"Bedrooms are spaces of pure self expression (especially when you have your own house), but beds are as thrones to the throne room. Sharing a bedroom can be difficult and challenging, sharing a bed is near impossible."
Elysian Winter
Sleeping Arrangements
Lily Potter nee Evans could not sleep for the fifth night in a row. James' arms around her were making her torso too hot and his feet, entangled in her own were far too cold. His tiny snores (the ones she had found cute during the six weeks of their honeymoon) now made her periodically wake up slightly alarmed and under the impression that there was a bear in their bedroom.
Glancing at the clock she saw it was 0:52 a.m. She was exhausted; her head hurt because of all the sleep she hadn't gotten; her feet were freezing; her body was overheating; her throat was parched; her eyeballs ached and the air in their bedroom was too stuffy.
Glancing at the clock again the new Mrs James Potter read 1:25 am. She gave up – they had a long hard day ahead of them in Healer training tomorrow, and she desperately needed to rest.
Wriggling gently out of her husband's arms and carefully disentangling her feet from his she grabbed her as yet unused pillow, a light blanket from the wardrobe and her wand. Padding as lightly as possible across their carpeted wooden floor she stubbed her toe on the dresser by the door. She held in her mild curse as she irritably recalled that it had been James' idea to put it there, part of their compromise in decorating the bedroom. Unfortunately James had not been as conveniently apathetic about the decoration of their bedroom as he had been about what colour cravat the groomsmen would have to wear to best coordinate with the bridesmaids' bouquets.
Getting a nice cool drink of orange juice, Lily proceeded to curl up on the living room couch after opening the window. She was asleep almost instantly. It was barely ten minutes later she awoke again, to find herself looking into James' beloved face.
"What are you doing down here sweetheart?" The question was innocent enough, it was the hurt in James voice and eyes, visible to her by wand light that set her already frazzled emotions on edge.
"It's just- I just…" to her horror she could feel tears on her face. Exhaustion had always made her emotional. Instantly she was in James's arms, " I'm sorry Lils it wasn't an accusation…please don't cry sweetheart." A little calmer, Lily explained her problem. She didn't know what she expected in response, but it certainly wasn't James' eyes widening, his expression becoming sheepish or him pointing his wand at his nose, feet and torso in succession muttering "finite incantatem". Lily stared; with a slight blush James explained that he'd made his feet cold to have an excuse to entangle them with hers (which she always said got too hot); he'd made his body warmer because she was always complaining that she was too cold. He'd made himself snore because he'd once heard her say she thought light snoring was cute.
Lily looked at her husband, his face flushed with embarrassment. Wordlessly picking up her things in one hand and grabbing James' hand with the other she led them back to their bedroom. Putting away the blanket, she conjured a jar of ice water and a glass onto her bedside table, opened the window halfway (James hated waking to a cold bedroom) and lit a small fire in the grate to make up the difference. She got back into bed soon to be joined by her husband. This time James kept to his side of the bed. Both of them barely lasted two minutes before James was spooning Lily again. To her delight Lily found James was naturally cool from head to toe, she was asleep within minutes.
Waking up after the best night sleep she'd ever had, Lily turned in James' arms to find him gazing at her, with a tender expression. As he opened his mouth to speak, she cut him off with a soft, sweet kiss on the lips.
Bed-head was just so adorable on James...
Author's note: Lily's sleep problems are based on me; I'm a very high maintenance sleeper.
Elysian Winter
