Cold War Witches

or

A Life in Italics

The day after the ball, Lily spied Daisy Abbott sitting alone at the Hufflepuff table at lunch. She was clearly absorbed in reading through a large stack of notes, but before her brain could process the brilliant thought she had just had as a terrible idea, Lily charged up to the table.

'Daisy. Hi.'

The blonde looked up, startled. 'Lily,' she said, eyes widening. After a second's hesitation she moved her bag off the bench. 'Sorry for the mess. Have a seat. Have you already eaten?'

Lily took the seat and looked the girl square in the face. She took a deep breath. 'Daisy.' Her tone of voice was serious.

The other girl sat up a little straighter. Her eyes dropped to Lily's tightly clasped hands and she opened her mouth to say something, but the redhead ploughed determinedly over her. 'I've seen recently that you've been worried about —about me and James.'

Daisy's eyes widened. She looked rather like a Botticelli angel with her blonde curls and huge blue peepers. 'Oh, no,' she said, laughing awkwardly, clearly trying very hard to look unfazed. She waved a dismissive hand, not quite meeting Lily's eyes. 'No, don't worry! I'm not —I know you're not —it's really not —'

'Yes it is. It is a problem,' Lily said, cutting her off again.

She had thought it impossible, but Daisy's eyes widened even further. A flush crept onto the girl's cheeks and a tremble began in her lip. 'I'm sorry, what do —'

Oh, Merlin, that must have sounded terrible. 'Wait, no! No! I wasn't trying to say that there is something —' it was Lily's turn to force laughter ' —going on between James and I!' The other witch really didn't look reassured, so she continued hastily, 'I meant that there is a problem if you're worried. You shouldn't have to feel like that.'

Face tense now, Daisy replied stiffly, 'I don't really understand, Lily.'

Get it all out in the open.

'I want you to know that I'm trying to be James's friend.'

Daisy wasn't very good at hiding how she felt: her frame stiffened at the statement. 'But I also want you to know that you don't have to worry.' Lily wanted to honestly show all of her good intent. 'I know it seems suspicious, me suddenly being friendly with him, and it took an effort at the beginning —' Now, that's entirely truthful. Daisy almost cracked a smile ' —but it's almost the end of the year,' the other girl said solemnly. 'We've got one year left, Daisy, and there's enough crap going on outside school without… without this rubbish.'

The blonde wouldn't meet Lily's eyes, but her shoulders weren't so tense anymore.

'You're muggleborn,' the Gryffindor said, searching the other girl's pale face for a wisp of kindred spirit. Maybe it was manipulative or underhanded; maybe it was a low blow, but Lily felt very deeply what she said next. 'You know as well as I do that we'll have too many enemies outside this castle next year to waste friendships this year. I want to rebuild a few bridges before it's too late.'

There was silence for a few moments, but Lily thought that Daisy understood. At the very least, she realised that it was the time for honesty. 'I was worried,' she admitted, looking down at her notes. 'Everyone knows how much he liked you. I was worried that he'd —he'd —'

'Forget about you?' Lily laughed and winced at the bitter note she heard in the sound. Daisy didn't seem to notice, though. 'He'd be absolutely mad to, Daisy,' the redhead said softly, swallowing down a lump in her throat at how true the statement was. 'You've got nothing to worry about.' That was a lie, but she shoved away the thought for the moment.

'Why are you telling me this?' the Hufflepuff said after a moment, voice still a little fragile. 'I mean, I'm really… actually very grateful for it…' she mumbled, 'but why now?'

Oh well, if we're being honest. Lily took a deep breath. 'I spoke to James last night.'

Again Daisy stiffened, but after a moment it seemed that she was trying to give Lily the benefit of the doubt. Her forehead was creased with anxiety, but she was trying valiantly to just look curious. 'Oh? I didn't see you talking at the ball…'

'It was later on,' Lily said vaguely. Then she looked Daisy straight in the eyes. 'I told him that I wanted to be friends and he told me that he couldn't because of you.' It was only part of the truth, but truth-ful nonetheless. 'He knew how that would be for you… He knew that it might not be fair to you.'

The girl's lip was trembling again. 'He really cares about you, Daisy,' Lily said gently. It hurt to say it. 'So I wanted to tell you that all my cards are above the table.' Most of them. The little splinter was back. What else can I say? she wondered miserably.

'He told you no, huh?' Daisy said, giving a watery smile. 'What are you going to do, then?'

Heaving a bolstering sigh, Lily replied briskly, 'you might not know this about me, Abbott, but I don't respond well to the word no. And I think I owe your boyfriend a bit of pain for all the childish public displays of yester years. We are going to be mates whether he likes it or not.' She paused, frowning. 'I should amend my previous statement: it's part rebuilding bridges, part revenge.'

'I have noticed that you can be quite forceful,' Daisy said, her smile growing. The worry seemed to have evaporated from her face and she was more relaxed now. 'Poor James.'

'Yes.' Lily laughed and began to rise from the bench. 'Poor James.' She stopped next to the table. Her next words were halting, but genuine. 'Thanks, Daisy. For listening. For understanding.'

The other girl nodded. 'I'm really glad we talked, Lily,' she said softly, fingers fidgeting with her notes.

As she was turning to leave, Lily, acting on inspiration, asked suddenly, 'do you know who Botticelli is?'

Daisy shook her head, curious. 'No… Should I?'

'Nope,' Lily said lightly. 'It's nothing.' Then, with a last smile and a wiggle of her fingers, she left her perfect rival to study.

As she strode away towards the Entrance Hall, her chest felt like it was opening up and her feet felt particularly light. That was the right thing to do. I did the right thing. In fact, Lily felt so incredibly free that she beamed all the way down the hall and called a cheery 'Hello there,' to three or four people she didn't know very well.

'Lily,' she heard someone behind her call. 'Lily!'

Friedrich Vance was running to catch up with her. He had been sitting at the end of the Ravenclaw table and coincidentally at the receiving end of one of her exuberant greetings. She turned around and waited for him. 'Fred,' she said, beaming at him. 'Dear old Fred. Did my salutation inspire you to come and have a chat?'

'No, no,' he said, waving a hand. 'I mean, yes, I'd love to chat, but I just —I just wanted to know if Emmeline —I mean, I was wondering if you knew where Emmeline was.'

No way. No way! Lily crowed mentally, watching the dashing young wizard stumble over his words. She had to fight back a fist pump. Everything is brilliant. Feigning nonchalance, she casually commented, 'she usually has a free after lunch. I think she had an Arithmancy study session planned with Adam Prescott.'

'Oh.' He was frowning. 'Oh. Alright. Thanks, Lily.' He was about to turn away, but she put a hand on his arm. 'I, er, I don't think she'd mind having you third wheel, though.' The comment was very heavily laden with suggestion.

Friedrich's eyebrows shot up. 'Really?' Lily nodded slowly, trying to make him see that she's been waiting for this forever, you great idiot with her eyes alone. 'I'll just… I'll just get my Astronomy charts, then —'

'Arithmancy, Vance.'

'Right.' He was blushing, but his eyes were bright with nervous energy. 'Off to the library, then, I suppose…'

Lily ushered him off, feeling as though things were finally beginning and they were all good.

Yes. And it is a good day for things to begin.

Somewhere along the way —maybe it was between yelling at James and reconciling with Daisy —Lily had received an unexpected parcel of reckless determination and confidence. What had resulted was somewhat like a body swap.

Well, not quite, but there weren't many other ways to put it: James was right; the tables had turned. They then did several somersaults, took a trip to Freaky Town and finally the damn bits of furniture were blasted into atoms by a thermonuclear bomb of irony.

James had become Lily and Lily had become James.

Not physically —although Marlene made a point to mention how Lily's chin was definitely becoming more masculine —but within a week of the ball, the new tally of Times Lily Asks James To Be Her Friend had already reached a count of twenty-three.

It was all kept very above the table; very platonic. Where James's public displays had been for Lily and Lily alone, the redhead had, by necessity, more than one person in her target audience. Daisy, Sirius, Remus, and every other person who supported team Jaisy were watching her very carefully, so the pranks had to be comical, not intimate.

One morning, the words 'be my friend, Potter' were spelt out in jam on the breakfast muffins in front of his usual bench. Snatching up the muffin inscribed with the letter r as he passed, James moved coolly to a different part of the table. 'Be my fiend, Potter' didn't quite hold the same weight.

During Ancient Runes, Dorcas, sitting next to the sooty-haired Marauder, switched the page of runes he was supposed to be translating with her own. He got as far as 'be my fri' before he stopped and calmly requested a new page from the professor.

At dinner, Gen Clearwater, who was particularly good at Charms, put a cheeky little charm on his cutlery. Whenever he took a bite of a starchy vegetable, the fork squeaked 'don't fork with me, Potter!' and any time he cut a wheat-based product, the knife proclaimed 'cut the crap, friendship's where it's at!' Halfway through the meal, after a poor, confused third year ducked below the table to reclaim her serviette and returned to eating her shepherds pie, she had no idea why cutlery was suddenly being so uncouth.

In the beginning, the way James reacted to Lily's frankly childish pranks was a testament to how much he'd grown up. Where she would have once exploded he just refused to acknowledge that anything had happened at all. However: she was wearing him down. Not into agreeing —there was clearly still a way to go with that —but he was slowly losing his patience.

'A year ago today,' Dorcas said two weeks after the fateful conversation with Daisy, when the tally was up to thirty-eight and James's face was growing progressively redder each time he was accosted, 'James Potter set the tail of Avery's broomstick on fire and somehow spelled out, "Evans, you're my snake's only charmer" with the smoke in the sky above the castle.'

Dorcas, Emmeline and Mary were moving around the dormitory, getting ready for the Quidditch game —Gryffindor against Ravenclaw —due to start in twenty minutes. Lily was ready and waiting for them, sitting on her bed with a Quidditch banner in her lap. She frowned. 'How do you remember that?'

'The Herbology O.W.L is the same day each year. Today, in fact,' Emmeline said, coming out of the bathroom and trying absently to pull her gloves onto her feet. 'How could we possibly forget it? You stood in the middle of the courtyard, yelling louder than most thought humanly possible that you were trying to remember the seven phases of the Mandrake lifecycle and ash kept getting in your eyes.'

'Oh, yes,' Lily muttered darkly. 'I remember.'

'Anyway,' Dorcas said, winding a Gryffindor scarf around her neck. 'That was last year. This year, today, on the very same day, you bribed several second years, stood on the table at breakfast and led them in singing "Why Can't We Be Friends" as he ate his porridge.' She paused, looking as if everything she had held as truth had crumbled before her eyes. 'And he just sat there, face as red as —as —'

'Jam?' Mary put in, reaching under her bed for a hairbrush, trying to hide her gigantic grin from the other girls. Lily glared at her and, finger pointed accusingly, opened her mouth to perjure, but Dorcas frowned.

'We've heard your theory, Lily. Many times over.' Dorcas shared no physical resemblance to Patricia Evans, but Lily sometimes felt like she was present all the same if Dorcas had on her mum face. 'Anyway, where was I? Yes: jam, thank you, Mary. So he just sits there, face like jam, pretending that the whole thing isn't happening. Ignoring Lily Evans as she makes a sad and desperate attempt for his attention.' Dorcas shook her head. 'The world has actually gone mad.'

'I saw Mary put something in my hot chocolate!' Lily said loudly for the seventeenth time since breakfast. 'I swear it; I swear I saw it; otherwise I'd never have done that! It was a little gold bottle-'

'Stop blaming Mary,' Dorcas chided her through the woolly jumper she was pulling over her head. Mary had her back very decidedly to Lily and didn't say anything, but when Dorcas wasn't looking, she shot Lily a grin and two thumbs up.

It was early May and exams had really crept up on the sixth years. As the witches joined the masses of Hogwarts students in trekking down to the Quidditch pitch, Lily realised how very soon they actually were.

'Wait.' The others stopped talking and looked at her. 'We've got two weeks until the first exam.'

Dorcas and Mary looked a little worried. Emmeline didn't look fazed at all. 'She'll be grand,' she said as they climbed the stairs into the Gryffindor stand. 'That's because you've been studying with Prescott every day,' Mary said, smirking. 'They're actual study sessions, then?'

Marlene was lying lengthways across a bench halfway up the stand to reserve them seats. As they shuffled in, Mary paid for the favour in chocolate.

'Yes!' Emmeline said, laughing, once they were seated. Then a blush crept up onto her cheeks and she burrowed her chin down into her scarf. 'We couldn't possibly do anything else… because Friedrich's been there almost every time.'

Lily bent over and began to unfold her hand-drawn banner very busily to hide her grin as the rest of the witches gasped and demanded an explanation.

Their quizzing was cut short when Albert Biggs took to the microphone and began to announce the Gryffindor players. As he called out 'Captain James Potter, Chaser!' and the Gryffindor crowd roared with enthusiasm, Lily yelled 'Here,' and passed one end of her banner to Marlene, standing at the other end of the row. 'Hold this up.' Emmeline, sandwiched between Dorcas and Mary, took the middle of the banner and raised it above her head as well. 'What does it say?' she asked. She turned her head to read it and laughed aloud, then yelled over the ruckus, 'ha! That's fantastic!'

For the next three hours and two minutes Lily wasn't aware of any player but James Potter. To be entirely honest, she didn't really know what was happening in the game anyway and a few times she accidentally cheered when Ravenclaw scored. Normally she'd be dead bored by this point; never had she ever spent three whole hours watching sport, but it didn't matter. She was just waiting for the moment he turned his head to the Gryffindor stands and saw the huge banner saying 'CHASE THE QUAFFLE OF FRIENDSHIP, POTTER' in letters shaped like abysmally drawn lions in the fifth row from the top.

But James Potter was serious about Quidditch. That was an understatement. James Potter was very, very serious about Quidditch. In third year, the ministry had decided that each and every hormonal student had to visit a Ministry-provided counsellor at least once to pass the year. When asked what the best things in his life were, James had reputedly replied 'Quidditch, the lads and Lily Evans.' Quidditch had come before the 'light of his life' and even the lads. As such, it didn't much surprise Lily that it took almost two hours for him to notice the banner.

The exact moment he did, however, she knew.

Down on the ground Professor Finknottle, the umpire, was conjuring an injured second year called Ludovic Bagman onto a stretcher for having his nose quite literally flattened against ground in a high-speed collision. James was hovering high above the pitch, roughly the size of a Sickle to those in the stands below, doing a slow zigzag, back and forth, back and forth. Then he stopped. The pale, indistinct oval of his face was pointed in the direction of the Gryffindor stand.

'Quick, Mary, give me your binoculars,' Lily said hastily, thrusting her arm out. 'Quick, quick!' When the desired item was brought forth, she put them to her eyes and readjusted the focus.

Bloody hell, was her first thought. That uniform is… very nice. Her second thought wasn't really a thought; more a bodily function: her heart palpably sped up. He looked completely torn between frustration and amusement.

'Guys. Guys,' she heard herself saying with disbelief, her right arm flapping in front of the others to get their attention. 'He thinks it's funny.' She squinted a little. 'Well, he's not entirely angry. He's not entirely angry!'

Emmeline reached across Mary and snatched the binoculars. 'I do believe you're right, Lil,' the thief said, at which Lily forgot she was cross about having the binoculars pilfered and actually began jumping on the spot. 'He really looks like he's trying not to laugh. In between trying not to scream with frustration. Actually, it's more one part hilarity to five parts fury.'

Lily didn't care. That one part hilarity meant progress.

No one was sure how she wrangled it, or if she actually had anything to do with it all, the mind of Sirius Black being ever impermeable, but Lily somehow gained the surly Marauder's blessing. Honestly, the exchange was hardly a profound one, and she probably read far too much into it, but she somehow —accidentally —scored another supporter.

Sixth years had the entire week preceding exams off in order to study. By the third day Lily felt like dying: she had barely lifted her head out of a book since Monday, and so it was time for a well-deserved break. The most recent attempt upon James's friendship had been a week and a half ago. As such, after about four hours of deathly dull studying on Wednesday morning, Dorcas and Lily could be found squatting in the Great Hall twenty minutes before lunch, attaching confetti missiles to the underside of the Gryffindor table.

'It's nice to have a project,' Lily was telling Dorcas cheerfully. 'I can really see where James was coming from last year. You get kind of carried away by the drama of the thing.'

Dorcas snorted. 'What? You, kind of carried away?' The confetti missile was almost shoved somewhere that would have been very uncomfortable for Dorcas, but she took the comment back in time.

When the prank was almost complete, Lily noticed a flaw in the proceedings. 'I'm going to have to tell Remus to guide him over this way,' she muttered, squinting up at the wooden planks.

'Fear not, Evans, I can do that.'

The very loud voice came from behind them and both Dorcas and Lily —amateur pranksters and so terrified of being caught in the act —jolted violently at it. Dorcas's head ploughed into the table and Lily yelped like a small schnauzer. When they had collected themselves with many an expletive, they crept out from under the table and regarded their assailant. Slouching stylishly in the middle of the Hall, Sirius Black was watching them with both hands in his pockets and a languid grin on his face.

'That left bomb is upside down, by the way. It'll shoot him in the foot.'

Temporarily struck dumb, Lily could only stare at him. Is he laughing? After a second, when it became clear that he was laughing, she looked down at the half-finished prank. 'Oh, right. Thanks. That wouldn't be too funny.'

Dorcas said stonily, 'it's actually a missile.' Rubbing her bumped head, she shot the Marauder a vicious look and crawled back under the table to correct the issue.

'Wow, Meadowes!' Sirius said, taking a step back, arms up in mock-alarm. 'This is not the political climate in which to be discussing weapons of mass destruction! Especially not with that look on your face.'

'You pay attention to Muggle news?' Lily said a bit blankly.

Sirius shrugged. 'It's a wee bit hard to miss America and Russia threatening to blow the world up, Lily Evans, even with old Voldy on the loose,' he said. 'Anyway, what I was saying is that I'd lead him over this way.' At the look on both witches' faces, his eyes widened. 'Good Lord, Prongs, not Voldy. Even I wouldn't make a joke in such poor taste as that.'

Trying not to look suspicious, Lily asked tentatively, 'but… why would you do that? Help me, that is.'

'I dunno,' Sirius said. A smirk grew on his face. 'Maybe I see something of myself in you.' He rubbed his chin like a mystic.

'Take that back!' Lily yelped, half-alarmed.

'No, I'm being very genuine. Serious, even.' She groaned and he winked. 'You've got… backbone, Evans.'

Lily didn't feel much better at that and from under the table Dorcas spoke the redhead's mind. 'You do realise that backbone to you means sheer stupidity to most other people...'

Sirius looked very hurt and when the witches made no attempt to soothe his wounded pride, he stalked off. Lily thought that'd be the end of it all, however, half an hour later a red-faced James Potter rose slowly from a cloud of magically buoyant confetti and walked in measured steps from the Great Hall. The confetti followed him, which gave the impression that he was inside a very colourful snow globe. Daisy, trying valiantly to keep the grin off her face and maintain a sympathetic expression, put down her sandwich and hurried after him.

He only lasted three weeks.

After the Ancient Runes exam, as Lily was cramming in the last few futile skerricks of knowledge, about ten minutes before the Transfiguration exam was due to begin, James came storming into the library.

'Evans!' he roared when he saw her. Heads all over the library shot up, curious to see what had fractured the peace as efficiently as a shotgun in a silent forest.

Madame DeLange looked scandalised. 'Mister Potter,' she whispered from her desk in her over-italicised, eternally distressed way. 'This is a sanctuary, not a Quidditch pitch! I must ask you to lower your voice.'

'Right you are, Madame,' he said shortly, his back stiff. When the librarian's attention was diverted once again by the ecstatic joys of binary coding, he whirled around on a slack-jawed Lily. Marching right up to the desk she was working at, he ducked down until their eyes were level, visibly shaking with anger.

'Why,' he ground out, obviously trying very hard to keep is voice low and sedate, his eyebrows gathered like storm clouds on the bridge of his nose, 'why is there a bloody niffler in a pink skirt in our dormitory?'

Oh, shit. Lily wanted to die.

'I told Mary it wouldn't work,' she mumbled.

'What wouldn't work?' he growled, eyes flashing. She swallowed. He was so close that his breath was tickling her nose. 'Don't – don't flip, but she heard from Kent Dullard that lead counteracts the niffler's attraction to shiny metals… and she somehow got a niffler and a very small lead vest and, well, the rest is… history…' She trailed off at the look on his face.

'Well, it didn't work,' he snarled. 'And it was wearing a skirt, not a lead vest.'

'Yes, well, it was supposed to be a Friendship Niffler. They're actually very cute when they're… sedated,' Lily bumbled, awkwardly arranging her different quills into a neat row. 'It was a tutu, not a skirt,' she added in a whisper for no particular reason.

At this, he closed his eyes, let his head fall forward onto the library table just to the right of Lily's arm and was still. The thick, dark hair on his neck curled just slightly, forming a perfect, curving wave her fingers were yearning to slide into. He was breathing evenly and deeply, and his fist was clenched upon his knee. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, she could see tendons moving under his skin as the fingers tightened and loosened with each breath. It showed just how far gone Lily was that she found herself completely mesmerised by watching him doing absolutely nothing at all. While he was obviously very, very angry with her.

'A… a friendship niffler,' he groaned into the tabletop. After a few seconds he looked up at her. His face was one of forced calm, but his eyes were still narrowed and spitting. It's passion, the Scarlett O'Hara in Lily cried. And to anyone else it would have actually looked like it was, she realised later: he was kneeling in front of her, barely a breath away, glaring. If this were a film, I would lean down right now and kiss him violently.

As if swept up in the drama of the thought, one of her hands actually came up to brush the thick sweep of hair off his forehead. What are you doing? She regained autonomy in the nick of time, but both pairs of eyes were drawn curiously to the hand floating in the air between them.

Then his gaze shifted. James looked at Lily.

Madame deLange could have mooned the entire library at that moment and she wouldn't have noticed. He was staring at her, his eyes wide and alert, breathing shallowly through his nose. There was a slight furrow on his forehead as if he was surprised, and his gaze was flitting across her face, chronicling every detail of her expression. Nose, brow, eyes... mouth. Hers parted as if in anticipation.

One of his hands was resting near her and she had to make a tight fist to stop from covering it with her own. His teeth clicked as he tried to avert his eyes from her face and kept looking back, as if the pale, freckled expanse of skin was magnetic.

But in the quicksilver changes that Lily had come to associate, not yet anticipate, from him, the clear, hopeful expression was gone and storm clouds gathered again. It happened in a heartbeat: he burst. 'This, Evans,' he hissed, jabbing the table with his fingertips to punctuate. 'This is the reason we can't be friends. I can't let you get any closer than this.'

Lily was taken aback by the outburst. 'We would be fantastic friends!' She searched his angry features for a grain of acknowledgement and found none. Her voice faltered. 'And —and I'm not going to stop trying. I'm getting really into it, actually,' she said, trying to sound chipper. A feeling that was surprisingly like vulnerability was causing her shoulders to cave in with its weight. 'I finally understand your obsession with Zonko's! The place is a haven. So many pranks.'

The humour didn't touch him. Lily wasn't even sure that he was listening to her. 'Why can't you let —it —go,' he whispered fiercely, his eyes searching hers. His chest was touching her knees. 'Let —it —go.' It almost sounded like he was saying it to himself. Lily watched his lips shape out the stark, cold syllables and had to forcibly restrain herself from tracing them with the hand that was still hovering in front of her chest.

'James–'

'No, Evans,' he spat, standing suddenly and wheeling away from the table. 'I don't want to be your friend. I can't stand to be near you.' The words were precise and clipped and freezing cold. She must have lost her magnetism, for he had no problem avoiding her eyes now: he was staring at a point just above her left shoulder. 'This whole thing is unbelievably childish. Get back to studying and leave me alone.'

And he turned around and walked out of the library without a parting look at her. Astounded, Lily just sat there for a few moments, heart racing.

What just happened?

She was hurt, naturally, but she was also angry. Very angry. In fact, so angry was Lily Evans that in the moment where she should have gracefully bowed out and conceded defeat, her anger physically propelled her from her chair.

She raced out of the library without heed for her books, scattered across the table. 'Childish!' she yelled at him, power-walking down the corridor to catch up with him, feeling her face climbing in temperature. 'You cannot talk! This is exactly what you did to me!'

James whirled around, eyes blazing. 'Right, so this is your revenge, then?' His hands came out of his pockets and Lily thought for a second that he was going to shake her, but they just clenched the air in front of him. 'Bloody hell, Evans! Are you ever going to stop driving me mad?'

It was a genuine question. His eyes searched hers for an answer. The fury that had given her momentum bled out of her.

'Probably not,' she responded honestly after a deep breath. Then came the big, vulnerable guns. 'But… it's kind of awesome… isn't it?'

She had said too much. She knew it as soon as she said it. Granted, she was only repeating what he had said at the night of the ball, but it was so obvious what it meant. That this wasn't just about friendship, however many times she wrote the word 'friend' onto his breakfast muffins, or spelled it out with rat entrails in Divination.

And James knew it. His eyes widened infinitesimally. His breath was coming just a bit faster. Quickly, he turned around so she couldn't see his face. It was like she was watching a repeat of their last fight, and as angry as she was at herself for ruining the fragile platonic base she'd strived to establish these past weeks, she was even angrier that they seemed, once again, to be at a plateau they couldn't get off.

Just when Lily was beginning to feel like she had actually ruined everything, he spoke again. 'Alright,' he said almost inaudibly to the wall. 'Here's some advice, then.' There was a long moment where he didn't say anything and Lily, paranoia running through her veins in this electric, impossible moment, thought he was mocking her. Here's some advice: nothing. But then, on a weary exhale, he said, 'Stop with the grand gestures, Evans.' He sighed. 'I've learnt a little bit since last year. Remus asked me something a few months ago. He asked what I thought now you would have preferred: the public demonstrations or the little things.'

Lily didn't really know what he was saying. 'I —er —I'm not… sure?'

He swung around to catch her expression. His own eyes were clear and guileless. His fingers were twitching. He swallowed. 'I'm going to teach you, then.' Both fidgeting hands slid back into his pockets, and Lily's eyes followed them, frightened that they somehow signified him withdrawing from her.

But his next words blew her out of the water. 'If I could go back and do it again,' he said weightily, looking at her straight in the eyes. 'I'd pull your chair out for you. I'd smile at everything you say and compliment your hair and I'd try my bloody hardest to make you realise that you are the…' He fell short, eyes widening. He was saying too much.

Lily felt her throat closing up. That certainly wasn't a statement of withdrawal.

They had both said more than was right; more than was fair. The air was thick and heavy with meaning and feeling. And Lily felt something in her chest falling at the same time that she felt it lifting. At the very same time that she was wondering what the hell this meant right here and now, she was watching in her head how differently it all could have turned out if things had been as James had just described them.

'Anyway.' He regrouped, looking for a way out, and the fragile skin of atmosphere that surrounded them split like a delicate cocoon. The moment was gone. 'By my estimates we have about three minutes before the Transfiguration exam begins,' he said in his normal, everyone-else-except-Lily voice, eyes sweeping past, looking to catch ahold of anything but her.

Then a tiny, tiny smile caught his face and Lily felt her heart begin to pound again, because she swore it had stopped at one point in the last five minutes. It was a ghost of the grins she had used to see: sparking and mischievous and absolutely beautiful. And she felt a bit of trepidation, because she knew she'd do close to anything for that smile. 'That gives you about three minutes to get your bloody friendship niffler out of my dormitory.' The smile widened. 'Chop, chop.'

Then he turned around and walked away from Lily, in the direction of the Great Hall. A little dazed, the redhead stood for a few more moments in the same spot, staring at where he had been.

'Evans?'

She turned around.

James had paused at the end of the corridor, an inscrutable expression on his face. He seemed to be at war with himself and didn't speak for quite a few moments. Finally, it seemed that the side of him that had smiled a few moments ago won out.

'If you get back in time, you can pull my chair out for me.