck, the other hand on waist. It was a surprise to feel his hand sneak up the back of her jumper, but it was a welcome surprise to be sure. His hands were warm against her skin, and she almost shivered at that naked touch.
Instead, she pressed into him harder, going up onto her tiptoes so to reach his lips better, and he clutched her tighter in response. His free hand came to trail along her hips, just a fingertip beneath the waistband of her trousers. She would have given anything for him to grab at her more forcefully, but he was clearly taking her time.
But she couldn't quite manage that level of control. Instead, she ground her hips into his, and couldn't stop herself moaning into his mouth when she felt the hardness of his excitement through his trousers. That, at least, he couldn't hide. She was flattered, too, that he would be this hard from just them kissing, even as she felt herself getting wetter by the minute.
He pulled back first, breathing hard, his hands not moving from their positions on the small of her back and between her shoulder blades, his fingers pressed hard into her skin.
She slumped down from her tiptoes, keeping her grip on his neck.
"Do you want to…" he said slowly, eyes searching hers.
She nodded without thinking. She knew they were rushing. She also knew that she had been thinking about this since their first kiss, as much as a bad idea as it seemed.
With only the slightest hesitation, Lucius took her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. He was watching her very carefully as he did so, but then, with more enthusiasm, he began to lead her out of the Potions room.