"Four," Lily Evans mumbled, squinting at her watch face in the darkness. "Piss off."
The watch slipped from her fingers and smacked her in the face.
She shook it off with a snarl.
Tonight was not her night.
Uninterested in learning where her watch had landed, she turned on her side to settle back down on the mattress. An incredibly loud noise—an almighty bang—had woken her abruptly, but she had found the dormitory silent. Evidently, she must have dreamed it, as the girls who surrounded her sleeping serenely on, none of them disturbed.
Lily had been sleeping very peacefully. She'd been having a nice dream!
She was now, quite reasonably, annoyed.
She closed her eyes in an attempt to drift off and tried to remember the dream she had been having, but that one, vain thought led to another, and then another, until suddenly, the realisation that there was a small puddle of drool in the corner of her mouth cut across her recollection of the time her sister lost her flip flop in the sea at Cleethorpes, which was certainly unconnected to whatever nice thing she'd been dreaming because she'd never have nice dreams about Petunia. Thoroughly embarrassed, as if hidden eyes had watched her do it, she wiped the drool away, and with that moment of private humiliation done and dusted, she could do nothing else but admit her resounding defeat.
She decided to get out of bed.
She then considered, but resisted, her petty desire to make a lot of noise and wake one of her friends.
Her knobbly old socks had been kicked off in the night, and after scrambling about beneath her duvet and snatching at nothing for a couple of seconds, she gave up on trying to find them. She pulled her dressing gown over her shoulders, crossed to the door, padded downstairs, reached the bottom step and saw James Potter sitting in an armchair next to the fire, closely examining a newspaper that was spread across his lap.
Naturally, she spun around and fled.
Now safely back upstairs, she grabbed some essential supplies and barricaded herself in the bathroom she shared with the dorm. Infused with newfound vigour, she set about transforming herself from a girl who had just fallen out of bed to a girl who merely appeared to have done so, whilst looking effortlessly fresh and beautiful, all the same, as if she had been gently kissed awake by the night. She applied cosmetics in a cleverly deceptive fashion. She brushed, tossed, and fluffed her hair. She discarded her comfortable flannels in favour of a vest and tiny shorts, in which she would surely freeze, but no matter, comfort must be sacrificed for beauty. She contemplated her bra for a number of minutes, put it on, took it off and decided, ultimately, not to put it back on again. Slightly ashamed of this decision, she reminded herself that going braless was not an odious crime against morality, especially when going braless served a higher purpose.
James Potter had fancied Lily Evans once, when he was young and stupid, and had possessed no qualms in sharing that information with her at the time. Two years on, Lily Evans was searching for a sign—a visible, promising sign—that his feelings for her hadn't gone away, not because she was vain, but because her own feelings for James Potter had grown increasingly, inconveniently romantic as of late. Cavorting into the common room in her smallest shorts probably wasn't a hallmark of a scrupulous young woman, but she was leaving school forever in eight months. For all she knew, she might never see him again when it all ended. Time was of the essence, now that their final year was in full swing.
If all was fair in love and war, this was a little of both, and brutal strategies were vital.
Once she was satisfied that she looked pretty good, she raced downstairs and paused just out of eyeshot of the common room, fearful that he had gone to bed.
Her luck held. He hadn't stirred.
She stepped into the common room on tiptoe and pretended to yawn, as if she regularly got out of bed and stumbled downstairs looking perfect. Potter would never know that she had been drooling on her own face not twenty minutes ago.
"James?" she said, in an award-worthy imitation of mild surprise. "What are you doing up?"
James Potter, keeper of a beautiful head of messy black hair, looked up from his newspaper. His eyes did not pop out of his head. His mouth did not drop open to allow his tongue room to hang out. He did not beat his chest like a gorilla and proclaim his deep love for her.
He did, at least, look pretty pleased to see her.
"Couldn't sleep," he said, and raised his eyebrows, taking her in from top to bottom. "What about you? Sneaking out to meet boys?"
"Hardly," she said, a half-truth at best. "I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep. What are you reading?"
"Yesterday's Prophet, just reached the horoscope page. Fancy knowing what your future holds?"
"Suppose so. Nothing better to do," she agreed, as if she wouldn't have listened to him read a cauldron maintenance guide written in a language he didn't understand if it meant spending time with him. She crossed the room in carefully timed strides, and James held the newspaper in the air, and she sat boldly in his lap. "Budge up."
They had been friends since sixth year, and had gotten close towards the end of it, then closer still, after their recent appointment as co-head students. They connected, she had discovered, on what seemed to be every possible level. This connection had led to a certain level of familiarity between Lily and James, a familiarity which meant that both were perfectly happy to share one armchair. Indeed, they often sat snuggled up together as if it meant nothing, pretending that it was a perfectly regular thing for two platonic friends to do. They hugged every day. She rubbed his shoulders after Quidditch matches. He played with her hair to relax her. She often fell asleep with her head in his lap. The tactile nature of their friendship meant that their names were always coupled together in school gossip, and it pained Lily a great deal whenever she was forced to confirm that the gossip was unfounded.
"Watch where you're putting that arse," he said, lowering his newspaper while she made herself comfortable.
"Why?"
"So you don't squash my bits."
"Are you saying that I have a big arse?"
"I could ask you the time and you'd think I was insulting your arse."
His hand snaked around her back and settled on her hip, fingers brushing briefly against a patch of exposed skin, and he dropped his head on her shoulder. It meant that Lily could breathe in the scent of his hair, which didn't smell like fresh summer strawberries, or a gentle seaside breeze, or the very essence of the concept of happiness, but simply like James, which meant that it smelled like nothing else on earth.
"Is that toast?" she said, catching sight of a plate of the stuff that sat on the floor, next to James's invisibility cloak, the wonders of which she had been introduced to recently, pretending that their proximity wasn't giving her mild palpitations..
"Nah," he replied. "It's regular bread. With a suntan."
"What?"
"A suntan?" James repeated. "You've probably never experienced one firsthand, being ginger and all, so I won't blame you if you don't know what it is."
"Shut up. Where'd you get it?"
"Oh, I'm part-Greek, my skin is naturally sunkissed."
"I'm talking about the toast, you clown."
"Won it off Dumbledore in a duel."
"James!"
"I got it from the kitchens," he said, laughing. "Merlin, you're so easy to wind up."
"What were you doing sneaking around in the kitchens at this hour?"
James lifted his chin to look up at her and made a passable attempt at wide, innocent eyes, but as he was James Potter, he ruined the general picture with a shit-eating grin. "I went to the toilet and got lost on the way back."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Was this the Prefects' loo that you went to?"
"That's the one."
"So, the one on the fifth floor? The one situated several floors above the kitchens?"
He didn't even blink. "I got really lost."
"I could give you detention for this."
"What if I offer to share my toast with you?"
"Fair enough. Give it to me," she demanded, and stretched out an eager hand. James laughed and flicked his wand, and a dainty triangle of toast floated serenely into her grasp. She took a huge bite and moaned with pleasure.
"Mmmph," she said, once she'd swallowed a mouthful. "It's still warm."
"Enjoying that a bit too much, are we?"
"Mmmph," she repeated, working on her second bite. "Ishdemissish."
"You're disgusting," he said genially. "Will I crack on with the horoscopes?"
"Mmurgh."
"I'll take that as a yes. So, Evans," he said grandly, tapping the newspaper so that it crackled loudly. "What do you think the future holds for you this week?"
She swallowed her toast, checked her teeth with her tongue and shrugged. "Dunno, Potions essay? Another exam lecture from McGonagall? Peeves and Myrtle eloping? Read yours first."
"Alright." He dropped his head back on her shoulder. She shuddered involuntarily. "Cold?"
"Little bit."
"It serves you right, running around the common room half-naked," he scolded, but rubbed her arm vigorously anyway. "Who are you trying to seduce in those shorts?"
"Nobody," she scoffed, with a little too much conviction to be totally subtle. "Read your own horoscope, or I'll rub my toast in your face."
"But you've already finished your slice."
"I'll get another."
"You don't have your wand on you to summon it."
"I'll get up and fetch it."
"No you won't, you're too comfortable."
She rolled her eyes. "Your horoscope please, Potter. I'm deeply invested in your future."
"Nah, you're just nosy."
"Things have been dull around here lately," she said. "I get my entertainment wherever I can."
"Alright, your majesty. Where is Aries, the noble ram?"
"Noble," she murmured, already reading his horoscope herself. It consisted of the usual nonsense—generalised guff about resolving conflict in the workplace and relying on instinct in financial matters. "You're a sheep. A sheep man. Boy. Baaaah."
"Who cares? You're a jug of water."
"I'm the person who carries the jug."
"Crap career path, if you ask me," he replied, scanning the newspaper. "Alright, here's mine. It says that my eyes are bluer than the ocean."
"Your eyes are hazel."
"Someone's obsessed with my eyes."
"You're not funny."
"My horoscope says I am, see?" He covered his horoscope with his hand. "Right next to the part where it says that I am the greatest wizard ever born to this earth—"
"Between the 26th and 28th of March that year, probably."
"—and that I attract the envy of ginger people."
"Hah!"
"It also says that someone I know secretly fancies me," he finished, and even though Lily knew he was joking, she felt a blossoming warmth sweep up her chest. "A regular occurrence, of course, but who d'you think that could be?"
"Sirius?"
"Nah, he doesn't keep it a secret. Try again."
"Well, that ruins my second guess," she said lightly. Her face was possibly red. "Your passionate love for yourself isn't a secret either."
"No more toast for you," James replied. "Braless."
"Are you looking at my boobs?"
"Well, yeah, they're handily right in my face."
"Pervert," she accused, secretly thrilled, even though the unspoken womanly law would have her punch his crotch and leave him twitching on the common room floor. "You men are all the same."
"Animals, the lot of us," he agreed. "Want to hear yours now?"
"Can I have more toast first?"
"After this, there's a good girl," he said firmly, and he didn't pat her bottom, but she imagined that the moment would have been better if he had. "Right. Aquarius. The juxtaposition of Venus and Mars means that I'm going to accidentally smack you in the face with my Potions essay tomorrow."
"Excuse me?"
"But the opposing position of Saturn means that I haven't done my Potions essay yet, so you might be safe."
"You haven't done it yet?"
"Moving on," he said quickly, "some interesting career opportunities may arise for the Aquarius man or woman within the next few days."
"Fantastic," she sighed. "Another Slug Club meeting."
"Ah, I see. This part about avoiding the romantic advances of a pineapple-scented Potions master as he steers you around his office whilst introducing you to various Ministry bootlickers suddenly makes a lot more sense."
Lily started to laugh. "You're a weirdo, you know that?"
"I know, but you like it."
"I suppose it's amusing sometimes."
"I'm bored with horoscopes now," said James, and tossed the newspaper across the room. It hit the armchair opposite and Mary Macdonald's cat, Monty, scurried out from behind it with an irate squeal. "Can I kiss you instead?"
She stopped giggling immediately. "What?"
One or two (or three? who was counting) hours later, as they lay on a much roomier sofa in a tangle of wandering hands and enthusiastic lips, Lily and James found their happy little tryst interrupted by Sirius Black, who leapt into the common room and startled them with a barking laugh.
Trapped between James and the sofa cushions, Lily could only shake her hair out of her eyes and glare at Sirius, who pointed in their direction and let out a cry of triumph—the kind of triumph that only comes with catching your best friend in an embarrassing situation and knowing that you'll be able to tease him about it for the remaining duration of his life.
"Ten points from Gryffindor!" he shouted.