Part the Third
Lily chews on quills. She knows she shouldn't because it's bad for her teeth and can get ink on her lips without her realizing, among other things, but she does it anyway. She calls it a nervous habit. And right now she happens to be very nervous, which is why the tip of her quill is slightly deformed and, unbeknownst to her, she's got an ink stain on her lower lip.
Lily, however, isn't usually nervous. She's usually very calm (except around James Potter, apparently) because she's usually got a handle on everything. But today, for whatever reason, all of Lily's handles have fallen off. Lily sighs and decides to concentrate more on her potions essay (three feet on the effects of the brambleroot weed in a calming potion—something she could definitely use right about now) and less on the reason why she can't concentrate. She glances at the last sentence she wrote.
"Lily is a four-letter word for 'I want to corner James Potter in a broom cupboard.'"
Great, now if I can only figure out where to go from—
Wait, WHAT?
She stares at her parchment to make sure she isn't seeing things. Unfortunately, she's not, and double unfortunately, it's true. Blushing, she raises her eyes to find the aforementioned distraction sitting across the Head common room working on the same essay, though probably having better luck on the concentration front than she is.
This, she concedes, is the reason she's got no handles today.
How can someone look so good while doing homework? She asks herself. His hair is tousled and his cheeks slightly pink from the warmth of the fire blazing in the fireplace, and though she can't see them, she knows his hazel eyes are narrowed with the strain of scrutinizing his essay. His lips move slightly as he reads it to himself, and she briefly wonders what it would be like to—
Stop that!
She forces her eyes back to her paper in an attempt to keep working, only to find them drawn slowly back upwards. And this time, the cause of her distraction is staring back. He smiles when their eyes meet. "You've got ink on your lip, Lily."
Lily is caught slightly off-guard. "Sorry, what?"
"You've got ink on your lip."
"Do I?" She makes no attempt to remove it.
"Yes, you do." He stands up from his arm chair and joins her on the couch. "A great big spot, right there on your bottom lip."
"Oh," she says.
"Aren't you going to rub it off?"
"Yes, I guess I should, shouldn't I?"
James smiles, then glances down at the table to see what she's been working on, his eyebrows raising when they land on something very interesting, indeed. Lily's eyes widen when she realizes what she's left lying out in the open.
"Oh, err…"
"Why don't I help you take that ink off your lip?"
"Erm, help me? How?"
Without breaking eye contact, James raises his thumb to his mouth, licks it, and proceeds to rub it slowly, tantalizingly, across her lower lip. He's grinning all the while.
"There, all better."
Lily opens her mouth to respond, but finds that she has been momentarily rendered speechless. Instead, she closes her mouth and attempts to swallow the lump in her throat.
"You know," James says thoughtfully, "being cooped up in this common room all day has made me rather restless. I think I'll go out and get some fresh air." He stands up and makes his way to the door and is about to leave when he turns back around. "Actually, now that I think about it, I believe there are several broom cupboards on the way to the entrance hall." He waggles his eyebrows at her, turns around, and leaves.
Lily stands staring at the closed door, wondering what in Merlin's name has just happened. Half a second later comprehension dawns on her like a sack of bricks, and without thinking, she follows James outside.
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A/N: If you were wondering why the format of this part is different than the other two, it's because this was originally written before Distracted and was intended to stand on its own. I was about halfway through with it when I decided it was going nowhere, and wrote the first part of Distracted, instead (also originally intended to stand on its own). I rediscovered this a couple of days ago when I was going through some old notebooks, decided it wasn't half bad, and finished it. And voila, now you have part the third. :)
